I've only done utility sewing over the past week. I have made three Frankenbattings--one for my own project, one for a customer, and one for my small guild. I used three different types of battings for these: Quilters Dream Blend for my own (seams beautifully), QD 80/20 Natural (more challenging to seam nicely), and Hobbs 80/20 (it's stretchy). Using my walking foot, I zig-zag stitch my batting scraps after straightening the edges where I'm planning to sew.
Here's the QD Blend. If I had trimmed the batting to be even on the edges, you wouldn't even know there was a seam.
I normally try to make the seams in my pieced battings run horizontally. I'm not sure why other than that's the way my scraps usually make the most sense. Maybe because horizontal seams are better in the backing on the longarm? I ended up running the QD 80/20 seams vertically just because it's easier to have the excess batting hanging down rather than off to the sides on the longarm. And, yes, I realize I could have trimmed it, but that's more work and this was a fairly small quilt. I find that the 80/20 tends to get a bit wavy when you stitch chunks together.
The Hobbs ended up having horizontal and vertical seams. Much to my surprise, one of the remnants I was sewing already had a seam in it. Then one piece ended up too small and another was very oversized, so I cut the excess off and used it to fill in the small part. Hobbs is a pretty stretchy batting, so I figured this is okay. It's for a donation quilt, so it's not like it needs to be show-quality.
As far as the regret portion of my post title, I was slightly unhappy with my thread color choice on my Runway quilt, but I wasn't upset enough at it to spend time ripping out all the quilting. What I am regretting is that in my haste to get my project quilted, I forgot to check for seam shadowing. Of course, by the time you are part way into the quilting and notice it, it's too late (unless you want to spend hours ripping out the quilting to fix it). The seam shadowing is pretty bad in this quilt. I am so disappointed in myself. I decided this one isn't worth hand binding. I will probably donate it. Look for a finish soon.
Good from a distance, but not great up close. |
I have completed five quilts for others.
First is Marsali's Happy Stripes quilt, quilted with Whoop-de-Doo at a 50% offset.
Then I quilted Toni's quilt with Honey. I probably should have scaled up the design more, but it does look cute.
Next is Marsali's Star Pop quilt, quilted with Thread Garden. She gave me a minky/cuddle fabric for the back and the quilting looked amazing on it.
Jae's baby quilt is quilted with Mallow.
This guild donation quilt is another variation of Bedford Tiles (remember mine from last month?). One of my guild mates made the center, another added the borders, someone pieced the backing, I'm quilting it, and others will bind it. I chose to quilt it with Lovely Loops and used the Hobbs Frankenbatting. I'm pretty sure I've quilted four of these now, including my own.
If you're wondering how I'm doing personally, I'm still full of rage and despair. Federal workers are not your enemies. They are your family, friends, neighbors, and people in your community. Cutting funding and jobs doesn't just affect the federal employee or the scientist receiving research funding; it also affects the support people such as lab assistants, lab animal caregivers, admin assistants, janitors, food service, security people, contract specialists, shipping and transportation people, etc. It all ripples out.
My hair is still way too short and still sticking out everywhere. I say it represents my currently prickly personality.
I managed to catch my pinky fingernail on the long arm needle while advancing a quilt. I have no idea how this even happened. The needle broke and the lower half of it was lodged in my nail bed. It was very painful. It's been five days and I still get occasional sharp twinges of pain. I did not get blood on the quilt though!
Beaker the hen had a costly vet visit last week Wednesday. She had x-rays. Her toes are not broken, but she does have frostbite on a few and a growth ("lesion") on one. The vet wasn't sure if the lesion is a tumor and/or is cancerous. She prescribed an antiseptic foot soak, a pain medication, and an antibiotic and advised that medication requires two people to administer. The first two and a half days it was pretty easy to get all the medicine in. Saturday Beaker must have started feeling better because it is now really hard to hold her still enough and get her beak pried open to squirt the medicine in. In case you wondered, I am the medicine squirter, not the chicken holder. The growth is still pretty ugly and big, but Beaker is starting to put a little pressure on her foot now. We'll see. I'm having a sale in my Etsy fabric shop to help raise money to cover the unexpected bill. I think I've covered almost two prescriptions so far. That was the affordable part of the bill. 🫣 We're supposed to have a follow-up appointment in two weeks with more x-rays. We have her isolated in the garage now to try to help her rest and not be jostled or mounted.
Meanwhile, my son was still having range-of-motion issues after his fall. I talked to a nurse at his doctor's office and she advised me to go to the orthopedic walk-in clinic, which must be done within 14 days of injury. Otherwise you have to get a referral and wait for an appointment. We just snuck in on our last day of eligibility. More x-rays, a brace, antibiotic, and a follow-up appointment were the result. I think we've easily met his deductible for the year.
My daughter visited over the weekend while the menfolk traveled to the very northern part of the state for their next robotics tournament. I really enjoyed having girl time. We hung out, got groceries, and watched the robotics tournament live stream. I found this cute little cake to surprise her with. If you can't tell, it's a little dog. It looked better than it tasted.
Our robotics team had perhaps our best event showing ever. We were ranked third after the regular matches and selected by the number one team to be in the finals alliance. We dropped a match in the playoff, came back from the loser bracket, and won the tournament! Our team also won the INSPIRE Award, the highest award possible, for the first time ever! It was possibly the nicest day I've had in 2025.
Here are some birds that were flying above me as I walked in the sunshine Monday. My Merlin app tells me they were sandhill cranes. This is as zoomed in as my phone camera could go.
Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, Quiltery, and Alycia Quilts.