Stories from the Sewing Room

Happy New Year!

I have a few projects to show that I finished before Christmas. First up is this Easy Charm Baby Quilt. I used fabrics from Stacy Iest Hsu's Jungle Paradise line and a free pattern from Jessica Dayon. I quilted it using the Jungle Party design and lime green thread. 

Next is a panel project, Ponderosa, also from Stacy Iest Hsu. It makes a barn, stuffed horses, and stuffed hay bales. I made it for my niece's child. It was kind of difficult, especially when it was left until the last moment.

Sooo hard to turn right side out!

Overall, I think it turned out cute. I hope she likes it; I haven't heard anything at all from them.

I think I have the final layout for my Log Cabin Stars quilt.

I'm a bit behind on my Malted Mystery quilt. I have to make a ton of pinwheel blocks for December. I have them laid out, ready to sew. The next clue comes out tomorrow! Like I always say though, it's so easy to catch back up on Cheryl's quilts if you get behind. I am confident I'll be back on track with both clues done by the end of January.

I'm ready to start sewing the Grassy Creek borders too. Just need a minute. Once everyone is back and work and/or school it should get easier.

Sadly, I still haven't had a chance to work on my dress form. I really thought I'd be able to knock it out over the past week, but no. 

Which leads me to the biggest thing--after waiting for 18 months (nine months to gather all the parts, then nine months of waiting on my husband to be willing to work on it), my master closet redo is in progress!!!!!!

We emptied everything out and hauled most of it downstairs last week. No before picture because it was embarrassing. Our closet was kind of a catch-all. I really need to reduce the number of quilts in my home. And old pillows? Where can you go with those besides the landfill? 🤔 After the closet was emptied, my husband removed the wire shelving and the base trim. We debated cutting back the carpet and building frames for under the cabinets, but decided to just build right on the carpet. I painted the walls--I guess we only put on primer before moving in. At this point we were two days in. I was only supposed to paint partway down on two of the walls since they're behind the cabinets, but I ended up painting all the walls during the second coat.

Suddenly the chickens were crowing and carrying on. Why? Oh. There's a squirrel sitting on the sawhorse taunting them by waving his tail around. 

Back to the cabinets. The leveling feet weren't quite long enough, so someone made extender feet for them. 

We made a trip into town to buy lumber to make trim. My son and I sat in the car waiting because we really wanted to see who this car belongs to. Sadly, it will remain a mystery. (Guess what we've been watching on PBS? Endeavour!)

We are now six days into the project. All the cabinets are in place. We have put in most of the drawers; one had some issues, but it's been so long that we cannot return it. We still need to put in the shelves and rods. My husband has built filler pieces for the sides, custom base and crown, and some new base trim. He's in the process of priming and painting it. We were in need of a specific paint and had to wait two days for the store to reopen. Once all the trim is on, we can finish installing everything and move our clothing back in. I ordered a bunch of hole filler pieces from IKEA to plug all the extra holes. I even counted wrong and ordered like 300 extra! 🤪 😳 They didn't include anything to cover the large metal cabinet cam locks, and they don't sell anything either. I found some on Amazon. All the covers should arrive tomorrow if all goes well. 

I made a new soup recipe the other night that I thought was really good. It's called Bavarian Lentil Soup. The only change I made is adding about 1.5 cups of water during cooking since the broth was absorbed really quickly and the lentils weren't done cooking.

I saw this at the grocery store and thought it was funny.

I haven't quilted anything in about two weeks. I'll be back at it starting today. Oh, if you're interested, I quilted 205 pieces for other people last year and completed 22 of my own quilted projects. My most quilted pattern for the second year in a row was Stipple. 😄 Diagonal Plaid came in second for the second year in a row. If you need something quilted, my wait time is really short right now.