Stories from the Sewing Room

I can't believe it, but I actually finished sewing some of the blocks for the dreaded race car quilt. 

They are supposed to be 8.5". Mine are all over the place. I think they are the least square blocks I've ever made. 

I think the error might have started with sewing the strip sets. I never have super-great accuracy with that method though it is certainly much faster than cutting individual blocks. The next error came with the stitch-and-flip corners. Maybe it's even before that and my cutting was off? At any rate, these are some very wonky blocks that will be challenging to fit into the final quilt.

Besides that, I've been busy working on my secret project.

I've been knitting in the evenings and have added another pattern repeat to the baby blanket. Four more repeats to go. Side note: I thought I had one more repeat done than I did. I was sad about that.

I haven't made any further progress on the Magnificent Mystery. I still have to finish the month three hourglass blocks. Clue five came out last week and darn it, it's more hourglass blocks. I bought this to help mark more accurately. I had a similar marking tool years ago and I think I donated it since I can't find it. We'll see if that helps with my accuracy. 

I've completed a bunch more quilts. I quilted Day Tripper on Jeri's quilt. I will fully bind this one along with the two I quilted for her last week.

I bound Hannah's quilt and shipped it and the two from last week back to her.

I quilted Sugar and Spice on Twilla's quilt. This is her first quilt and she did a great job! I'm a bit bummed out because while looking for this photo, I realized that the pictures I took of her finished quilt and one other did not record in my phone. I've already returned this one, so no more pictures. 😞 I still have the other one, so I can retake those.

I quilted Graceful Vine on Kim's quilt. This one took a couple days to quilt.

I quilted Jeri's Snowflake quilt with Sea of Snowflakes. I will bind this one too.

I quilted Keetah's quilt with Spiral Feather. This also took two days to quilt. She used a lightweight canvas fabric along with the broadcloth.

I quilted Gulf Stream on Pat's quilt. More binding. 

And I started quilting Fly Fishing on another of Pat's quilts. I'll finish this one today. And do some more binding. 

Meanwhile, we've had all sorts of weather. The end of last week was quite pleasant. Saturday was in the 60s, but we were forecasted to have cold and snow starting on Sunday, so I harvested the peas. 

The plants are still covered in blossoms and bees were feeding on the them while I was harvesting. We covered them up Sunday until Tuesday. Hopefully they can survive a little longer. It's supposed to be back in the 70s this coming weekend. 

Here is the deck on Monday morning. 

The lighting was kind of cool while it was snowing and I got this picture of a blue jay.

Switching gears, over the weekend we went to the History Center garage sale/fundraiser. I found two intriguing books. 

This note was inside the brown book.

It's not super-clear in the photos, but it is labeled "Dicken's Child's History of England". According to Wikipedia, this is indeed written by Charles Dickens. Not sure why the spine has his name wrong. 

I saw, but did not purchase, this lovely....

They had an extensive selection of dolls and I saw the creepiest doll I've ever seen. No picture. No need to induce nightmares. 

I also found a little quilt kit that I couldn't pass up. I'm looking forward to having some time to sew this up. It finishes at 10.5" square.

I lost my mind for a second and almost bought a baggie of corner trimmings, but put them back. I have enough of my own triangle cutoffs to deal with. My son bought another camera and some speakers. There's now a steady thumping bass coming from his room most afternoons. On the topic of the used cameras, he's bought several that still have photos on the memory cards. 

I'll leave you with some cool sunset photos taken a few minutes apart.

Until next week, happy sewing.