Stories from the Sewing Room

You know that saying "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug"? It feels like that's my life lately. Anyway, I had big plans for sewing and none of them got done. Neither did anything else really, so I guess there's that. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I trimmed a few more of the pieces from Nancy's quilt. And I do mean a few--three sets, I think?

I got my Forever Neverland quilted, but haven't had time to make binding yet. I picked Interstellar Lite for the quilting.

I was pretty successful at getting a lot of beautiful quilts done, though right now I'm two behind where I hoped to be at this point in the week (though not actually really behind since I'll work extra days to get these done). On to the quilts!

First is Marsali's, quilted with Cassava. I do love blue.

Next is Teah's, quilted with Camo. This one has been pretty popular in the stories I posted on social media.

Another of Teah's, quilted with Beaded Clam. She picked the best pairing of fabric and design for this. 

One more of Teah's, quilted with Maureen's Oakleaf. The photo does not do it justice. It's so vibrant in real life. 

I moved on to Teresa's quilt. This one is interesting. When she brought it, the backing, batting, and top were all exactly the same size. This is, of course, not amenable to long arm quilting, where you really need a good amount of excess backing and a bit of excess batting. She gave me free rein on how I addressed it. The options I suggested were either trimming off a bit all the way around or removing an entire row and column. I decided to trim 1/2" off each side of the top. I felt like it was not noticeable at all.

Once the top was slightly smaller, I moved on to the backing, which is a corduroy she purchased in Australia. I added extra strips of fabric to the top and bottom so that I could load the quilt on the frame. The sides were going to be really close (like 1/2" only), but I've done it before. She provided me a second batting, so I used that rather than testing my luck at whether the first piece would be big enough, particularly since she chose a fairly dense design, which tends to make the batting shrink in. 

Then things started going sideways. I have successfully quilted corduroy as backing several times before, so I hadn't expected issues, even with the less-than-ideal high loft poly batting she provided. This corduroy gave off a lot of fibers. This is the carriage of my machine and those things that look like ants are all the little fibers.

Those little fibers started accumulating in the bobbin case and on the bobbin thread, which I have never had happen before. I changed needles again, figuring the first one had a burr or other flaw. I still couldn't make it across the 34" width without issues. 

I had to do quite a bit of ripping and repairing and in the end I had to stop halfway across each row to clean everything out. The little bits are also accumulating in the hook.

It took Monday and Tuesday to get this little baby quilt quilted. I will make and apply the binding today.

This experience was pretty heartbreaking to me because I want to do the best job I can and sometimes what I'm provided does not make that that easy. I am unsure if it was just the backing fabric or the combo of the poly batting and the fabric. I need to be better about turning down unsuitable materials instead of trying to be nice. The batting situation is difficult. Sometimes I'm provided with cheap poly stuff that works okay, but sometimes it doesn't work okay. If you really want poly batting, I highly recommend any in the Quilters Dream lineup. Those are meant for machine quilting and will turn out wonderfully.

I've completed one other quilt. This one is Cynthia's, quilted with Celebrate Petite. 

Over in the garden, I was overrun with ripe Roma tomatoes. We decided to make spaghetti sauce again, only with a different recipe. I started off with this recipe. I did make a few changes: I started with the correct amount of tomatoes by weight per the recipe, but after cleaning out the seeds/juice and chopping the tomatoes as directed, I ended up one cup short. I threw in one can of petite-diced tomatoes (sooo glad those were in my pantry). I also added one six ounce can of Italian-style tomato paste. The only other changes I made were omitting the fresh basil leaves at the end, but adding in a bit of dried basil at the end of the cooking time. Finally, we pureed it in the blender because my kids (and husband) don't like chunky pasta sauce. As long as you like the taste of Balsamic vinegar, this is a really flavorful sauce. I will definitely make it again (with my changes).

In my personal life, my son has completed both his SAT retake and the three-essay application for a chance to be chosen by the high school to apply for the college scholarship. Now he just needs to do the actual college applications. He and I are on our own this week, so he's been going on my evening walks with me and helping in the garden and with the chickens a bit. He ditched me Monday night when I went to check the hummingbird feeder. It needed to be filled, so I turned back around to go into the house to get the food and EEEEEKKKK! SNAKE! Stop reading here if you don't want to see it!

I couldn't go back down the sidewalk, so I bypassed the sawhorses blocking off the porch and climbed up into there and leaned over to the doorbell. Luckily he answered the door and fetched the container of hummingbird food I'd made. He also handed me my phone and told me to take pictures. 🤔 So I did. From a distance and zoomed in. Google tells me it's a gray rat snake. We see rat snakes fairly often around here, but they are usually black. I'm glad this one was fairly small. 

After I filled the feeder and took the pictures, I climbed up into the house from the missing porch because you know I wasn't going back by that thing. My daughter loves snakes (why???) so I sent her the pictures. After a long text discourse on types of rat and corn snakes, she ended with "I hope you didn't do anything to it." Like what the heck was I going to do with it? I'm not going near that thing! 

I have been avoiding the news other than reading headlines from the AP and avoiding social media as much as I can other than sewing-related things. I did see something online that piqued my interest: an article about when bed sizes became standardized. It's possibly AI-generated (don't get me started on AI, it's a hot-button topic in our household), but still interesting as a quick summary. I've been reading a few issues of Quiltfolk that I picked up at guild meetings. I also learned this week that many praying mantises are invasive (my son informed me of this as he learned it in AP Environmental Science). We have seen a couple this week and I don't like them! I think they are creepy, but everyone else in my house likes them. 

The only other thing of note is that I believe I've fixed my business email. That took up a lot of time with trying to figure out what to do. Oh, maybe that's why I didn't get much sewing done? I was researching the email. I think I'm going to do the same thing for my blog domain email since it's also having issues. I just need to get my work done first. 

I finally got a break from all the binding and got some of my own sewing done! 

I made the backing for Forever Neverland. I cut and applied the borders correctly for the quilt top. I got fancy and tried to match the print as best I could across the top and bottom borders.

It's ready to quilt!

I sewed more of the stitch-and-flip corners on the race car quilt blocks. 

I made good progress on Nancy's quilt, though all those foundations are going to take forever to trim. I have trimmed eight of 40 pieces so far. 

Meanwhile, I have spent a number of hours trying to figure out why I can no longer email people with Yahoo email addresses from first my blog domain and now my business domain. Ugh. No great resolution, but hopefully I can figure out something soon, especially for my business, where it's pretty critical. 

I've quilted a few things since last week. I love the variety of quilts that come through my door. 

First is Carol's, quilted with Cassava.

I quilted Radio Waves on Shelly's quilt.

Marsali picked 60s Mod Butterfly.

I had a great moment when I advanced the quilt and saw that the backing and the quilt top centers matched up perfectly. {She had requested I center the middle piece of fabric she used in her backing as closely as possible and I nailed it.}

I started quilting Diagonal Plaid Bias on Kayle's quilt. 

I quilted Paw Prints on Jae's quilt. 

Moving over to the rest of my life, the perimeter of our house has now been treated for termites. The porch is formed and ready for cement. Because the volume of cement for the porch isn't enough for a cement truck, my husband has been prepping a covered parking spot on the end of the barn as well. Hopefully those two together should be enough. 

We had a bit of a surprise when my husband fed the chickens the other day. 

Apparently none of us had checked for eggs in a week or so (or maybe four days if they both laid). 😳 I really thought I had checked, because I usually do when it's my turn to feed them, but I guess not. They haven't laid since then. LOL.

The garden is still hanging in there. I was sad to discover that all the cucumbers I harvested recently are inedible--super bitter. I think it's due to the crazy water fluctuations, but maybe the soil quality too. I have a ton of tomatoes; the picture shows only a fraction. The carrot tops were looking pretty raggedy, so I grabbed a couple and pulled out little carrots! This is the first time I've successfully grown them. I was super excited about that. 😄

We have a pumpkin that is growing up in the air. This picture isn't the greatest, but you can kind of tell. My husband put a block of fence post under it to support it. 

Here's a few other pictures I took the other day. 

Beyond that, my eye doctor and I have settled on a contact lens combo that is a good compromise to real the issues I was having. Not great, but good. I've been there three times in three and a half weeks. I still have the follow-up foot appointment next week. 

My son's developed an open bite over the last year, so it looks like we might have to do another round of orthodontic treatment. The poor kid already had braces for like seven years and his teeth are still totally straight and he wears his retainers as directed. We are switching providers since we weren't happy with the one who took over his original orthodontist's practice after he retired. I felt comfortable with the first place I called other than potential cost I was quoted was shocking. I'm debating calling a second as well. None of us is thrilled with this, but we need to fix it. 

Meanwhile, he has completed and submitted his application for next summer's internship. He's going to retake the SAT on Saturday. He's interested in a high-value scholarship where he has to apply to a selection committee at school with the hopes of being one of two who are picked to advance to the actual application at the college. He dropped the ball on that and it's due Monday, so not only does he have a lot of SAT studying to do, he also has to write three essays as part of the application. We haven't even made it to the actual college applications yet. It's going to be a busy few weeks.  

In other random news, I saw that Hulu now has Bewitched available. I thought it would be fun to watch--I used to watch it as a kid--but my son kind of pooh-poohed it. It turns out he really enjoys the show. It also turns out that the actor who played Darren lived fairly close to my aunt and my grandfather and is buried in the cemetery behind Grandpa's house. Who knew? 

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

I'm feeling a bit panicky that it's already September. Completing my PHD this year feels like a long-shot based on my progress thus far. However, sewing is supposed to be fun and the point of PHD is to move projects forward even if I don't actually complete the PHD. Here is my progress for this month.

Linking with Ms. P Designs

I started and finished a cardinal mini that I gifted at the beginning of the month (start #5). 

I started Meadow Mist Design's Magnificent Mystery (start #6). I have all of the cutting complete. This project won't finish until 2026, so I'm not concerned about it.

 

I have not made any progress on the Linda Hahn class (start #1). It feels like forever ago that I took that class, but it was only March. 

I have made progress on Forever Neverland (start #2). I mis-cut the outer border fabric and had to order more. It arrived yesterday and I'm hoping to get it cut and sewn this week.  

I quilted Pink Grapefruit in Blue (UFO #7) and am working on hand-stitching the binding. I'm hoping to finish it off this month. 

I moved the race car quilt (UFO #11) very slightly forward by sewing and cutting more strip sets and dividing all the strip sets into block units. These block units need a stitch-and-flip corner added, which I am currently working on. I have one set finished and two more sets marked and ready to sew. I feel confident that I'll be able to finish this quilt this year. 

I have not made any progress on UFO #4, 6, or 10. These all just need to be quilted and bound. I do want to custom quilt them and occasionally try to work out a quilting plan. 

Those of you who are eagle-eyed may have noticed that I switched out UFO #8. It used to be alligator quilt, but now it's Nancy's quilt. In case you missed my previous post about it, one of my fellow guild members passed in May. In August many of us brought home her projects with the intent to finish at least some of them this year. This is a full kit that she hadn't started yet, so I'm gonna try to meet the guild challenge to complete it this year in her honor. 

Moving away from PHD, I quilted a few things since last week. I finished up quilting Box Tie on Sonja's quilt. This one took me two days to quilt. 

I attached the binding to Gina's king-size quilt. 

I made and attached the binding to Leslie's quilt. 

I stitched tiny-scale Threaded on Deb's quilt. This was a multi-day project. 

I stitched Triangle Meander on Maria's quilt after adding the borders and seaming the back. I'll add the binding to the front of this one too. 

I quilted Beaded Clam on Sara's quilt. 

So, on a happier note, my son took some fun pictures of the chickens the other night. 

Agatha

Smoky

Peanut

Henry

Thanks for indulging me with these. :) Hoping for happier days ahead.

Here we are at the start of another month. It's time to pick a goal. 

New to One Monthly Goal?  Welcome!  To join, share a photo of your project plus some words about what you want to accomplish in a blog post or Instagram post and add that photo to the link up.  Return at the end of the month and share your results.  (Results link up opens for the last 7 days of the month.)

Looking at what I would most like to get done, I need to choose between making additional progress on the race car quilt or binding my Pink Grapefruit in Blue. 

I still need to make all of the outer border blocks and add one more border in between the existing top and those pieced blocks on the race car quilt.

I have most of one side stitched down on the binding on the Pink Grapefruit in Blue quilt. It's hard to find motivation to sit there and stitch in the evening after I've worked all day. My goal this month will be to finish stitching the binding. 

Now it's your turn to link up. The link up will remain open through September 7.

The One Monthly Goal accomplishment link up will be available on September 24.  Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link up from your blog--just copy and paste this link into your post:  

Stories from the Sewing Room One Monthly Goal September Link Up