Montpelier

This is domed thing that sits near Montpelier.  It seemed picturesque. 

This is the house as you approach from the Visitor Center.  

This is the view from the front porch of the house. 

This is the view of the in-the-process-of-being-rebuilt kitchens and house slaves' quarters

The gardens.

Me in the gardens

The back of the house.  

The end.

More Earrings

The secret to good wire wrapping is making the wire longer
than you need.  Note the right is better than the left.

This is my first attempt at whacking wire.  I need to get
different wire if I want to do more of this.  Once you flatten it,
its very weak, and breaks very easily.  But I love the designs
in the book with the whacked wire. 

No idea what I would wear these with, but love the peacock
feature of the green beeds. 

In the book, they make spiraling wire look really easy.  You
loop the wire around the round pliers, then gently bend the
wire into spirals around it.  Mine come out triangular.
At least, I can pretend it's intentional.

These look better off than on.  On, they fade into my hair.
And my hair is too short to put up. 

Jewelry Design

Looping wire neatly is harder than its looks.  I need more practice. 

Wild Rose - Postage Stamp

The whole thing; with border.

Close up of "stamps"

Went with a much smaller border than I first imagined.

Sashing Advice

It seems a little heavy on the brown.  Like the Geometric -- needs a color though -- yellow?  goldenrod? lime green? Not pink, not teal.  Advice?

Time, I have time on my hands again.

Red & White Hourglasses, waiting to become blocks

Fabric

Have been collecting red & white fabric -- and in my collecting, acquired this collection that looked more crimson on the computer screen:

It's more maroon -- and I like it together as its own unit and not part of the red/white collection.  But this leaves me in a quandry as I was trying to collect fabric that was more than just various polka-dots. 

Experimentation

Many moons ago, I bought some fabric, cut it up and then never used it.  Last night, I dug through it to see if I could use any of it to experiment with. 

True Blue

I made 6 more blocks today; every seam had to be ripped out at least once, it seemed.

The six I made today

The entire cache of blocks

When I cut a fat quarter of neutrals, I can make six blocks; right now the dark vine neutral is dominating, but hopefully as I piece more blocks it will recede into the variety and not stand out so much. 

Trying Out Diamonds and organizing containers.

Thursday, again no school.  Spent the time cleaning snow and trying to line up diamonds.  With scraps from my stash, I tried out diamonds with sashing and diamonds without sashing.  Too much guesswork in lining them up.  Wish there was an easier way.  Though it might help to actually read/watch a tutorial on how to sew them. :)

It only took ten attempts of pinning and ripping to get these lined up.

These never made it lined up; I gave up. 

Friday, I decided my quilting room needed a make-over.  I have too many projects as WIP, due to several considerations, not the least my own attention span, and they were getting jumbled.  So I went to Target and bought lots of containers.   

My favorite of which are the large clip box, because they are big enough to hold finished blocks and long enough to hold strips of yardage waiting to be cut.

These stackable friends are good for the pieces in process, from sewing machine to cutting board to ironing board, thought not in that order.

And here is my true blue quilt taking up a hundred containers: 18 blocks down, 22 to go.

I love containers, they keep the pieces straight: hourglass on the left, HST on the right. 

Now, about the floor...

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. - Mae West

Plan C, on a snow day.

Snow, wintry mix, rain, and a storm that arrived 12 hours earlier than expected caused school to be closed again.  So we ensconsed ourselves in the basement, listening to Netflix and sewing up a storm. And of course, in a room that is hugely rectangular, with lots of perches and other places to catnap, I turn around to discover that my quilt is the only place Koshka wants to chill.  

Not in love with this quilt, but its coming along, and I'm interested to see what it looks like when its all together. 

Postage Stamp, 2/3? done

 

Not to be outdone, Koshka poses with the fabric stash

Chick-Chick Poses with the first row of a quilt.

Planning

Saw some fabric I liked.  Bought it.  It's not my usual style -- but the poppies appealed to me.

Then didn't know what to do with it; the picture online belied the size of the poppies:

It seems a shame to cut up the poppies.  So the quandry became to find a pattern or design that would perserve the poppies ... I pulled out my colored pencils and sketched this:  

  

Ignore fact I can't count in the top center squares... they should be 2 x 5 instead of 2 x 6. 

Here's the initial coordinating fabrics.  I'm not sure about them all, but I'll let it stew.  Then I have to do math again.  But not today.  That's another day.