Somewhere Sewing--Store Review

          Well, it's been a couple months since I have written a review of a favorite online fabric vendor.
My choice to tell you about Somewhere Sewing in Millersburg, Ohio was an easy one. The establishment is owned and run by Debi Moffitt. She is so fast and efficient that I mistakenly thought that she had a full staff working for her. However, she has graciously informed me that SHE is the staff, and on occasion, her husband helps out. Debi admits that she is often very tired by the end of the day.

           As I said before, Debi is as fast as lightning with her customer orders. She is also very accurate and willing to email back and forth with a customer to make sure they are getting just what they need. She does not charge an additional handling fee, and her shipping charges are just what it costs her to mail the package.

          I can't remember when I first began purchasing fabric from Somewhere Sewing. Probably a couple years ago. I first found them on an internet search for batiks and was pleased with their selection and the reasonable prices. I also like the fact that Debi also carries lost of Asian fabrics as well as batiks with Asian-inspired designs.

          There are also many, many other types of fabrics in her inventory, and she updates her stock frequently. The cool thing about that is that when she gets lots of new fabrics in, she puts some of the older ones on sale. A really good sale. And she notifies her loyal customers first.

          This is what came in the mail this afternoon:

          The black and white batik was $7.77 per yard, and the rest--a mere $3.88 per yard. Debi worked with me so that I would have enough of the creme-colored Michael Miller Asian kanji fabric for a backing. She found 2 pieces that were just the right length and could be pieced together. That's service!

          Stop by Debi's website--or store--and check it out. You will be glad you did.
      

http://www.somewheresewing.com/

Colors of the Garden

          This morning my little students and I were reading about why trees lose their leaves in autumn. Their first question after reading the story was why the trees in Central California still have most of their leaves even though we are approaching December. I explained to them that we are still having warm and sunny weather. My garden is still producing beans and peppers. There are turnips, kale, cilantro, carrots, brussel sprouts, broccoli and celery on the way. We haven't seen a hint of frost.   

          This is a painted iron blue jay that sits above a bell in my front yard. Occasionally, real feathered scrub jays dance around this guy, trying to get his attention. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

A Sewful Thanksgiving

          The Sewful Sisters decided to celebrate Thanksgiving in a healthy way. We brought all sorts of different salads and shared. There were vegetable and cheese trays, green salads, a Caesar salad with salmon, as well as a spinach salad with sliced turkey, dried cranberries, almonds, and feta cheese. We also had potato salads and pasta salads, and some warm buttered garlic bread. Fortunately, Donna decided to go contrary to our healthful theme and brought a scrumptious dessert of pudding layered with fresh bananas, crushed pineapple, and whipped cream--all on a graham cracker crust. Truly to die for!

          I didn't include any pictures of us eating. We were way too busy chowing down to stop for that.

          Afterwards, some of us shared finished projects or works in progress.

          Andrea was definitely the star of the show. She brought three finished quilts. We all loved this one and couldn't believe that the center of it was actually a printed panel. It definitely looked like Andrea fussy cut all of those leaves, then appliqued them onto the cream-colored fabric. She did do some intricate work with her borders.

 

This is a closer view.

 

 

This quilt, which will be a gift, has a coffee theme.

 

 

Everyone marveled at the flying geese on this one.

 

 

Marty shared her seascape quilt top.

  

 

Her appliqued turtles were awesome!

 

Marty also brought samples of her Five Minute Blocks and Ten Minute Blocks, which are from two books by the same names.They are similar to cathedral windows.

 

 

We all had a difficult time understanding how those blocks even went together, let alone in 5 minutes' time. Here is Lois trying to figure that one out.

 

 

If it were me, I would still be sitting in that chair scratching my head. I never did understand how to construct those blocks.

 

Nonetheless, we were all very happy. Our tummies were full and we were in the company of some wonderful friends.

 

 

Favor, Our Newest Family Member

My first cousin, Missy, has just returned from Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child from that country. Missy, her husband, and her biological daughter most recently arrived in Ethiopia, only to be told by the government to go home without the child. They ended up staying for 3 weeks and fought the fight of their lives. Finally, they were able to get a judge to rule in their favor, and now FAVOR is our newest family member.
 

T

 

 

 

Broccoli, Celery, & Brussel Sprouts

          Today was a beautiful day in California's Central San Joaquin Valley. It is time to put some winter seedlings in the garden.

          Broccoli:

 

          Lots of celery:

 

 

          Brussel sprouts:

 

 

          I got them in the ground just as it started to sprinkle.

Transitional Borders

          Since I worked many hours today on my Never Ending Quilt, I rewarded myself with an hour or so of playing with this one.

          I have decided that I needed a row of transitional blocks, rather than sewing the string-pieced blocks directly onto an unpieced batik border. I sketched and fiddled with various options to no avail. The solution finally came during my yoga class. No surprises there.

         Fortunately, I had saved the leftovers from cutting my huge string-pieced strip into blocks. The leftovers were plenty big enough to cut smaller 2 3/4" blocks from them. I then framed the smaller blocks with batiks strips so that the final measurements were 4" X 4".

          Next to the framed squares, I am adding a row of tie-dye batik squares. The final border will be the mottled/splattered looking batik.

         I still have lots of the framed squares to complete before I can begin sewing all of these blocks together. Something to look forward to during my breaks from the Never Ending Quilt.

How Long Has This Been Going On?

          People often ask me how long it takes me to finish a quilt. That is a very difficult question to answer since I am usually working on more that one quilt at a time. The reasons I do that are many. First of all, I sometimes run out of materials and don't want to be idle while I am waiting for something to come in the mail or a rare moment I might have to run off to the store and make a purchase.

            Every once in a while, I get just plain frustrated--usually when I have made a mistake or series of mistakes, and quilting just doesn't seem to be in my blood that day. It always helps to have a mindless project to fall back on. Even if it is just cutting strips of fabric.

          On occasion, I get stymied--particularly on an art quilt--and don't know how to proceed. That's when it's best to let it go and work on something entirely different. Better yet, dig up some dirt in the garden or go meditate at the yoga studio. The answers will come if I trust my heart, my mind, and my higher power to give me guidance.

          So, I really have no answer in regards to how long it takes me to make a quilt. Usually years, if it is one that is made for competition. Just the quilting alone takes a good part of a year.

          I had to look back at my notes to see how long I have been working on this one. My earliest entries are from the tail end of 2008, although I doubt that I was actually drawing or cutting a pattern at that point in time. I know that the background stayed on my design table for at least two years while I gradually layered the applique pieces on top of it. Then there was the final fusing, the months of satin stitching, and finally the quilting. I believe I have about six more weeks of quilting left to go. It has to be finished by the first week in January in order to meet some very important deadlines. Thank goodness I have lots of vacation days coming up between now and then.

Stringing Peppers

          This year I only planted four cayenne pepper bushes. They outdid themselves! Today I am stringing some of the peppers.

          There are still many more in two bowls on my kitchen counter--not to mention the literally hundreds that are still hanging on the bushes in the garden.

           I think the bushes were so prolific because the soil in their raised bed was very fertile. The previous autumn, I roughly chopped up some old cornstalks and dug them into the soil. Every couple weeks or so, I soaked the soil with water, turned it, and hoped that the cornstalks would decompose before spring arrived. The rain helped a bit.

          Not to be outdone, the Northeaster beans keep a comin'. I can't say enough good about those plants. Now that the temperatures have cooled, the Royal Burgundy snap beans are also producing.

 

           Well, back to the kitchen!

The End of the Rainbow

        Finally, I managed to get all the strips I cut from my hand-dyed fabric sewn together and made into blocks. This isn't necessarily going to be my final setting for the blocks, but it allows me to enjoy the colors for a bit.

 

 

          I began by sewing the strips I cut lengthwise from my hand-dyed fat quarters together. I mixed them with a few purchased batiks. Each strip is approximately 22" X 1.5",  however, I purposely cut some as gently sloping wedges rather than perfectly straight strips.

 

          Below is a picture of most of the green, blue, and purple strips sewn  randomly  together. I tried to keep somewhat to the order of the color spectrum with some variation. The entire length of the finished sewn piece is about 100 inches. For reference, it begins at the lower left hand corner of the photo, runs up the side, is folded into a point at the top, and then runs down the other side. I normally don't sew that many strips together at a time because the resulting piece is difficult to manage and cut into squares. In this case, I was really eager to get all the blocks finished, so I pressed on.

 

 

           In this photo, you can see that not all of the strips are the same width or even cut on the same angle.

  

 

          Once all of the strips are sewn together, I align the bottom edge of the entire piece with the 60 degree marker on my cutting mat, then proceed to cut 4" strips on that angle.

 

           Then I cut the strips into blocks.

 

 

          The blocks can then be pivoted to make what I call my original Leaning Lattice arrangement.

 

 

          Feel free to use this method, but your reference back to this source will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn Pepper Harvest

          Last weekend I decided that I had better get busy picking peppers before the cold weather and frost sets in. I picked most of the bell peppers and the Anaheim chilies. I got a start on the spicy banana peppers, which have been incredibly prolific this year. There are lots of cayenne peppers left on the bushes as well.

          These are most of the varieties of bell peppers I grew this year--yellow, gold, purple, orange, green, and the tiny black buttons in front.

 

          The thinner red and green chilies below are Anaheim peppers. They are on the hot side and great for using in casseroles. The thicker orange and yellow pepper are the spicy bananas, which as peppers go, are not that spicy. There are many, many more where these came from. I think I foresee a lot of chopping and cooking this coming weekend.

Janice's Exchange Quilt

          Yesterday evening my friendship group, the Sewful Sisters, met once again. Janice shared the quilt that she received by participating in an online quilt exchange. We all thought that she was pretty fortunate.

 

          We spent the rest of our time making blocks for charity quilts, visiting, and eating all sorts of goodies that Lois had purchased such as biscotti and meringue kisses. Janice brought some pumpkin bread as well. We felt very spoiled!

The Great Bean Experiment--Final Results

          I had almost forgotten that I need to wrap up my bean experiment and share the results. However, I have noticed that some of readers keep coming back, looking for the final installment.

          Each of the last four weeks, I have taken a picture of my harvest. As you can see, the Blue Lake beans in the upper left hand portion of the bowl were the most plentiful, and therefore, making them the earliest of all the five varieties I planted. The broad Northeaster beans on the right were beautiful. Although they were thick and about six inches long, they were tender and stringless. The Royal Burgundy snap beans were just beginning to produce but were having a difficult time setting fruit with our unseasonably high autumn temperatures.

 

          The next week, there were more Blue Lake beans and lovely, long Northeasters. The purple bean plants were still struggling with the heat.

 

 

          As we headed toward mid-October, the Red Noodle beans were the star of the show. They are advertised as being yard-long beans, but are really are better picked at about one foot if the pods are to be cut in small pieces and eaten like green beans. If the pods are allowed to grow long, the beans inside will mature, and they can be shelled and eaten like black-eye peas. The beans inside are basically the size and shape of black-eye peas, but a tiny bit darker.

 

 

          Today I harvested more Red Noodle beans, which I picked a little more immature than the ones the previous week. These pods are about one foot long. The Blue Lake bean plants are finished producing, but the Northeasters are still going like gangbusters. The white flies have slowed them down some, and the bean plants would probably do a whole lot better if I sprayed them with a pesticide. With the season almost over, though, I will not.

 

           The purple snap beans are doing a little better as the weather is cooling, but they have been a bit of a disappointment this year. Perhaps I should have waited until mid-August to plant them. The black-eye pea plants also appeared to be healthy, but produced very few pods.

 

          So, the winners in the garden this year were the Blue Lake beans, the Northeasters, and the Red Noodle beans. Depending on the weather next year, the results might be entirely different.