Friday Finish - SAHRR Round 2

 Has it really been a week since my last post?  

I have to admit I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  Can't seem to focus and days pass without even going downstairs to the sewing room.  But the Stay-at-Home Round Robin has at least given me some inspiration.

I was never totally thrilled with the overlapping piano keys at the corners of my initial block ...

... so when Emily at Darling Dogwood used the Round 2 plus-sign blocks for her corners, I interpreted that as permission to do the same!

I shortened the piano keys before adding the corners so that this doesn't become a huge bed-size quilt!

But I couldn't stop there!  I had a choice of four orphan blocks from this set when I started the SAHRR and in the back of my mind I wondered if I could possibly group these into one quilt.  Block two now has round one.  I made these piano keys more like checkerboard squares ...

Even though the orphan block fabrics are all from the same fabric line, the. colorways are different in each block so I question if they will work together.  If I had been planning ahead, I would have done these as placemats.  Lesson learned.

Linking up with Emily at Darling Dogwood to report in on this week's progress.

Friday Finish

SAHRR Round #1

In  my last post I showed the orphan block I am using as the starting point for my Stay at Home Round Robin.  Chris at Chris Knits suggested the first round be piano keys.

Tada!

 I'll be linking with Chris for this week's finish.  Future rounds will be suggested  by the following:

• Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• Anja @ Anja Quilts
• Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• Susan @ Quilt Fabrication

Stay at Home Round Robin

 I have decided to jump in on the SAHRR hosted by Gail at Quilting Gail.  

Unlike a traditional round robin where your initial block is passed on to a succession of people who each add a round, this round robin will never leave the house but a different person will suggest the next round each week.  The "rules" are very loose and you can be confident that the end product will be up to your own standards 😉.

I took the easy route and pulled an orphan block out of my crowded orphanage.

When the AQS show was in Nashville (early 2000s), I participated in a "booth hop" where I visited the 12 designated booths and picked up a kit for a block.  All the shops used the same fabric line, but some used different colorways and some had erroneous instructions.  So in the end I had 12 blocks that didn't fit well together.  I must have used 8 of them somewhere else because I only have 4 left.

This week's instructions came from Chris at Chrisknitssews.  She recommends the first round be piano keys, so I spent this morning choosing my fabrics and making my first two sections.  Check back at the end of this week to see how I do.

TWTWTW

I'm showing my age ... in the 80s there was a program on PBS, This Was The Week That Was -- I think it came on our local PBS just before Louis Rukeyser's financial program.   Anyway, this is my week that was.

I went to our annual Rock Island Retreat at a nearby state park.  We filled three cabins this year; one was for knitters.  We went for almost 15 years with no reliable form of communication in the cabin.  We had to drive or hike to the tennis courts at the top of a hill to even get cell service.  About three years ago they finally put wifi in the cabins so we started to depend on that to stay in touch with the outside world.  Well, this year we were lucky to be on line more than 20 minutes maybe twice a day, so I wasn't able to do daily posts.

We checked in on Sunday and proceeded to rearrange furniture to accommodate 5 Sew-EZi tables.  My plan for Sunday was to put borders on Weaver Fever.

I had finished assembly at a retreat in June, but the borders I cut then were not sufficient and since I didn't think I had any more of that fabric (and I don't) I put that project away.  So I spent the afternoon/evening making a few more hashtag blocks for the RSC sampler project.

We woke to snowfall on Monday and hunkered down for a day of sewing.  I had to borrow a long ruler from Cabin 9 to cut fabric for a couple of projects.  I cut diamonds for a Table Scraps table runner as well as the background fabric.

The bottom line is I didn't accomplish a lot but I did manage to move a few projects along.  I mastered the curves on Glorified 9-Patch, but only finished four of those blocks (no photos).  The rest of the time I spent working on Wink and a Smile in Kim Diehl fabrics.  I had eleven blocks in lots of little pieces that involved a LOT of cutoff corners.  And I lost count of how many times I pulled out the seam ripper.

Becky finished a lot of old projects including this old kit from JoAnn.

Ari spent all her time on Rock Island Campfires. Lots of string blocks but nothing exciting to show.  Charlie worked on several projects including these string foundation blocks.

Nancy spent all her time assembling these feathered star blocks she started in a Marsha McCloskey class in 2009.

We ate well, we laughed a lot, and we are already looking forward to next year.  

Nature Notes

 and Other Trivia

Two books were among my favorite Christmas presents this year: The Naturalist's Notebook and How to Keep a Naturalist's Notebook.  So periodically I will report on my findings ...

Did you know that Robins flock in winter?  Some migrate, but even those that don't will gather in a flock as I witnessed in our maple trees recently.  I had to look up that behavior and duly record it.

I counted over 20 hanging out in the backyard trees for a couple of hours!

I've been trying to spend a little time in the sewing room each day.  This week I made a Scrap Magnet block in the RSC color-of-the-month.  I'm using 1/1-2" squares as that's the only strip size die I have for my new GO! Big cutter (thanks to Santa).  That's a lot of little pieces!  I think I have come up with a plan to strip-piece the block next month.

That makes five RSC-21 projects!

I had a Covid test yesterday -- just to make sure I didn't pick up any bugs on our post-Christmas trip to Asheville.  I had tried to get one on Wednesday, but all they had was the DIY test which involved a lot of reading and a smart phone.  When I asked if I could take the instructions home to practice on the phone part and come back the next day, he said there would be a "real person" there on Thursday.  Bingo!

The family room has been painted and I LOVE the new color.  It's neutral, but has a bit of warmth.

It only took two coats of primer to cover the dark burgundy.  The crew will be back next week to replace the window and crown moldings and finish staining frames and thresholds that the window guys did not do.

The Christmas decorations are down, but not yet put away.

We had about 1/2" of snow overnight, the second measurable snow this season.  

And that's about the sum of my week.

Let There Be Light

 What a difference a little reno will do!

I couldn't find a single clear photo of the dark burgundy walls in our family room, so you'll just have to look past the plastic wall to get a feel for what it used to look like.

We have had red walls in previous houses, but they were accent walls in an entry area, not a whole room.  With the dark cherry cabinets in the adjoining kitchen, I have always felt the burgundy walls were a little "heavy." So I'm using the current remediation on the fireplace wall to update/lighten the color.

First the contractors had to remove all the moldy/rotten wood and insulation resulting from the who-knows-how-many years of leaking ...

.. then they reconstructed the framing and added drywall.

Today they applied a primer coat to the whole room and the difference is amazing!

I am looking forward to how Bungalow Beige is going to lighten and mellow the family room.

Drifting

 I just realized I went for two weeks without posting in December.  I wasn't in any exotic location like last January.  Apparently I've been suffering from what my Medicare Healthpath bulletin calls the "Winter Blues."  Just couldn't get my rear in gear for anything. To the point I was ready to give up quilting -- now THAT's serious!

So, what did you miss?  A couple of beautiful sunsets ...

... a couple of beautiful sunrises ...

... the Christmas Star ...

... a White Christmas, here and in Asheville, NC where we spent three days after Christmas ... 

... another  beautiful sunset on 12/29 ...

... followed by this setting moon the following morning.

And here is my current view from the kitchen.  

We had a roof leak around the fireplace in the family room and now that the roof has been replaced we are able to repair the drywall inside.  Since that wall will need to be painted, I'm going with a "lively tan" as my mother would call it (taupe) to lighten things up in there.

I finished my next-to-last Christmas gift today (going in the mail tomorrow morning) and will quilt the table runner gifted to DIL-1 before Thanksgiving tomorrow.  One last package to go to New York next week and Christmas will be over here in The Glade.

Welcome to 2021!