Stories from the Sewing Room

I had a good showing at the county fair. I entered four pieces. The first one is the table runner that you've seen recently. I made it the weekend before the entry day and finished binding it the night before. It won Champion in the table runner entry.

The judge's comments were: 

• Love these fabric coordinates
• Piecing nicely done
• Nice quilting!
• Nice job on binding!

Next is the one I thought would do the best, the appliquéd wallhanging I finished earlier this year. It won Champion in the wallhanging class. As you may recall, this one has a double batting and came out really stiff. It was displayed in the glass case and it just sort of curved over the shelf. 😄

The judge's comments were:

• Beautiful (in the fabric mark)
• Applique is nicely done. 
• Quilting really kicks it up a bunch and gives it dimension
• Good job!!

The one that I thought best represents my style out of these entries is the Loves Me, Loves Me Not sampler (pattern by Patty Dudek). It also won a Champion ribbon in the smaller quilts (less than 60" x 60") entry. 

The judge's comments were:

• Pretty fabrics!!
• Piecing is nicely done!
• Quilting is complimentary (sic).
• Love the flange in the binding.

And finally, the Jamestown sampler, AKA the Batesville quilt. If you've been around a while, you've heard me grumbling about it at length. I entered this one because it had a lot of intricate piecing and also the judge from last year was really into more traditional fabrics. I don't mind traditional fabrics and of course I do some more traditional projects now and then, but they are not what my first pick is going to be. Anyway, this one won Grand Champion and got to be displayed on the stage with the other GCs from all the categories. While I figured this would get a champion, I was not expecting the Grand Champion, so that was fun!

I won a premium of $4 ($1/champion ribbon). It does not cost anything to submit entries to the fair. We paid $15 (3 adults) to visit the fair once I found out I'd won Grand Champion. We looked at all the open class entries, the 4-H pigeons and the chicken/turkey barn. It was super hot and humid the afternoon we went, so we opted to skip the other animals. One of the people I quilt for sent me this picture of many of the Grand Champion exhibits.

I've been busy quilting for others. (I really could use that second machine right now.) The first quilt I completed belongs to Deb and is quilted with Spring Thing.

Next I quilted Jae's quilt with Christmas Garland.

I was able to get Tamara's quilt in over the weekend for a rush job. Quilted with Cakewalk.

I quilted Sara's quilt with Neon Hearts. 

I quilted both of Susan's monster quilts with Cakewalk.

The big porch tear-off project has started. All of the columns are now removed from the porch. It looks so weird. 

I guess the deer needed to check out what was going on. 

Thankfully the white part of the columns and the stone bases came off with minimal damage.

The garden has been bare here for a week or so and is now growing lots of weeds, particularly spurge (hard to get out) and horse nettle. My husband has started to make a few cuts in the cement. I think the siding needs to come off soon. 

Local, state, and federal news are all depressing. I think it's time to take a media diet again. My son scored well enough on his AP Lang test to get college credit for the college freshman English class. Guess what he's signed up to take as his English class this fall? LOL. School starts in less than a month. The budget cuts are going to hurt. 

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

It's time to share my PHD progress for June. Spoiler...not much got done. 

Linking with Ms. P Designs

I made a small amount of progress on 2025 Start #2, the Forever Neverland quilt. I've prepped 11 blocks. After that, it's just assembling lots of different borders around the panel.

My sewing time over the past week was devoted to working on my Cashmerette Sloper. I did a 3/4" narrow shoulder adjustment and a 3/8" round back adjustment. I also had to size up the skirt. 😒 Things look a lot better now. I still need to shorten the stomach curve, move the elbow and bust darts, and add length to the adjustment line on the skirt. And something with the underarm area. I'm not sure what else I have left after that, but we are very near the end of the class. 

I also worked on my secret project for my small guild. I'm about 1/3 of the way done with that project.

I worked on two quilts for others. The first one belongs to Shirley and is quilted with Cosmos. It took me two days to complete.

This Circle City Sampler belongs to Haley. She requested Baptist Fan and a light peach thread. I used Sunkissed Peach. I do still need to make the binding and apply it to the front. Something fun about this quilt is that I have a kit to make the same one! I collected mine from a 2023 shop hop. The pattern is now available from the designer here.

I harvested a few more peas from the garden. The plants are looking pretty bad now, but the other things I've planted are finally starting to have some good growth. Oh, note about the peas: I selected the purple peas because they are easier to see for harvest. I can't really remember, but I might have also originally picked this variety because I thought my picky son would be willing to try something that looked exotic. Not every pea the plant produces is purple. The leaves look very different than that of the more standard Burpee peas I also planted this year. The purple peas (and green beans) turn green when cooked. Look at last week's post for more info.

This used to be a hosta. 🦌 Surprisingly, they left all the transplanted day lilies in the front garden alone. They did eat all the lily buds in this side garden.

Besides that, I am blessed with an abundance of work and a pile of chores and some stress over a very large, unexpected medical bill. The second longarm is put back together again and most of the intelliQuilter is installed. The cable that runs to the handles is not compatible with my machine and we've ordered what we hope is the correct thing. If not, I'm gonna be out a lot more money. Fingers crossed it works out. My husband is about ready to start tearing off the front porch. I'm a little stressed right now.