Stories from the Sewing Room

My Board and Batten quilt is complete! 

Here's a closer view of the quilting. The quilting design is called Scratch Modern. I used Riley Blake Blossom in Peacock for the backing and binding. The front fabrics were all from my stash, except the white background, which is the Thatched line from Moda. 

I did a bunch of mending last week. First was a pair of jeans that got ripped the very first time they were worn. I put a little piece of cotton fabric behind the hole for stabilization without using a fusible. I used the darning program on my sewing machine, but I'm not sure I used it correctly. I felt like I was just stitching back and forth like regular. I don't know.

Next was a pair of undies whose seam fell out the first time they were worn. I used a stretch stitch on the sewing machine for this one.

I'm thinking about the best way to finish this sweatshirt-into-quilted-jacket project. I originally made it years ago for my mom, but after sewing the fabric to the sweatshirt, it was too small. It fits my daughter quite well, other than the sleeve length. I think I want to use binding if I have enough matching fabric. But I might have to make bias binding to go around the neckline. Thoughts?

I've been slowly working to assemble my Melodic Mystery quilt (this month's OMG). The OMG April finish link up will open up on Monday. Hopefully I'll finish in time. 😬

Saturday I got together with friends. They were working on a group project. I made my blocks ahead so that I could just sit and do selfish sewing for the first time in I don't know how long.

I got this piece made. I am going to use the Itty Bitty Twister ruler on it, but it recommends a 28 mm rotary cutter, which I don't have and which is out of stock locally. Since I have other, more pressing things to complete, this one will just hang out in my closet for a while.

Of course I have more quilting to show as well. 

I did two large baby quilts for Barbara. The first one is quilted with Loop the Loop.

The second one is quilted with Stardust.

I finished the binding on Carolyn's two t-shirt quilts from last week.

Next, I spent two days quilting Sonja's quilt with Interlocked Orange Peel. I've talked about this design recently since it's been selected much more than usual lately. It looks cool, but it's such a pain to stitch out. It is not a beginner, or even an intermediate, design most of the time. The bigger the quilt, the more difficult it gets.  Anyway, here it is on her king-sized quilt. 

Sometimes I think about removing all the really difficult to stitch/align patterns from my offerings. I enjoy a challenge though. Hmm. 

We're right on the edge of being able to plant our spring crops (lettuce, peas). Saturday the weather was gorgeous and I left the sewing day a bit early with the intention of cleaning out the veggie garden. My family had taken care of it by the time I got home. Sunday and Monday the weather was not ideal and I see that the night temperatures over the next week will be a bit chilly. So I'm not sure what to do. It won't hurt to wait a week, I suppose.

I also need to clean out the flower beds, but that's a way bigger job than the veggie garden and I have no time this week. The high winds blew the blossoms off one of the crabapple trees, but this one is holding on and looks awesome this year.

And...I even had a few tulips survive the animal attack. 🙂

If you are wondering about the "appropriate attire" saga from last week, my son agreed to a collared, button-up shirt. The last time I remember him having a shirt with a collar, he was four. So it's been a while. I bought myself a new dress and then the weather was so cool and windy Monday that I worried I wouldn't be able to wear it. I couldn't fit in my dress pants 😔, so I did end up wearing the dress and sandals, along with a light winter jacket. Looking around at the other people in the audience, I could have worn jeans. Some of the kids wore suits/pantsuits. Some looked like they'd just rolled out of bed in wrinkly t-shirts and sweats. Clothing varied widely.

My boy was recognized for having a 4.0+ GPA for the first two trimesters. {They are halfway through the third.} He also received an "Academic Excellence in Honors Algebra II" award. I'm not sure what lets you earn the academic excellence designation. Some kids had only the Honor Roll 4.0+, some had the academic excellence in more than one subject area, and some, just the one. Some had the academic excellence designation for a class they've only been in for six weeks. So I really don't know. He was pleased to have been recognized, so that's good.

Well, this has gotten way longer than I planned and I have an appointment and a call at the same time this morning. Time to get a move on. See you Monday for the OMG link up.

Linking with For the Love of Geese, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, From Bolt to Beauty, and Alycia Quilts.

I finished my Board & Batten top! I have backing picked out, but I haven't found the right quilting design yet. Suggestions welcomed. 🙂

I spent some time prepping HST for the remaining three wedding ring blocks I need to make for the Loves Me, Loves Me Not QAL. 

I have started assembling my Melodic Mystery quilt too. I like how the colors are coming together. 

I'm also working on my OMG, which was to get binding onto the fronts of three quilts. I have one complete and I started working on the second one, #Trending, yesterday. I didn't think the bottom looked square after I had squared my quilt, so I used my wall and a bunch of rulers to make sure. {It wasn't quite square and I trimmed off the offending bit prior to this picture.}

Of course I've been quilting too. I quilted Loop the Loop on Margaret's quilt. I thought it looked kind of like loops of thread to go with those little sewing figures on the cream fabric.

Marilyn chose Ginger Snap for this Pivot quilt. I picked Glide thread in Sand.

We went with Stardust on this Paperdrop quilt. I used Glide thread in Key Lime.

I spent Saturday watching our robotics tournament on livestream (more on that below) and worked on binding Haley's quilt. She had some ric rac trim that came with her kit that she wanted under the binding. I watched Lori Holt's video to learn her technique and went for it. I think it was okay, but I guess I'll see how it looks after Haley stitches her binding to the back of her quilt. 

Next up is Mary Ann's quilt. She picked Radiance for the quilting. It's kinda hard to see. This was a mystery quilt from one of the local quilt shops. I'll be quilting Amber's version of the pattern today!

And one more from Mary Ann, quilted with Ground Cover. Ground Cover works well to ease in fullness. Thread color here is Glide Butterscotch.

Back to robotics. The boys were in third place after the robot qualifying rounds, which meant they got to move to the alliance round. They were runner up in the tournament for the robot. FTC has a fairly complex scoring/advancement protocol. The top scoring robots don't always make it to the next level of competition. This year, they took six teams--all four teams from the final round of alliance matches plus the two teams who won first place in the Think and Inspire awards. Our boys won the Innovate Award sponsored by Raytheon. I was proud on their behalf because that award recognizes all the engineering processes the boys learned and used (some include Finite Element Analysis, modeling in Solidworks, and completing a Trade Study). As awesome as that award is, it does not generally advance you to the state tournament, so it's good that their robot performed well as they claimed the fifth of six spots to advance. So next weekend they get to compete in their first state tournament for FTC! Also, it's a good thing I didn't try to go to QuiltCon this year, because I have to turn in my IHQS quilts on that Saturday and it's tourney day. 

And finally, a chicken story. Actually, two chicken stories. The first one is from Saturday. The men were at the robotics tournament and my daughter had to work. She couldn't get the switch for the coop heater to turn on because it was frozen. So I waited a while and then went out around 9 to try my luck at it. I was scraping off frost with my nails and it still wasn't switching, so I cupped it in my hands and eventually got it thawed enough to turn on. Meanwhile, the chickens came running to the back to see what I was doing. 

I'll spare you the video I took, but Smoky decided that me standing there meant he had to crow loudly and repeatedly until I moved away from the coop.

The other story regards eggs. None of the hens use the nesting boxes, ever. One lays her eggs around wherever Henry is sitting in the coop, one always lays right in the door opening, and the other lays in random spots. We checked Sunday afternoon to see if there were any eggs and found this:

I'll be quilting, prepping my two quilts for the IHQS, and finishing up my OMG bindings this week. Stop by next Wednesday, or any day from then until the end of the month, to link up your finished OMG.

Linking with For the Love of Geese, My Quilt Infatuation, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

I've made pretty good progress this week. Last week I had only made a few blocks of the Board & Batten quilt even though I should have been working on the second half of the blocks by then. I now have 3/4 of the rows fully sewn. This week's task is to assemble the top. I need to finish sewing row four and then it's just three more seams to have a completed top!

This week's task in the Loves Me, Loves Me Not QAL is to make four Wedding Ring blocks. I have one complete and I really like it. I'm using Riley Blake Blossoms for the white fabric. It's really floppy. Not sure why--I've used lots of other Blossoms fabric that wasn't like that. Weird.

I have two rows assembled on the Melodic Mystery, but that is taking the lowest priority of the three projects for me right now.

I still need to do the bindings on my three quilts for my OMG. My plan right now is to do that this coming weekend.

I have not yet sewn on the hanging sleeves or labels for the quilts I entered in the show. I have two weeks left to get that done. 

Of course I've been busy quilting for others too.

This one belongs to Linda. It's quilted with In the Swirls.

Next is a baby quilt for Jess. I selected Stardust for the quilting.

Melissa picked In the Swirls for her quilt too.

And here's Haley's, quilted with Triplet.

The weather's been decent the last few days--well, except part of yesterday when it rained. Monday the trees we ordered back in October finally got installed. I hope they grow fast and block the view of the house they built behind/to the side of us. Since they removed all the trees from their lot, it is a wide open view into our yard and our bedroom. 😒 Obviously I disapprove of their actions. You can see their porch in this picture. It was muddy and I didn't want to walk over to get a better picture. The trees look kinda stubby. They are all between 5 - 6 feet tall, but pretty bottom heavy.

Signs of spring are showing up. Can you see the daffodils and day lilies poking through?

I tried hard to get some new pictures of the chickens. My daughter wasn't home to help, so here is what I got. 😆😆😆

So you saw my big news yesterday that I'm co-hosting OMG with Patty from Elm Street Quilts. I need One Monthly Goal to help keep me focused each month, and hopefully there are plenty of others that need that focus and accountability too. I've been shuffling things around on the blog to accommodate the link ups and info. I have a bit more to do, but I think it's pretty functional right now. 

My goal this month, which you likely saw yesterday, is to make binding for all three of these quilts and sew it to the front of each as I'm planning to hand-stitch the binding. Hand-stitching is my preference on most of my personal quilts unless I'm in a huge rush or if I'm donating it and know it will be washed a lot.

Of course I have a million other things I could have chosen as well--Grassy Creek border (I am a bit superstitious and every time I choose that, things seem to go haywire, so I'm holding off for now.), quilting my Tall Tales quilt--need a backing for that one still, catch up on all my QALs, finish some other half-done project, of which there are many. I decided to select the binding because I'm tired of walking around the three quilts on the floor.

I've done a bunch of quilts for others over the past week. 

I completed three of Terry's. She's so artistic! She chose Doing Donuts for the first one.

Next we used Diamond Rain. My daughter won the contest to name this design. 😊 We thought it gave a leaded glass effect--the quilt is shown sideways here; it's actually long and skinny.

Deco Arch was her pick for the third quilt.

Next I did two mini quilts for Jae. The first one is a challenge to create a quilt using colors from a cereal box (I think I have this right? I know Jae's inspiration was one of the pink Cheerios boxes). We went with Doing Donuts to mimic the Cheerio shape.

I did some custom quilting on her other mini.

I've also been working on several of Linda's quilts. The first is quilted with Windswept. The So Fine thread I picked really blends in! (hard to see the quilting)

The other two are both quilted with Rainbow Hearts.

While I've been productive in some areas, I'm a bit behind on the Board & Batten QAL. I got slowed down by needing to replace the running green fabric. I had ordered a Ruby Star fabric that looked like the same shade, but I didn't like it with my other fabrics--too dark. I didn't have time to go shopping in person to find a replacement, so I dug through all my fabric and came up with a batik that worked (thanks, Denise!). I have three of 14 blocks completed from last week's task. This week's task is to complete the other 14. I'm hoping to have a bit of time to myself this weekend to get caught up.

Oops! That third block is not quite right.

The last clue of the Melodic Mystery should come out today, so that is another one I need to complete. 

One area where I am current is the Loves Me, Loves Me Not QAL. This one started on Monday with cutting. I LOVE cutting fabric. I got up really early Monday and cut out everything. I opted to wait on cutting the sashing and borders until I do the sewing so that I'm only cutting once. You know me, I'm a math major and I like my accurate border cutting.

Oh, and I can hardly believe this, but...

We have the worst drivers in this town. The UPS store is back open after its second drive-thru incident last year. People are saying this is the second time someone's driven into the hardware store. Several restaurants have had it happen multiple times, the tattoo parlor, a house that's between us and town, Walmart several times, a gas station. There's actually a Reddit thread about all the places people have driven into around town. 😳