Stories from the Sewing Room

Nancy's quilt is completed! I'll take it to guild Friday to share. Sorry for the cruddy indoor picture. It's raining again.

This is my first completed quilt of the year. I've also finished two knitting projects.

I've also been making some progress on my Linda J. Hahn quilt from last year's IHQS class. Please tell me this is relatable:

At least I didn't trim off the foundation bit as well. I'm also glad it's just plain white fabric. Anyway, they are all trimmed and the one needs to be repaired.

I've trimmed the history center quilt so that it's one step closer to binding. 

I also have a new start. I took a class with Heather Kojan at IHQS Thursday. She is a fun, laid-back teacher, which suits my taste just fine. I don't need a high-stress, quilt police environment. I was really happy to see a few younger people (<45) in class. I heard there were quite a few young people and kids in the fabric dyeing classes. Anyway, I had enough time to sew all of the Dresden ring together and create the background piece during the three-hour class. 

I opted to sew the center at home where there is better lighting and a sewing machine that I am more familiar with.  

I added an additional layer of interfacing between the center circle and the background to help mask that script fabric behind the light center. As you can see, everything is sewn down and ready for quilting. I think I'm going to trim the background down an inch or two on each side.

I had been planning to start a knitting project, but I've been reading a Patty Lyons book, which I recommend, and now I'm thinking that I need to do the practice exercises in the book before doing something (else) "wrong". 😐

I've quilted just a few things since last week. First is Marsali's quilt, quilted with Baptist Fan.

Next is a quilt Dawn's mom made at some point that she recently found in her things. I'm pretty certain the top fabrics are all poly blends. She picked Lacey Loops for this quilting. I will bind it and she'll have a great memento. 

I've also started working on Annie's t-shirt quilt. I can't totally remember, but I think she said these are her brother-in-law's shirts. Many of them were threadbare, but she patched them up and we are going for it. Also notable on this one is the Beavis and Butthead fabric they provided for the backing (not pictured because I didn't get far enough on it for it to show yet). 🤣 Oh, I'm doing my standard Diagonal Plaid Bias quilting. 

Switching over to the garden, my first daffodils bloomed on March 7 this year. 

They really popped Monday--most of them are blooming now. When we first started the gardens, they all bloomed at different times over the course of a month or so. Over time they seem to have just all started going at once. I love daffodils so here are some more pictures. 

I also keep track of the date the first bloom happens. Here's my data:

It's time for me to share last month's progress on my PHD. February had a lot of highs and lows personally, but I had a pretty good needlework month, finishing two projects and making good progress on three more. 

Linking with Ms. P's PHD Program

I finished knitting a throw blanket, #25 on my list.

I finished knitting a selvedge rug, #2 on my list. Sorry for all the dull pictures. We've been having a lot of rain and gloom.

I made progress on the history center quilt top, #3 on my list, pressing the washed wide backing and getting it quilted. I was originally planning to create a Frankenbatting for this quilt, but while working on a client's quilt, I realized that the wadded up end of the roll of Hobbs batting had the exact amount of batting I needed. So I used the excessively wrinkled up piece in this quilt. I am planning to  donate this quilt to the guild's community quilts program, so I will machine bind it soon.

I also made a lot of progress on my late guild mate's Cupcake Crossing quilt, AKA Nancy's Bonnie and Camille quilt, #8 on my list. I finished piecing the quilt top during February, made a Frankenbatting, pieced the backing, and got it quilted. I am currently hand-stitching the binding and I expect to have it finished tonight, or maybe tomorrow. March is shaping up to have lots of finishes.

I have also made some progress on my Linda J. Hahn class quilt from last March, #23 on the list. I have started piecing the units for the four star blocks. Those are the blue and white bits near the pattern. 

I have not worked on anything else on my list.

Maybe most notable is that I haven't started anything new yet. That's about to change since I'm taking some classes at IHQS this week. Also, once I finish binding Nancy's quilt, I will start a small knitting project. I'm finding knitting to be fairly relaxing for me of late. I'm still pretty much a beginner. The last time I knitted anything with any shaping was about 15 or 16 years ago when my sister's kids (and mine) were little. I made a ton of hats, a few blankets, and a few shaped toys. I just remembered that I also knitted some Ugg-style booties for my niece. Those were funny. I wonder if my sister ever put them on her?

I'm still working my way through my quilting queue, though at a slower clip than usual. Here's one from Shirley, quilted with Honeybee.

I bound this one. 

I quilted Driftwood on Valynda's quilt.

And Jeri's quilts are all bound now. That took me forever. 

In other news, we lost Agatha the hen last Wednesday. I went out to feed them and only three chickens came running. Then I saw her body. 😭😭😭 

That leaves us with the unfortunate situation of having two roosters and only one hen. I think our plan is to get several Orpingtons from my husband's co-worker. She will hatch them for us and if we end up with roosters or something doesn't work out, she will take them back. She said they are pretty docile and usually at the bottom of the pecking order, so hopefully they will integrate well with the existing flock. They will for sure be bigger than them.

Meanwhile, we attended a live "taping" of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last week. It was really fun. I hadn't smiled and laughed that much in at least a year. I may never view hummus the same ever again. 😳😂 I'm pretty sure that bit probably didn't make it into the final recording. The three of us also enjoyed walking across campus from the parking deck to the auditorium and back. It's such a gorgeous campus.

My husband celebrated his birthday over the weekend and we went and had lunch with our daughter.

We had a guild meeting last night with Heather Kojan as the speaker. I'll be taking classes with her and Sue Cortese this week at IHQS. In addition to the quilt show events (my son is volunteering as well), and getting the Prius back together so we can pass it to its new owner, we will also attend an art show where my son has a photo on display. He got his Invisalign this week too. It's been so busy lately. Probably distractions are good for me. 

Oh, we've still been hearing lots of woodcock calls and my husband said he startled a whole bunch of them in our yard when he left for work yesterday. 

And my back is feeling better (at least for today).

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, Quiltery, and Alycia Quilts.