Stories from the Sewing Room

I'm happy to report that things have calmed down in our lives. I finally did some personal sewing! I think it's been close to a month since I last sewed something other than binding for clients. My skills have grown rusty in that time. I cut out all the pieces to the Free Block Friday block 5. These blocks were a joint venture between Angie Wilson of Gnome Angel and Marti Michell in 2022 and use Marti's templates.  

I struggled to get anything to line up properly in this block. I'm not sure if my cutting was off, my seam allowance was off, or some combo of the two. I took apart and re-sewed many parts of this and it just didn't get any better, so I am leaving it. 

The rest of the week I will be completing my Cashmerette Sloper School assignment, which is to cut out and totally assemble the sloper from the pattern I assembled last week. My pattern grading was very simple compared to several of the participants' posts that I perused. I only had to grade the skirt in two sizes; no changes were required to the bodice or sleeves. I used to be fairly rectangular, but now I guess I'm an inverted triangle or a circle with legs. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Middle age hasn't been kind to my waistline. Depending how brave I'm feeling and how it fits, I may or may not share it next week. In the remaining eight weeks of class we will work our way down the sloper, making adjustments to one body area at a time, with the final week spent learning how to use the sloper to fit other patterns.

Zero progress has been made thus far on my May OMG. 

*free* I have two gallon bags full of selvedges up for grabs for anyone who can use them. I'll send them to you for free if you're in the US. If you're elsewhere, you'll have to pay the shipping. Leave a comment below or message me if you want them. 

I've completed quite a few quilts for others. This first one belongs to Mary Ann. She requested Interlocked Orange Peel for the quilting. I've stitched this pattern many times with no issues, but I think my machine had gremlins the day I quilted this. I think the overall effect is good; just use the galloping horse theory.

Next I quilted three quilts made by three sisters. It's fun to see how different the same pattern looks in different fabrics. Brenda left hers up to me and I picked Toss Up and lavender thread.

Jan also had me pick. I used Seagrass Pearls for hers. 

Jo Ellen requested Cakewalk for her quilting. It was a great choice. I love that these sisters all sew together. 

I moved on to Teah's group of quilts next. She wanted Cone Flower on her Groovy quilt. She repurposed an unused sheet for the backing and it coordinated so well. I have two more to go.

If you're wondering about how everything from last week turned out, I think my daughter's rent situation is under control with a fair compromise. No progress has been made on the front porch. One garden retaining wall is complete. One barn retaining wall still needs to be created. We'll need to get mulch and more stone to finish the retaining wall projects. 

Despite my neglect of the lower garden, one of my favorite Crater Lake Blue irises has started blooming.

As have the Caesar's Brother Siberian iris. The white Immortality iris always do well. They are re-bloomers.

I can't wait to see what this peony looks like. I think it's only ever had one bloom, and I think that was two years ago. I think the buds got eaten last year? Can't remember, but I know for sure it's never had this many buds.

Back indoors, I moved around many things in the basement in order to make room to set up the second long arm. We've set up the frame and are letting it settle into place in the carpet so we can level it prior to adding the machine & carriage. Its new home, in the former exercise alcove, is going to be a tight fit. It's on the opposite side of the basement from my sewing room--maybe I'll get lots more steps in moving between the two machines. We moved the treadmill into the guest bedroom (Yay! I can look out the window now!) and moved the ping pong table into the main living room where we used to host robotics. I've been waiting years to play ping pong! We'll need to deal with all the robotics parts after we finish our last tournament in June. 

There are many things in the basement that I need to find new homes for. We've done most of the donating, but have things we'd like to sell that I need to deal with, like collectible toys and some smaller furnishings--ooh, and my little fabric venture. Wouldn't you like to buy some fabric from me? I need to free up some space! Link is at the bottom of the page. 😉  

The main event from last week, the alleged attempted break-ins on another street in my subdivision, has had an interesting twist. We were originally told that three masked teenagers were attempting to break into two homes and that shots were fired nearby. The police were driving through the neighborhood, shining lights into people's yards. We personally heard the shots and saw the police. That was Saturday night. No one has responded to my query of who fired the shots and whether it was related. 

Wednesday our young neighbor friends texted about the flyer they received. WE didn't receive a flyer, but most of our surrounding neighbors did. The flyer, loaded with misspellings, had a security photo taken of two of the "hooligan" teens, one of whom was wearing a luchador mask. It said that teens were "vigorously pounding on the doors" and waiting in the shadows to see who answered the door. Okay, since when do robbers knock at the door and then wait for an answer? The flyer boldly asserted that the teens were "not adolescences performing childish pranks." Most of the neighbors we talked to felt that it was a case of ding dong ditch, but that wearing the masks was risky, particularly with shots fired. 

My husband texted another person in the neighborhood whose son is the same age as ours to see if they had received the flyer. They hadn't, but felt the need to inform us that these teens would receive an unwelcome surprise on their street since all the (two) houses in their cul-de-sac are armed. !!!!! So...you're going to fire your guns at kids?? Yikes. 

Anyway, we and our young neighbors are fairly certain we know who the (yes, neighborhood, "hooligan") kids are, but since we haven't been included and I think it was just a prank, and I don't want to falsely accuse, I'm keeping their names to myself. There are only a few other residents in the neighborhood that have been here longer than we have and I know most people at least by sight in our half of the neighborhood, but many of these people don't ever interact with their neighbors. I think it causes issues.

Sometimes I wonder what the police think when people call for things that aren't really things, like when another neighbor called the police because their elderly neighbor mowed a bit onto their lawn, or when same people called police because teens were being loud on a golf cart. 🙄 

I just realized that my son has just over a week of school to go this year. It sure has flown by, yet when I look back through my pictures from this year, it's also felt really long. He's opted not to attend the prom this weekend because he's unwilling to wear nice clothing. 🫤 And with that, I leave you until next week.

Take care, friends.

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

Friends, it's been a crazy ride around here. I've been feeling like I can't catch up or keep on top of anything in my life. I was toying with the idea of adding another machine to try to keep up with the workload better. I don't have space or really enough money, but I found a used Lucey on Facebook that had the specs I wanted (minus an IntelliQuilter). My husband negotiated the price, we loaned my business a bit of money to cover what I was short, and we drove to South Carolina over the weekend to pick it up. It's two years older than my current machine, but in really good shape. Unfortunately, I don't have the funds to add a computer right now, so it hasn't truly solved anything. I'm planning to quilt my own tops with it for now. This was a giant leap of faith. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Pray for me. 

My husband built a big, fancy box to transport the table in. I laughed when I saw it because it looked like a giant coffin. We wrapped the box in a new tarp. We had rain part of the trip down and most of the trip back. The machine stayed dry. We transported the table ends and the machine head in the car. 

He made special channels for the bars. Then there was a platform that the rest of the table laid on before closing up the box. We used plumbing insulation to protect the bliss rails on the table. It worked great. 

We got home quite late Saturday night, maybe 11 or so. We were working to unload everything, wanting to make sure nothing had gotten wet. I was in the house, went out to check what he was doing, and he told me he was pretty sure he heard small-caliber shots. 😦 He also saw a police car driving around, shining a light into everyone's yards. I also saw the police and lights. It freaked me out. We made sure the kids were safe in their beds, locked up, and went to bed. 

In the morning, there was a post on our neighborhood Facebook page that teenagers were trying to get into people's houses on one street, shots were fired reportedly at the other end of that street, police were called, and someone's Ring footage was turned in to the police as evidence. What no one is answering is whether the teens were from our neighborhood, who fired the shots, and were the teens really trying to break in or just goofing around knocking on doors (brave if they were, given people's propensity for firing shots). So now our feeling of security--we've been here 13 years with only minor incidents--has been shaken. Do I need to worry about random teens or worry about being shot? I have very little of material value (can they steal a heavy longarm?), but I have people that are irreplaceable. 

We also discovered in the morning that somewhere on the trip back home we lost one of the trailer tail lights. Like it fell completely out. Oops. 

Oh, we stopped at Buc-ees on our way down. It was the first time we'd been there. Please, someone explain why it has a cult following. 

Last week we discovered that we need to replace the front porch sooner than later. We've known since construction that issues were likely. We unfortunately hired an inept concrete person. He neglected to add in the rebar we'd left for him and the porch has been slowly sinking ever since (around 13  years). We did a temporary fix in the before-times where they drilled holes through the top and added some special cement to raise it up some. Anyway, I had noticed there was a spot on the trim in the corner near the door that looked dirty and I couldn't dust it off. My husband looked at it and said that it was drywall mud and the corner was damp. We've been having so much rain this spring, and though we are constantly sweeping the puddles away from the house, the water is still pooling a bit and starting to get in. So we have to figure out how to remove the columns, support the roof, tear off the siding, bust up the existing porch, and then redo everything. The hope was to put it off until next summer, but the time is now. 😫 This picture is the most recent I could find that shows parts of the porch--didn't wanna run outside in my pajamas to grab a new picture this morning. It's from 2020, back when my yard and garden were mostly under control and looking nice. There's one more column to the right. The porch runs along the entire front part. 

Meanwhile, my daughter's lease is up in a few months and her landlord sent her the new terms and that's been a source of anxiety for her. There was a rate increase and the loss of garage parking privileges. We're trying to work through that with her. Right now we're back to the original rent but with no garage. She likes living there, so we will deal. I guess.

I was really hoping to have some sewing to share. I've barely touched my own sewing in probably a month. I have most of the pieces cut for block five of the Free Block Friday sampler I've been slowly making progress on. 

I'm keeping up with the Cashmerette sloper class so far. Last week we had to submit our measurements and what sizes we thought we were for review. 

This week's assignment is to print out and assemble our pattern pieces. We have to submit photos of the pieces to make sure we've done them correctly. I have to grade in from my waist to hips on my pieces. I have about an hour of videos to watch before I do that. I'll be doing lots of cutting and taping. 

I had my large quilt guild meeting last night, have my small guild meeting Friday, and large guild sew day on Saturday. I'm hoping to attend the sew day, but I am so far behind with yard work, I don't know. I really miss sewing though. 

I'm doing okay at keeping up with my quilting work. I completed four quilts. The first one belongs to Linda. Most of the pictures came out with odd coloring, so here's the whole thing, quilted with Ground Cover. 

The picture of Deb's quilt on the frame is missing, so again, full shot. She selected Cassava for her quilting. 

Barb decided on In the Swirls for her quilt.

And Charlene picked Julie's Chicken Wire for her chicken quilt!

Out in the vegetable garden, we now have a gate. It's pictured here in progress. I hope he's made it tight enough to keep rabbits out. Squirrels can get in regardless. 

The peas are doing really well, we have asparagus coming up, and some of the carrots, beets, and kale have germinated. I'm not seeing any signs of lettuce. That is worrisome. I love fresh lettuce.

I'm growing Guelph Millennium asparagus. The stalks are about 1/8" across. It's amazing how quickly they came up and went to fern stage, maybe a matter of a week and a half?

My husband has placed rocks on the slopes on two sides of the garden. These are all rocks that came out of our basement during construction or out of the trench from putting in the barn electric line last year. We're going to plant pumpkins in the front along that bank and I want to try sunflowers on the side (pictured here). 

Lots of things are blooming in my yard right now. The weeds are also rampant! We've had so much rain everything is shaggy. Anyway, the Immortality irises are blooming, as is this mystery variety in the side yard.

A couple of the clematis are blooming. Sorry, I don't remember the names of these.

This clem is covered in buds. 

Once I get a minute this week, I need to transplant my tomatoes out to the garden and sow the warm weather seeds. Only half of my bell peppers germinated, so I replanted a few more Sunday. You might be able to tell one only grew lots of mold. Yuck.

I hope you find lots of time to take care of yourself and do something you love. 

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts.