Celtic Solstice Update and Christmas Projects

Hope you all had a marvelous Christmas!  We had a house full with lots of love, laughter, wrapping paper all over the place and food, too!

Getting ready for Christmas certainly curtailed my stitching on Celtic Solstice, though I have made some of each of the clues.

I also had to prep 110 angels for my 2 and 3 year old classes. Here is the "grown-up" version I did for my own tree.

 

For the kids, a sparkly star sticker and chenille wire halo were used.  they attached a white cupcake paper for the wings.  On mine I used copper wire for the halo, painted a wooden star with copper metallic paint and used a heart shaped lace doily for the wings.

 

Then there were the "Jingle" pillows I needed to make.  They are Pottery Barn knockoffs.  I made red for the family room.

 

 

Blue for the foyer.

 

 

The other pillows were made other years.

 

 

We just needed a "Believe" pillow to join the Silent Night and Holy Night pillows in the Living room.

 

 

I will admit the "Believe" pillow did not get completed until the day AFTER Christmas.

 

 

And Miss Summer just had to have a tutu for Christmas.

 

So that's why my Celtic Solstice clues are barely started!  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Here is where I am on Clue 1.

 

 

A lot cut and quite a few stitched -- but not done!

 

And Clue 2?

 

 

There are actually a few more than this done now, but they were not when I took photos.

 

Clue 3?

 

 

Ditto.  A few more are done than when the photo was taken.

 

Clue 4?

 

 

I actually have quite a few more of these done now.  Love making 4-patch blocks.

 

And Clue 5?

 

 

I think I have about 20 of these done now and more cut and ready to go.

 

So, I am really behind, but hope to catch up this week with New Year's Day off work!

 

 

 

A 3-ring binder helps keep the instructions in order.

 

 

The yellow post-it notes help me find the page I need quickly to check numbers or pieces to cut or units to make of each clue.

 

It is a lot of fun and I can't wait for the reveal when we get to know exactly how all these units will be joined into the quilt.  This is a challenge for me as I like to know where I am going on a quilt.  Hope you are having as much fun with this if you are doing Bonnie Hunter's  Celtic Solstice Mystery.

 

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive 2014!

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy's Pillows

My friend, Nancy, is married to the Senior Pastor at our church.  Nancy and I have been friends now for 25 years.  I know this because her husband is celebrating 25 years as the Senior Pastor this month.  He is a great pastor and they are good friends.  At one time, the church staff consisted of Roger as Pastor, Nancy as Administrative Assistant and me as the Director of Children's Ministries.  We had a great time working together and have many happy memories from the past 25 years. And the church staff now consists of enough Pastors and support people to serve a congregation with a weekly attendance of between 2,500 and 3,000. Quite a change from the 100 or so of 25 years ago!

Right now Nancy and Roger are in Hawaii to celebrate their 25 years.  On one of their last visits to Hawaii, Nancy picked up some fabric and asked me to make a couple of pillows for her.

I have not seen the pillows in their home yet, but photographed them before giving them to her.

 

Don't you just love the vintage feel of the palms on this fabric?  It reminds me of the bark cloth from the 1940's that I have seen in old photos.

 

The pillows are cut from different locations on the fabric so that they are not identical.  I do like the random placement of the palm fronds on the pillows.

 

 

 

 

The best part is that Nancy loves them!  It is so much fun doing something like this for someone who does not sew. Pillows are really simple to make, but don't tell Nancy!

 

Maybe Nancy will visit the fabric shops again and bring more wonderful, tropical fabric home.  I'm hoping that they are having a wonderful, relaxing time seeing the sites and lounging on the beach.  Thank you Nancy and Roger for 25 wonderful years of ministry!

 

 

Until next time,

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

 





Vintage Look Grain Pillow

This will be a busy weekend.  We have a birthday party for our grandson B tonight. Tomorrow our daughter from Tucson will be here with the girls.  We will be going to a wedding shower for our other daughter's oldest, our granddaughter K2 who will be married in October.  What an exciting weekend!  It will be a lot of fun!

Today I was learning humility, though.  I was working on a tray that I planned to show you today, but had a problem with the paint.  Since I had to do some repair work on that with dry time, I came up to work on a pillow that was partially done.  First I thought I had white thread in the bobbin and stitched a hem on the back of the pillow where the overlap will be.  The bobbin had tan in it and it didn't look so great!  After picking that out and sewing again using white on both top and bottom this time, I thought I had it made.  Two mistakes was my quota for the morning, right?  Wrong!  I accidentally stitched one of the overlap pieces upside down with the wrong side of the hem showing.  "Though it wasn't hard to fix, it took time to take the stitches out and stitch again.  Hope I'm good now for the rest of the day!

Here's a look at the pillow.

 

The graphic is from one of the wonderful French Graphics shared by The Graphics Fairy.

 

Using Photo Shop I changed the color from the original black and white image.  I wanted to have it be a little more subdued and more of a brown than black.  Then it was printed in reverse onto a transfer sheet as I often do and ironed onto the fabric.

 

 

It gives that harvest look to the room and is almost exactly the same color as the upholstery in this little French chair.

 

 

Of course, the sheaf of wheat will not stay there when someone actually uses the chair!

 

 

Or maybe it will be used on the blue and white sofa.  I like it there, too.  I tried it in the foyer as well, but did not like it there as much as I like the smaller "Give Thanks" pillow.

 

 

The tray will be ready in a day or so.  I've tried some touch up paint, but knowing how I am, I may end up taking the paint off and redoing the bottom of the tray.  Well, I'll tell you about that when it's ready for you to see.  Let's just say that wax and spray sealer may not mix well!

 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

 



Partying with:

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Dixie & Dottie

Common Ground Vintage Inspiration

I Gotta Create

Sweet Salvage Now Showing Part Two

Hope you enjoyed Part one of the July Sweet Salvage Now Showing.  There were too many photos to put them in one post so, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy a few more vignettes.

There were a lot of letters, but loved this one at the checkout spelling out Film.

I love the theater seats with the subway art.

I don't think Hollywood has a subway system, but perhaps it's for the Streetcar Named Desire?

Loved the bags!  Perhaps the crown is for The King and I?

Someone must be working 9 to 5 on this old typewriter.  It's a bit like the one I showed you here

Musical score pillow could be for many films!

Each of these drawers was marked with a stars name.  Wonder what happened to the G that should be between the two M's  Could that car be Christine?

Ah, Norma Jean/Marilyn!

There had to be this famous photo!  Sorry about the glare of the glass!

This was one of my favorite pieces.

Loved the #2 Laundry basket.  Wait, I used to have a basket chest like the one behind it.  Where did they find that?

This Gingerbread work is far to pretty to have come from the Bates House, isn't it?

Adore this chair!

This sofa is giving me ideas for reupholstering our living room sofa.  Isn't it lovely?

A silk quilt!  Wow!

There was ticking at Tiffany's?

And more ticking on this chair.

A lovely old street sign.

Love the garden statue with the fan and pearls.

This was actually the first thing I saw when I walked in the door and the last thing when I left.

I wanted to take it all home!  Les Fleurs.

Thank you Sweet Salvage for a lovely time!  See you next month for cake!

Hope you enjoyed a visit with me to Sweet Salvage.  Next time, plan to go with me -- we'd have a great time!

Have a marvelous day, friends!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

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String Pillow

Happy Sunday!

We had a wonderful rain last night -- okay, so some streets were flooded for a while, it happens.  In the desert there is no place for the water to go until the ground softens up enough to absorb it.  It was still refreshing!

When I was working on this quilt a saw tooth star, I made the setting squares from string -- those left overs from straightening fabric or, in this case, specifically cut varying widths of fabric.  I loved the neutrals for this, but when I came the corners, I was baffled.  I made a couple of triangles, but they just didn't work for the corners so I changed how I was doing the triangles on the corners so that the strings "turned" the corners instead of going straight in like the triangles on the four sides did.  That resulted in a couple of triangles that didn't get used.  Instead of wasting them, I made two more and turned them into a pillow.

Four of the triangles shown on the top below were used to make the pillow.  Triangles half that size, but sewn the same way were used for the saw tooth star quilt top corners.  I liked the way that looked so decided to make two more of the larger for the pillow.

This is a small pillow, only 12" square.  I didn't even have a pillow form the right size so I stuffed a pillow I no longer plan to use that was only slightly larger inside until I can buy the right size form.  I had no fiberfill even to make my own form to use for this pillow.

This pillow is what convinced me to make the ticking pillow I showed you here. Of course the ticking stripes go the other way so instead of getting a chevron as in the string pillow, the squares just get larger from the center out forming a sort of maze. 

Have you ever worked with strings? Tell me your experiences with them, please.  Just leave a comment or e-mail me.

Hope you are having a nice relaxing day!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

Time is Ticking!

Hi friends!  Hope you had a great holiday last week.  We didn't do anything special, but I spent a LOT of time at my sewing machine.

Time was really ticking away!

I made 7 pillows and 2 slipcovers for cushions and a whole lot of cording to go in the pillows and slipcovers. The ticking pillow above with the clock was made using a graphic from The Graphic Fairy.   Karen has such great graphics to choose from. I used  the transfer paper method again.

Everything I made goes in the loft area where the grand kids congregate when they are here. So I decided in addition to the clock, the alphabet would be fun. That graphic is from The Graphics Fairy, too. Won't these be fun for the kids?

At first I wasn't sure how these would look on the ticking, but they turned out great, don't you think?

See those four denim pillows on the seat of the church pew?  Yep, made those last week.  Also made the large denim pillow, but I think it needs something on it, so will work on it some more.  The flag pillow I told you about here.

The cushions on the wicker rockers needed covers.  In fact, this rocker never had a cushion before.

This pillow was made a while back.  Here is a closer look.

I kept seeing these ticking "maze" pillows everywhere so decided to see if I could make one.

One thing I learned about ticking -- it is not created equal.  Did you know there are different weights of this ticking stripe?  This pillow is made from a denim weight ticking.  The other pillows are more like quilt fabric weight.  The lighter weight comes 54" wide at Jo Ann's.

When this church pew "lived" in the Master Bedroom, it had a skirt so things could be stored under it.  I'm thinking of doing a ticking skirt for it now and maybe painting it white.  This pew is from the church I grew up in.  I remember when they were bought from an older church and refinished, so I would not be messing with the original finish.  Do you think white would be good?

Hope you enjoyed this pillow talk!  I have another pillow to show you in another post later, but it isn't made using ticking stripes.

Until next time,

xoxoXOXOxoxo,

Lois

Joining the following parties:

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