Stories from the Sewing Room

I've been busy working outdoors, so not much sewing is going on. I made the fourth block of the Free Block Friday program I've been s-l-o-w-l-y working on for a year or so. These blocks were a joint project between Marti Michel and Angie Wilson of Gnome Angel. They use Marti's templates. Here is the block all cut out--I think it takes longer to cut this way than to sew. I was able to reuse the triangles I cut out of block three. 

And here is the finished block. 

Here is my design wall with the blocks sort of in their layout. 

I took the clear foot class for my serger yesterday. The clear feet are all used with the coverstitch. The clear regular foot is extremely helpful for coverstitching as it gives better visibility for lining up your stitches. I don't think most of the additional clear feet are as useful as the additional metal ones for regular serging. 

I have plans to make a tiered skirt using Love Notions' Caprice pattern. I have the pattern cut out and I have my fabric. I was trying to decide between two sizes and also whether to line the skirt since the gingham I have is not fully opaque. I decided to wait until after the serger class so that I wasn't switching everything back and forth. I might try it today. 

I've completed three quilts for others. The first one belongs to Melissa. Can you believe this is the first Exploding Heart quilt I've quilted? I feel like that pattern has been everywhere for a while now. I love the hot pink thread (Glide Rhododendron) we decided on. I also fully bound this quilt. Oh, quilted with Freehand Hearts and Loops, perfect choice.

Next is Trish's Bear Paw quilt. She selected Malachite for the quilting and we used 60-wt thread so that it kept the focus on the fabric and piecing rather than the quilting. She did a really great job. Everything, front and back, was so square.

Finally, Shelly's first quilt. This one has a surprise--the backing is baseball team and IU fabrics! It's quilted with Boho Boxes. 

Now, on to the gardening. Here is how the new vegetable garden looked on Friday. 

We built tanks on Saturday and Sunday. These are the sky blue color from Vego Garden. We picked this color because it was the cheapest. 🙂 It's kind of a blue-ish gray. After building the four, we decided we could comfortably fit four more. Those are on order. I hope they come soon. 

It's been a challenge to buy dirt because the weather has been spotty again and they are open when it's nice out. The current plan is to build and fill with dirt the remaining four and then put the fencing around the posts. My husband's been pulling some of the rocks left over from blasting out the basement to use as a little retaining wall around the outside. I need to get the asparagus starts planted, but haven't made it there yet (due to weather and being tired after work). Plus, how am I going to protect them from the deer until we're ready for fencing installation?

As you can see, our crabapples are staring to blossom.  We have this one that is a nice shade of bright pink, a more common reddish pink one, and then one that starts with pink buds that open to white. I'll try to get a picture of that one some time. It's really unusual. 

I also dug out a bunch more of the lamb's ear, this time on the outside of the sidewalk. The kids and I weeded the side and back garden beds. I still have a lot more lamb's ear to remove. I haven't even started cleaning up the big lower garden yet. Many of our neighbors have started mowing and poisoning already. I've had to close my windows due to the strong chemical odor. 😒 I'm enjoying my poison-free meadow in the front. I love dandelions and so do our local bees. Several of my neighbors maintain hives.

I saw an orchard oriole on the bird feeder Monday. I guess that means the Baltimores aren't that far behind and I need to put out the jelly feeder. I bought a new hummingbird feeder over the weekend and need to put that one out too. I haven't seen any hummingbirds yet, but I'm expecting them any day now. 

We had my son's NHS induction last week. I was shocked that 176 kids, almost totally juniors, were admitted. That's more than my total graduating class, more than my husband's, more than my sister's. It's probably about 1/3 of his class. Afterward I was trying to take a picture of him with a few of his friends. I didn't have on my reading glasses, so I didn't really know what I had captured. He asked if I had "L" in the picture. I didn't, so I made everyone pose again and took another picture. I thought it seemed like it would look nice. I didn't look at the first one until we got home and it was truly awful! One kid was way further forward than everyone else so he was much larger, one kid was eating cake and really blurry, and my son's head was turned so that it looked like he was sniffing a flower as large as his head due to the perspective. I laughed and laughed. So glad we took the second photo. Wish I could share, but don't want to publish photos of other people's kids.

Thursday afternoon I took a break from work to go out to a celebratory lunch with my husband, who had just completed the leadership class he's been taking most of the school year. We went to DSW so I could try to find some shoes. I tried on so many, but no luck. I did find one pair of Clarks that fit, but in a color I didn't need. I came home and found those shoes online in a different color and ordered some additional Clarks too. Not always the look I want, but at least they fit. I should be set for shoes for quite some time. I wear out tennis shoes really fast, but other than that, I usually have my shoes for years on end.

We finished watching the current season of Vienna Blood. My prediction for the culprit was the correct one. I got another side of my Melodic Mystery quilt bound. One more side to go. Will I make it before the OMG link up? We have another busy week with lots of events. Stay tuned.

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts.