I haven't been able to create anything in a couple of days. More wood is coming early tomorrow morning and that should mostly do the studio walls and ceiling, so all the sewing stuff has been pushed together and covered for safety. Carl will need lots of help with the ceiling part - there is a scaffolding in place, but it is pretty hard to keep climbing up and down to cut pieces and then nail them. Joe, the builder, is doing that very same thing with the outside siding (red, of course). Very, very windy today and we have been listening for any falls from him. Yikes. I am waiting on some fabric I ordered for bedroom curtains for us. I hope we like it. I don't think it is returnable, so I think it will be just right. The pictures show The Red Chair that is at the cabin - a must. The second shot is of our bathroom tub - the handles can't be put on until the tiles are on, and we are waiting on the tile ladies. The tub, meanwhile, is nice and deep, so Carl said I could use this handy-dandy tool to fill the tub. The last shot is just of the hall to the guest bedrooms, hall bathrooms, and stairway to Heaven. At the end of the hall is a red door that still has the plastic on. They poured the garage last week, but the garage stairs still need to be done. We will take the plastic off after that. I am anxious to get pictures hung. I think the place will have much more personality after that, don't you? Jerilynn P.S. Carl is just finishing the bathroom vanity. It is based on this one from Russell and MacKenna. $1800. I think Carl said his is going to cost around $125. I will still need to paint it, but I can buy a lot of paint for the difference!

Tee Shirt Quilt Complete!

At the Lake House this weekend we celebrated the birthday of Mike, Ellen's boyfriend, and the graduation of Courtney. And, wonders of wonders, I got Courtney'tee shirt quilt done! After the pinning of the quilt (scroll back to past posts...I am too tired to put a link in) I did a meander free motion quilting over the top. I tried to go over every block intersection because those spots are a little thicker and I wanted to make sure they would be flat. I then trimmed the fleece blanket about 2 inches bigger all around, brought the edges to the front, turned under twice, and zig-zagged into place. Didn't take long at all. Now, remember, there is no batting or interfacing, so the quilt is very soft and cuddly. My daughter-in-law, Sarah, is a middle school teacher and her principal is retiring this year. She asked if I had any ideas for a good gift for this lady. I suggested a tee shirt quilt! She has a few school printed shirts, and she is going to ask other teachers for some. Won't this be a great idea? It has been fun to see family, friends, and neighbors this weekend, and also it has been good to rest from projects. Next week more wood is coming to nail on the walls and ceilings...I am thinking soon Carl will be starting to work on the studio...EEEEK. Jerilynn

Sooo, Where Have You Been Jerisew(s)?????

Hello, Blogland! I bet you thought I jumped in the lake, never to surface. Well, I didn't do that, but what I have been doing is LOTS of work...non stop. This past week was intense, but fruitful...carpet in, lights, beds set up. I found that ALL the bedding that was put into plastic bags, clean, over the winter construction, got very constructiony smelling, so I did about 12 or 13 loads of bedding. Moved furniture around, unpacked boxes, cleaned construction dirt, cleaned construction dirt, cleaned construction dirt...you get the picture. I made curtains for all the guest bedroom windows, and one shower curtain. I have lots more windows to do, but it will happen. This weekend we have 4 out of 6 of our kids and their families here. So far we are finding the new areas are working well. We still have lots of details to finish, but it will happen! All the kids love the new spaces. Carl and I are both exhausted, and Carl's back is almost shot. But, we have three days of family fun, forcing us to take a break from the construction and just enjoy the space so far. As with any construction, it is taking a bunch longer than we thought. But, it is so much better than we thought it was going to be. A few pictures are posted. Thank you for your concerns by my silence. I am surprised by how many people have contacted me to see what was wrong! Jerilynn

Shower Curtain and Hooks

The shower curtain for the hallway bath is up and the hooks for the towels are hung. Shower curtains are so easy to make! This one happens to be out of indoor/outdoor fabric that I got on sale at Joann's. Shower curtains are 72' x 72", so you need about 4.5 yards. because you need 2.25 yards sew together, trimmed, and then hemmed. You will have some leftovers, especially if your fabric is 54" wide. I wanted to put grommets in at the top for the curtain rings, but I only had gold ones, and the rest of the bathroom stuff is shiny chrome. I am funny about that, aren't you? So, I just made buttonholes and they work just fine. I did line the outside curtain with a plastic liner. Maybe with the indoor/outdoor fabric I wouldn't have to, but it doesn't hurt. Carpet came today, and so far the family room is done and part of the hall. Tomorrow the bedrooms. Jerilynn

Floors and Windows, Oh My!

We laid the Karndean luxury vinyl plank flooring today in the side entry (above), the guest bathroom, the master bathroom, and the entry from the garage. It really looks good. Not too hard to do - just putzy cutting around things, especially the two bathrooms. I was the plank-hander until I decided that I could lay the planks on one side while Carl was doing some fussy fitting on the other side. I must say that it was a fun job. We also got the green curtains hung - I think this room is going to be called the Bass room. I had the blue curtains to make still. That will be the Northern room. I also finished Courtney's quilt. I will take some good pictures tomorrow in the light. Tomorrow? Carl is going to get materials to build a vanity and work on the plumbing. I have another shower curtain to make. The bird one. Jerilynn

First Catch of the Season and First Curtains Hung

Aaron caught the first fish of the season, a Northern! He and his mom, Barb, went fishing (in the rain) and Aaron caught this fish on his first cast. Pretty cool. Aaron is the grandson that had the really bad ski accident last February and it was very scary for a while. He has made a miraculous recovery, so it is only perfect that the first fish honor goes to him! Lots of help this weekend on the cabin. Accommodations were a bit rustic, but we all survived. By the end of the weekend, we have lots more wood on the walls, LIGHTS!, mattresses ordered, two rooms of curtains made (see the red ones above in the still-construction-zone bedroom, and a shower curtain made. I am helping Carl lay the luxury vinyl tile in the entry ways and bathrooms tomorrow. Tuesday the carpet comes. By Memorial Day, we should be ready to roll - trim will not be on the walls, the studio will not have the siding on or the bathroom working, and the outiside siding may not be on, but we should be ready to relax for a few days and enjoy the kids and grandkids. We are going to name the rooms by fish names, so that as people "request" certain sleeping spots, they know what room they are requesting. One bedroom will be Northern, one will be Bass, and one will be Panfish. Aaron and I decided the bathroom will be named Crappy. How funny is that? Jerilynn

First Studio Sewing Day

May not look like much to you, but to me it is a slice of Heaven! There aren't a lot of plugs working yet, just about one per floor. Carl and son-in-law Tim were working on the second floor putting up trim in preparation for carpet on Tuesday. So, I decided to set up curtain-making operations in.....the Studio! I bunched everything around the working plug and managed to get curtains done for two bedrooms and a shower curtain for the guest bath. I ran out of lining material before I could start the third bedroom. Loved the light, even though the day was a bit overcast. I think I am seriously going to be able to create some good stuff up there. Jerilynn P.S. Let me know if you want to know how to make lined curtain panels. I think I posted the link before, but I could explain them to you quite easily.

All Pinned!

I found a greyish, very soft, microfiber blanket at Shopko today. The twin size worked well for the size of quilt I am making. I set up two big white tables, side by side, smoothed out the blanket, and then smoothed the pieced tee-shirts on top. Remember, no batting! I pinned each square with about 15 safety pins. I don't close them - I just carefully transport to my sewing machine and removed them as I come to them while stitching. Saves a bit of time and saves wear and tear on my fingers. I think I will use a medium grey thread and do a big meander over the whole quilt. I probably won't get to quilt much on this until next week, but as soon as I do another step, you will be the first to know! Jerilynn

The Next Few Steps in the Tee Shirt Quilt Journey

Greetings from The Red Chair. I had a chance to do some sewing tonight! The tee shirt blocks were all cut out and I thought I would quickly serge them together. It took a little less than an hour to finish that step. No interfacing, no pressing. Fast. Less expensive than buying an interfacing for the back of all the blocks. And also very soft - just the well-loved tees! The top picture shows what happens if you serge two blocks together, or what would happen if you just sew two soft knit blocks together - they ruffle. The second picture shows what it is supposed to look like after you use the differential feed on your serger. This feeds both the top layer and the bottom layer through at the same time. Nice and flat. Just pick up the tee shirt squares in rows and serge them together - no pins, just hold in place. Once the rows are done, sew the rows together, turning the seam in opposite directions so the seam matches up. I then serged all around the outside edges to keep everything from stretching. Next step is to buy a nice, soft, microfiber blanket to use for the back. No batting, just the soft tees and the soft blanket. You can see why these quilts are perfect for cuddling! Thanks to a blog commenter, I rescued unused parts of the tees from the garbage and serged around the edges. Now Courtney will have a few nice rags when she sets up her first apartment. All in all, a very inexpensive project that the recipient will cherish. Jerilynn

Fabric Purchase

Today was the dad move from the assisted living back to his condo. It went smoothly and we got him settled as best as possible. They had an estate sale in March and sold everything except what they took to the assisted living apartment. They had three meals a day there, so all kitchen/cooking stuff was sold, as well as other "housekeeping" items. He said he went out tonight and got some basic things. We don't know how long he will be there, or how long mom is at the nursing home/rehab. He seemed very happy, though, to be back "home". I didn't get any sewing done today. After the move we went to Menards to buy a million switches, switch plate covers, plugs, etc. Those little things really add up! On the way home I stopped at Joann's to have Carl look at the fabric I liked for the master bedroom bath shower curtain. Yay! He liked it! Unfortunately, it was a bit pricey, $35.00 a yard. BUT, I had a coupon for another store that was for 60% off and they honored that coupon. So, a designer shower curtain for a pretty good price. It is called Oslo by KAS. I call it very fun. Jerilynn

I Will Take You on a Tee Shirt Quilt Journey

Our oldest grandchild, Courtney, is graduating from high school this year. She was informed a few years ago to collect memorable tee shirts that she would like to keep as a quilt keepsake. I received several shirts (top photo), with instructions if the preferred image was just on the front, the back, or both sides. I decided to cut them out using a 13.5" measurement. Courtney requested a 4 x 6 layout, which should yield a 52" x 78" quilt. What I am going to do is show you step by step how I am going to do this. The first picture is the stack of shirts that Courtney sent me. Some of her shirts were a bit small, but we made it work. Then I laid them out, wonky style, on the floor. I will check color placement tomorrow, then serge them together with differential feed to prevent puckering. I will tell you the next step in another post. Tomorrow I move my dad from the assisted living back to their condo. I will be a bit busy and stressed. Good luck to me on having a good blog post tomorrow. Jerilynn

Cute, No?

Cute, Yes! Are you sitting down? I am...in The Red Chair, of course. I got to do some sewing today!!! I got home late last night from the three day seminar and was d-e-a-d tired. Today was spent going through piles of mail and paper that have been ignored for a bit, doing three loads of laundry, and getting organized for the parent move on Tuesday. I was relaxing watching tv this evening and decided a better use of my time would be to tidy up the sewing room. Once there, I spied a Sweetwater label sewing kit! I thought it would be a fast project to lift my spirits and re-introduce myself to my sewing machine. Well, the project took a bit longer than I had thought it would, but it is done and ready to use. Maybe not very practical, but cute. If you go to the Sweetwater site, not only check out their Label Crew and their Etsy store, but scroll down and look at the adorable charms that are coming out. Might have to add some of them to the glass tile collection of mine. Carl is still putting up pine car siding. He is working WAY to hard. This cabin project was supposed to be fun, but he wants to get it done enough that our kids can come to enjoy it soon. Once I get my folks settled again I will go up and help. I can handle a nail gun with the best of them! Jerilynn

Never a Dull

I am back! Blogger was down for a while and I could see the blog, just not post anything new. Then, tonight when I went to post something, I noticed that the comments I got on the pattern reveal blog were all gone. Bummer. I think that was the record number I got. So, anyway, for those of you who were so kind to comment, thank you very much. I haven't heard how they are going yet, but I looked on Indygo Junction's Facebook page and someone said that they liked the Permission Purse and the Cleverly Stitched Accessories. It is fun when someone you don't know says they like something. Also fun when people you DO know say that, too. Anyway, I am back on the blog again. For the past two days I have been at the Ricky Timms quilt seminar in Eau Claire, WI. Wow. Over 400 people have enjoyed mini lectures by Ricky Timms, Alex Anderson and Libby Lehmen. Very inspirational and very entertaining. Lots of laughs and wonderful to be surrounded by so many sewers and quilters. In between the talks I have been working in the Bernina booth and had an opportunity to talk to many sewers about the wonderful machines. I saw lots of current students and former students and had a great time catching up. Starting at 7:30 a.m. and getting back at 9:30 p.m. is tiring, but my head is swirling with new ideas. The last day is tomorrow. Tonight was a concert put on by Ricky Timms. Not only can the guy make fabulous quilts, but he can really sing and play the piano. Quite a wonderful show. While all this was going on, my parents are leaving the assisted living they moved to in January. My mom has gone into a rehab facility to try to get some strength back, and my dad is temporarily moving back to their condo until the sale closes in August. It turned out to be not a great fit for them. Mom took some falls and needs to be in a different place eventually. We are not sure where this new direction is going, but we are certain things will be okay. What a few days...an exciting pattern debut, new quilting ideas and friends, renewing old friends, difficult family decisions. Add the whole cabin addition in the equation and you understand why I am sitting in The Red Chair sipping a glass of wine. I suppose it isn't such a great idea to borrow the AA saying of "one day at a time" while sipping such wine, but I think that I need to keep that in mind. Each day brings highs and lows. A beautiful quilt needs darks and lights to be interesting. Jerilynn P.S. I forgot to tell you about the picture! I made these a few days ago from a kit I picked up at Bead Monkey in St. Paul. I like this style of earrings and I thought once I learned how to make them from the kit I could make them on my own. I was right. They were fun and easy. Sorry for the bad picture!

Salt Lake City Quilt Market!!

I am not attending the Spring Quilt Market in Salt Lake City, but I am going to be there, in a way. My patterns are printed!!! If you look reaaalllly closely at the bottom right of each pattern you will see my name! It has been a bit of a long road, but the models are made, the patterns are printed, and they are for sale starting tomorrow! I probably won't get any feedback for a couple of weeks, but I am crossing my fingers that these aren't the worst patterns at the show. I have already started thinking of some ideas for Fall Market patterns. So far nothing too great has popped into mind. Maybe one of these patterns will be good and I can build on that concept. How many dozen do you want to order???? Jerilynn

Coaster in Red

New coaster idea. I made a log cabin-look out of straight stitches and then filled in each "log" with a row of decorative stitches. It's kinda cute, but I wouldn't pick it up and go "wow, this is awesome!" The color is good, of course. I have sketched out a couple more coaster ideas that might be a bit more fun. I had the second half of a clothesline bag class today and the students' bags, once again, we really good! They said they loved making the bags and would definitely make more. I decided the next bag I make will be in blacks and whites, or blacks and creams. Once you make once of those bags, you just want to make more and more. Jerilynn

Bernina and Bracelet

Ever since my bead stuff has been organized, I have found myself putting together a little this and a little that while watching HGTV from The Red Chair. Carl is back up to the cabin to do more walls and I am in town doing parent stuff and helping Sew Complete with the Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson quilt show this weekend. Yes, they are going to be in town along with Libby Lehman. Three days of learning lots of fun things. I agreed to help in the Bernina booth during lunches and breaks. I needed to get up to speed on the new Bernina 830 so I went in for a few hours today to play. I had previously watched a few webinars on the 830, so I wasn't totally in the dark, but it is different being "in the driver's seat". Wow. Quite an awesome machine. Does most everything you could ever want in a machine...but at a serious price. Had I not bought the big Pfaff Creative Vision a few years ago, I might have been tempted to sell one of our remaining two cars to afford one. It was fun learning about it, though. This is the machine that the teachers are going to be using, so I am sure I will learn even more about it. Sewing a bit today on a fabulous machine, beading a bit today in a cozy chair...I would say it was a good day. I think I will wear the bracelet during one of the days of the show. Maybe someone will offer me a whole bunch of money for it! (BTW, the bracelet can also be a necklace. Cool) Jerilynn

I Will Catch You Up on What is Happening

I am back! We were up at the cabin working, working, working. Lots of stuff still needs to be done, and this is where Carl steps in. He has been having a friend here and there help him, and I was that "friend" for a couple of days. I didn't get to use any of the power saws (a good thing) but I did use the nail gun. Quite fun, actually. We also put in the dock, which was a challenge considering the water level being the highest since we have been there. It is a bit droopy at the end of the dock. When the water level goes down, or when we have some more help, we can get that up where it should be. We got several walls covered with pine car siding. Looks great, still very cabinny. Not sure if we will get it done before Memorial Day or not. You can see the updates on my Facebook page, Jerilynn Lijewski. The picture above is of a vest I did before I went to the cabin to do all that potentially fatal manual labor. I had seen a sweater at the Bibelot shop on Grand Ave in St. Paul. It was white with multi sized snaps sewn on here and there. Very cute, but, cha-ching! pricey. So, I decided to buy some black snaps, and sew them on a plain white linen vest. I used brighter colored threads. I could have sewn these on by machine, using the button sew-on feature, but it was a nice mindless activity in front of the tv from The Red Chair. Lots less money. Still pretty cute. Jerilynn

I Did this Wall!!!

I came up to the cabin today to help Carl with the walls. He did all the sawing, but he let me do the nailing with the nail gun. Super fun, and I didn't hurt myself or anyone else! Tomorrow I help him put in the dock and then we are going to do more walls. Ready for people in 3weeks? It will be close. Jerilynn

Now, Where Did I Put That Card?

Last month at Bernina Software Club, Jessi, the teacher taught this in-the-hoop little card case. Loved it! So fun to design in the software. I wanted to sew some out right away, but forgot all about it once I got back home and distracted. I had a great dinner out with Meg tonight (her birthday!) and she mentioned the case we did in class and how much she liked it. Memory restored, I came home and stitched out the project. First go round, not so good. A triple piece of extra felt got caught underneath and I didn't know it until the whole thing stitched out. Darn it. So, I hooped more felt, carefully cleared out the extra folds, and pushed the "go" button. This time it turned out great. Thanks to Jessi for the lesson and thanks to Meg for the reminder! Jerilynn

Finished Neutral Clothesline Bag that May Change Tomorrow

All done! Last night's picture looked a bit amputative. I will probably make an inside Big Bottom Bonnie Bag. I don't have a lot of these fabrics left so I may creatively piece some of them together for the inside bag. I keep thinking I want to throw one of these clothesline bags in the washer and dryer to see what would happen. I think reproduction fabrics would look good - just like I made a purse out of an old rag rug. This one wouldn't be too bad to try. Maybe tomorrow morning when I am fresh I will give it a try. Carl is at the cabin putting up more wood. We made the decision to buy the pine already finished and I think it was a good decision. Carl said the wood looked very, very good. And there is LOTS of it. He said if we were going to finish it ourselves with three coats of poly, we would still be putting on layers in August. Plumber is coming tomorrow for more hook-ups. More insulation next week. Carpet to go in the week before Memorial Day. The studio will be the last to get finished, but I can sew on tables that are on subfloors. Easy. Jerilynn

I Want to Have Fun, Too!

I taught a clothesline bag class today and the ladies are making some great looking bags. The colors each chose were all so very different, but really pretty. I then left after class and went to the monthly sewing club talk at our local Bernina shop and loved all the projects shown and presented. I had bought some neutrals a week ago to make a new bag as a class sample and just had to start it once I got home, even though it was getting late. I just couldn't take seeing all the fun people were having with sewing and not do any myself today! I need to make another handle for the bag, a zippered inner pocket, and the lining. But my eyes are very tired, and I need to just be happy with the amount of sewing time I did manage to get in. This much of the bag took me about 2.5 hours. They go pretty fast once you have made a few. I hope I get to get a little time tomorrow to finish it up. Thanks for stopping by. Jerilynn from The Comfy Red Chair