Stories from the Sewing Room

I had all sorts of plans to get so much done last week. Instead I spent a day and a half in bed feeling meh. Then I sat and watched the livestream of the robotics tourney (they had to travel overnight and I opted not to go) for an entire day. On the plus side, our boys did fantastic and ended the regular matches in first place. They decided that since they'd already earned a state bid, instead of inviting the second place team who also already had earned a state bid onto their alliance, they would select a team to join their alliance that hadn't yet earned a state bid in an effort to help get them one. 

Well...the second place team was furious and told a few of our kids that they weren't there to help anyone out. Great gracious professionalism. 🙄 The second place team won the robot final alliance matches and also won the Inspire award, which, ironically, is for best demonstration of the FIRST ideals--like good sportsmanship, helping others, promoting STEM, etc. 

In the end, due to the complex advancement rules, our boys' losing ended up getting TWO teams state bids. Best example of gracious professionalism ever! I'm so proud of our boys for trying to lift others and not just taking the easy win. And we won a much-deserved Control award for programming. Our programmer (who is not my child, btw) is outstanding. 

Anyway, back to sewing. I did get my art quilt quilted. It's fully custom. I planned to use 10 different threads, but in the end only used eight. I didn't use the salmon or the lavender. 

I did use the Fil-Tec invisible thread on the borders and on part of the sky. I didn't have to loosen the tension much, which I was surprised by. I did attempt to use it with the IQ, but the tension went really haywire and I had to rip out part of a border and switch back to hand-guided. It's really hard to see where the invisible thread is going. I used the blacklight on my Lucey and that helped some. 

I have a week or so left to get it bound to meet my OMG. 

Last week I hadn't finished sewing on the borders of my Malted Mystery. I finished those last Wednesday and haven't made any further progress--I was planning to add on the rest of what's left and get it quilted ahead of next month's reveal. Nope. I did wash the backing fabric though. 

I wanted to work on this month's RSC blocks. Nope. I have red scraps all over my cutting mat, but that's as far as I've gotten. 

I don't have much to show for client work either. It's been tremendously slow this year. I finished Carol's quilt that I shared last week. I started Sharon's yesterday. She wanted to have 9" circles cut out of the four corners so that she can add some appliqué after quilting. I seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take to edit the design to accomplish her vision. (In other words, I need to do a pricing adjustment if I do that service in the future.) Here's what my screen looked like for the first pass of the quilt. It had 22 tie offs. Yikes!

My Grassy Creek quilt is now fully ready to enter in the show. I sewed on the hanging sleeve over the weekend. I do not enjoy sewing on hanging sleeves. I'm so glad that part is done!

Here's a photo of the whole quilt.

I finished my Grassy Creek quilt on February 1! I entered it in the IHQS and I have attached the label. I still need to attach the hanging sleeve. Once that's on, I'll get a better picture of it. Here are a few pictures for now.

The quilt is 92" x 92" and very heavy. I had to move furniture and stand on a chair to photo this. {I took a lot of photos of my legs and feet. Oops.}

I have sewn two more rows of the Log Cabin Stars quilt together. Remember, my design wall is behind my longarm, so it's usually quite difficult to get a good picture of whatever is on there. This is one weird looking quilt. LOL. I should have worked harder on color placement.

I'm also working on this month's Malted Mystery clue. I have two more white borders to sew on and then another round of the light green. Next month will be the reveal. I think I can figure out the rest since I took the sneak peek. I may work ahead, but will keep it to myself so as not to spoil the reveal for anyone.

I haven't yet started the SCQG quilt along project--Sun and Sand. I couldn't make a decision on the colors for the first two months, so I decided to start with month 3. But then...these pieces are really tiny. Which is the appropriate ruler to use in this case? Also, there are cutting directions given, but the pieces seem to be twice as big as needed. I'll need to do a test block with the sizes I think should be cut. 

Help! Which ruler?

As far as my OMG, nope. Haven't had a chance. Maybe this weekend. 

I have completed a few quilts for others. The first two belong to Amber. She requested loopy meander on the baby quilt and picked Ginger Heart for the yellow quilt.

Next I quilted Lovely Loops on Trish's baby quilt. 

Right now I am just about halfway through Carol's quilt. She picked Denali and Cool Mint thread. I hadn't stitched Denali in a while and forgot how slow it is. It has a ton of backtracking. It does, however, look fantastic on her quilt.

We had a robotics tournament last weekend. I did end up volunteering and worked as a line queuer again. Basically you make sure the teams are lined up ahead of their match and send them out to the appropriate field at the appropriate time. Our boys had a tough day. They lost their first three rounds and you could see them becoming a little more discouraged each time. Two of the boys had band competitions, so could not attend.

We felt good going in to the fourth match. They were paired with a stronger team than their morning matchups had been. They had a great autonomous portion, scoring 50 points, but their robot's arm came down on the field enclosure and the head ref gave them a yellow card instead of a penalty. He then told them they weren't allowed to pick up their controller to run the rest of the match. Somehow they ended up winning that round, which was very sweet because they were going against the number two seed. I think we were ranked 20 out of 28 at that point. We looked at the rules and found out that the ref should have called that only a penalty and they absolutely should have been able to play the rest of the match, but decided not to contest it since we had won anyway. 

Their last match of the day they were paired with the other team from our town. They ended up putting up the highest score in the state with that match and it moved us up to #14. The other team went into finals alliances as the number one seed. They picked the number two seed and us as their alliance team. And we won. We were of more help to the #1 team than the #2 team was, which made it even better. Our pair ups with team #1 are now the top four scores in the state, I think. Since both of those teams already had gotten state bids, we were able to move up into the state bid for the #1 alliance. The boys were so pumped!

Then we won the Design Award, given for best function and aesthetic. That was totally my son's work and nice to see their very reliable robot finally recognized. (Teams #1 and #2 spend most of their time between matches repairing everything.) So we had a lot of highs and lows, but it worked out in the end and our very introverted boys were just beaming. They also got a 3rd place Control Award for programming.

We have another competition this weekend (I think I'm gonna stay home and sew this time), then the state championship in one month.

I've managed to avoid jury duty so far. They didn't call my number for last week's trial and no trials were scheduled this week.

Linking with Quiltery, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, From Bolt to Beauty, and Alycia Quilts.

I have very little to show this week. I've been quite busy trying to get the binding sewn on to my Grassy Creek so that I can enter it in the show. Last week I was panicking a bit because the piece of Moda Grunge in fabric in the Calypso color way that I'd ordered on eBay (seller from TX) that said it should be delivered by 22 Monday did not show up until 26 Friday. I ordered another piece from Fat Quarter Shop (which I should have done in the first place because the angst wasn't worth saving a few dollars) on Monday and it showed up on Saturday. 

Midweek I was debating cutting up the piece I did have, which would have been about four strips too short. I thought maybe I could start sewing down what I had, then add the extra strips once one of the fabrics arrived. {Big thanks to a couple of you out there for listening to me whine about it via email.} I was planning to cut and sew on Thursday, but my day got away from me while working on someone's quilt. Friday morning my initial order showed up, so I washed that and got to work. Saturday the FQS order, ordered a week after the original piece, showed up.

When I was considering using the Grunge I already had and adding extra to it later, I assumed that the color would be very similar and you wouldn't be able to tell. I assumed wrong. Nancy asked me if the pieces matched, and the short answer is NO. I think the fabric is busy enough that it wouldn't have been super noticeable, but they are very different.

The original piece must have been purchased in late 2020 when I started working on the quilt. It is the smallest piece, on the top of the picture. The piece from eBay that I ended up using is in the middle, and the FQS piece is on the bottom. All have been washed and dried. I didn't iron the piece from FQS for the photos. 

Another difference on the newer pieces is the size of the selvedge. That one really surprised me, far more than the color variations. I don't have the selvedge from the original piece available.

The difference is most visible on the back. Look at how different they are! 

I've been binding like crazy in the evenings and my hands are sore. Right now I'm 3/4 of the way done, so I'm in pretty good shape. I have until the 5th to register my quilt. I think I should be able to finish up the binding tonight, or tomorrow night at the latest. I have the hanging sleeve and the label made and those will need to be attached before the drop of day of February 24. Actually, they'll need to be done before I leave for Quilt Con, so before the 21st, but I can always safety pin on the hanging sleeve if I run out of time.

Meanwhile, I've worked on a few quilts. I had to do some thinking and creative piecing on Mary Ann's quilt. This was a big quilt, 109" x 129", and her wideback ombre fabric didn't quite cover her quilt. She gave me more of a different wideback since the original one was unavailable. I put strips of the second fabric at top and bottom and attempted to center her quilt, but like I always tell people, don't plan on it being perfect. I had everything measured, pinned, and marked, but the quilt shrunk up quite a bit during quilting, so the strips at the top and bottom didn't end up being equal like I'd planned. It took me a day to piece the backing and get everything loaded and set up and two days to quilt it with the Paw Prints design she picked. I chose purple thread, Glide Lilac, for the top thread.

I also quilted another of Margaret's scrap quilts. She decided on String of Hearts for the quilting. My daughter and I selected Glide Sand for the thread color.

I started Shirley's quilt. This one is fully pieced front and back. She requested small scale Stipple. I'll finish this one this afternoon after I get home from my haircut.

Besides the binding, we are gearing up for the first of our two February robotics tournaments. They need volunteers again this weekend, so I'm sort of considering it. I had fun at the last one, but I didn't get to see our team compete. Oh, and 40% of our team has to attend a school band event, so they will miss the tourney. 😬

Henry the rooster has a sore on his foot. We think it might be bumble foot. My daughter and husband gave him an Epsom salt soak, followed by applying medicine and wrapping the injury, over the weekend. The wrap is still on and he's still able to get in and out of the coop, so we'll have to see how it goes. 

My month of jury duty starts tomorrow. I have to call in tonight to see if I need to report. Let's hope I don't, because I don't want to make time to sit on a jury and I really don't feel comfortable judging someone.

A few odds and ends of sewing: the next Malted Mystery quilt clue comes out tomorrow. Will this be the final month? Here is my PHD progress so far. I'm hoping to be able to update that chart soon!

How did you do with your January goal?

My goal was to complete my Grassy Creek top. I am happy to report that this thing is finally done. I started it late 2020. If you want to read more about my border process, check out yesterday's post just below this one.

I am also happy to report that I got it quilted. It took FOREVER! 

I chose the Lovely Loops pantograph, Glide thread in Seagull, and Quilters Dream Cotton Deluxe batting. This quilt weighs a ton!

I am still hoping to have enough time to get the quilt bound before the IHQS entry drop off on February 24. I really wish I would have had enough fabric left to make binding, but I didn't (with the exception of the bright green, but I think that would be just too much). Unfortunately, the fabric I ordered for the binding seems to have gotten lost in the USPS system. I ordered another piece from somewhere else and I'm really hoping it arrives this week. I am not particularly fast at hand binding and the quilt is 93 x 93.  If I think I can get it done for the show (I have until 8 pm on February 5 to enter it), it will also need a hanging sleeve and a label attached. Yikes! Oh, and I'm heading for Quilt Con on the 21st and I also have been assigned jury duty for the month of February. Good grief!

Well, I hope your month has been successful and less chaotic than mine. 

Now it's your turn to share your progress. Link up your project and then visit others, make new friends, and gain inspiration.

This link up will remain open until January 31 at 11:55 pm EST.

I've been working on Grassy Creek. One thing I discovered that wasn't mentioned in the directions is that the seams of string pieced border units really need to be aligned with the seam lines of the blocks in the top. I discovered this the hard way after sewing a 93" seam and then unsewing when I saw how bad it looked without the alignment. I've marked the photos with blue lines to show where I aligned.

Here is my quilt top with two of the borders attached.

Log Cabin Stars is another one where I found I needed to mark where each seam line should meet in order to look best. I hasn't anticipated this and it took a while to mark everything and sew two rows together. Again, I marked the photo with blue lines to indicate where I drew alignment marks. That dark mark on the lower left star is a shadow from my phone.

I was able to complete my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for this month. I used Sandra's Strippy Slab Star pattern and decided to make two blocks for each color that is assigned. Here are my blocks in progress. I notice I had one of the HST turned in the picture. Oops!

And here are my finished blocks. See that green floral print just under the monkey print in the photo below? That is a leftover from a shirt I made my daughter when she was around three. She's a senior in college now! Actually, now that I think about it, the green Christmas tree print is from an outfit I made her when she was in kindergarten. Time sure flies.

I found a few areas where I can improved on next month's blocks (watch where the seams are on the outsides of the center square, watch those awkward skinny strips on the HST pieces, watch where you put the colored low volume corners--I did two LV color on each block), but I am quite pleased with them overall. 

They didn't make much of a dent in the green basket. It is one of my fuller scrap baskets, so that's okay. Some of my greens need to be cut into much smaller pieces than what I used in the blocks if you know what I mean.

Are you a member of the Modern Quilt Guild? If so, I listened to and recommend: On Demand Education - Value of Quilts: Panel Discussion by MQG. I hadn't been a member for quite a number of years, but rejoined because I am attending Quilt Con next month. Will you be there?

I've completed two quilts for others. Trish's table runner with Lovely Loops and Vegas Gold thread. (Vegas Gold is one I was gifted and it's surprisingly versatile.) We layered InsulBright on top and Quilters Dream 80/20 on the bottom. That was my first time quilting through InsulBright on the longarm and it was no sweat.

I quilted Pat H.'s quilt with Toss Up and light pink thread on top, white thread on the back. She left all the decisions up to me and she hasn't seen it yet. 

I'll be back tomorrow with the OMG link up. 

Linking with For the Love of Geese/Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, Alycia Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and So Scrappy.

It's been a strange week, in regular life and in weather. We had torrential rain and high winds and then switched to bitterly cold, single digit temps with more wind. Our chickens won't leave the coop, which is probably good since they are not especially cold hardy. We've had just a dusting of snow. By this time next week, we are supposed to be in the upper 40s.

Since writing out and sharing my PHD goals, I somehow have it in my head that I need to finish most of the things this month. I don't know why. Slowing my roll and focusing, I decided to work on catching up on the Malted Mystery. I was able to get all of the January clue done after fixing a mistake I'd made with a measurement on a previous month's clues.

I may have even worked ahead, but I won't share that in case anyone reading this is keeping the mystery a mystery. I always take the sneak peek so that I know my colors will work.

Next I switched over to Grassy Creek. I added the two green inner border pieces. Then I moved on to sewing the gray string pieced units together. I got to the end of the units and was like, "What? Oh crap. I counted wrong." I was two short on one angle and had two extra of the other. 

So I made two more and then went back to sewing them together. I misunderstood the directions, so had to do a little ripping. As of right now, I have one border on. I wasn't happy with the alignment of the second one, so I'm ripping that off and will realign it so that the seams match the inner seams. I might tweak that edge with the green a bit to make it line up a bit better too. I didn't notice that until I saw it in the photo.

I'm trying to come up with a quilting design, with an eye on quilting it sometime this week, but my initial pick didn't look as good on it as I had pictured.

I've started pulling out and pressing fabrics for the RSC. It didn't really make much of a dent in the green scrap basket. I will admit that I'm not entirely sure how RSC works, other than use your scraps to make a rainbow quilt by following the color prompts. My plan with it is to just follow her prompts each month and make a block or two using that color and then finish the entire quilt this year. I don't know if there are other restrictions, but I probably won't follow them if there are since I have a hard time keeping my head above water most of the time.

I've been working on a few other things too. Back in 2016, I shared a guide for a mini quilt I made for a swap. The photo quality in it was really bad, so I've refreshed it with graphics. You can find it in the Free Stuff/Free Patterns section here.

My small guild is doing a paper pieced BOM (Sun and Sand pattern) this year. I had to scrap my original plan of using my Tula Pink fabrics since I couldn't make it work with the fabric cuts I had. I was really stressing about it and my husband told me to go buy new fabric so that I could end up with something I liked. I used my Kona color chips and just kind of pulled out colors I liked and assigned them places in the quilt. A local shop, Quilt Depot, carries all the Kona and I was able to get all but one color there. I ordered the remaining piece I needed. I really hope this works out. Most of the people have picked colors similar to the original quilt. Mine was WAYYYY different. LOL. It usually is. Not pictured is the Kona Sheen in Arctic Ice that I picked for the background. I did not include this project in the PHD because it's unlikely that we actually get all the way through the pattern this year.

I had a few quilts to work on this week. The first one belongs to Carol T. I chose The Tempest for the quilting design.

Next I worked on a quilt and shams for Paula. She usually has an exact idea mocked up for me, which is extremely helpful. For this one, she picked the Ripples design. This particular design is set up as a wide block instead of a small, repeatable unit. So I got to apply my Machine Quilters Academy learning and split apart and enlarge the design to achieve the look she wanted. I'm very pleased with the end result. I think it looked very close to the mock up she sent and I got to try something out of the ordinary.

The next quilt belongs to Keetah. It is very similar to the quilt I did for her a few weeks ago. She loved the first one, so wanted this one to be the done the same. It's quilted with Christmas and I used Eggnog Glide thread again.

Margaret sent me another scrappy quilt. She decided on the Malachite design.

Before the cold snap, we'd had quite a large flock of starlings hanging out in the neighborhood. Many of them landed on the roof and when they took off, it made a very loud noise! There must have been at least 1000 birds!

Thanks for reading. I'll be back next week.

Linking with Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, Alycia Quilts, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.