Sew-cation or Sewing Vacation

Springtime in the Rockies

I am in the middle of a "sew-cation". The weather has been dry and partly sunny the first two days so I did a little sewing but look at this view outside today. It could not be better sew-cation weather. This is not the type of weather I would pick for a regular vacation but absolutely perfect for a day to stay in and sew. It would be very nice if we got enough snow to bring our snow pack level to normal instead of drought.

Now that it is spring I have been dealing with a cold for the last couple of weeks. I got through early flu season, all through last fall and almost all winter until the very end and now I am just about over this awful cold.That is why I just did not get a blog out last week. Which brings me to what is on my mind this week. Google has decided there will be no more Google Reader. I read and subscribe to a lot of blogs. I love the ability to have everything I am interested in available any time I have time to read it cached in one place and not causing the email box to overflow. 

There are several other services available that will collect the feeds, but I am still researching them and have not yet decided which one will be best for me. Which feeds do you use? To keep from losing readers I will add a few things to my blog too. Like a better way to comment.  Thanks to Karen at http://sewmanyways.blogspot.com/ I have finally figured out how to add the comment box. Now that it is here. I would love to hear from you. I have also added a way to subscribe via e-mail. I am thinking about adding a google+ option too, but give me a little time to think about that one.

Happy Spring! I hope you have time to work on all of your fun projects.

Word origin a day from Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/

cache (n.) 

1797, "hiding place," from French Canadian trappers' slang, "hiding place for stores" (1660s), a back-formation from French cacher "to hide, conceal" (13c., Old French cachier), from Vulgar Latin *coacticare "store up, collect, compress," frequentative of Latin coactare "constrain," from coactus, pp. of cogere "to collect" (see cogent). Sense extended by 1830s to "anything stored in a hiding place."

commentate (v.) 

1794, "to comment," back-formation from commentator. Meaning "to deliver commentary" is attested from 1939 (implied in commentating). Related: Commentated; commentating.

Awaiting Spring

Placement preview

Daylight savings time will be here tomorrow morning and spring is just around the corner. It is snowing outside right now which is just fine because I do not need to go out in it and the precipitation will help the real flowers that will be blooming soon.  

I am still working on the "My Flower Garden" quilt top; putting the green 60 degree diamonds all around the flowers. I have finished the red flowers, most of the blue flowers except for 1 full flower and all of the partial flowers. I have not started the purple flower leaves yet. Purple is my favorite color so I am saving them for last. I hope to finish all of these today so I can start to match up the order I will place them for the finished quilt. I still may have to trade some of the leaves for higher contrast. 

I thought I would have more of them finished by now, but I had one of those days where I could not do anything right. On one red flower I had to take out every leaf stitch I made. First I sewed the piece on upside down. I don't remember ever making that kind of error before. Then I managed to place one backwards on the first seam so that the wrong side of the diamond had been attached and did not fit in the notch. The next seam was just not placed properly so I had a gap on one side. I finally got that flower completed and decided it was not a day to sew. In fact I waited a couple of days before I returned to the project. Thankfully even though these hexagon seams are longer than most hexagon seams, they are still short enough to be easy to take out.  

Here is a stack of completed blocks:

Stack of flower blocks

To keep my "helper", Dot from making a mess or stretching any of the bias edges, I keep them covered with tissue paper. I can roll the tissue paper back on the tube so it is not wasted and she does not like the loud rustle of paper sound when she tries to inspect the flowers. 

Tissue paper over finished blocks - Cat Deterrent

Dot

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

anticipation (n.) 

late 14c., from Latin anticipationem (nominative anticipatio) "preconception, preconceived notion," noun of action from pp. stem of anticipare "take care of ahead of time" (seeanticipate). Meaning "action of looking forward to" is from 1809.

await (v.) 

early 13c., awaiten, from Old North French awaitier (Old French agaitier) "to lie in wait for, watch, observe," from a- "to" (see ad-) + waitier "to watch" (see wait (v.)). Originally especially with a hostile sense. Related: Awaited; awaiting.

"My Flower Garden" Flowers, Blue, Purple, and Red

Red flower garden flowers

I have all 18 full flowers, 4 half flowers, 6 double petal flowers sewn together. They are no longer under any threat from the cat. I have them grouped by colors here. I wanted to look at the leaf contrast to know if I need to exchange some of the green leaves before I sew them in place. 

Purple flower garden flowers

As pictured the little green leaves are pinned to the flower where I intend to sew them. What I am discovering is inspiration for the next flower garden quilt I might like to make. I like seeing the flowers laid out here with leaves just appliqued ramdomly over the flowers and with the flowers placed close without any pathway hexagons between.    

Blue Flower garden flowers

This quilt is based on the "My English Garden" EZ Quilts Pattern booklet by Sharon Hultgren in 1991. Each of the flowers will have the diamonds placed at the edge creating a full hexagon. It also gives each flower kind of a soccer ball feel. If this was done with dark centers and diamond pieces and white "flower petals" it would  become a sports quilt instead of a flower quilt, but would still be the same quilt. The real magic happens when all of the pieces fit together. The diamonds create another smaller hexagon that resembles the tumbling blocks quilt. 

Flower with diamond placement, not sewn yet

Using the larger hexagon pieces is making this quilt top assembly a very fast process. It certainly has not diminished my love of hexagon quilts, but the next one will probably have slightly smaller hexagons.



Word of the day from Online Etymology Dictionary:

inspire (v.) 

mid-14c., enspiren, "to fill (the mind, heart, etc., with grace, etc.);" also "to prompt or induce (someone to do something)," from Old French enspirer (13c.), from Latin inspirare"inflame; blow into" (see inspiration), a loan-translation of Greek pnein in the Bible. General sense of "influence or animate with an idea or purpose" is from late 14c. Also sometimes used in literal sense in Middle English Related: Inspired; inspires; inspiring.