A finish

Hi everyone!  I have been kind of obsessed about finishing this jacket.  I used a lot of scraps!!!  Above you can see the large, angled patch pocket. I used an old sweatshirt to make the garment longer, and some of the leftovers to make the pockets.   I bound the jacket much like a quilt, in one fabric.  

Here is the finished article.  It is pretty big on me.  I used a large men's sweatshirt to sew all the pieces to. Walmart has these on sale...end of the season.   I did have to cut off the sleeves a couple of inches, and the rest will shrink in the wash.  I machine quilted it on my Bernina.  I did cut off the neck stretchy material, and also the cuffs and bottom of the sweatshirt.  I cut the sleeves open to sew the patchwork to it, and then quilted them and sewed them back together.  

This is the binding material.  

Whew!!  OK, life can resume now....

Julie

 

Sweatshirt jacket

 

Good morning!!  This is the second sweatshirt jacket I have made.  I got a large sweatshirt, because the sweatshirt really shrinks a lot.  I sorted out every last blue scrap, put them in a basket, and I am randomly sewing them to the sweatshirt.  I cut the sweatshirt up the middle front, and also cut the sleeves and opened them for easier piecing.  It is a bit challenging to sew on the wiggly sweatshirt material, but I am having fun anyway.  Still, lots of work to go on this one.  

Here is Lucky, looking on.  He does not know what to think!!  HIs eyes are so pretty to look at...darling baby kitty!!  He is 8 months old now.  Good nutrition has made him grow so big and his fur is so soft and luxuriously thick.  I never thought I could be a kitty person, but I am a person who will help another being in need.  He is so sweet and just rips around, despite his permanently injured leg.  No victim here...just a kitty having a great time!!

Here is the first sweatshirt jacket I made.  I am making the blue one longer, and it is a bit bigger.  This was a man's small, and although it fits ok, I like my jackets a bit looser now.

I am enjoying a leisurely stroll through mystery quilt land.  This is Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville mystery.  Just two blocks a day...hey, any little game to get it to the finished line!

Hope each of you is doing well.  Please tell me how to get your comments to my email...they have disappeared again.  why??  I wish I had an in-house computer guru at my command!

Julie

Puffins!!

Hello to everyone!!!  Above is my Puffin quilt progress.  All the blocks are together, and an orange border has been added.  Hurrah!!  Now for something amazing for a border treatment.  Maybe a black checkerboard?

  I sewed a new coin purse.  Or maybe a tiny cosmetic purse.  I have a free shelf at my work, and I will put it on there to see who wants it!!

I have had these blocks cut out for a zillion years and so I sewed a few.  They are 6 inches finished.  I love them...no rhythm or reason to them.  Just scrappy!!!  

March was purple month at Rainbow quilts, so I have a few purple blocks made.  I love these, and the English paper piecing method used to achieve them.  

Easter was a low-key day.  Poor Lucky was just tuckered out from all the excitement!!!!

Hope your day was wonderful, too!

Julie
 

Puffins and purples!!

I was tempted by Puffins...a squirrelly breed!!  LOL!  This fabric was shared with me, and I have been loved these bright, candy corn colors, to accent the puffin fabric centers.  So much fun!  I am sewing the pieces in steps...one step at a time.

This quilt is a layer cake challenge.  Paula gave me a layer cake, that she had cut herself from yardage, and she said...make something!!  So I am!!!

Above are my purple blocks for March.  Great fun, and yes, my kitty encouraged more kitten blocks.

Here is my progress so far on Puffin blocks.  What fun!!

Hope you are having fun too!

Julie
 

Hexies, rainbow quilts and plaids!

Good morning to all!!!  Above is a hexagon, for English paper piecing.  My kitten Lucky has discovered them, and decided that they are great fun to bat around the house, finally batting them to never never land under the couch.  I found 9 of them under the couch!!!  I watched him go open the closet, open the little drawer, choose his hexagon, pick it out with his teeth....and run!!  Little stinker!!  He is so playful, and so much fun to watch...and deadly smart!! He can have a couple...but I am using those, and need them, and please see below to see my hexie project.

I am just delighted to finish this plaid quilt!! Made from gifted shirts, and fashioned after the below quilt, which is completely worn and so soft. I planned a border of the soft blue, but I do not have enough fabric.  Something else will have to be substituted.

This is the quilt I made a long time ago, and I use it a lot.  So, I made the "blue" version above. What a lovely thing it is for me to work with soft plaids!  Plaids are soft, and I do not care of the plaids are a bit wonky, or soft.  It drives some people batty, but I like the wonkiness of it.

I have joined in Angela's so scrappy rainbow quilt along.  I am making a few hexie flowers each month; also bowties and simple blocks.  Above are the February red flowers.  She is a cool chick, a teacher, and just so much fun.  She is designing blocks for each month, in the prescribed color of the month.  Angela blogs here:

soscrappy (superscrappy.blogspot.com)

I received several quilts back from my quilter.  Her name is Paula, and I went to school with her...I mean grade school, folks.  She found me on the internet, and we picked up right where we left off, 45 years ago!!  We sewed together in 4-H.  She retired and has a quilting machine...well hey!!  I had quilt tops!!  win/win!! This helps her with spending money, too.

I have sent her tops, those I thought I would hand quilt, and she is practicing her quilting.  Yahoo!!!  

This is a log cabin variation, obviously, and I love it.  Great way to use my 1 1/2 inch strips, which I have been faithfully saving for years and years.  I use Bonnie Hunter's scrap user system.  But...I don't get all my strips used up, so they accumulate.  Sound familiar to anyone?  Hahaha!!

The quilting!!!  Pretty, huh??

Paula also quilted this quilt, and I love, love, love it.  This was also a rainbow quilt from a few years back. 

Wonky stars!!  And pretty quilting.

I made this pink quilt for a nursing colleague and friend...her favorite color is pink and she has breast cancer.  Seems like she needs this.  I will hurry up on the binding and get it to her.

************************Nurse's notes***************************

I have worked oncology, CVICU, hospice, Orthopedics, and ER lately!!  Wow!!  I loved the ICU stuff the very best, and oncology the least.  It is hard to watch the suffering through chemo and radiation and pain on oncology, and hurts my heart.  I do my very best to ease their suffering and love on them.  ER...I was just lost, frankly, and did not get orientation at all...just 5 charts thrown at me, and computer assigned.  I did not even know where the med room was!!  I did my best, but wow....dangerous.  Glad all my patients were ok. Equally glad for my experience and the fact that I don't ruffle easily!!

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I have been studying the 1940's, from last year.  WW2.  Wow!!  Doolittle's raid...every single person united to a common cause.  I mean I remember my momma talking about victory gardens...saving things to recycle (metal)...the ration cards, because all resources were going to the war effort.  I loved the common sense of a common goal.  The bravery of soldiers, and their wives going to work in the factories...thank Rosie Riveter. Grandparents stepping up to take care of children while young mothers worked in the factories.  Retooling of factories to make war machines, instead of cars and washing machines.   I think of those military nurses, working around the clock, saving as many wounded as they could...the doctors in raw mud floored tents, doing surgeries.  

We have it so easy, honestly.  I am so grateful for every convenience I enjoy...a washer and dryer...clean sheets...the ability to work and be free to make my own way in life. 

I think of my daddy over fighting in this terrible conflict.  He had a cabinet with his uniform, gun and bayonet, and his picture in his uniform.  I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

I grew up with parents almost 50 when they had me...kind of like being brought up by grandparents.  Wise and self-reliant.  Hard workers and taught me this trait.  I often thought if I did not have a talent, I did have a great work ethic.  They were devout and with a great sense of national pride.  I remember my daddy selling poppies for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.  I remember eating nothing we did not grow ourselves or hunt for ourselves.  I had no idea how poor we were!!  Going and picking wild garlic, asparagus, mushrooms for dinners.  Mom made all our clothes, and I got my first pair of jeans by saving up money from working at Sonic drive in. I still have those jeans...almost white from washing and wear, with the knees torn out!!  But I save them, a reminder of how lucky and blessed I am today.

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Thanks for hanging in with me through this long post!

I hope each of you is having an amazing, blessed day!!
 

Miniature piecing!

Hello!!  Happy Sunday to you, or maybe Happy Monday, depending on where in the world you are.  Above is a block of the month, gifted to me by my lovely friend Annie.  The large blocks are 6 inches finished, and the small ones are 3 inches finished. The directions were...wow!!!  Complex!!!  Lots of pages, so I waded through them to sort out the nitty-gritty of how to piece them.  Just great fun, and thank you, Annie!!

A few little springtime sprigs are coming up the big planter box!!  Radishes, carrots and I think kohlrabi.  It is springtime, over 80 degrees here, alternating with 40 degrees on some days.  

I found Rosie's quilt, my poodle girl.  I washed it, and just was thinking...hey!!!  It would be fun to make a big scrappy quilt from this pattern!

I am using plaids, my very favorite thing ever, to make this quilt.  I have made this one a couple of times before, and still just love sewing on it.  All joy!!

I spied this little pansy in the grass.  Now I have never had yellow ones, so this was a gift of seed from the birds.  It is so much fun, and so cheerful!!

************************Nurse's notes********************************

I worked the intensive care unit yesterday and had a fresh heart, and a fem-pop bypass patient.  It was great fun to be back in the ICU environment!!!  My bestie at work was there too, and that made it all the more fun.  I kept on going to her hall and helping her, and then she would come and help me.  We loved our day!!  She is just on the verge of retirement, having just endured her third major back surgery from lifting patients.  

We are decades older than our co-workers, and as they gossiped and cut up at the nursing station, we pondered...wow!  Were we ever that young???

They came to us for IVs, NG tube placements, art line trouble shooting, and one rapid response code, though.  That felt good!!!  Experience is good for something!

Have a super day!

Julie

 

Rainbow quilts update

 

I pulled out this quilt top and finally put borders on it!!  Hurrah!!!  It is my own creation of plaid strings and applique hearts.  

Lucky the kitty is always a good helper with quilting.  Here he is, selecting border fabrics.

Yes, he has sass, this one!!!  Always up for playing and running and just generally having a great time!

Here is Lucky posing with my rainbow quilt blocks for this year.  I am linking to Angela, at So Scrappy quilts.  Just a variety of fun blocks!!!

I really enjoy making hearts to spread some love around.

I am working on the mystery quilt...psychologically, I would say I am procrastinating getting it finished because I love the process so much!!

Hope you are having a great day!!

Julie