Closet Sifting

We didn't manage to finish the closet built-ins until August 2013 and then I slowly worked my way through unpacking my boxes. Since I had gained weight by then, I only unpacked the largest sizes. Even then, I don't recall having a lot of options of clothes that fit me. I'm not going to get into a long discussion of my various health problems, but my closet fell into disuse. There were clothes in there, but by last year, virtually all of them were too small. I tended to avoid going in there because it just made me feel bad. I kept telling myself I should just get rid of the clothes that no longer fit but I suppose I had always hoped I could lose the weight.

On my birthday a few weeks ago I was looking for something to wear and in desperation, I went into my closet and grabbed out some clothes. They fit!

Then yesterday, when I found myself surfing around online looking at clothes to buy, I finally prodded myself back into my closet. It was time to do a proper sift.

I was ecstatic when I realized virtually all of the shirts and dresses fit. I still have a way to go on my weight goals so I may yet have to buy some clothing. But not yet.

The one thing I had managed to do in the intervening years was to get rid of the boxes of smaller clothes I had never unpacked. Now I wish I hadn't. But when I finally reach my goal, I guess my reward will be to do some clothing shopping.

Among the items I hadn't gotten around to doing was getting rid of a couple of tuxes Jeff inherited when he was in high school. They had been altered to fit him at the time so he could wear them to dances/proms. They fit too!

July Friday Night w/Friends

I started assembling the Xmas Log Cabin quilt for this month's Friday Night with Friends. I had planned to finish putting it together today, but then I remembered it's the 4th of July. For those who celebrate, I hope you all have a great day. Time to BBQ!

Quilt Sashing Finished

I spent the last couple of days cutting out and sewing the parts for the sashing on the Xmas Log Cabin quilt. I used the cheater method shared on this website to sew on the points.

This fabric is the Holiday Flourish line from Robert Kaufman.

Time for some assembly!

This Week's Blooms

It's time to post flower photos again. There are so many we've been enjoying.

Daylily 'Mandolin.' This was actually a freebie from Schreiner's Iris Gardens with our order last fall.
It's quite pretty.

Daylily 'Burnin Down the House.' It looks quite different than I was expecting it to look
but I'm hoping it will change as the plant gets more established.

I think this is a Calendula Resina I grew from seed.
(I planted 3 different varieties of calendula and they weren't all tagged.)

Our Pacific Iris 'Canyon Snow' has given us a second round of flowers.

Viola 'Orange Sun' I grew from seed.

This Jimi's Purple Haze Poppy is really tall. When I bought it in spring,
I didn't realize this variety was an annual. Luckily, it was inexpensive and
maybe we'll be able to grow more from the seeds I'm planning to collect.

The flowers on our Spirea Douglasii are finally open and the bees are ecstatic.
They appear almost drunk with pleasure when they're crawling around on it.

Cornflowers 'Black Gem' I grew from seed. They have tall and floppy stalks but the flowers are quite lovely.

I can't believe how large this Heuchera 'Peach Flambe' has grown.
It was a tiny 1.5" plug when I bought it just over a month ago.

June Friday Night Sew In

I went and retrieved my dinosaur lap quilt from Bent Needle Quilts yesterday so I was able to finish the binding on it for the Friday Night Sew In.

It was quilted with Dino Jungle from Urban Elementz.

Unfortunately, I didn't save any of the print fabric for the binding, and I didn't have enough of the rust-colored batik, so I dug through my stash and found a dark teal fabric that matched pretty well.

Since I learned how to do machine binding last year, I don't bother to hand sew them anymore. Though, I have decided it's worth taking the time to hand sew the corners on the backside before I go through and finish the second pass. The corners turn out much more tidy when I take that time.

I prefer to make my bindings a little wider, but I didn't have enough of this fabric either.

This also completes one of my WOOFA tasks.

New Holiday Quilt

I started work on my next WOOFA project. It's actually a double-sided quilt which includes a harvest quilt on one side and xmas quilt on the other.

I started by fussy cutting the centers.

But when it came time to start cutting out the rest of the fabric, I didn't feel like doing it, so I turned to finalizing the plan for the xmas quilt. Throughout this planning process, I probably designed about a dozen different xmas quilts in Electric Quilt but I just never fancied any of them well enough. But then I noticed a book on my shelf, Star Log Cabin Quilts, and I thought it would look good in reds and greens. The sashing could be finished with gold stars and would add the finishing touch.

June Friday Night w/Friends #2

I joined Cheryll again for FNWF on the second Friday. I decided to put a narrow border around my log cabin quilt from last week so I could lock the seams around the edge. I am fussy about measuring everything and pinning at all the seams so it took me a couple of hours. This finishes up this task on my WOOFA list.

I didn't lay it all out with the border on for a photo, but here it is mostly finished three days ago.

I pulled out the fabric for my next project and was thinking about starting the fussy cutting for it, but my back was achy and I decided to call it good enough for the evening.