Stories from the Sewing Room

Another week has slipped past and it seems like I haven't been very productive. Though I actually have, just not on my own projects.

My sole accomplishment for the week outside of working on others' quilts is creating a table runner for one of the guilds I belong to. I wanted to serge the edges and I haven't touched my sergers in ages. I had to clean a pretty thick layer of dust off the dust cover. Then I ran out of thread and had to think about how to properly rethread the machine. You do have to use the proper threading order if you want it to actually form stitches. Why? Who knows? But I reminded myself of why when it didn't work when I did it out of order. 

I used a big chunk of what I think is muslin from my stash. I couldn't get the wrinkles out with my regular iron. We used the Cricut Easy Press since my husband had cut vinyl letters for me. The Easy Press has a pretty short cord, so I had it plugged into my extension cord. It kept way overheating--like 150+ degrees too hot--and shutting off. I'm wondering if the cord had anything to do with it. It is a normal extension cord, not a lightweight household one. Anyway, the super hot temperature worked wonders with the intensely wrinkled fabric. This picture is prior to ironing.

The big sale is this weekend. I'm hosting a pre-sale booth trial set up party this afternoon and then I'm on official set up duty Friday morning and working my shift Friday late afternoon. I hope people aren't scared off by the pricing on the quilts. People who don't quilt are pretty clueless about the amount of time, effort, and money that go into it. $50 is not going to cut it. You want a $50 bedspread, go to a big box or Amazon. You want art, you pay for art.

Meanwhile, I have still been hard at work getting everyone's quilts done. I had a big chunk that needed to be bound in addition, so that's what I've been doing. Speaking of binding, I lost the needle I'd been using to hand bind one of my own quilts. Oops! Magnets were not successful in locating it. It will turn up eventually. 

Back to the quilts. I finished up the binding on Pat's two quilts from last week.

Then I quilted Sandy's checked baby quilt with Ginger Heart. I bound this one as well.

Next up is Linda's half-square triangle quilt, quilted with Stipple.

Then Elizabeth's quilt, made for her by Kayle, quilted with Rumble. Binding is in process.

A memory quilt made by Annie, quilted with Tamarack Wood Grain. Still need to finish the binding on this one, to be completed by Friday.

Another of Linda's quilts, quilted with Starlets.

Then one for Sonja, quilted with Christmas. 

I think I have 10 more to go. These things seem to be a bit fluid. 😄

We got our first snowfall of the season Friday night. They estimated a dusting up to one inch, but it ended up being more like three or four inches. It was pretty and oddly raised my spirits. I don't really care for snow, but the white is better than all the dead grass. The chickens were not amused by the snow! It melted really quickly even though we haven't gotten much above 35 degrees. I'm thankful for the moisture.