Not Blown Away This Time

I spent yesterday waiting for a “high wind” event that never materialized. I heard that it was gusty in town, but all we had were a couple of stiff breezes. The reason may have been the wind direction. The winds yesterday were out of the southwest. When we get bad windstorms, it’s almost always due to a back door cold front from Canada accompanied by winds coming off the mountains from the east.

But I am grateful that our trees are still standing.

I finished making the half-rectangle blocks for the center of the commission quilt.

That was a milestone, and I reached it without having to rip out any seams. The next step is to slice the rectangles into 2-1/2” strips, turn them around, and sew them back together to make the “mountain” portion of the Delectable Mountains block. The pattern suggests doing one color combination at a time to minimize the possibility of mistakes. I shall follow that advice.

I am still planning for an end-of-January finish for this quilt top because it is residing on the table where I do my tax prep and paper sorting and all of that has to be completed by the first week of February. The construction company is set up as a partnership between the two of us and the partnership tax return is due March 15. I want to make sure the accountant has all the information in plenty of time. The only year we ever had to file an extension was the year I had the flu and spent a week in the ICU. I’d like to keep it that way.

I replaced a zipper in a knit hoodie that belongs to my friend, Anna. I have a zipper repair kit and first tried to repair the zipper, but that didn’t work. Replacing the zipper didn’t take terribly long. Zippers are the one thing my Janome machine doesn’t do well, so I popped a ball point needle into Vittorio and he handled the job perfectly.

I sewed the remaining pairs of red print and blue Kona squares together for Yet Another Comforter Top:

Assembling the top will be an hour’s worth of sewing some evening. The colors in this quilt are closer in value than I anticipated—especially the darker red squares—but beyond rearranging some of the units, I am leaving it as is. These comforter tops have made a nice dent in the 5” square supply. Some of those fabrics are several years old and I am tired of looking at them. They need to move on.

I made the fourth envelope comforter top to be tied at our comforter-tying party on January 18. Four tops may be plenty. I have fabric for three more, but those can always be done later in the year. Or I might go ahead and get them assembled while I have the Janome set up to do them.

I trimmed the comforter top we tied on Thursday and pulled out some Kona for making binding. If I had had binding made up, I would have attached it and worked on sewing it down while watching the Patriots lose (is anyone upset about that?). Instead, I worked on the embroidered needle case kit:

I’m enjoying the embroidery, but I find myself getting analysis paralysis when choosing colors. I have a large supply of embroidery threads thanks to my mother’s bequest and the ones I have found at thrift stores. Sometimes I think that is not a good thing as it gives me too many options. I really appreciate that the instructions in this kit refer to Sue Spargo’s book Creative Stitching and specify which stitches (with page numbers!) should be worked where. That saves me from having to pick thread colors and stitch patterns. I like to design, yes, but sometimes I prefer to have a pattern tell me what to do and how to do it.

[I went off script at the very beginning by picking different colors for my birds than the ones the designer of the pattern chose, so some of this is my own fault.]

I need to finish this needle case so I have some place to keep my hand quilting needle(s). I tried half a dozen needles of various lengths and thicknesses on Thursday before I found one I really liked. (You would be surprised at how much of a difference it makes. I am also picky about my thimbles.) Hopefully, my collection of vintage needles contains some that are similar.