#26: The Star That Took Five Months To Make

I haven't posted in a hundred million years I know!  Well I have a good reason.  its because this star was the hardest star anyone could ever imagine making... um.. I was busy with some other things. Like eating. sleeping. Christmas, sleeping, eating.  Anyway I finished a star and have posted a picture so all of you can ooo and ahhh over its stunning beauty.  That's its real color, posing above on some not yet uncurled rhubarb that's bursting out of the ground practically overnite.

one minute earlier, and only inches away from the rhubarb, I tried taking a photo of the star with some daffoduls.  the daffodils look great, but the star's color was all wrong. I took the photo several times but still the fabric looked very blue..

see what I mean?  weird.


I did do a couple other things these past few months, and I cant give away every exciting detail but here are a few highlights:


Found an adorable doll bed plan at anawhite.com (lower left).  Hat & I made 2 beds (center) for the 2 granddaughters ("G" top left, "A" lower right) for Christmas.  I winged the mattresses & pillows and was pleased with how they turned out.  Also (not shown) made fitted sheets & pillowcases for easier cleaning.  Totally in love with a doll quilt I saw at quiltville.blogspot.com by Bonnie Hunter (top right).  It was nice to give something handmade for Christmas.  Even nicer that Hat & I worked on them together.  <3

January & February Hat went ice fishing (a lot).  He was even featured in a photo spread in the paper, made the front page.  I made homemade potato bread from scratch (a first), and a lattice top (also a first) pie from the last of cherries we picked & froze last summer.  No paparazzi for me so i'm covering it here ;)   Annnd one of Hat's ice fishing buddies fell through the ice and was then rescued... which also made the local paper including another photo spread.  Hat ice fishing photo plus Rescue photo (both above) credit thestarpress.com

Linking up with Jessica at LIfeUnderQuilts BlogSpot and her Star Count group. 
 



Star #25

It's green.  It's done.  The color works with the rest of the quilt but this fabric isn't one of my favorites.  I think the next one, maybe more, are also going to be "not exciting".  Trudging along.

Temperature in the 20's or less here in Indiana today.  I didn't feel like trying to find a scenic outdoor spot to photograph this homely creature, just tossed him onto boring beige carpet near a window and said "cheese"

Linking up over at jess's Life Under Quilts star count this week.

Star 23 & 24

I've been working a lot of projects the last month or 2, barely any of it stitching tho.  Star 23 is the pinecone one.  I basted the pieces while on vacation back in.. uh.. August.   Star 24 though....


One of my sons has been a US Marine for 6 years now.  He went to Afghanistan as a machine gunner, then went to Okinawa to be a jungle warfare training instructor, then went to Florida to get a degree of sorts in bombs.  Now he's stationed in Japan again, and is an Explosives Ordinance Disposal Technician.  We all worry about him a lot, miss him even more.   I found a military surplus shirt just like the ones he wears and decided to make a star from some of the fabric.  This particular "digital cammo" pattern is exclusive  to the Marines.  If you look closely you can see the USMC insignia of Eagle, Globe and Anchor in the pattern.  I know this fabric isn't bullet proof, but it was hard enough to get a needle through that I can say with confidence I wont be making a whole quilt out of this stuff.

 

 

Other stuff: we finished refinishing a door.  I'm embarrassed to say how long it took to refinish it but... ok I will give you a hint: we started it just before Son left for bootcamp.  Yeahhh...  6 years ago.   This door is 140 years old, same as the house.   we painted the outside of it white to better resist the elements, the inside stained to its original color (but without the grime & scratches).  I love how the details are so crisp now.

 

 

 

Then there was the door hardware to clean and restore.  the simpler knobs and hinges are from some wooden screen doors we are also restoring.  The fancy stuff, including the "TURN" knob is from the door above.  That particular knob goes thru the hole in the center of the door and rings a doorbell inside it.  It sounds like an old fashioned bicycle bell. 

 

  Annnd... just in case we weren't already having enough fun with doors, we accidentally broke a window in a door that leads from the front porch straight into our bedroom.  For privacy reasons we need frosted glass in this one.  Rather than buy already frosted glass we bought a cheap sand blaster ($40) and Hat sand-blasted a new sheet of glass.  Here he is installing it in the bedroom-porch door.  Cant see anything?  perfect!    Neither of us had any sandblasting experience so we were pretty proud of how this turned out.   Lacy curtains on the inside give a lovely shadowy lace effect but I didn't get a pic of that for you... sorry!

Linking up with Jess at Life Under Quilts BlogSpot and her Monday Morning (or whenever we get around to it) Star Count group.



Star 22

Back from a week of camping beside Lake Michigan.  It was great to get away for a bit.   Still  unpacking and further sidetracked by an urgent need to can beaucoup tomatoes from the garden.  They all got ripe while we were gone it seems.

We camped pretty far north... not in the Upper Peninsula but not far from it.   I basted the brown fabric with pine cone pattern while I sat under white pine and birch forests, listening to Lake Michigan waves roll in. 

Time to blanch a zillion tomatos :P

Linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts for her Monday Morning Star Count (yeah yeah, I know it's Tuesday evening... late is my middle name)

UPDATE: wrote this post on my iPhone. Worked ok except wouldn't display the picture... sooo I figured out what was going on with the computer, fixed it, then uploaded pic again.  

Star #21...

...out of 90.  

I've been working 6 days a week for the past month or so.  Even though the extra shifts aren't all that long they're still enough to punch a hole in the middle of what could've been a productive day at home.  Hat also started working 6 day weeks around the same time... 10 hour work days for him not counting (unpaid) half hour lunch plus 1.5 hours driving.  Poor husband.   If we didn't live under the same roof we'd never see each other.  As it is, its just while coming, going and sleeping.   Besides going to work, nothing much else has been getting done around here beyond the bare basics. 

Youngest son C stopped by one evening this week with his youngest, my granddaughter.  It was a nice evening so we sat outside.   I'm really proud of what a wonderful father he has turned out to be, and grateful he lives very near by so I get to see him and his babies often :)

Oldest daughter "rayray" drove up from Indy yesterday for sort of a surprise visit, no real reason just to sit and catch up on news.   The best kind of visit!   I've been blessed with wonderful kids, I really have.

We (darling Hat, me, 4 of our "kids" plus 2 of the grandkids) are getting away for a camping/beach vacation in less than two weeks.   I'm really looking forward to it!

inches of progress, miles to go

I really thought I basted (a measly) 6 diamonds this week. Until I went to dutifully photograph this pitiful progress and realized its actually (measlier!) 5 and a half!  Dilemma... should I (cheat and) hurry up and take those last few big basting stitches to make it complete 6 OR ...photograph real life.?  

It is what it is.

 

linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts, Monday Morning Star Count.  

Star #20

"Monday Morning Star Count" on a Tuesday. Yep I'm late. Again!


Last week I counted #17 & #18 done, but that was inaccurate... actually those were stars #18 & #19!  So this completed star makes 20 done out of 90... 

..plus some basting.  Linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts.  Hope everyone had a good week.