Leo’s Mane Sew Along

Thursday 30 March 2017

Castor and Pollux

My newest English Paper Piecing project, called Castor and Pollux, is slowly growing. I am hoping to have a large amount of time today to dedicate towards getting it to a finish. I’ve been taking photos along the way, since I have plans for this to become a pattern in the not too distant future. there will be a kit of papers and acrylic templates for it too, also hopefully in the not too distant future. In the meantime, we keep plugging away. We are hoping that also in the not too distant future the maintenance notice found at http://eagleswingsquilts.ca will turn into the actual web site where this pattern, and others, will be available. In the meantime, I’m having fun sewing.
I’m linking up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social and also to the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday, even though it’s a day late and it’s Thursday. Then it’s back to stitching.

Sunday 26 March 2017

Slow Sunday Stitching, March 26, 2017

My poor neglected blog. It is feeling very lonely and left out of things these last few months. I’ve at least been trying to maintain a weekly Sunday stitching post, but last weekend I was hit with something nasty, although I have no idea what it was. A fever of 101 aka 39 for those who think in celsius, and all the attendant aches and pains that come with fever. But nothing else..... no obvious source of what caused the fever. And by Sunday it was gone, leaving me feeling like I’d been hit by a truck with all the attendant aches and pains that would cause. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Thankfully, by mid week, I was more or less functioning normally again.

But still, carving out time to sit and give my blog some loving is getting very difficult to do. For those of you who don’t know, I have fibromyalgia. I don’t talk about it often, because my preferred method of dealing with it is to live with what I can and ignore the rest. However, one of the challenges I’ve learned to live with is the sleep disorder that goes with it. I take medication for it, which means my morning start ups are late and very slow, like an engine trying to turn over with a dying battery. You know the sound.... My very kind husband brings me a coffee at around 10 am. After that, I get up, and make myself another cup of coffee, and sit and read on my computer for the time it takes for the second cup to have its desired effect, and for my mind to be thinking at least semi clearly. All this means that my usable days start at about noon. Something to eat, and up to the studio to work on customer quilts, or my own, or guild projects on the long arm. Then it’s supper time. My husband leaves at 4 to go pick up our daughter from work, and grand daughter from daycare. They get home at 5, just in time for all of us to have supper. Her husband Matt gets home from work a little later than that. We spend time with them, usually until Abbie is ready for bed, somewhere around 6:30 or 7.

Then there’s the business expansion stuff to be done, files drawn into Corel for using on the laser. Once those are done, my husband Scott does the actual running of the laser. Learning Corel was a challenge, but a fun one. I love learning new stuff. I think it keeps me feeling young, mentally at least. It’s exciting learning new things, and the feeling when something is mastered, or something falls into place with that “aha” moment is actually quite a thrill. I’ve learned a lot, and am getting much faster at what needs to be done. I usually give myself until 9pm for that, and then I reward myself with some stitching. This whole business expansion is actually a family thing. Our daughter Becca is doing up the computer files for the labels. Our son Noel is doing the photography for the products. Here’s a photo of a couple of the hexagon acrylic templates he took. I love the quirkiness of the background he used.These will be up on the website when it’s finished.

Scott is doing the book keeping and the actual running of the laser. It’s been a wonderful bonding experience in our family, which was already very close.

Weekends lately, have been labeled as “mine”. Yesterday there was a guild sewing day for working on various projects for our community outreach. It was a wonderful day of socializing, talking, having fun, and getting stuff done, all at the same time. Joining the guild a few years ago has to be one of the best things I have ever done. It’s taken this shy, quiet, very non-social person, and turned her into someone completely different. Or maybe, not someone different, but maybe released the person who was there all along, just buried? I don’t know, but I love it!

So, all this to say, I’m crazy busy, and mostly loving every minute of it. But it makes what Kathy was talking about in her Slow Sunday Stitching post all that much more important. I need to intentionally carve out time to do the things that bring me rest and peace. Spending time daily with my Lord, in His word and in prayer is a huge part of that rest and peace, the biggest and most important part, actually. But He gave me this desire to create, and Sundays are the day that I love to take and indulge that creativity. I love reading on Kathy’s blog what everyone else has been up to in their hand stitching journeys, and I love this hand stitching journey of mine.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a picture of a new project I’d started, which the Electric Quilt software calls Castor and Pollux. I’ve made significant progress on it. This section is finished, and I’m working on the bottom half. It will be 20”x20” when finished, and will likely end up as a pillow. It will have half diamonds around the outside in order to square it off. I’m hoping to get lots more done on it today. So, with that in mind, I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching, maybe get some lunch, and do some slow and restful stitching.



Monday 13 March 2017

Design Wall Monday, March 13, 2017

I haven’t done a design wall Monday post in quite a while. Most of my projects lately have been slow going hand pieced things that never seem to end up on the wall. Well, this week I decided to change that. I’ve put them all up on the wall. What that did is convince me that I have a very bad case of English Paper Piecing pinball-itis. I am bouncing around from one project to another without much plan or purpose. But, I am having TONS of fun.
These are my collection of rosettes that I’m making for Willyne Hammerstein’s Creme Brûlée. They take a while because they are all fussy cut. I try and do one or two a week of these, just to keep it moving along. I need 60 rosettes, and I have 12. I make myself feel good by saying that it’s 20% finished.
Then, I decided to get back into the rainbow scrap challenge thing this year, but doing it using my current EPP obsession. I decided to play with 60 degree triangles. They are 1 inch, 2 inch and 4 inch triangles.The colour for February was aqua, and March is red. So, I’m up to date on these. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, I saw some pictures of a quilt called La Passion, and quickly fell into that particular rabbit hole. The hexagon size is 1/2 inch, so this particular rabbit hole is going to be very long!!

And then, as if that weren’t enough, I was browsing around in EQ7, looking in the block base area of the program, and found all kinds of fun designs that would be extremely difficult to machine piece, but are perfect to adapt for EPP. So, I succumbed to temptation and started to dig another rabbit hole. This one is called Castor and Pollux in the EQ7 software.

I must say that I’m not doing a whole lot of machine piecing these days. I have a quilt I need to finish, and another one that needs binding. But these things have grabbed my attention and won’t let go. I’m linking up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday and Sarah’s Help for Hexie-aholics, and then I’m going back to sew more star points.







Sunday 5 March 2017

Slow Sunday Stitching


I’m continuing along with my multitude of EPPing projects. And I’m having so much fun doing it, too. First up are three more jewels for my Creme Brûlée project.

Then there are some red triangles, ready for this month’s colour at the Rainbow scrap challenge.
And finally, as we all knew, resistance was indeed futile, and I started that La Passion project.
 It just so happens to also be using up red scraps. I have a large box full of various colours of 1 1/2 inch strips, and these hexagons work perfectly out of that size. 
This is going to be a short one. I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching And Angela’s SoScrappy, and then it’s back to the relaxing business of sewing together tiny pieces of fabric.