Stories from the Sewing Room

Things have been a whirlwind around here. We were in Michigan for three days and I feel like I just ran around trying to catch up all of last week. Thursday I had to take my daughter to school. Friday I basically drove back and forth to town all day and then drove 1/2 hour each way to the guild meeting in the evening. I attended the sew day with the bigger quilt guild on Saturday, thinking it would be easier to get things done with fewer distractions. And Saturday evening and Sunday were basically spent on robotics. 

I do have a small amount of progress to show you. I finished the jungle baby quilt top yesterday. The pattern I used is a free one, Easy Charm Baby Quilt by Jessica Dayon. It's now in the to-be-quilted pile. I have a plan, just need some time. 

I mentioned before that I have fabrics to make a second one of these. I went at this one willy-nilly. I will take the time to lay out everything on the design wall ahead of time next time. I will also make more of an effort to make all the sashings line up better. 

At the sew day Saturday I worked on this month's OMG--the Buttercup mini quilt by Fig Tree. This is not a quick, easy pattern. I haven't sewn any pattern by Joanna that's been quick and easy! I have one block completely finished. The other three are close, but I'm having a lot of alignment issues, not to mention all the mix ups I had with sewing the wrong pieces together. Oops. 

Here's the one finished block. I'm hoping to finish off the other three this week. The mini also has pieced sashings I'll need to work on. I will need to have this completed by the 24th, when the link up party opens. Wish me luck! This one has been a challenge. 

I completed a few quilts. The first one is Charlene's. We decided on the Sprout design by Karlee Porter. I think it looks like the elephants are spraying water. I used almost an entire mini cone of thread on this one. Boy, was I surprised by that. I can usually get two or three quilts from one. 

Next is Marilyn's baby quilt. We used Good Vibrations on this one and I picked 60wt gray thread so that it wasn't so heavy through the photos.

Something ate most of the green bean plants. It would have to be squirrels, chipmunks, or raccoons (or maybe a cat??) since deer and rabbits can't get in there. The plants look like deer chewed at them. I've never had the plants eaten before. 

Every bed is full of weeds and tree saplings. And by full, I mean like a solid layer. The only plants still alive are the tomatoes. There are tons of tomatoes, just not many edible ones. Something dug in the tiny herb boxes and destroyed the chives and one of the thyme plants. I'm ashamed we let the gardens get this bad. 

I did have a beet harvest. It was lame. The leaves of each beet were quite plentiful, but the beets themselves largely weren't.  I made beet chips for the kids. This is before and after cleaning them. The small beets were like very small fingerling potatoes.

The barn is coming along. All but one window have been installed. One of two exterior doors is installed, complete with knob and deadbolt. The garage doors are supposed to come next week. Then we'll need to get soffit and fascia on to make it weather- and pest-tight. Our neighbor asked us how much longer it would be until it's done. I said two years. My husband said that was probably right. 😐

We ordered some of the siding online. I love that UPS delivered it in an appropriate location! It was so nice to have one less thing to do! Kudos.

My closet re-do hasn't happened yet. All the parts that I spent nine months gathering are still in a pile in my bedroom. 

Linking with For the Love of Geese,  My Quilt Infatuation, Alycia Quilts, From Bolt to Beauty, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.