Hiatus OVER. Finally.

Welcome back, superfriends!

So it's been a long hiatus.  Trying to get back into the swing of things here at the Anvil.  It's been a LONG time since we raised our heads and looked around.  However, we've not been COMPLETELY dormant.  (Even if it does feel like it sometimes!)  I feel a bit remiss, but I really needed the down time.  Nothing major, just... everything.  Work and personal life and family and holidays and work and work and even work.  Things are - as you might guess - a little wild at work.  We've lost two people from our department in the last month and a half (to other jobs, not anything horrible) and while the supervisors were looking, the rest of us got to pick up the slack.  So... it's been a little rough on all of us.  And now we have a third leaving.  However, we've got the three slots filled, and the new folks start on Monday.  Hopefully things will calm down pretty quick - once we get them trained!

To get us back in the swing of things...

The Star Fruit Cushion.  (tutorial here:  http://www.matchingpegs.com/2010/02/15/star-fruit-cushion-tutorial/).

It's a fabulous design!  I may have to make a couple more of these... maybe even a little bigger.  (This one is made using 8" squares... I am thinking about moving up to 12" squares.  That's a LOT of stuffing, but it would be amazing to lounge against and sew in bed, I am thinking).  And because it's me, I keep thinking about making a wee little one, too.  Just to see if I can.

Other than that, it's been (for Texas) ridiculously cold, so I've made two t-shirt scarves.  They are simple simple simple to make.  Recently that's been a good thing.  I may make another one, with a few variations.  After all, it's still winter time in Texas, and this year, winter seems to be taking itself seriously.

And... of course it's almost that time again... Faire time.  Which means more garb-making.  So far I've got the basics - chemise and bloomers.  :)  Gotta have my underpinnings!  (We'll see this weekend if they pass muster.  I hope so!).  I know what the skirt and bodice will look like - again, pending final approval.  Here's what the original version looked like.  The revamped version will be a little different.  Particularly in color.  The dark blue is gone, in favor of a peacock green.  But it's vastly different from anything I've done before.  Think I will like it!

(This, by the way, is taken outside the forge.  I am hoping in the future we can put an arbor over at least part of the concrete expanse...).  In the meantime, we're making do, and doing what we can.  We'll be adding more plant life as soon as the temperatures moderate some.  But for now, it stays all concrete-y and gray. 

Here is my Day of the Dead quilt.  It's a fairly basic Nine Patch, because I wanted something quick and easy.  There are about 14 different fabrics in it, including one Day of the Dead print.  Yup, just one.  I didn't want it to be TOO over the top.  But again, because it's me... I decided to piece the binding.  In stripes.  Because I could.  So I did.

I pieced it together out of some hand-dyed fabrics I bought at a quilt show last year.  There are ten different colors in the binding, and they're delightfully bright.  It really makes the Day of the Dead material pop in real life.  In  this picture... not so much.  I still need a new camera.

The absolute best part about this quilt is the binding - not so much the colors, although it love them.  The best part of all... my binding matched up.  I started with a red and ended with a blue (which is right next to the red).  I didn't plan that, and I certainly didn't expect it!  But I am pleased as punch about it, and will take it!
  

Here's the corner where the pieces of binding match up.  Riiiight up there where the bright blue and the red meet.  That's where they begin and end.  SO HAPPY!  (perhaps a little too happy, but I'll take what I can get). 

There's more to catch up on, but for now, that's it for me, superfriends...

Catch you on the flip side!

Shay
  

 

 

Three Month Hiatus??

It feels like I've been away forever.

Well, in a way, I have!  Scarborough Faire started up, and so my sewing time went down the drain.  Any evening time was eaten up by the day job, where we had testing to do.  Lots of testing.  New costuming, and then add to that the fact that I made a chemo quilt and 5 quilts to raffle for fundraising for the friend for who the chemo quilt was made... there wasn't much time for doing other stuff.  We spent last weekend cleaning up the forge, and now we're back at it.  Finally. 

If anyone out there is stuill reading this, I apologize for the long period of silence.  If not, no biggie.  :)

I've managed to get all 64 blocks pieced for my next (Personal) quilt.  For me.  Hah!  For my bed, no less!  It's based on the same pattern as Sea-Glass, but it's in phoenix colors.  And will have black sashing - that's my goal for tonight, cut out all that blasted sashing!  And start sewing again!

And since the forge is now clean again, we can start gearing up for the next class.  We're going to do a quilt as you go project, to introduce new skills.  Hooray!

This is one of the quilts made to be raffled off.  It is made of every kind of material and every weight, backed by a silver-gray moleskin.  The blocks are from costumes from Scarborough Faire (because it's all for one of the women out there).  The back contained more blocks that weren't quite the right size and would have been hard to adapt. 

The woman who won the quilt wanted it VERY badly - and I was thrilled she got it.

The other quilts were less spectacular, but no less wanted by people.  My Binary quilt went - quite popular, which made me smile, as well as three log cabin variations in several colorways.  Those were pieced by a friend who said "Here.  Add these in."  So I backed, quilted and bound them.

I was greatly pleased to do it, and I hope it helps out my friend.  But it SURE did take up the time!!!

So now I can get back to the normal updates, and back to the quilting and designing!  And tonight I will pull Boston Molasses back out and see what I can get done.  And start looking at other people's blogs again.  I feel like such a slacker.

Cheers!
Shay

Things on the Anvil

Good morning, superfriends!

I've been busy the last few days... making alterations to a dress (almost done, hooray!!), decorating more for XMas/winter, and so on.  Nothing new on the random quilt front, except to add more ideas to my list.  At this rate, I will never have better than a 15% completion rate!!  (But most of the time I am all right with that!)

Here is my HexMas tree.  I finished the stitching together last night - this afternoon and tonight I will work on decorating it so I can hang it up.  I've pulled beads and such to decorate with.  Hopefully that won't take too long, since I am getting close to the end of decorating time!  It would be nice to have it up by tomorrow, to give me more time to enjoy it.

The HexMas tree is made with the Hickory Nut hex pattern - I changed the size a little (shrank it down) from the one in the magazine.  Now I have little ones and huge ones.  :)  I thought about a huge HexMas tree, but didn't have a place to put one.  Maybe next year.

Yesterday at work I came back from lunch to find a chicken on my desk.  A stuffed, country-looking chicken.  Now, normally I am not a country-decorating kinda girl.  However, I do have a stuffed turkey under my desk that comes out for Thanksgiving decor.  So the chicken seemed appropriate to my co-workers.  Now the chicken has a name (Cogburn) and a Santa hat, so he can stay out for XMas.  I am already planning his next costume (he'll get a party hat for New Year's, and so on....).  So... here's Cogburn, the Christmas Rooster. 

Tonight, after I finish the dress alterations, I intend to finally get BST on the hoop so I can start that one.  I am really hoping it co-operates tonight.  So many ideas that need following up on... so many things to sew.  With luck and hard work, I can get BST done pretty quick.  I will be posting a tutorial pretty quick on Sea-Glass.  All I need to do is flesh it out a little, and we'll be in fine shape.  So, tutorial to come.

On the quilting front, BST will take me a little longer than anticipated, because Frank is currently unavailable for quilting, which slows things down a little.  By Thursday, he'll be back up, but right now, not so much.  The machine is fine, but since the weather turned frigid really quick, we moved our dwarf fruit trees inside where it was warmer.  The only place to put them is right around Frank, who now is hiding in a jungle of fruit trees.  But... he'll be out of hiding soon enough, so it's all good.

And soon... soon... things begin to ramp up for Scarborough Faire Renaissance Festival.  I only have to make a new bodice this year, but I may make another skirt just so I can rotate the ones I have just a little more.  A little less wear and tear on the ones I have would be good.  But there are plans... oh, yes... there are plans.... 

Secretly, I love this time of year.  (Not the incessant commercials and Christmas music, mind you).  But the snap of the air (and the pop of static electrical discharge), and the anticipation.  I look forward to another year at faire, to the quieter days at work, to all sorts of things.  I may be solar-powered, but bring it on!   Come on, Texas winter!  Show me what you've got!  (oh, look... 68 degrees by the end of the week).

So, in trucking terms (and in forge terms, too!), time to put the hammer down and get things moving!  I've got a lot to do, and a short time to do it in!  Cya later, good buddies!

S