Stories from the Sewing Room

I've met my goal for November, which was to create all the selvedge yarn and start knitting. It took several weeks to tie all the yarn together. The knitting is going much faster. As you may recall from last week, each ball weighed two pounds, 14 ounces when I started. As of last night, each ball now weighs one pound, six ounces. I would guess I'm about half way done, and that makes sense since I've used about half of each ball by weight. It's a relief to see the math since I've been worrying that I won't have enough to finish. It's fun remembering the projects I made with each strip of fabric as I get to it, and I wonder what the people who donated selvedges to me made with their fabrics.

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal November Finish Link-Up

I've been busy with quilting too. Here's a few more previews of some of the projects I worked on last week. I'll eventually post more photos of each on my Instagram account @just_anne_marie.

First is Kayle's quilt.

Next is Denise's quilt. Both were quilted with the Frost pantograph.

I am working on a quick project. The pattern is from Sew Fresh Quilts. I sized it up to a 12" block and then added borders to aim for a decent throw pillow size. I'm contemplating quilting designs right now. Once it is quilted, I'm going to attempt making a pillow with binding.

I do not need another big project since I have plenty in progress, but I am going to sew along with Bonnie Hunter for the Grassy Creek Mystery that starts on Friday. As you can see, my colors are VERY different than hers. I hope this works out okay. 😬 The majority of the fabrics are things I already had. I had to add lots of grays since the quilt requires a good bit of yardage, and a few other pieces to get up to the total required. My fabrics are all spread out on my cream yardage that is also part of the quilt.

Other than that, it's been pretty quiet around here. I picked up a convection oven/air fryer on special. If you have a great recipe for an air fryer, I'd love if you shared it with me. I hope you have a small, safe, quiet Thanksgiving, and I'll see you next week.

Now that Odie has received her quilt, I am very excited to share it with you! The quilt pattern is Fandango by Stacey Day and Tula Pink and you can find it at FreeSpirit Fabrics. All the fabrics are Tula Pink as well. The quilting is all hand-guided custom and some ruler work. Enjoy!

Here are a few sneak peeks of some edge-to-edge quilting on Cindy's quilts. This first one is the quilt pattern Chandelier by Lella Boutique. Fabrics are all Corey Yoder. I quilted Echo Blossoms on it.

The next one is a sampler pattern by Edyta Sitar. Cindy said it was a mystery quilt. We decided to use JK Celtic for the quilting.

I've mentioned before that one of the guilds I belong to makes quilts for fundraisers for local charities. This one will raise funds for a foster care agency. I quilted it with Winterfest.

Moving on to my own projects, I was preparing binding for the Civil War quilt I shared last week. I found it really weird that this fabric has a printed selvedge on both sides. I can't remember ever having another fabric like that. It's great if you're buying a fat quarter. I always get the side with no identifying information!

Remember my selvedge yarn balls from last week? Cheree suggested that I weigh a certain yardage to estimate how much "yarn" I have. That was such a great suggestion. I made several five yard lengths and weighed them. The average weight (and also the mode for you math people out there) was .8 ounces.

When I ran out of selvedge strips, each ball was around two pounds, 14 ounces. Using a proportion with like terms (5/.8 = x/46), each yarn ball is approximately 287.5 yards!

I have started knitting and it is tough work. I used Amanda Jean Nyberg's (Crazy Mom Quilts) instructions and cast on 38 stitches. They barely fit onto my needles. I have found that I need to stop mid-row when it is quitting time, because if I finish the row, the stitches want to slide back off the needle. Also, I see why she tied on lengths as she went. It is really easy to get the strips coming from the balls twisted and tangled.

Moving along, you may recall that a while back I chopped up my brand new Kona color card. I had the bright idea to put them all in plastic page protectors. The size I bought is for coins. Well, I finally got around to sorting them and putting them in the sheets. Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea. With just the slightest movement, the chips fly right out of the protectors. Plus, I don't think these protectors were meant for taking things in and out. While they are thick, the welds are not and I already ripped a couple just putting the chips in. I'll need to come up with something different. Big old sigh.

One last thing--I may be crazy, but I decided to participate in Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt again this year. Last year's Frolic just needs to be quilted, which I am hoping to get to next week. I only made it through the 1st clue on Unity this spring. I wasn't going to finish it, but I loved the fabrics I had pulled and I loved my friend Annie's finished version. I was planning to work on it over the next few months.

But (imagine me saying that all stretched out--buuuuuutttt), I had a fabric pull that I really wanted to work with and couldn't quite make work with any of my other planned projects. It's way different than her colors, but I only needed to buy a few pieces to get up to the full yardages needed. I will probably end up with a bit of extra, but since I am fabric shopping online only these days, sometimes things that match on the screen end up being really bad together in person. Is anyone else joining in this year?

One more last, last thing. Speaking of ordering fabrics online, I ordered background fabric for my guild BOM. I received it and it is so not what I was hoping. It will work, but I don't really love it. So I ordered another piece and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. I hope this one does the trick, because that's a lot of yardage to mess up twice.

Until next week--

Linking with For the love of geese.