Stories from the Sewing Room

It's hard to believe it's the end of November. My PHD report looks the same now as it did at the end of October. I haven't finished anything else. 

I have made some progress on the Batesville quilt. Here it is at the beginning of the month.    

And this is how it looked last night. I thought I would have plenty of HST, but as you may be able to see, I am short four. I have enough fabric left to get those last four, but they won't be on the bias like the rest are.  I'll also need to figure out something for the corners because there won't be any of the lighter fabric left after I make those last four HST. Maybe just plain squares of one of the pinks, or maybe a pieced block. I don't know.

Once I get past this border, the remaining two are just straight fabric, so they should go a little faster. I will need to figure out a backing.  

The only other major project left to finish this year is my Bedford Tiles quilt. The blocks are hanging on my design wall, waiting for me to add the sashing and borders. This picture is from the end of October.

I'm having a tiny amount of FOMO on the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery. I'm downloading the clues, but really can't justify starting a new quilt right now, particularly when I still have two unfinished BH quilts. I decided to pull out my Unity quilt and work on that instead of the new mystery. I highly doubt I'll be able to keep up the pace, but any work towards it is still progress. Here is clue 1 of Unity. I started this way back in 2020. I made the center block and then could not decide what to use for the border. I am not sure why this was the stumbling block because it really doesn't matter. I contemplated this so many times and put it back away. It's done now!

I also finished my little Nessie cross stitch. 

I started working on the chicken one I shared last week, but there's not enough progress to justify a picture.

I've completed three quilts for others. The first one is Shirley's, quilted with Radiate.

Next is Jeri's, quilted with Toss Up. It's a bit hard to tell, but I used Glide Pale Mist (a really light mint green) thread.

I stitched Cobwebs using Glide Peacock for Jeri's Halloween quilt. 

I have one more of Jeri's to go in this batch, plus completing the binding for all three. 

If you're wondering about how the helium balloon drone competition went, it was rather anti-climactic. They spent all morning working on fixing everything. After lunch we moved buildings and watched the end of the college competition, though I'm not really sure what it is we were watching! It was very slow-motion. The college-level balloons are much larger and are able to play defensively (not something that is allowed in our regular FTC robotics events), capturing the other teams' balloons or impeding their progress. The photo below shows the remnants of the college competition. You can see the purple and green balloons. They had to capture these balloons and then fly them through a circle, square, or triangle hanging from the ceiling (over a story up from this picture) in order to score. 

By the time the high school matches were ready to start, several of the teams' drones had completely stopped working, so those teams got to use the college drones. They did much better than those of us using the high school version. I think we got 3rd place out of 6. Our kids had to knock over foam bowling pins, knock foam X shapes off the table, and pilot through a square. 

I'd also mentioned that my regular machine was in for a cleaning and I was using my backup machine, which was making loud pounding noises whenever I sewed with any speed. I got out the C + S one instead. I knew it was lighter than my regular machine, but I didn't realize how much smaller it is until I tried to put it into the hole in my sewing desk. Yeah, this isn't going to work. LOL. It's a bit hard to tell, but not only is the free arm a good bit shorter, but it is also not as tall overall, so it was about 1/4" under the plexiglass insert.

I ended up putting a piece of MDF under it, which lifted it up high enough that I could use the slide-on table to fill in the gaps enough to use it. I received notice that my regular machine was done while we were at the drone competition, so I picked it up on Saturday morning and dropped off the pounding 430 for service. I'm glad to have my beloved 440 back. The shop owner did point out that my machine is getting up there in age. Shh!

I'm hoping to get the quilts bound, a few more quilts quilted, the Batesville BOM borders, and the re-do of my Marble Mystery square-in-a-square units done over the long weekend. I also need to write my business newsletter and get that sent out. If I manage to pull off all that, then I will perhaps work on more of Unity. Realistically, it will be finishing up Jeri's quilts and bindings and maybe getting a few more quilts done for others. I believe I'm under 15 to go now. Oh, and the newsletter, because that has a firm deadline. I'll be back Sunday with the December (!) OMG goal post.

Were you successful with your goal this month? Link up and share your progress.

So I let it sit while I thought about it. I have a limited amount of fabric left to complete this quilt, which dates to 2007. I decided to mock up a version in EQ8 to see if I could make what I have work. It looks like this:

The gray border is the problem one. Since I'd already cut part of the fabric, I decided to make four-at-a-time HST instead of regular HST from that fabric. I don't really love this method due to the extreme amount of bias it generates, but it would work best in this situation; at least that was my thought. These HST should be plenty big enough to trim as needed (could go up to 3.25" cut). The original pieced border was supposed to to be 4.25" wide finished. I'm looking at 2.25" finished instead. This will make both sides .33" short with piecing, but I think I can adjust the seam allowances very slightly to make it work. The top and bottom will be right on.

At the moment, I have the first thin green border sewn on. 

Well. The title sums up my sewing progress this week. I had made the remaining 20 square-in-a-square blocks for the Marble Mystery quilt. They ended up too far off to salvage, so I ripped them all apart, printed off foundations, and will need to start over. You can download these foundations for free if you sign up for Cheryl's newsletter; they come in a bunch of sizes. 

Meanwhile, I've gotten my travel sewing machine, the Cotton + Steel 350, back from being serviced (I bought this used and found out after servicing that it has a really low stitch count 🎉) and given them my main squeeze, my 440, to clean. I'm sure I've sewn the 2,000,000 stitches it allows between services, but the service indicator hasn't come on since I last had it cleaned three years ago. 😕

I pulled out my 430 to use while I'm waiting on the 440. Guess I'll be getting the third machine in for service. It is making a loud pounding noise somewhere in the head if I sew faster than snail pace. I'm a bit concerned about this one.

I'm trying to make progress on my OMG--the Batesville quilt. It is slow going because it's just not an appealing project for me. I have to have it done for Sunday when the finish link up opens. I may be an incomplete this month. I've completed the sashing and first border. 

I really want to quilt my Melodic Mystery, but I haven't had enough open time in life or on the longarm to get it done. I pulled out my abandoned Nessie cross stitch and I've been working on that in the evenings. Monday night I accidentally stitched a bunch with the wrong color and had to remove it all. Oops. I think I'll have it completed tonight, or maybe tomorrow night. I'm planning to do the chicken cross stitch next. 

We made a quick trip through the Handmade Market over the weekend before going to pick up some robot parts (see below). There were lots of beautiful things on display. I purchased only this small rope bowl from a local couple. 

This Friday our robotics team is participating in (not sure if we'll be at the competing-in level, ha ha) a drone competition. This involves a balloon filled with helium that you attach to a very basic drone from a kit. I believe the only variations for the high school version are the programming and potentially adding things to the balloon. It should be interesting. Our event follows the college competition. Here is information about the competition if you're interested--there are some images of the college drones. It's gonna be an interesting day. 

I've been working extra to get things done. I hadn't planned on being away from the machine this week and I also had a bit of ripping to do last week that slowed things down a bit. Sometimes the machine just doesn't cooperate. Plus, the sooner I get everyone's quilts back to them, the sooner my vacation starts. Anyway, here are the quilts I've finished over the past week. 

First up we have two nearly identical quilts for Barbara quilted with Mouse Ears Bows/Flipped. She had Disney characters sign fabric squares instead of an autograph book. Isn't this a cute idea?!

Jess's Halloween quilt is quilted with Cobwebs. She sent along a row of large flying geese for me to piece into her wide back fabric. 

I mostly custom-quilted Margaret's quilt by hand. This wasn't totally my plan, but it's where it ended up.

Next I quilted Echo Blossoms on Cynthia's quilt. It's hard to see. 

Then I stitched Plus on Sara's quilt. I have actually made this quilt pattern before. It's the Gemini pattern from Villa Rosa. 

Marsali's quilt is stitched with Lei. 

Thanks for the comments on the plants last week. I ordered a package of white drip trays from Amazon only they ended up not being white. I may or may not send them back, but I will be adding holes to the bottoms of my pots and adding drip trays of some sort soon.

By now we are all aware that Google is setting everyone as a no-reply. If you would like me to directly reply to you, please leave me your email. Thanks!

Linking with Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, and Alycia Quilts.

Not gonna lie, this has been a really tough week. I have been trying to do things to boost my mood and distract myself. 

My husband picked up the pottery he won.

I watched my niece's conference swims via livestream. I discovered that swimming commentary makes me really sleepy, just like several other sports' commentaries.

My daughter came home for a visit over the weekend. We all ran errands and also tackled the lower garden. I don't know that that task brought anyone joy, but it did bring satisfaction to me at least. My husband dug out as much of the goldenrod as he could get and also many trees and shrubs that nature planted. My daughter and I worked on pulling out weeds and my son emptied the yard cart repeatedly. I was pulling out sand burrs (so pokey) and we all got covered in stick tights that no one saw. I wasted a good amount of time on Google trying to find the correct names of those plants and was unsuccessful. It feels good to have made a bit of progress on this garden. We have a long ways to go.

I took in my Cotton + Steel Bernina travel machine to be serviced. My regular Bernina needs to be serviced too, but one at a time is good. 

We had to stop at Sam's Club to drop a small fortune on glasses. I was admiring the pretty Christmas cacti, but didn't buy one because they were about $20 and I don't have the best track record at keeping them alive. 

Here are several of mine. I treat them all the same and they are mostly planted in the same type of pot. Only one is thriving. I really don't understand what I'm doing wrong. This first one is my original. 

Here are several more recent acquisitions. They just don't look as healthy. They have whole stalks that have shriveled and died and their leaves cladodes don't look as robust as the one above.

This is one that I have been growing for a year from a cutting off my mom's plant. It's doing okay so far.

My husband brought me home this one from Aldi Monday. It was less than half the cost of the one at Sam's. I hope I have more success with this one.

This is my Pothos. These are supposed to be like the easiest thing to grow and mine is looking...not great. 

Send me plant growing tips!

I've started working on this month's Meadow Mist mystery parts. This time we're making square in a square units. Not my favorite to make. I struggle a bit with accuracy on them. I cut the outside triangles in the oversized dimension that was provided. I also ironed the center squares in half both ways to aid in alignment. I've sewn and trimmed four so far and they are close, but not exact. I will need to work very carefully to preserve the points when they get sewn into blocks. I love the blue color. 

I went and got my hair cut. I don't know what it is about me that says I want ultra-short, spiky hair, but somehow I keep ending up with this with multiple hair stylists over multiple years. I guess I need to come up with a photo of what I want since I'm clearly not verbalizing it well enough. She styled it for me and it actually hurt my head! My husband laughed at me when I got home and said I looked like Sonic the Hedgehog. My son just kinda raised his eyebrows when he saw me. It took two washings to remove most of the styling products. I guess I just have to laugh and figure that it's hair; it will grow back. But it does make the ego take a beating.

I did a lot of computer work for my businesses. 

I've made more progress on working through this season's quilts. I am so thankful to have work. The first one belongs to Amber. I quilted it with Loop the Loop.

Next up is Pat's quilt. I quilted it with Melinda, a curly feather design, and light gold thread since there were lots of metallics in her fabrics.

Keetah selected Winterfest for both of her Santa quilts. 

It's been super busy around here. I think that's good because my attention was diverted away from worrying over the election (I hope you went out and exercised your right to vote!). I opted not to look at the news and poll results until after I've published this; it all makes me anxious. 

Let's move along to the fun stuff. I went to my guild retreat for one day. It was at a place called Donkeytown. The route between my house and Donkeytown is full of very narrow, winding roads. I had to stop for a fairly large flock of turkeys on my way to the retreat center. Sorry about the very grainy picture. I zoomed in quite a bit to make them more visible and that yields grainy results through the car window.

I arrived at Donkeytown. Yes, there are donkeys. Yes, they roam pretty freely. There are also goats, sheep, chickens, and maybe more. I didn't go searching. There was a herd of at least 20 donkeys that stopped by the building looking for treats. They come right up to the door. I stayed inside and looked through the window! This picture shows only one donkey and two sheep.

I had been wondering what on earth I was going to bring to work on. I need to have projects that don't require a lot of attention when I'm sewing with friends. I didn't want to add anything new to my PHD lists for this year, so that left looking in my closet to find something older to work on. I changed my mind several times and settled on my long-term retreat project (imagine that 😏). This project used the cupcake papers from Miss Rosie's Cupcake Mix Recipe 3.

I sewed through most of a charm pack until I ran out of background fabric. I then started cutting apart some of the pieces, but didn't get a chance to start sewing more blocks. I wanted to get home before it started getting dark because those roads are not fun to drive. 

The picture below shows the stack of papers I've sewn that need to be cut apart. It's close to two charm packs' worth. The lower right shows the blocks I already had complete. The blocks finish at 3", I believe. I am using various lines of American Jane fabrics.

Saturday morning we had a robotics event at IU. The boys are going to participate in a drone competition in a few weeks. Saturday they received their kit, built most of it, and some of the participants at the build day got a chance to try to drive the helium balloon drone through a target. After the event was done, we grabbed lunch and then headed over to the Eskenazi Museum of Art (always free admission!) to check out John Mellencamp's art. 

We also walked through the rest of the museum since we'd never been there before. Here is one of the pieces I really enjoyed. 

After we finished in the museum, we wandered around trying to find the new statue of John Mellencamp. After a bit of bickering and a lot of wandering, we eventually found it. 

Someone put a flower in his hand and had also left one on Hoagy Carmichael's piano a bit further down the trail.

We were pretty exhausted by this point, but we had one more stop to go. We went to the local pottery, glass, and fiber show. My husband entered drawings from each of the guilds and we found out Monday that he won a piece of pottery. Not sure what yet because he can't pick it up until at least Thursday. I bought two skeins of alpaca blend yarn. 

Sunday we all slept in and then we had robotics practice. I've gotten a bit of work done on my Batesville quilt since then. 

Of course I have been busy quilting too. Tis the season. The first group of quilts all belong to Amber. I quilted Identity on the map and loopy meander on the other two.

Next I quilted Gulf Stream on Carol's quilt. 

Finally, Melissa selected JK Celtic for her Lord of the Rings quilt.