Sunday, February 18, 2024

Making Plans. Acquiring Fabric. And Cleaning Closets in the Year of the Dragon

 


This is the year of the Dragon. It also happens to be the symbol for Ann aka she was born in the year of the Dragon. We have both independently (well not completely independently - we do share a brain) determined that we are tired of dragging the stuff in our homes that we no longer use, was bought impulsively, or that we had plenty to spare...

Here's our to do list...

First we will do Sheri McConnell's block of the month - note it's February and I haven't started my blocks or even decided on a fabric. This is year long and only one block a month.

Peppermint Rose from the book Celebrate with Quilts by Susan Ache and Lissa Alexander

Winter Slumber - impulsively ordered while sitting at your dining room table, and turns out we actually like it. 

Christmas Eve Lap Quilt to finish our 2023 of Home for the Holidays

If we have time the WeatherVane quilt inspired by the APQ magazine featuring Joanna Figueroa. 

You've likely finished 1/2 of this list while I was typing it up #BohoHeartsQuilt. You inspire me every day!

April 2023 in February 2024


I am writing this, sitting in your dining room, we are eating a delicious snack of Pimento Cheese (Palmetto Cheese), it's February 2024, where has the time gone?  We have been sew busy sewing that we haven't written on this blog in quite some time. 

The year 2023 started off strong with the inspiration of Sherri McConnell and Chelsi Stratton's book Home for the Holidays, we would do the sew along for 2023 Christmas all year. We started with the Poinsettia quilt and then when you were her sewed our Mistletoe tops. Next up is the Amaryllis, I haven't started yet but I do have the fabric selected. 

I know that I am 'camera shy' however, we usually do a better job. We barely took any photos when you were here for your visit in April. And we should have taken photos with Baby G too. If only there was a convenient way to take photos that we had with us all the time. 

 



On the drive up to Santa Barbara, we accidentally stopped at a fabulous fabric store. Roxanne's in Carpinteria, California. I hate to go back there without you, but I just might have to. 

Here's what I bought at Roxanne's and what I made out of the fabric.  In the far left of the photo above of the store you can see the inspiration for this quilt. They sold the pattern in 2 sizes, I went small and I'm glad I did. I love how this quilt turned out - of course if I were to do it over again I'd change the fabric placement....




Luckily we went to Candy's in Northridge since the weather most of the time was not conducive to going outside. Or was it us that wanted to stay in? We did have a good time sewing and thanks to the rainy weather we got to stay inside a lot (and sew). 


On the left you can see Echo's legs hanging off the settee as he takes a nap after tiring of supervising our sewing.
Here is your beautiful Mistletoe Quilt from the book Home for the Holidays by Sheri McConnell and Chelsi Stratton. More to come on our year long challenge using their fabulously inspiring book!

Overall it was a lovely sewing retreat, the electricity did not fail us and when we had hit the wall, we ate and watched Suspects and laughed every time the police detective would start to run! I may be sitting in your dining room in Hilton Head, however as soon as I get back to California I'll be expecting you to make a reservation to come back to Montrose for our next sewing retreat!





Ketchup Time

I started to think that we needed a logo. I love the graphic we have of the fabric on the dashboard but it's so 1990's early 2000's for us. We need something updated and cool (like us). I went to a website to see what I might be able to create. These likely don't really fit our 'brand'. 



 Then I fooled around a bit more. Likely we need to work on this logo together. 



What do you think?