Stories from the Sewing Room

I'll be honest, I didn't think I was going to have anything at all to share other than work. However, I did manage to get the tiniest amount of sewing done over the past week.

First of all, I wanted to mention these giant-size binding clips. I recently received a few as a sample. At first I didn't think I'd have any use for them (though they do work really well at holding really thick hair back like a hair clip, but that's a story for another day). Then I realized they'd be great for holding together groups of fabric. I found a set in my quilt basting safety pin case too--I think I got these free in a magazine years ago. But I didn't have enough to hold all the blocks, so I ordered some on Amazon that could get here quickly and inexpensively.

I'm currently using them to clip together certain sizes of fabric or units for the Malted Mystery quilt and also keeping individual block pieces sorted for my Log Cabin Stars quilt.

Here is my minimal amount of sewing progress for the week. 

But wait, there's more! I got them all cut apart and pressed. I see lots of trimming in my future. The partially done flying geese on the left are part of this month's OMG. The link up opens on the 24th and I have 12 blocks left to sew.

I also dug through my batiks and found some fabric to bind this sweatshirt jacket. I originally made it for my mom, but adding all the pieces to the sweatshirt shrunk it quite a bit, so I never finished. It fits my petite daughter and she likes it, so I'll have to remember how to make bias binding and get this one bound, hemmed, and out of my sewing room.

I've been working a lot, still trying to get through all the pre-holiday quilts. I got six more done this week. I *think* I have 16 more to go and 11 of those are in the house currently. Four have to be fully bound and one partially.

Here are the quilts I've worked on since last week.

First is the twin to a quilt I shared last week. This belongs to Barb and it is quilted with Gulf Stream.

Next is Sally's quilt, which is completely hand-cut and hand-sewn! It also had a lot of hand-embroidered elements. She requested hand-guided loopy meander for this one. I also bound it fully.

Then I quilted Jess's quilt, again hand-guided. 

Barbara requested the Driftwood panto in a large scale for her batik quilt. 

Cynthia picked the Radiate design for her gingko quilt. The fans of the Radiate pattern mimic the gingko leaves. 

And Sue picked Spring Thing for her Bonnie Hunter Pinwheel Fancy quilt. She wanted her quilt to feel similar to a commercially made comforter she had and we decided to go with Quilters Dream Puff, which I'd never used before. Have you ever used that batting? It's making me think of the little girl with the new stuffed animal in Despicable Me: "It's so fluffy!" LOL. Anyway, it worked well. Every single variety of QD I've ever used has worked wonderfully. I need to put the binding on the front today.

In other news, the new steps and sidewalk repair my husband was helping the neighbors with is done. I think he'll switch back to working on soffit and fascia on the barn now. We're hoping the correct parts, replacement panels, and other garage door will be here soon. If he gets the soffit and fascia in and the other door gets installed, the barn will be completely sealed to outside elements and critters--we've had bats hanging around in there. Speaking of critters, we borrowed a live trap to try to catch the gopher that's been hanging around. No sign of the gopher, but we've caught and released two opossums. 😐 How do I know it's two? Because my daughter was the one who opened the trap and took close-up photos of each while they were sleeping during the day.

I've been trying to move house projects forward a bit in between the quilting. I think I'm overdoing it based on how I've been feeling, but I have stuff that needs to get done. I quit teaching 21 years ago and I still have all my stuff. We have a local organization that will take donations, so I thought I'd sort through and get rid of it. Unfortunately, they will only accept a tiny bit of what I have because it's too old. I taught math and all my math enrichment books and posters are still valid. I guess I'll try listing them for a very modest fee on Facebook and see if someone can use them. I also need to list my Leader Grips system and some Premo-Soft thread my machine doesn't like too. My Lucey only likes shiny threads. My previous machine only liked matte thread. I maintain that all longarm machines have personalities. My husband thinks I'm crazy to think that, but my longarm friends agree. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'll leave you this week with something we found amusing. My husband got a new phone case and screen protectors. Here's the packaging.