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.

It's time to officially report in on my October progress for this year's PHD program. 

Linking with Ms. P Designs' PHD program.

Unfortunately, not much has changed since last month. I have not made any additional progress on items 4, 6, 8, or 10 on my UFO list. I was sick for the first half of October and stayed out of the sewing room for a week as a result.

I have made a very small amount of progress on #11, the race car quilt. I have laid out the remaining blocks and started piecing them. It doesn't show well in my picture, but the blocks in the top set are joined into rows.

You'll notice that I added one more UFO to my list, #14, the knitted baby blanket. I've been working on this in the evenings since I haven't gotten any quilting done recently. I knew this project was old, but I wasn't sure how old. I looked back through my past finishes to see when I finished the baby quilt that I ended up making instead and found that it's from 2017! High time to get it done! I'm part way through the eighth repeat. I think there are 13 total repeats to knit, so I'm a little past half way. I only have one more skein left, so I'm wondering how that's going to work out. 

I am the world's slowest knitter, so it's probably not likely I'll get this done this year, but a girl can dream.

Meanwhile, I have added another project to the 2025 Starts column (though I added it November 1). I need to get this project completely done this month. I have everything cut. 

I have made a small amount of progress on #6 on the starts, the Magnificent Mystery. This one doesn't even count for PHD because the clues don't finish until 2026, but I am trying to keep it from becoming yet another long-term UFO. I have completed 1.5 of the sewing steps so far: the Irish Chain units are done and I have made all the half-square triangles required for the hourglass blocks. The next clue releases tomorrow.

I'm feeling bad that I probably won't earn the PHD this year. At least I have completed eight things that weren't done before. 

Meanwhile, I'm keeping plenty busy working. 

I stitched Champagne bubbles on Hannah's quilt.

I also bound her quilt.

   

I stitched Ring Toss on this quilt of Hannah's.

And bound it. I have one more of her quilts from last week to bind.

    

I stitched Jungle Party with Flowers on Jeri's quilt. I will bind this one.

I stitched Doing Doughnuts on Jeri's next quilt and will bind this one too.

I stitched a very tiny scale Van Gogh on Cynthia's Starry Night quilt using 60 wt thread.

I have lots more quilts and bindings to go, plus I need to pattern match the seams in a backing. 😬 I do not think I can charge enough money for that.

Out in the garden, we harvested our pumpkins on Halloween. We gave one to one of the kids in our neighborhood and had these three to set on our porch. 

We had maybe 30 kids come to our door for Halloween. Many more went by, but did not walk up our driveway to our house.

The remaining pumpkin had some bugs, so the chickens got it for a treat.

We also picked all the peas and the two remaining tomatoes that didn't have bugs. This harvest of peas was significantly more than we got from our spring crop.

Other than that, things are much quieter this week than they were last week (so far). Mom's back home, no one has stayed home sick, and my husband has avoided furlough for another week or two. I'm a little frustrated that my steamer (which I use on all the quilt backings) isn't working. I cut my inner wrist when things fell out of the cabinet I was digging in while trying to find the steamer brochure. It looks great. 🙄 I also managed to cut my thumb with a fork while reaching into the dishwasher. It required bandaging. My husband enjoyed making jokes about being "forked". My skin is definitely paying the price for all the stress I've been under lately. 

I asked my husband to fill the bird feeders (haven't done that since last winter, I think?). I hadn't seen a lot of birds around lately, but there's lots now that there's food. Nothing too exotic, however, there have been quite a few goldfinches. That was nice. They've been rather scarce in the past few years. I'm not sure whether that's due to habitat loss or issues during migration. I should also note that the juncos have been back for several weeks and they are typically only in my yard in the winter even though their range shows they should be here all year. 

So that's my week. From here on out I'll be quilting, sewing, and going to tons of appointments.