Since last I posted

Lots of activity has kept me away from my blog.

To sum things up:

we've moved from our home of the past 25+ years

and have moved to a new retirement community

just west of our home.

Our new home is a lovely spacious apartment

in a newly constructed retirement community.

It's a 2 bdrm/2 bath

~1,000 sq ft

[as compared to our 3 bdrm/2.5 bath ~1,500 sq ft home]

The loss of those extra five hundred sq ft most be where all my crafting supplies were stored

because I'm sure having a difficult time downsizing that situation.  LOL LOL

We are still working to clear the house without cramming our lovely new apartment.

These past three-going-on-four months have been spent between downing sizing our home

moving only a few pieces of furniture,

main essentials to apartment living,

and now my crafting 'essentials'.

My problems is that sorting essentials from

'non-essentials' is not moving along as 

fast as I would like.

I MUST get with the program 
LOL LOL

and finish already.

Some of our time has been here at our new apartment getting to know all the others

that having just gone through the process of moving from their homes of many years to our brand-new, smaller homes here at Our Retirement Community

are sympathetic as well as helpful in making this move a great adventure.

There is a lovely Dining Room here on the premises,

a small movie theater, lots of gathering spot throughout , a wellness center for excerise, a beauty salon,and a Fantastic Staff.

Now that I've expounded on at that

less see what I've been up to ! !

OMG, Blogger on my laptop is not working for placement of these photos tonight.

Yikes!

However I will get this posted ! ! ! 

BTW, I am posting on Instagram 

as

GerryART

hugs

Scrap Buster

Found another small stash of 'scraps'.

Among it there was fabric spray basted to batt scrap that I remember from a potholder project from a couple of years ago.

After cutting and piecing together the backing/batt into several pieces to quilt

I came up with these.

Great for mug rugs, small toppers, whatever.

A couple of these have some insulating batt inserted

so can be used as trivets. 

All of these pieces are backed using this gorgeous cactus flower fabric.

* * * * * * * * * *

Change of subject.

Anyone love this cheese as much as I do?

Love the taste of it when spread of whole wheat bread.  Yum! ! ! 

This is my 'go to' choice when after the

"half the calories of butter, low sodium, gluten free,

as well as rBST free"

claims are made,

yep,

it is the HIGH fat content that it adds to my quota of nutrients that makes it soon sinful.

: ^ )

Enjoy the Day 

hugs 'n smiles

I Baked ! ! !

I baked some 'health' cookies using a recipe that my daughter Deb shared with me.

Bananas, p-nut butter, applesauce, 

vanilla protein powder, uncooked oatmeal,

with Craisins,

and, yes, Chocolate Chips

Lots of health in two bites ! ! !

58 calories each

8g Carbs

2g Fats

2g Protein

4g Sugars

Healthy and dee-lish

!  !  !  !  !

hugs 'n smiles

Scarf on the Needle

One of my favorite sketches.

I made this storage box for some of my pens.

The pattern for this punky guy is on Ravely.

Here's what I've on my knitting agenda:

Un-Biased Scarf

I'm using Knitterly Things 

 Vespers Self-striping Sock Yarn

This indie dyer uses an excellent Merino fingering weight yarn that does not show wear even after many, many times of laundering.

She dyes the most glorious colors.

Always, IMHO, with a method of changing from one color to the next without an interruption.

I find that when I knit sox there is a five-row stripe.
I like it when she dyes five or so different colors that make the project exciting.

My friend, Dianna, recently showed off her Un-Biased Scarf using,
what else,
Vespers Self-Striped yarn.
Yep, I gotta have one.
I went Yarn Stash diving
and came up with a terrific skein.

This scarf uses a simple two-row repeat

that I appreciate.

Fairly easy to do while watching Netflix,

which, by the way, I am enjoying.

(|) (|) (|) (|) (|)

Enjoy the rest of this wonderful weekend!

hugs 'n smiles

A Few More 2.5" Strips

Found a few more scraps eligible for 2.5" strips.

So I'm adding to my stack of lite colored strips

that I hope to turn into a chair covering

of some sort.

I'll let you know when I decide just how I want

to accomplish that.

* * * * * * *

Hubby and I decided to give Netflix a try.

They are offering a 30-day free trail period

then $9/mo thereafter.

We can cancel at anytime.

So far, three or four days now, I found a number of

movies and series that will entertain me for a while.

Now all we want is an Internet Provider that will

provide reliable service.

Lately, Mediacom isn't what it used to be.

But I'm ever hopeful.

# # # # #

This past week or two our weather has been more

Autumn-like than Summer.

Just waiting for it to return cuz I know it will.

Til then we're loving' it ! ! ! 

hugs 'n smiles

A Scrappy Quilt

Finally a Finished Project !  ! !

The end in sight as far as my fabric stash.

Daughter Deb and I have used just about all our

scrap fabrics and Stash Fabrics.

Our current project is underway with the first quilt 

FINISHED.

A Scrappy Rag Quilt for Hubby is the first on the

bed and ready for wear.

Our seven rag quilts

are intended to be utilitarian.

They are to be used, and used, and used

'til the are too worn to use one more time.

Bed, Picnic, Tabletoppers

whatever.

After all, they are utilitarian.

****************

Fall is in the air today.

The breeze felt wonderful

with a bit of 'cool'

ruffling our hair.

After our recent rain,

lawns are slightly greener,

tree leaves shinier,

even gutter are cleaner.

YeeHaw!!!

hugs 'n smiles

A Little Quilting ! ! !

Daughter Debra and I have been slowly using

all of our Fabric Stashes.

This summer we are finally making headway.

We spent several days cutting 2.5" strips

of every size piece of fabric we own.

All that remains are a half dozen or so

pieces of Fabric that we can use for Backing

for other projects after this one.

Before beginning cutting those 2.5" strips

we cut the backing pieces.

Since we were cutting from Stash

we decided pieced backs would be the way to

use what we had to our best advantage.

We formed a plan ! ! !

A version of a quilt-as-you-go/'rag quilt' style

quilts would suit our mood.

Since we do not want to do any large quilts . . . . .

We cut 21" square backing fabric and batt.

In fact, we cut eighty-five 21" square quilt backs.

That is enough for seven quilts ! ! ! ! 

These quilts will be four rows by three columns.

We used approx. 27 yards of fabric and 

the same number of yards of batt.

Well on our way to completely de-Stash ! ! ! 

We went on to cut 2.5" strips of the remaining Stash.

These strips are of various lengths

varying from wide of fabric (40-42ish inches)

to some as short as eighteen inches.

We cut, and we cut.

For several days we cut.

Of Course, we used our Accuquilt GO!

cutter using the 2.5" die

which make the entire process a bit easier.

Now we have a great many stack of strips.

I sewed a very long strip about 3,800" in length.

This is equal to a piece of fabric

42" wide by 6.25 yards.

I was able to quilt-as-you-go

the twelve blocks necessary to make one of our quilts.

A quick calculation shows that our goal of

seven quilts takes more than 45 yards of fabric !

The strips I used hardly make a dent in our

'Stash of 2.5" Strips'.

We have a feeling there will be enough to

reach our immediate goal of seven

60"-ish x 80"-ish quilts.

27 yards of backing fabric

plus

27 yards of batt

plus

at least

45 yards of fabric cut into 2.5" strips

That's a lot of YARDS

YAHOO ! ! !

My second Dahlia

 Isn't she sweet?

hugs 'n smiles

Ahhhh, Summer !

My First Dahlia

Cone flower peeking through the fence.

Crisp Blue Sky.

Summer Harvest Forever Stamp USPS 

Yep !  

I've Cast On a New Knitting Project.

Leftover yarn from my red cardigan sweater.

^^^^^*****^^^^^

Here we are mid-August and enjoying a lovely summer.

Soon thoughts of Autumn will be prancing into our thoughts

But 'til then

I'm thoroughly enjoying this time o' year.

hugs 'n smiles

Sketchbook

Here's a look into my Sketchbook.

This is one of my favorites,

a two-page layout 

that is kind of fun to work.

Another two-page lay out
but entirely different mood.

I enjoy them both.

Sunday night our air conditioning stopped cooling.
Yikes!
Yesterday morning we called the repairman.
He was here before noon.
Got the a/c working in no time
and the house finally cooled by late afternoon.
Yipee !
Gotta love this city.
Service this fast is fantastic ! ! ! 

Hope you are staying cool today.

Talk with ya later.

hugs 'n smiles

Blackeyed Susans?

Ny neighbor's backyard is awash in a glorious yellow.

Her Blackeyed Susans are in full bloom,

a gorgeous sight ! ! ! 

They've inspired me to draw my own version.

My favorite way to draw/sketch is

Micron Pigma pen in black.

And, now and then, like today, I like to add color

with colored pencils or markers.

It's not all about pen and paper.

Number Two daughter and I have been

planning, sorting through our fabric stashs,

and cutting two-and-a-half strip pieces for quilts.

Our next step won't happen 'til

her next vacation days in September.

Then we'll begin some actual sewing.

Until then I hope to get some

time with my pens and paper.

hugs ' smiles

Notecard

I've been 'drawing/sketching' lately

and very much enjoying it.

 Creative bug offered several drawing/sketching and water painting classes this past Spring.

That caught my attention

as I was doing nothing creative other than knitting.

Decided that I needed to stretch my brain

a bit.
 I found

a Basic Line Drawings class taught by Lisa Congdon.

Sounded like something I could do.

I signed up.
 I really enjoyed the

challenge.

Found that I could produce a recognizable page of

pen sketches.

Yes, I do prefer drawing in pen rather than pencil.

hugs 'n smiles

  

My Mother

.

Mom and I ca. 1997

1915 - 1999

This is the Century mark for the birth of my Mom!

It has been sixteen years since her passing.

There are not many days that go by that I don't think of her.

hugs 'n smiles

Procrastinator ! ! !

Procrastination, I'm good at it.

I've been putting off posting a pic of my Fair Isle Practice piece.

Don't get me wrong.  I enjoyed this bit of learning

and have adopted this method of taking care of the 'floats' on the back of my work

while carrying one yarn across a number of stitches.

But just didn't want to post a photo to the blog

that I'm not in love with.

The class is on CreativeBug

and is taught by Brandon Mably.

His classes can be found by clicking on the link toward the bottom of the CreeativeBug home page under "Instructors".

Since I used fingering weight yarn and small needles instead of the 

worsted weight yarn and size 8 needles in the tutorial

the pattern on the front side does not impress me.

Much too large a pattern for such a small area.

The suggested use of making 'magic balls' of yarn from leftover scraps

was not to my usual way of choosing colors. 

The contrast in the beginning rows isn't to my liking.

After seeing that

I just went to my leftovers to pick and use

colors with enough contrast 

to tell the background from the flowers.

At any rate, here it is .

Enough Procrastination ! ! !

As you can see contrast is non-existent in several rows in the beginning [bottom of pic].

The gaping hole in the center flower 

[first row of flowers]

I didn't see it until two or three rows later.

- the instructor of this class, said not to worry,

no ripping back,

just continue and learn from it.

Now the back is a whole 'nother matter.

The beginning rows aren't so great

but just look at those rows in the second half of this swatch.

Very neat, indeed ! ! !

No Looking For A Darning Needle

No Weaving in All Those Pesky Ends

All of that is taken care of by 

knitting in the end of the old yarn

 and the beginning of the new yarn

as the rows are worked.

Just maybe a snip or two along the way.

I'm impressed on how easily Brandon was able to show me how to do this technique.

I had tried this particular way of carrying the floats

but it just didn't take.

Now I can use this in just about any piece I knit.

This orange-cuff sock is just another version of my previous Broken Seed Stitch sox.

Just replacing the cuff color from the white does change the entire look.

I think I love it ! ! ! ! 

Our temp this afternoon

is a balmy 71 degrees F 

I think we can live with that.

We're sitting here in the dining room

keeping eye on the birdies feeding

from our deck feeders.

Oh, I don't want to not mention 

that dang pesky squirrel

who thinks all the 

premium black sunflower seeds

were set out just for him.

The grass is definitely turning green

and soon Spring Blossoms will abound.

hugs 'n smiles,

Gerry