We drove back to Ventura from L.A. today. It was a long, traffic-filled drive because apparently everyone decided to go to the beach or just be out on the road for Father’s Day. Tomorrow we head back up to Morro Bay, so that will be another two and a half hours in the car. I may have a finished sock to show you for tomorrow night’s post.
I’m typing this entry in a hotel room at the Hampton Inn in Carson. Sean and I drove into L.A. this afternoon to see the L.A. Galaxy play Philadelphia Union at the Stub Hub Center. The game starts at 7:30 PM, but we have to leave in a few minutes to allow for the time it takes to walk the mile to the stadium, get through security, check out assorted L.A. Galaxy merchandise, buy me cotton candy and a soft pretzel, mill around with the rest of the crowd, and find our seats.
I brought my knitting along and worked on my sock during the drive. You can’t really tell from the photo, but I’m up to the gusset, which is where things start to get a little more exciting, because I’m that much closer to turning the heel. Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to bring my knitting to the game, I’ve been to enough of these events with Sean to know that’s not a good idea. So I’ll leave the knitting for now and pick it up again for the drive back home.
Yesterday at work, I kept feeling like it was a Thursday and then realizing that it was only Wednesday. Today felt like it should be Friday, but then I would remember it was only Thursday and that I still had one more day of work to go. Such a disappointing feeling. Have you ever had that kind of a week?
I knit a few more rows on the sock. The sock itself made for a boring photo, so I threw in one of my little unazukin toys for an added bit of kawaii.
It doesn’t look like a lot, but I’ve been making some progress.
I went back to work today. It’s always tough getting through a 10-hour-day after returning from a nice long break. Now that I’m home, I could just eat dinner and go to bed, but I started my half marathon training plan last week and still need to go run for thirty minutes.
In other news, I started a new sock.
Remember last week, when my mom was visiting from Hawaii, and I started piecing together the appliqued blocks that she began hand-sewing back in 1987?
Twenty-eight years later, it’s finished!
If you missed the earlier posts about this quilt, here’s what we started with:
My mom began this project back in 1987. She cut those blue squares with scissors instead of a rotary blade. (I don’t even know if rotary blades and self-healing cutting mats were available back in 1987.) Then, sewing by hand, she appliqued those little sun-hat-wearing figures to the blue background, using embroidery thread and the blanket stitch. Her original plan was to hand-sew each of the blocks together to make one large sheet to cover a bed.
I’m not sure exactly when she stopped working on this project, but she didn’t get around to seriously picking it up again until just last year. About three months ago, she sent a photo of the blocks to me with a text message: “Look at what I’m working on.” She had completed a huge pile of them.
I texted back and offered to sew the blocks together on my sewing machine. She was planning on coming out to California in June for my nephew’s high school graduation, so I figured I’d do it while she was in town for her visit. Fast forward to last week, when she arrived in Morro Bay with her luggage and goods from Hawaii.
When I saw the actual blocks, I realized that they’d look a lot better against a contrasting fabric, rather than sewn side by side. So I purchased some yellow cotton and went to work.
Here is a recap of the steps:
Cutting fabric with rulers, a rotary blade, and a self-healing mat. No using scissors here!
This cute little guy needs a yellow frame to really stand out.
Each one getting his own frame.
Filling in the squares.
Sewing strips, and then sewing the strips together.
The finished quilt top!
I didn’t take any photos of layering the backing/batting/quilt-top sandwich or any photos of the actual quilting, but here’s what it looked like toward the end:
So close to being done!
And there you have it…
Ta-da! The finished quilt in all its glory.
A labor of love for my Mama.
It took a few hours, but I finished hand-sewing the binding to the quilt.
I thought you would enjoy seeing what the back of the quilt looks like.
Stay tuned– I’ll post more photos of the full quilt tomorrow!
Remember this photo from yesterday?
I sewed together those two ends. The last thing I need to do now is hand-sew the binding to the back of the quilt, using the ladder stitch. It will take me a couple of hours, I think, and then this project will be done!
To refresh your memory: the finished quilt top.
For the backing of my current quilt project, all I had to do was go to the fabric stash. I found three yards of a green cotton with a pretty repeating floral motif. I had to do some measuring, cutting, and sewing to make the backing wide enough for the quilt top. Then I taped the completed sheet of fabric backing to the carpet and proceeded with spraying quilt basting spray and sandwiching the layers of quilt backing, the batting, and the quilt top.
For the binding, I purchased half a yard of an orange cotton print from my local independent fabric shop. After slicing the orange fabric into strips, I went through the process of folding, pressing, and sewing them together to make one long strip of binding.
Next I machine-quilted the fabric and batting sandwich. I didn’t do anything fancy– just sewed straight lines. The last thing I did before calling it a day was sew the binding to all four edges, leaving a gap where the two ends will have to be connected.
Ahhh… almost done.
As you know from my last few posts, my mom has been visiting from out of town, and I’ve been putting together for her a project that she started back in 1987.
I bought a yard and a half of the yellow cotton. I was able to cut enough rectangular strips, but then I didn’t have quite enough for the squares. The bummer is that I would have had exactly enough fabric if only I’d been a lot more careful with my measuring before slicing away with the rotary cutter.
Arranging the placement of blocks on the sunroom floor.
Luckily, I had remnants from another yellow cotton print and was able to use that fabric to fill in for the squares.
I sewed each horizontal row into a long strip and then sewed the strips to each other. I tried my best to match up the corners. (When my mom started this project 28 years ago, she used scissors and not a rotary cutter to cut each blue square, so they weren’t all exactly the same size.)
You can see where I used a different yellow fabric for the squares, but I think it turned out looking nicer that way.
I finished sewing together the strips and– Ta-da! Completed quilt top.
365 Days Handmade 