Stories from the Sewing Room

I totally failed at finishing August's OMG. 😞 I had seven things set out as possibilities. I finished four and a half of the seven I proposed (64%). 64% sounds pretty lousy, but I was actually pretty busy.

I finished all the strings for Grassy Creek. I bound the unicorn quilt. I got my fabrics cut for the Macaron Mystery--next clue is released tomorrow, btw. I have a good start on my improv project, which I am totally enjoying, sort of to my surprise. I got half of Frolic bound, which was my official goal that I didn't meet. I also quilted 31 (!!??!!) quilts and bound or partially bound nine of them, I think. That sounds insane. That is insane. 

My unofficial goal last month was to be kinder to myself. I have been slowly working towards that. Part of me being kinder to myself is going to include working only five days per week instead of seven. I mentioned that last week and I did end up working only five days this past week, though part of those five included the weekend. I'm a work in progress. I do appreciate the advice that was offered to me after last week's post. I've been taking it to heart.

I'm having a ton of fun with the improv piecing, like I mentioned. My current process seems to be to pull out fabric scraps I think will work together, spread them on my ironing table and iron them, then keep making chunks, sewing parts of the chunks together, get distracted and forgetting what I was doing, sewing a different chunk together instead, making another, etc. It's kind of messy, kind of intentional, and I'm totally just going with the flow.

I've made these two pieces so far. I want to do this to all my scraps!

You're probably here to find out what my goal for this month is. It is to make and attach a hanging sleeve for my 365 Challenge quilt. The larger guild that I belong to is having a quilt show this fall. It was supposed to be last fall, but COVID canceled that. It's usually held every third year, so that is why I'm entering an older quilt finish (pieced during 2016, quilted and bound in 2019). Well, that and another guild member made a 365 too and we thought it would be fun to have them hanging together. Also, I haven't had a quilt in a show since the late 90s! 😳

Things I have going on this week include the #Trending QAL starting today, the next clue for the Macaron mystery, and playing in my scraps some more. There will also be some quilting, though not one for every day of the week!

Here are the quilts I worked on last week:

Sonja's lovely king size quilt. I admire all the curved piecing she did. This went from side to side on my machine, but I feel like the photo I took to illustrate that doesn't really show that. Quilted with Keryn's Butterfly.

A rush job for Michelle, quilted with large scale Ginger Hearts.

Robin's banner. This was really fun because 1. I got to use a pattern I had really been looking forward to trying (Kapari) and 2. I learned how to apply a clipping block to avoid excess quilting all over the batting in the shaped part while doing an edge-to-edge.

Kayle's round robin quilt. Love how colorful this one is. Quilted with Diagonal Plaid.

Another of Robin's, quilted with JK Celtic and blue thread. I felt so daring! LOL.

In the housing arena, we were thrilled to finally sell a very large, still in the box, window this past week. That cleared a lot of space. My husband finished all the wiring for the basement. The walls are all painted and he has all the trim installed. He's currently working on getting it all caulked in, filling the nail holes, and taping it all off in preparation for painting. We will have a bunch of cleaning to do before he can spray the trim. Maybe now with my lighter work schedule I can actually pull my weight and help, not that I enjoy the cleaning part.

Other than that, I'm just playing ostrich with my head in the sand, avoiding everything that has been causing me stress. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

Linking with For the Love of Geese and My Quilt Infatuation and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.