Stories from the Sewing Room

This was kind of a tough one! My September goal was to make and attach a hanging sleeve on my 365 Challenge quilt. This is a big quilt at 90" square and that is a lot of hand stitching in awkward positions.  I finished it off last night while watching reruns of The Wonder Years. I'd forgotten how there was always the sound of news in the background. I also introduced my kids to The Brady Bunch this week, mostly because there is a house being built in our neighborhood that reminded us of the house in that show. I like listening to shows where I don't have to pay close attention while I am stitching in the evening.

Anyway, after struggling and ultimately failing to take a compelling photo, here is the hanging sleeve. All this quilt needs to be ready for the show is a label. 

Edited to add: to see this quilt in progress, click on the 365 Challenge tab under the stitch category in the menu bar.

I also entered my Frolic quilt, which is not yet complete! 😬 I have the hanging sleeve made. I need to finish binding the quilt, make and attach a label, and stitch on the hanging sleeve. Thankfully it's a bit smaller than the 365.

I've been pretty busy this past week. I bound the t-shirt quilt that I quilted last week.

I spent a few days custom quilting on Odie's baby quilt. I based my block stitching on a design called Radiance by Natalia Bonner. 

You may have seen my thread post on Instagram Friday. I had ordered a whole bunch of neutral colored threads, plus some colors I need for an upcoming project and a few replacements of ones I was low on. I should be good on neutrals for a while and able to match virtually any neutral fabric! 😂 Here's the pictures in case you missed it.

Here is the quilt I was hoping to match with the threads that are possibilities.

Narrowed down. I chose the thread at the top/left, which is German Granite.

Quilting Annie's project with the Honeycomb Effect pattern. All those color strips where the needle is are about 1/4" wide! 

I quilted In the Swirls on Lyn's quilt. This design is really popular with my clients.

I quilted Two Simple on Kathy's quilt. It came out great. Can you see my first Flower Patch SAL block on the design wall in the background? The second block releases today and it's time to link up the fabric pull and first block over at For the Love of Geese.

Oh, I also did an embroidery project for my neighbor. She wanted me to monogram some pjs for her friend who was getting married. This involved removing the pocket, doing the embroidery, and reattaching the pocket. I hadn't touched my embroidery machine in probably two years. Eek. It came out pretty well though. You can find these pajamas on Amazon. The photos I took are pretty lousy, but this was a rush job and it's enough to give you an idea of how they looked.

Moving over to the yard, my husband cleaned out our tomato trees from the garden. The plants were so large that I couldn't get past them to get to our other crops. I had asked him to harvest what was left on there and pull out the plants. Here's my little window greenhouse. My kids were kinda stumped by why I put all the tomatoes on the windowsill. I guess they will learn. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

We were able to pick up apples at the orchard over the weekend--we didn't pick our own this year because it was way too crowded. I got a half bushel of Golden Delicious and two pecks of Jonagold. Yes, those are the same amounts, just packaged differently. 

So, an entire bushel of apples for me to make into applesauce. After a heck of a lot of work spread over several days, I have a total of 16 quarts and a pint. 

Plus a bowl of extra I had in my first batch. As always, I am thankful we are not reliant on food we preserve. It's so much work and I always marvel at what people in the "olden days" went through to survive.