Stories from the Sewing Room

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

Linking with Ms. P Designs' PHD program

I had a really good month. I completed one project, item one on my list, the Magnificent Mystery.

I made progress on several other projects. I cut, sewed, and quilted item 9, dino baby quilt. I'm expecting to get this one bound this month.

I custom quilted item 23, the Linda J. Hahn Beach Bumz quilt. My goal this month is to bind this quilt.

I cut and sewed item 20, Range. 

I made some progress on a new start, item 3 in the starts, the third knitted selvedge rug. As you can see, I'm around 2/3 done and my yarn balls are nearly depleted. In fact, the first ball is gone and I'm now just joining selvedge as needed.

I'm also making progress on new start 4, but cannot show pictures until the end of the year. I feel pretty good that we're half way through the year and I'm half way through my PHD.

Meanwhile, I've been quilting more. It's been a bit of a challenge as my machines have been rather testy. Must be the hot, humid weather we're stuck with currently. Oh, speaking of weather, that Morgan-Monroe forest tornado has now been upgraded to EF-3. Anyway, here's what I've done. First, I quilted Twinkling Teardrops on Legene's quilt. 

Next, Cynthia selected Even Flow Nest for this quilt.

And Basic Swirl for this one.

I quilted Mike's Swoosh on Charlene's.

And Woven Wind on Paula's. Gah! Her piecing is always so precise.

I also finished up all that binding, with four of Ann K.'s.

And this one of Mike's. As you may recall, he had a rubberized outdoor fabric for the back and he wanted it for the binding as well. I didn't feel comfortable with the idea of pressing it, so that was quite interesting, just kinda finger pressing the joins and holding the binding in half. It turned out pretty well and he seemed really happy with it.

Things have been a bit challenging on the home front. I went to get groceries Friday before my daughter arrived for the weekend. I was carrying the groceries in, turned around to close the door, and EEEK! SNAKE! I knew rationally that it was likely a harmless rat snake, but I. REALLY. DO. NOT. LIKE. SNAKES. I texted my husband that I may need to burn down the house. He and my son ended up leaving work early to rescue me. It had moved by the time they got home. My husband did eventually find it and relocated it up the road into the tree line. He said it was about five feet long. You can't see in the picture, but there is an entire bunk of wood just below the dark areas in the picture, perfect for hiding a snake.

We had been treating Poppy the hen's infected eye for over a week and thought she seemed to be doing a lot better. Then my daughter informed us that Smoky the rooster was ill. Oh, and looking closer, so was Henry the rooster. I feel awful that we hadn't noticed they were sick. It did occur to me that I hadn't noticed them crowing for several days, but I can't usually hear them when I'm in the basement and I figured I had slept through the morning crowing. Nope. 😔 Of course we couldn't find a vet who sees chickens, especially on the weekend. We got them an appointment on Monday with the same vet who treated Beaker. 

She diagnosed them with Mycoplasma gallisepticum and bumble foot. It is unclear whether they were born with it, they picked it up from the environment, or whether the Barred Rocks may have brought it with them. Smoky is in really bad shape and probably won't recover. Henry is a toss-up. We have them isolated in separate containers in the garage and are giving them pain meds and antibiotic. I feel sad and really guilty. The vet also said if we were a production farm, we'd have to cull the whole flock, but since they are pets, we just let them live out their lives, don't add any more (weren't planning on it anyway), and let nature run its course. The hens seem fine right now and Peanut is mostly tolerating the other three now that the roosters aren't in the run. Still, it's pretty devastating. 

On a happier note, we went out to harvest the peas Sunday and discovered zucchinis and loads of bush beans. The peas were pretty far gone. My daughter gave a bunch to the hens. You can see in the picture below that they were sub-par. We ate the purple beans for dinner Sunday evening. I shredded and froze the zucchini (4 cups). I had a pound and a half of green beans that I blanched and froze. I shelled the peas even though they are snap peas. I got maybe a cup and a half, which I also blanched and froze. 

Walking past the stove later, I noticed the water from blanching had turned pinkish. 

And then it turned red. 

And later still, it had darkened a bit more. Fascinating. 

Wednesday, there were two more zucchini.

We also have baby bluebirds.

And my husband found this plant growing in our spare property. It's American bellflower.

Other than that, my shoulder is still in a lot of pain after all the seam ripping and the custom quilting. 😒 I also managed to lightly burn my leg on the coils of the hose of my steamer. Good grief. That takes some talent. 

Until next time--

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts.

I sewed something! Actually, I sewed several things! I attended the small guild retreat on Friday and Saturday. Usually I only can sit for four or five hours before I'm done. Much to my surprise, I made it around eight hours each day. I think it helped that one, there were only a few people there, and two, no one was at home.

The first day I started working on Range (pattern by Modern Handcraft). I've had the fabrics washed and pressed for ages--like so long that Nicole has since created an updated version of this pattern, now called Ranges, that includes other sizes. I cut the fabric last week and started sewing Friday morning. I got four columns done and joined together. Then I realized that I hadn't cut enough of the white fabric, so I had to set it aside.

I moved on to a dinosaur quilt. I used a free pattern called Charm Squares from Elizabeth Hartman. This was a really quick sew that I cut and completed in just a few hours. 

After dinner I left and got a few groceries since I was expecting my sister and her kids to arrive at my house Friday evening. They were staying with me and traveling to their water polo tournament in Indianapolis Saturday and Sunday. The original plan was they would arrive by 7 pm. They ended up arriving around 12:30 am. I was long since asleep. Oh, before bed I cut the few missing pieces of the Range quilt and put them in my purse so I didn't forget them.

I briefly saw 3/4 of my family Saturday morning before I had to leave to get back to the retreat before our class started. Funny aside, before I left my niece wanted to feed my chickens and check for eggs. My sister went out to assist, as did my older nephew. They didn't know to throw the scratch out into the run and my nephew claimed I'd told him to put it in the feed tube. LOL. The chickens are going to have a fun surprise whenever they eat enough to get to the scratch. I had to give updated instructions via phone call on proper scratch dispersal. My sister thought she wanted to give the chickens some dried mealworms, but didn't like how they felt. Plus the chickens were pecking at her as she tried to stick them mealworms through the fence. 😆 I think she dropped most of them outside the run. 

Last note about the chickens: one of the Barred Rocks had been pecked near her eye by Peanut. It looks very swollen now and we had to order antibiotic cream. This should be interesting to apply. 😬

I arrived back at the retreat with a few minutes to spare. Our instructor, Alice Ridge, was teaching a four-hour class on New York Beauty blocks. I did piece all four of the foundations. I only fully completed one block because I was struggling with her assembly method. Yes, my block is pretty wonky. You're supposed to go oversized and then square up before final assembly. I'll eventually finish the other three blocks using a more standard curved piecing method.

Since Alice had left, I finished the one block and then went back to working on Range. And can you believe it? I hadn't cut enough of a second color. Ugh. I decided to sew everything that was remaining and just leave notes for myself on which row was which and which color was missing. 

I left a bit before dinner since I thought maybe my husband and son would be returning for dinner. And my back hurt from sitting on a folding chair for two days. They weren't, and who knows where my sister was? I ate dinner on my own. My family arrived back in time for me to get in my evening walk. My sister and kids decided to stop at the grocery store before returning to my house. They were in there for like an hour and then she decided to start cooking dinner at 9:45 pm. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I went to bed a bit after 10 and left them to it. 

Sunday they were up early to make it back to Indianapolis an hour before the earliest match started at 8:20. The three of us went to watch, but left later. I have never watched water polo before and didn't really know what was going on, but it was nice to be able to watch the kids do something since we live too far from each other to attend their events. I kind of understood what was going on by the end of the fourth match and enjoyed it.

I finished Range after they left. It's now moved from my purchased to my to-be-quilted list. I enjoyed sewing this one and would consider making a second one with a different color-way.

Work-wise, I feel like not much is happening as I've run into a few stumbling blocks. Looking at my photos, I remembered that I was very productive last week, not so much this week.

I quilted Cakewalk 2 on Ann K.'s quilt.

I quilted Loop the Loop on another of Ann's quilts.

And finished up with Lloyd on her last one. 

I need to attach binding to all four of her current quilts. I attached binding to the front of Ann L.'s quilt from last week, but I neglected to take a picture.

I also quilted Lovely Roses on Pat's quilt.

I've started working on Connie's custom quilt. I have stitched the Viceroy design on all of the green background. I will go back and stitch straight lines on all the brown bits. Normally I would have done the background last, but I couldn't get my ruler foot over the seams, so I need to use an alternate method. I think I have to bind this one too. This is probably the last custom I'll agree to do.

I started on another of Ann L.'s quilts, but ended up with a tuck in the backing, so I need to rip out the stitching. Sigh. I've found that for every 10 minutes I've spent stitching, it takes an hour to rip out that stitching. I was 40 minutes in on this one.

Yup, sharing my mistake. I am very human. Thankfully, tucks in the backing are extremely rare for me. I had one other small one earlier this year and it had been four or five years since the last time. I don't know why, but solids seem to be more prone to tucks than prints in my experience. And this is a spectacular tuck.

I'd like to share a project that my friend Marsali has been working on. It's called Quiltacy. It's an online legacy archive of all of your quilts. I haven't personally used it (it's brand new), but I like the concept and the level of detail she's added to it. Check it out here!

Out in the garden, the last few days have had really gorgeous weather with lower humidity. I weeded the upper garden and my husband mowed the yard. I went out to the vegetable garden and harvested the peas. I truly thought I'd planted purple peas, and the blossoms were pink, but every single pea is green. Oh well. I really just plant the purple varieties because it's easier to find the peas/beans on the vines.

Most of the things are looking good. Here is the zucchini.

Here are the green beans, both bush and pole, along with some sparse watermelon plants. I might need to add more strings for the pole beans to run along. When I grew pole beans in my old garden, the tank was close to the fencing and I just let them run along the fence as they wished.

Much to my surprise, the lettuce is growing. This is the second planting since the first didn't germinate.

Here's the tomatoes and peppers and a small bin of rosemary and thyme. The thyme isn't doing much yet.

And here's a daylily that I don't remember buying. 😂 When we had to tear off the porch last year, my husband dug out and relocated as many plants as he could. As a result, I have several relocated daylilies that hadn't bloomed in years that are doing well in their new locations.

One last thing before I go. When I was at the grocery store Friday night, not only did I see someone with their bicycle inside the store, I also saw this Chrysler/Maserati in the parking lot. I sent a photo to my son because I thought he'd enjoy it. I called it a Dodge Maserati and he corrected me and said it was a Chrysler. I did look up the pentagon shape badge and it was indeed used across Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth back in the day, so I wasn't totally crazy. Anyway, I thought someone had just added the Maserati badge and rims, but my son informed me that this mashup is a real car. Who knew? These days we'd call it a "collab".