NSH commission complete!

ok...so not 100% completed... it needs the label still, but that's made and ready to be sewn on the back tonight.

my idea was that it be more like a seascape painting combined with a flag blowing in the wind. since safe harbor takes care of our sailors and coasties, the water seemed appropriate. there are bits of red and white "woven" through the blue layers along with a little orange to represent the navy and USCG, as well as the american flag. i have the safe harbor logo of the lighthouse appearing from a wave crest, as a lighthouse appears on the horizon to a sailor out at sea.

it's been a month since i completed the top and showed it to the HMQG. how time seems to fly so quickly because it doesn't feel like it's been a month has passed! i've been working steadily on the wallhanging since mid-late august and i will send it off to washington, d.c. either tomorrow or monday. hubby has been gone the last 3 weeks and i'd like him to see it all finished up with label.

the logo design is new to safe harbor and they wanted to have it used in their wallhanging. i think it works perfectly in the design. the logo is hand embroidered, usually done during my lunch breaks at work, and is a slightly darker blue than the actual design they sent me. hopefully they won't mind that part.

i used a variety of quilting stitches in the quilt. stippled meandering for all of the red sections and for the camo seen in detail above. (do you see the little USN logo peeking through the camo? i had to make sure i got some of that in this quilt). all blue and white wave sections were quilted in a fashion that makes me think of ripples in the water. i did stipple the "sky" to merge the light blue solid with the USCG uniform pieces together.

uniform pieces you say? yes! just like the camo above, which truly did come from a pair of navy-issued NWU's donated to the quilt, there are bits and pieces of uniforms worked into the quilt.

the white in the bottom left comes from a pair of my hubby's dress white pants. this white wave runs across the upper portion of the quilt and there's a little piece towards the left middle as well. if you look at the light blue section in this picture, you'll see two different blues pieced together. the lighter and more transparent blue comes from a "trops" shirt donated to me by a USCG officer.

so not only are the men and women of the navy and coast guard represented in spirit within this quilt, they are physically present within the cloth and stitches.

and because it looks really cool.... the back!

when you see the entire back, it just flows like the water does. in all directions, around objects in the water and barriers. looking at this photo, the quilt back looks like it puckers, but it doesn't really. must be the light and shadows caused from not hanging perfectly straight. phooey.

but this is what i've been busy with for the last 2 months. my heart and soul were put into the quilt and i think it shows. making this one has been nerve-wracking for me, but worth it so far. now the true test comes when they see it complete...they've only seen a rough sketch and a tiny sampling of the quilt top via email...

some finishes this week

ok.... so i said i'd blog about all my finishes... and i'm going to make good on that. although i don't remember if i blogged about the round robin i did, so i'm going to include it now and edit later if necessary.

first the smaller projects - bee blocks!

a little house for "bee pieceful"

this is the first of hopefully 2 blocks for sweetteamom. and i need to mass produce some little house blocks for the FB group this month. oh...i'm behind in schedule with all the QOVs!

little trees for the "scrapBEElooza" bee

greenink requested little trees for our october blocks. she is going to have a great little forest once october is over! i just might have to make tree blocks for me one day after i make all the zillion other projects.

and since i'm just going to post it now - the round robin for HMQG.

at our meeting last month, we did the first round of swapping our rows and center blocks for whichever robin we chose. i didn't blog about this now, did i? oops. i chose fi's tree center because it's brightly colored with fun prints and i knew i wanted this one first. there are infinite possibilities on what to make for a border and that just doesn't help me make decisions any easier. so for fi's block, i separated the initial block with a bold blue and then all the little HSTs to play on the leaves she appliqued. i really love this so far.

and last, but definitely not least.... a QOV top finish!!



you might remember previous postings of [k] and i working together on a QOV during monthly HMQG meetings. well folks, the quilt top is finished and i've put in the request for our longarm quilter! this QOV is a combo of civil war reproductions (the beige background and the blue border) and very modern prints and batiks (all the red). the pattern is "endless chain" from quilter's cache and i adore how it looks when all the blocks are put together. for some reason, the final look just hadn't entered my mind.

today has been fairly productive, even though i thought i'd finish most of this last night. kiddo is sick, which slowed me down yesterday, but after being home half the day today, i made up lost time. poor boo. his throat is completely swollen shut and the pediatrician tried to convince boo to have a shot of antibiotic instead of regular oral meds to get it working. boo did not go for it, so 10 days of medication it is.

yippie doodle!

i just got this email!!

"Hello Jennifer,
Your package from Heather Ross is on its way. You can track it online using this tracking number."

yeah! yippie! my studio sale package is finally shipping and on it's way to a very good home. i'm nervous and excited at the same time to see what she's packed up for me. i requested anything from fabric from certain lines, illustrations, wrapping paper (yes, she found wrapping paper in her studio she forgot she made) and other goodies.

i've been busy in my own studio the last few weeks. really i have! so busy that i'm working on too many things at once and almost finished with several of them. it's like crafter/quilter's ADD. i've finished up a couple items and there should be a few finishes tonight and tomorrow, so after i get pictures, i'll post them all for you.

belated posts...

boy... i'm late in posting, aren't i? sorry folks!

i have been incredibly busy in both my sewing/quilty life and at work and home the last few weeks. the NSH wallhanging is moving along at a beautiful speed. in fact, i finished the quilting on it yesterday morning and attached the binding to it in the afternoon.

here's the completed top:

i quilted it in a pretty cool fashion - at least i think so... the back looks really cool from the quilting. of course, i have to get pictures of it finished for you.

we also had an important birthday in our house... boo turned 8 a week ago yesterday.

his absolute favorite food in the world is a peanut butter sandwich. so he got a really big one for his cake. it's made from a cream cheese pound cake shaped like sliced bread and a peanut butter frosting between the "bread." boo could not have been happier about his cake. there was to be no jelly on it. just the way i eat my sandwiches and how he eats his half the time.

his birthday celebration started out with LEGO!

a group of his friends gathered on a sunday morning at the local lego store at our mall and got to play. they earned their official lego builder cards and got to fill boxes with random and various lego pieces and blocks to take home. i think that's the best goody-bag a kid can have. and i loaded them up with sugar in the form of ice cream before they all had lunch. :-P

other than that, we had a baptism and a first communion in our house on sunday. i'm very proud of my guys and have such a joy in my heart from it. i developed quilting/sewing ADD yesterday after i finished the last bit of quilting...i attached a rod pocket to the quilt, then started sewing the first border on to a round robin square for HMQG bee, made some HSTs for the round robin, started making even bigger HSTs for my grandmother's birthday quilt (due next month), pulled out fabrics to make little trees for the scrapBEElooza bee and other little plans spinning round and round in my head. i think the sewing will be put on hold tonight - pizza and wine with a friend at my house. yum.

waiting....

heather ross had a sale today. last year, she said it lasted 2 hours before everything was sold out. the year before, longer.

today: less than 40 minutes!!!

i did manage to send in a request and got the confirmation screen. my request was pretty open as to what i'd like and submitted about 10 minutes into the sale. fingers are crossed that there's something left for her to fill my request.

belated birthday loooooove....

i came home friday to this:



a belated birthday present that hubby had ordered well in advance of my birthday, but just showed up. isn't he a sweetie?!?!

it's fun to play with so far. lots more to learn and get used to, but i watched the demo videos (most of which i had already figured out...but if you've never used a computer before in your life, it'll show you how to do EVERYTHING you need step by tiny step). there are almost 5,000 copyright-free blocks in the default library. sigh. all at my fingertips instead of the books. and fabrics you can already drop in. it's pretty darn cool.

of course, i love my books. i love flipping through them, the tangible pictures and ideas that spark other awesome ideas in my head. but how will i ever draw out a quilt layout on scrap paper again? ok. so i have that right here on my work desk on a yellow sticky pad. i'll still do it over and over again.

EQ7 will spoil me though i'm sure. it'll spoil hubby, who is learning to quilt, too. and it's currently installed and activated on his computer until i get a new one that won't hate me since it wants retirement and i'm forcing it to work past it's prime. did you know you can activate and deactivate it an unlimited amount of times? so once i get my new computer, i'll deactivate (but not uninstall) it on hubby's laptop, put it on mine. if we want to travel somewhere, i can deactivate it on my desktop, reactivate it on the laptop and poof! i can travel and still design.

i've been sewing and embroidering my fingers to the bone still... even if my postings haven't shown it. this commission quilt takes up pretty much all my time at home - kiddo comes in to my studio and reads me his homework every night. the dog loves to jump all over the WIP when spread out on the floor for size and positioning. and my heart races, wondering if they'll love it just as much as i hope they do in the end.

aaahh... hermine....

i'm looking outside my office window - a floor to ceiling plate glass type - at t.s. hermine. oh hooray. great wind (i'm wearing a dress today. what's wrong with me!?!), lots of rain and dark skies.

she's actually sitting over brownsville right now, but we have the dirty side. yes, we can use the rain here but some days you just want something nice, peaceful and quiet.

like all sorts of things in my home and work life. nice, peaceful and quiet would be very very welcome right now. it's hubby's birthday today and he's at home with the furbabies, both of which couldn't stay off my WIPs.

inspector matisse

the cat had to inspect my commission piece.

power's arranging assistance

the dog had to help rearrange my bee blocks.

last week at my office, we had building maintenance where we had to put all of the office furniture, wall stuff, computers and files all into our conference room, then move it back out for the maintenance in the conference room. it's full of fumes and stinks in here. we had computer issues. we had power issues. both on separate days and both required us to close the office early. i'm waiting for today's power outage with hermine and the storms...

today, mom is going in for the first of her multi-step surgeries on her eyes. she could very well end up blind, but this is her chance to save it instead of knowing it is definite. she is an artist; she needs her eyes. mom is completely drugged up this morning to relax her before surgery since she has to be awake. **shudder** we had an interesting IM session this morning... something a little like this:

mom: dad looks weird
Me: you're making me laugh a lot.
wanna come to my office and sniff paint fumes?
mom: who's ther
i have apn of reen i made spot yeterday
Me: huh?
mom: none of these words spell anything

later, she told me that my father smelled like easter eggs. not just any easter eggs (still working on what exactly that smells like....) but the ones that aren't fizzy, but have the wire. her words. i can't wait to show her the conversation we had. there was another one on my hubby's FB page wishing him a happy birthday. she is completely loopy.

seriously though...today's surgery is no laughing matter. keep her in your prayers and thoughts that it goes well and that she recovers quickly. it'll be a couple weeks before she can see from today's surgery and then they will work on the other eye. in the meantime, i'll keep sewing hexies together during my lunchbreak and have a nice dinner tonight with the family.

oooohhhh... that lightening was REALLY close. and i'm waiting to see if the building management ever fixed my window leak above the ceiling tile. should be fun!!