Stories from the Sewing Room

First, I want to tell you that I appreciate all the comments you leave. I'm behind on answering, but hope to catch up soon. 

It's time to once again share my PHD progress. 

Linking with Ms. P Designs' PHD program

In September I completed one project from my UFO list, the Pink Grapefruit in Blue quilt. All stats on this quilt are two posts back. 

I quilted my Forever Neverland quilt from the new starts list and completed the binding as well. This quilt measures 52.25" x 67". I quilted it with the Interstellar Lite design. 

I made a small amount of progress on the race car quilt, prepping the last half of the pieced blocks for sewing.  

I have all the little paper pieces trimmed for Nancy's quilt. Or so I thought. I realized as I was pressing them that I was four sets (eight papers) short. 🤦🏻‍♀️ This quilt requires that you make matching pairs for the paper pieced parts, so I had to sort through what I had left and try to shuffle things to make pairs. The pieces are now sewn. I have 10 blocks laid out on my design boards. Once I get those 10 sewn, I'll move on to the second group of 10. 

I am ready to custom quilt my navy and white quilt once I have some free time with my long arm. 

No further progress has been made on any of the remaining items in my UFO and 2025 starts lists, but I did accomplish a tough (for me) technology task. I am proud of myself for bumbling through and setting up external SMTP service for both my blog and my business websites this month, so hopefully all my emails will get delivered now. 

I finished making the muslin top I talked about last week. It fits, but not well. Same old fitting problems as usual--too tight on the back, something weird in the sleeves, hiking up in the back (due to my very round back), plus this one needs to have length added. Some day I'll figure this all out. Between my Cashmerette class and my Gina Renee fitting book, I think I see some things to try. But it all takes time and a lot of muslin fabric. Plus it's hard to see what is going on on your back, you know?

I caught a cold from my son, so I haven't gotten much work done. I figured people wouldn't want me spreading my germs all over their quilts. 

I finished Keetah's quilt before the cold fully hit. This one is really big (114" x 114") and took me three days to quilt Bubble Glitter on. 

Join me tomorrow for the October One Monthly Goal link up. 

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts.

Things have been pretty slow on the personal sewing front as I've been doing more work tasks. I am hopeful that I've addressed all my email issues by adding an external SMTP service to both my business and my blog accounts. I was updating a few things on my business website and got hit with a notice that they are retiring the font I use. I guess that's the next fire to put out. Ugh. It never ends. 

As far as sewing, I am making a muslin of the Itch to Stitch Clemente top. I was feeling a bit  under the weather and sewed part of it right side to wrong side and had to deconstruct it. But here it is so far. 🤪 I have purchased several of this brand of pattern, but haven't sewn one before. This one is pretty straight-forward and the instructions are clear and easy to understand. Someone with the same measurements as me shared their top in the Itch to Stitch Facebook group, so I thought I'd try it. Of course, her measurements may be the same but in a different shape than mine, so we'll see. 

Oh, in case you're wondering, I have not made any additional progress on my sloper from Cashmerette. It requires more brainpower and time than I have right now.

I've started binding my Forever Neverland quilt. 

I've marked the rest of the race car quilt pieces, but haven't sewn them yet. I am very ready to be done with this project as it doesn't bring me much joy. I am planning to donate it when it is done and maybe it will bring joy to some kid.

I have not made any further progress on either Nancy's quilt or the current Meadow Mist mystery quilt. 

I have been really productive in the work area. I've been trying to keep on top of things as we begin the typically busy season which isn't shaping up to be that busy for me so far. 

I have completed and returned Teresa's quilt. 

I quilted Jungle Party on Teah's quilt. I'm so pleased with how this one turned out. 

I quilted Identity on Pat's pizza quilt and I will bind this one. {I was so surprised when I opened the box and saw lots of pizza fabric!!} It's hard to tell in the picture, but I used a yellow thread, Glide Buttercup, to blend between the different, high-contrast colors.

I quilted Starry on Susan's quilt.

I quilted Stipple on Deb's quilt.

And Basketweave on the runner she made using the trimmings from her quilt. Her quilts are always so precise. She usually alternates between hand piecing and machine piecing and both are well-done.

I quilted Malachite on Pat's quilt and will also bind this one. This one invoked memories of my childhood. Idk. 

Next week's group of quilts require binding too, so not sure how much more of my own sewing I'll get done in the near future. I'll be back on Tuesday with my regular post and Wednesday with October's One Monthly Goal post. 

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts. 

This month has flown on by and it's now time to link up your finish. (If you're looking for my regular weekly post, I will post it tomorrow.)

This link up will remain open until September 30 at 11:55 pm EST.

   

   

Here are the stats for this quilt:

Pattern: Pink Grapefruit by Coleen Merte

Finished size: 72" x 84"

Fabrics:  Kona white, unknown green text, green polka dot from JoAnn, Architextures Blueprint text by Carolyn Friedlander, plants by Paula & Waffle for Dear Stella, Velvet Sky Netorious by Cotton + Steel, green with arrows Greatest Adventure from Riley Blake, Moda Kelly, Moda Sapphire (also used for binding), and one unknown green print. The backing is Carolyn Friedlander 108" Widescreen Crosshatch in Pacific.

Quilting design: Mandelbrot

Here is a picture of my initial fabric cuts back in 2019.

       

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. 

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

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.