Pics from the First Hike of the Season

We went hiking on Saturday!!  Thought I'd share some photos from Sanders Preserve which is in Glenville, New York about twenty minutes from my house.

   Love this view from the road.

One thing I really appreciated was the labeling on some of the trees.

Apparently oak trees don't like to be labeled, though.

And Pin Oaks really, really don't like labels. This one has not only eaten the label but also spit part of it out.

I wish I had a recording of the stream running through the preserve.  It's better than those I've heard on relaxations cds!  

These little dried leaves that have hung on through the winter were making a papery chime sound that I also wish I could have recorded.

I was hoping my camera would catch the blur of movement in the leaves.  These were actually in constant motion from just a slight wind.  

I have a thing for taking photos of tree fungus and bark.  Am I the only one?  I love these photos!

Here's Mother Nature in her artist mode.  Does this not look like a modern sculpture?

I'm not sure if this is still Mother Nature in her artist mode or showing her sense of humor.  Can you see it?

I had to go off the path to get a close-up.

Am I the only one that sees the mother of all trees there??  Okay, okay, fine.  Moving on and closing with just one more lovely shot.

That is the lovely Mr. Easton who I'm sure wished I'd stop taking so many photos but was too nice to say it.

The New York City Trip and a Bit of Exciting News

I really do love New York City.  We went down for the day Saturday just to hang out a bit.  Macy's Flower Show was great!  Cool to see all the flowers since only the crocuses have popped up where I live.

Know the coolest part of the flower show?  Macy's pays you to go.  Really.  As you're leaving they give you a $10 card to spend in the store.  I should have taken a photo of the glittery socks I found.  I do have a thing for socks.  Other women buy shoes.  I buy socks.

Gotta show you the windows also decked out in the Brazilian Floral theme:

My lovely husband even tolerated a few hours in the garment district.

7th Ave. changes to Fashion Ave!

Not many pics of it though.  I was too busy shopping.  We found Mood Fabrics--couldn't miss the place where Project Runway contestants shop!  You have to know the address cuz it's on the third floor and there is no sign downstairs!  Then you take a charming old elevator complete with charming old elevator operator up to the store.  It's actually three floors of rolled fabric from floor practically to ceiling.

We also went to the New York Library.  Libraries are among my most favorite places.  I always thought I wanted to be a librarian until I worked in one for a while years ago.  I had the worst time NOT reading every book I picked up.  Shelving books took me much longer than it should have what with me sneaking a peak at the insides way too often.

Had to have a pic with one of the library lions!

 My camera wasn't up to Grand Central Station's incredible ceiling, but I did get a nice shot of the famous clock!

and the Empire State Building:

They're working on the top:

And the exciting news?  We're going to be visiting New York City more often starting in September.  My oldest son Kyle has been accepted in the Master of Divinity program at the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York--that's the official name of the place with "in the City of New York".   He and Melissa will be moving down there at the end of August.  As much as I will miss them, I'm excited for them.  This will be quite an adventure!

The Second Hand-Embroidered Block or Now I Remember Why I Bought an Embroidery Machine

I was ready to toss this out when I finished last night.

Adding to my already abyssal embroidery skills, I ended up drawing most of this freehand because the stabilizer on the back made it difficult to trace the pattern.  I didn't have that problem the last time because I forgot to use stabilizer on the first block.  On top of that, my new fading ink pen fades really fast!  The manufacturer used to say that it would last 24 hours, but I always found that the ink lasted much longer.  I could go back days after and still see the lines.  This new one fades within hours!  When I came back to this after dinner, the leaf area was gone.  I'm glad I did the flowers and butterflies first!

Judging this on its own rather than comparing it with the other participants' blocks, it's okay.  It is, after all, only a four inch block.  In the scheme of things, it will just be a bit of a blur in the corner of a big quilt--way in the corner, on the other side of the bed, against the wall;-)

I'm thinking that I might start substituting some of the many yo-yos I make when traveling for a few of these blocks.  That would like nice, right??

The New Cutting Table Ruler Holder

I have a place to hang all my rulers when I'm not using them that works great!

(I wrote about making these pegboard inserts here)

This is usually enough cuz I'm just working with one or two of them.  However, I've been using four different rulers for the courthouse steps blocks.  As the blocks grew, another ruler worked better for squaring.  The rulers were all over!  I went to Staples for a file holder and found this:

It not only holds the rulers I'm working with, but all the other little things I'm using AND it twirls.

Both sides have lots of little places for pins, rippers, cutters, scissors, chalk wheel, disappearing ink pens and still lots more room.   It spins on ball bearings--really smooth.  The base is sturdy making it quite stable.  The 25" ruler can stand upright--nice for keeping it out of the way.   This little wonder on sale right now for $19.??  Best $20 I've spent in a while.

Finally! The Garden Steps Blocks are Together

OMG!  This was time consuming.  While we are only going to embroider one center square every two weeks on these blocks, I wanted them ready to go rather than putting together a block at a time.  I'm glad I did.  I was on the tenth of twelve blocks before I felt like I really knew what I was doing!  Doing one every two weeks would have been a constant relearning experience for me. 

I bought one of the kits Clover and Violet offered through two of their sponsors, and these are way more girly/bright prints than I would ever have chosen.  I'm still adjusting to them.  I definitely will put a fairly wide white sashing in between.  That should bring the bright factor down a bit, right?

Melissa's Soothing Lighted Bowl

Look what Melissa made!  This looks as beautiful with the light off as it does on!

It's so quick, easy, and inexpensive especially if you have a decorative glass bowl hanging around. If not Marshall's or thrift stores will have something cheap reasonably priced.  Once you have the bowl, here's what to do:

Get some glass pieces from a Michael's kinda store
(Use your coupon!)

Get one of these lamp wires from Home Depot or Lowes
for about $5
Don't forget a low watt bulb.

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Drop some of the glass pieces in the center of the bowl and lay the bulb on top.
Pour on rest of the glass pieces, and light it up!
Is this not lovely mood lighting?  I've got to make one for our family room.

Craftsy Blocks for March

Although I belong to a quilt guild, I don't do a lot of quilting.  I buy books and magazines about quilting and plan way more than I actually do.  The two quilt alongs (QAL's--they even have an acronym!) and the online quilt bee have been the perfect push to get me moving.

Now I'm realizing how little I know about quilting!  I'd never even heard of foundation piecing before this month's blocks. AND, my definition of a throwaway scrap has changed this month.  It's gotten way smaller.  Here is my new scrap trash container that can sit right on my table.

Did I mention that I have a cold?  I have a lot of these empty boxes right now.  This is so much easier than the usual little trash container on the floor--which I always miss anyway.

Here are my March blocks in the browns/blues:

The one on the right is called Broken Spider Web and the left is String Block pattern.

and the orange/blues:

Here are all the months' blocks so far in brown/blue:

and orange/blues:

I'm still working on finishing the Clover and Violet quilt blocks.  Five are finished and seven more to go.  Next month when I go to the quilt guild meeting, I won't feel like an impostor :-)

I also gained a new sewing convert!

Melissa has decided she wants to learn to quilt.  This is her first block!!

Pleated Pillow is Finished!

I did this as a sew along that Craft Buds has been doing.  I had narrow strips left over from the Craftsy QAL that worked great for it.

The tutorial (you can get it here) calls for making the pleats less uniform, but I just could not bring myself to do it that way.  I kept going back and fixing it until, eventually, the pleats were pretty much uniform.  In addition to the downloadable tutorial, there are posts covering each aspect. I probably should have paid more attention the the casual pleats part, but, actually, I'm happy with the finished product.

To show you how simple it is, here is the front panel prior to pleating.

 In retrospect, I should have just ironed in a couple of pleats at this point since I prefer the "neat" look."

The back has two overlapping pieces to slide in a pillow.  If you've got some little scraps you can't bear to toss out, this is a great way to use them up.

First Clover and Violet Garden Steps Quilt Block

So there it is!  All hand embroidered and everything.  My hand stitching is not the best, but it looks good in a  folk art kind of way.

Fortunately we will only get one small bit of embroidery every few weeks for this quilt-along.  I have no idea what I'm doing despite watching some videos on embroidery stitches to get ready.  My stitches came out nothing like the ones in the video.  Close enough for me, though.

This is a whole new experience for me.  I've never had to work this hard at keeping all the pieces in order when quilting.  The fat quarters get used with only an average of one inch or less off the ends!  Not much room for error here!

As you can tell from the fabric piles on the floor at the top of the above picture and the unbelievable mess on the other side of the table in this picture:

I'm not the neatest worker. (It's just my craft room that looks like this. Really! I swear!)   I'm gonna have to clean it up tomorrow so that I can put together the rest of the blocks.  Doing a block every few weeks leaves me way too much time to get everything mixed up.

Fabric for the Garden Steps Quilt

My fabric and thread arrived from the Five Monkeys shop on Etsy for the Clover and Violet blog quilt along!  Beautiful, isn't it?   I decided to get the kit the shop put together for Clover and Violet after hours of indecision staring at my own hoard.  I don't usually do hand embroidery, so being able to buy just the amount needed for this in the matching colors from Five Monkeys is a big plus for me.

It's gonna be a courthouse steps block with small bits of embroidery in the center white square of each block.  This is my first fat quarter project.  I generally over-buy on fabric.  In fact, asking for a yard is hard for me.  More often than not, I quickly change the cutting order from one to two yards when I see that pair of scissors about to cut into fabric.  I am freakin' nervous about messing up these lovely little fat quarters!  Today is the big day, though.  The scissors hit the fabric.  Am I the only one with fabric cutting anxiety?  Wish me luck.

There's still time to join in the fun.  This will take a year after all!  The button below will take you to the information.