Am I Blue?

Fall is here. The weather is cooler now during the day and the days have been beautiful. I love this time of year, even though it triggers fall allergies and worse, leads into my least favorite time of year. 

The last two days have brought more fabric to my front door. Day before yesterday, fourteen yards of solid and four yards of patterned fabrics. Yesterday, an additional thirty-four yards of solid fabrics. (There was a sale.) I mainly order from two large online fabric shops, Missouri Star Quilt Company and Hancock's of Paducah, but this week I should be getting another seven or so yards from a smaller place in Idaho. Why?

I've been trying to find a specific blue color. I have a tiny bit of it, crumbs basically, and I want it for the background of my next quilt, which means that I need about six yards of it. Of course I don't know the exact color but I do know that it comes from a line of solid fabrics called Bella solids by Moda. In pursuit of this specific blue shade I've ordered fabrics called royal blue, azure, lapis, cobalt, imperial blue, regatta, midnight, and night sky...and of course none of them are the right color (though lapis came close). I did find an old panel online that showed all the colors that were available from the line a couple of years ago, and next to azure and lapis there was a deep blue-purple called sapphire. It looked like it might be the right one, but it's since been discontinued. A google search turned up some small quilt shops that still had some of it in stock, so I ordered six yards from a place in Idaho. Fingers crossed it's the right color and that they have the full amount.

 

In case you're wondering how picky I am, the blue I want is the triangle on the upper right. The blue I used in my last fall leaf quilt is royal blue and it's the triangle under the first one.  You can see that it's too gray. The close-but-no-cigar blue is the field of fabric under both of them, lapis blue.You can see that it's not purple or dark enough. 

 

I'll use it, though, if I have too, since it's so close and in a hundred years none of this is going to matter one bit.

 

This next thing is a cat panel that came in from Hancock's. The cat is about two and a half feet tall. I didn't order it for this reason, but something about its face reminded me of my younger brother.

 

See? This is him when he was about three years old.

He's been gone a long time, almost twenty years. I try not to dwell on these things, especially in the fall. It will soon be time to set up our Dia De Los Muertos altar again. This year, we'll add Dave's mother and Chance and Buzzy to it. The losses snowball from here on out, I think. 

But for now, let's look at happier things.

Like this fabric that came to me by mistake.

I ordered a brown shade called "earth," and this is what came in its stead, packed by mistake in some warehouse in Missouri. Cute, right? I'm not the kind of quilter that uses cute baby prints, but maybe I'll find a use for it somewhere.

After all, I've been sewing a lot. After the leaf quilt and the tumbler quilt, I worked on sewing together solid color "crumbs" (that is, really small bits of fabric that really couldn't be used in other quilts). I like sewing together bits of fabric and many, many of my quilt tops have incorporated these types of crumb blocks. (You can see a couple here and here)  These fabric crumbs are generated as I cut up fabric for other projects. I save the scraps and if they are large enough, I cut them into squares (5"/4.5"/4"/3.5"/3.25"/3"/2"). If they can't be cut into one of these square sizes, I put them into a box. When the box gets full, I sew them together. It takes hours and hours and is the kind of mindless (or meditative?) sewing/ironing/trimming that I enjoy doing.

Since my sleep schedule has been crap, I'm up all night sewing. While I sew, I've continued to half-watch shows on my iPad and recently half-watched Ali Wong's latest stand-up special Single Lady, an old Robert Redford film The Great Waldo Pepper, Uglies, Lonely Planet (Laura Dern and the lesser Hemsworth, a.k.a. Liam), Big Eden, and two Tyler Perry movies (Mr. Deeds and Diary of a Mad Black Woman). I started to watch Penelope and gave up. I also tried to watch the 21 Jump Street movie and it was shockingly dumb, so I gave that up, too. I just started The Menendez Brother documentary. It's weird and sad. I don't watch a lot of true crime anymore, but Netflix is relentless about pushing it, so I finally gave in.

In other news, Dave went for his flu and Covid booster shots on Friday. I was supposed to go but cancelled my appointment since I was having some issues with blepharitis and a few other things that made me think my immune system was already stressed out. The blepharitis is resolving, so I made an appintment for my booster on Friday. Two weeks after that, I'll get my flu vaccine. I'm trying to be brave, but I hate needles and shots. I have to steel myself for it.

Balloonies

The balloons have been heading our way recently. We've taken several pictures out our back door or Dave's office window. Yesterday they got so close and so low that, standing at the front door, I could hear the pilot and passengers talking and the sound of the burner as they tried to gain altitude.

The view of a pink elephant balloon from Dave's office window.

From out the back door, overlooking our horse corral and barn.

In non-balloon news: My friend Grace is on the lookout for a Singer treadle machine like the one my great-grandmother had (that was handed down to my grandmother and then lost to the elements after being stored). This was Grace's latest find:

But it had gone to another buyer by the time I asked her to message them on Facebook marketplace. I told her to offer them an extra $50 to claw it back from the other buyer, but that was just a joke. Since this one was awaiting pickup, Grace told them that if the deal fell through, I would take it.   The right one is coming, I know.

Kelly sent this photo, too, of their RV camping spot in Colorado. You have to zoom in very far to see their RV in the photo, but look at that sky and those hills! Almost makes me want to go outside.

 I finished another quilt top in the last three days, a queen-sized quilt top made of solid fabrics cut into five-inch and ten-inch tumbler blocks. I've never made a tumbler quilt, but I saw one on Missouri Star Quilt Company's video tutorials and decided to make one. It came together shockingly quickly. I also received another box of fabric from them, seven and a half yards or so, mostly dark blues as I'm looking for the perfect blue to make another leaf block quilt. The best one so far has been Moda Bella solid in Lapis (a kind of ultramarine blue).

The Fall and After the Fall

 How are we already almost through the first week of October?

Since I last blogged, I finished a quilt top (63"x63" finished size, green and gold scrappy leaves against a royal blue background). I also ordered way too much fabric for my next quilt, which is probably going to be a remake of this quilt, but with larger blocks and a different blue background. I like this background, but it is very dark.

I spent so much money on fabric at Missouri Star Quilt company that I had over 60 entries (you got x number of entries per $10 spent) to their recent Golden Star game promotion. From those 60 entries, I ended up winning a $350 "Best of" box of fabric and supplies (it's being shipped to me), $35 in gift certificates, and about twenty digital quilting patterns (that normally cost  in the range of $2.50 to $8.50 each). I have never once in my life sewn a quilt from a pattern, so they won't do me much good, but I like to look at the photos for inspiration.  So that was fun. I never win anything. I already spent most of the $35 in gift certificates, buying yet more fabric. (I'm on the hunt for a deep blue purple that I ordered and didn't label and now want to order more of. I thought it was royal blue, so I ordered five yards of that, but it wasn't royal blue. But I did use it in the background of the leaf quilt I just finished.

Yes, I'm talking about quilting.

I made a leaf block quilt because it is fall and the leaves on the cottonwoods are starting to change from green to gold. I love the gold leaves as much as I don't love the bare trees. Bare trees (and short days and cold, dry weather) make winter just that much more depressing. I don't know what I'm complaining about, considering that winters don't really get that cold now, what with global warming.

While I sew, I put on Netflix crap on in the background and half-watch, half-listen. I half-watched the new series Nobody Wants This, the latest season of Heartstopper, Deon Cole's latest comedy special, several episodes of Yellowjackets (I liked it, but it got too gory for me, so I had to turn it off), They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (a deadly dull documentary about Orson Welles, whom I adore, but which I also had to turn off, it was that bad), about ten minutes of the Garfield move (it was really bad), the first season of Geek Girl, Logan Lucky, Spy Games, Troy (which was so ridiculous that I couldn't hardly turn away) and part of a documentary about Joan Didion called The Center Will Not Hold (I also turned this one off about halfway through).  I'm half-watching a 20+ year old film called In Good Company (Scarlett Johansson plays Dennis Quaid's tennis jock daughter and Topher Grace the boss who falls in love with her--yawn--but perfect half-watching fare) right now while I straighten up my sewing area and wait for fabric shipments to start arriving. 

In other news: 

The Balloon Fiesta started this weekend and it is magical, morning skies filled with hot air balloons. But it is also annoying with the sudden influx of tourists and traffic jams. One of these days, I'll get up early enough to take photos. Or maybe I'll do it next year.

Productivity

Some random photographs from my phone's gallery:

A six-by-six inch square of fabric with a crow printed on it. I have no idea what I'm going to use it for, but I liked it, so I bought it. Maybe I'll put in in a journal cover.

The stitch settings on my sewing machine. I took that photo so I wouldn't forget them when I turned off the machine, but a week later, I can't remember what or why I was using those stitch settings.

These cute frogs on some flannel that I wanted to use in one of the recent baby quilts didn't quite fit in, so they'll go back on the shelf to wait for another quilt that needs them.

This very zoomed in photo of a little chipmunk sitting in the cracked birdbath, stuffing her/his cheeks with birdseed. S/he did not know that the identical birdbath nearby holds water (unlike the cracked one) so it got a bit of a soaking when it leaped from one to the other looking for more birdseed. (It was warm and sunny out, so I'm sure s/he dried off quickly!)

The chipmunks and squirrels still come around. They've stripped the fruit trees of all the fruit (plum, peach, apple, jujube) and routinely empty the bird feeders that are close to the ground. I don't mind. I like watching them visit the courtyard and patio, along with the hummingbirds, lizards, bees, and other critters. 

I have not been feeling well these days. I have some stomach issues that the soonest I can be seen for is October 31st. That is an improvement over my initial appointment which was in March 2025. We don't have enough providers in this state and it's getting worse. But you would never know it if you look at all the money being spent on hospital construction. It's great to have new, state of the art facilities--but who is going to staff them? It's a mess.

My day:

It's after two in the afternoon and I am still in my pajamas. So far all I've done today eat something to take my meds, load the dishwater, clean up a bit, read a bit (Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly), watch youtube videos (I finished the second/last season of The Bureau of Magical Things and now I'm alternating between the latest Phil Wang stand-up special and a documentary about Joan Didion) and write this. Maybe I'll sew something. That always feels productive. 

I have one more quilt top to add borders to. (What's stopping me? It needs to be ironed first and my ironing board is piled with crap that needs to be put away.) I could start something new, but what? Another quilt? Notebook covers? Potholders? I've been meaning to sew pajamas for Dave and Grace but that also requires my iron as well as room to lay out the fabric and pattern and like my ironing board, my cutting table is piled with crap that needs to be put away. (I guess that means I should do something other than a new sewing project. 

Sigh.)

Nine

I've spent the last couple of days sewing, mostly putting borders on quilts that have been languishing unfinished because I don't like putting borders on quilts (and mostly I don't, but these just needed borders). In the last two days, I finished putting borders on three quilts (the garden path quilt I mentioned last time, a Sunbonnet Sue quilt that I started in 2020, and a prairie flower quilt that has been finished except for the border for almost two years).  

I still have two more to do (an appliqued crumb circle quilt done in solid colors and a polka dot Irish chain quilt). I have one half done, an Old Italian block quilt that I'm adding two borders to and the first is on so I only have to do the second. 

I also have another quilt (a one patch done in 5-inch squares) that I was going to quilt or tie myself so I had left it in panels. Now I'm not so sure, so I may just sew it up into one big quilt top and send it out to be long-arm quilted. 

I also have one more complete quilt top (another prairie flower but done in patterned fabrics) that just needed to be measured and sent out for quilting.

If you're keeping score at home, that's nine quilt tops.

My left shoulder starts to act up if I spend too much time at the sewing machine. Yesterday I iced it twice and this morning and it was a bit sore, but okay. This morning, I only got in a handful of hours before it started to protest. I've already iced it twice today but it's still sore so it just needs more ice, CBD, and rest until it's better.

So instead of sewing, I spent part of the afternoon shopping online for fabric and sewing supplies and putting in an order for the first quilt to be sent out for quilting. There are local long-arm quilters, but I'm not looking to establish a relationship with a local long-arm quilter--I prefer anonymity where machine quilting is concerned--so I send my quilts out to Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton, Missouri. Long-arm quilters generally charge the same amount for quilting, around 0.03 cents per square inch for basic patterns, but MSQC includes batting, which is a decent deal. (Of course, that only offsets what I have to pay to ship the quilt top to them--but they do pay to ship it back to me, so maybe that's a wash?) I can also buy one of their quilt backings, so I don't have to worry about supplying one for a local quilter.  Anyway, I've had them quilt several of my quilts and I like their work. It had been awhile since I ordered anything from them, so last month they sent me a postcard with a 20% off offer, which for them is a pretty big deal. (I've never gotten any other kind of coupon or offer from them.) I went ahead and placed an order today that included lots of fabric, a quilting ruler, thread, and the machine quilting order. 

One quilt top down, eight to go. 

In other news, I'm so tired. So tired. My sleep schedule is still pretty rough. It's almost six p.m. now and I'm ready to go back to bed. The days have been beautiful but the pollen is insane right now, so my allergies are crushing me (another reason why I am so tired). 

So tired.