Stories from the Sewing Room

The Real Ancestry DNA Results

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Ancestry ran a special a while back, so I ponied up my money for their DNA test. I received my results a week or two ago and thought I'd share them. If you recall, the first time I did a test was a Groupon special and it was "Ancestry by DNA", not Ancestry DNA run through Ancestry.com. My results from the "fake" test were 88% European, 0% Indigenous American, 0% East Asian, and 12% Sub-Saharan African. That didn't seem right because I am super white, pale like a ghost. Anyway, luckily I got to do the real test and here is a screen shot of my results.

This fits far more with what I expected, although there were still a few surprises, especially Scandinavia. I would have expected a little more German since it seems I keep finding German ancestors in my tree. My mom's mom was adopted and we while we did get her adoption record unsealed, it only lists her birth mother. So the dad and his origins are a complete unknown.

When you do the test, they give you Ancestry users who've also done the DNA test who are your genetic matches. It did link me up with several second, third, etc cousins who I KNOW are my cousins. It also gave me a really high second cousin match with someone who I do not know that has a lot of Scandinavian sounding names on the visible portion of their tree. I haven't had time to pursue it yet, but it is fascinating. Ancestry just offered me a discount on more tests, so we ordered one for my mom to do. I can't wait to find out what hers shows.

I also was going through the old photos I have. I'd forgotten that I had some pictures of my great-great grandparents. These are my mom's dad's grandparents in the late 1800s. Aren't old pictures, especially of ancestors you never met, so interesting? This part of the family line appears to go back to the Revolution.

John J. G.

Sarah F.

365 Challenge Week 34

Sunday, August 28, 2016

All caught up again. These are 3" blocks unless otherwise noted.

August 19

August 20--6" block. Easier than I expected.

August 21--6" block. Could have used a bit more contrast.

August 22. Again, not as bad as I thought. Could have used a tad more contrast.

August 23

August 24--perhaps the ugliest block ever.

August 25

August 26--decided to make mine say "hi" all around!

August 27

August 28

August 29

Fig Tree Mystery BOM Month 7

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

There was a lot of cutting and a lot of piecing this month! And there was my dreaded appliqué. But I got it all done before the next month ships!

Here is all the piecing and cutting for the month seven blocks. The two hourglass blocks were actually supposed to be four chunks, which I didn't discover until the final piecing. My appliqué skills are pretty bad. Don't look closely! Ha ha.

After making all the pieces and chunks and cuts and stuff, there were directions to put together the top left section. A lot of hours for this month!

In other news, I have a few crazy-looking blue jays hanging around. One is almost totally white except for the dark chin strap. This guy has no feathers on his head. I call him Voldemort.

And we still have loads of toms wandering the neighborhood. These guys were in my back yard last week. There are turkey feathers all over the neighborhood as well.

365 Challenge Week 33

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Behind again! I spent my sewing time this week getting caught up on the Fig Tree Mystery Sampler. I got three blocks done, all 3".

August 16--my daughter chose fabrics

August 17--my daughter chose fabrics again

August 18--made from scraps from previous blocks!

Funny Things #30

Friday, August 19, 2016

Put this one in the weird category. I saw this at an antiques store.

SCQG Mini Swap and Finished Quilts for Pulse

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Last week my guild exchanged minis. Here's what I made for my friend Odie:

The pattern is Hope Chest Mini by a Quilting Life Designs (Sherri McConnell) and the fabric is Avalon by Fig Tree Quilts. This quilt is also pictured in my 2016 finishes tab. It's number 14 for the year (I am not counting the two Pulse quilts below that I quilted and bound).

Here's what my friend Jodie made me. She used Bonnie & Camille's Little Ruby fabrics!

Our guild made two quilts for Pulse. I volunteered to quilt and bind them. Here they are finished.

365 Challenge Week 32

Sunday, August 14, 2016

I'm so excited to share this week's progress! Not only am I caught up on the 3" blocks, I assembled the 6" blocks into the next round of the top.

Aug 5

Aug 6

Aug 7

Aug 8--poor fabric choice

Aug 9

Aug 10

Aug 11

Aug 12

Aug 13

Aug 14

Aug 15

The top is now around 66" square; it will finish at 90 x 90. The blocks that have been added were through mid-July. There's around 4.5 months left to go. The top so far is really quite heavy. It's pretty much all seams. Should be a good time when it comes to quilting!

It's the First Day of School and...

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

I ended up catching a milder version of my son's illness and spent several days in bed resting. I'm recovered now, but I'm still behind on life. I did get one of my quilt guild's Pulse quilts completely done and am hoping to finish the second one today so we can get those out in the mail. My guild meets Friday night and we are exchanging minis so I will share those next week.

I finished all of my The Aqua Umbrella QAL blocks and top. I'm trying to decide if I want to add more blocks to make it larger or just quilt it as it is. It's currently 58 x 60".

I am a week behind on the 365 blocks and I have yet to add all the 6" blocks to the top. I also need to do this month's Fig Tree blocks, make some shirts for my daughter and me, finish piecing a bunch of tops, quilt and bind a bunch of tops, make more doll clothes patterns (especially since the quilt shop I've been working in is closing and I'm out of work again), and make more Sew Powerful purses and maybe some charity quilts too. I have caught up on mending however!

I made 6 pints of freezer pickles and gave away the last few cucumbers from our plants, which have mercifully died back. We got another small harvest of green beans, enough for dinner tonight. The beans still look okay, but I am unsure as to whether they'll produce more or not.

This has been kinda an odd summer weather-wise. It seems like we go from pouring rain to hot, humid, and parched, although not as hot as some summers. The plants look really scraggly and weeds seem to be going mad. This morning I went to the bus stop with my younger child and there were mosquitos the size of sweat bees! Creepy for sure. We usually go out and walk at night and haven't had the mosquitos. We have had up to six tom turkeys wandering the neighborhood but I haven't seen any females or babies this year--also odd. The rabbits are thriving and doing some damage.