Stories from the Sewing Room

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. And Happy Hanukkah as well. It's time to share your December progress.

My goal this month was to finish my Batesville BOM. This quilt is actually called Jamestown BOM and the block patterns were by Marti Michell. I got the block fabrics and instructions during a shop hop and purchased a setting kit from one of the shops. Here is my version after quilting and before binding. 

And here is the finished quilt, 17 years after starting it.

And the pieced back.

It feels great to have this one off my to-do list!

Now it's your turn to share your finish (or your progress if you didn't quite make it to the finish line).

Take a few minutes to visit others, offer encouragement, and make new friends!

This link up will remain open until 11:55 pm EST on December 31. Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link up from your blog--just paste this link into your post:  

Stories from the Sewing Room December One Monthly Goal Finish Link Up

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

I've finally had a few minutes to myself and I'm getting so much done. I had to remake the square-in-a-square units from November's Marble Mystery clue. I managed to "sew" a whole bunch of them with no bobbin thread. 🤦🏻‍♀️ On the plus side, since the needle perforated the paper foundations, all the pieces were nicely stuck together and I didn't have to realign them.

I'm making pretty good progress on Bedford Tiles. I just have the sashing and border left.

I didn't purchase backing fabric for this quilt, so I'll need to figure that out. I have one extra block that I'd like to incorporate into the back if possible. If not, then I will donate it to the big guild's orphan block program.

I did take the time to mark where each seam intersection should be. It takes a bit longer up front, but it saves a lot of time ripping when things don't align properly. I am also a big fan of pinning. 

Another thing on my to-do list is making a cover for my serger/coverstitch machine. I can't believe it didn't come with one. Anyway, I dug through a bin of fabric and found a piece of denim just large enough. I am using a free pattern from Closet Core. As you may be able to tell, I had to add 5.5" of width to the pattern. (I cut 5.5" strips from the Batesville BOM instructions I'd thrown in the recycling!) I think it should work out fine besides that. I will need to make some piping from the denim. That could be interesting; it needs to be cut on the bias and I won't have a ton of fabric left. I'm also considering lining it and/or stabilizing the denim. 

I have a single quilt left that I haven't shared yet. This one belongs to Sara and is quilted with a fairly small scale of the Calder design.

I knew my longarm was due for a deep clean after finishing the client quilts, but I didn't realize it had gotten quite so bad. 😳 I do blow it out and oil between each quilt, but as you can see, it had a lot of lint built up. Something I love about my APQS is that it is very easy to service, clean, and maintain on your own.

After my machine was cleaned, I quilted the Batesville block of the month. I picked Mister Marbles and Glide thread in Celery. I need to bind this before Christmas (when the December OMG link up opens).

                                            

• finish Batesville top & figure out backing
• Bedford Tiles
• J school book
• clean house
• watch Karlee Porter classes--12 hours to go
• watch Bethanne Nemesh classes
• shop for gifts
• repot plants
• finish last of this year's quilts
• print next year's planner
• fix dress form as much as possible
• do fitting pattern
• lose a gazillion pounds
• sew cover for serger
• Marble Mystery
• add newest pantos to website
• complete other business things from computer list
• think about PHD for 2025
• clean up IntelliQuilter files
• bring in hummingbird feeders--left them outside too long and they froze and broke 😭
• drop off toys at pantry
• propagate Pothos after Christmas
• harvest Aerogarden before Christmas
• go to the bank

The Batesville BOM is finally a top! It only took 17 years! This first photo shows the pieced border that I created from the remnants of the border that didn't fit. The little corner pieces didn't quite work out how I'd envisioned, but it's okay and I didn't care enough to change them. It's pretty wobbly and not square/flat at this point.

And here is the top! I feel so much relief from having this done. Still a little off, but I think quilting will help it.

I'm trying to use up as much as possible for the backing. Many of the scraps left are quite small, so I pulled out a few prints from my stash to fill in the rest. This was actually difficult because these are not colors I normally use. Here was my first attempt. That piece on the upper right was way too light.

Here is what I came up with. I'll need to add "leaders" at the top and bottom so that I can attach it to the frame and have enough clearance, but that's no big deal. I actually keep 5" strips just for this purpose. I didn't expect those green strips to line up. 

I will make a Frankenbatting for this quilt. I've also cut all the binding strips. I don't anticipate having any issue on finishing this before the end of the year.

I cannot wait to sew something with color again! Good thing I have plenty of options. 😳

I'm making a small amount of headway on my to-do list. 

• finish Batesville top & figure out backing
• Bedford Tiles
• J school book
• clean house
• watch Karlee Porter classes--12 hours to go
• watch Bethanne Nemesh classes--finished one
• shop for gifts--making a small amount of progress
• repot plants
• finish last of this year's quilts
• print next year's planner
• fix dress form as much as possible
• do fitting pattern
• lose a gazillion pounds
• sew cover for serger
• Marble Mystery
• add newest pantos to website
• complete other business things from computer list
• think about PHD for 2025
• clean up IntelliQuilter files
• bring in hummingbird feeders--left them outside too long and they froze and broke 😭
• drop off toys at pantry

Next is Margaret's mini, quilted with Identity.

I was working on creating a custom edge-to-edge for Carol's other quilt. I did this by editing a couple different pantos I'd purchased and sticking them back together. This took waaayyy longer than I should have spent for what I was charging. Then I had a big oops that took a while to address. See that pleat in the backing? It's been years since I've had a pleat in the backing. I had quite a bit of ripping to do, partly because this was past halfway across and partly due to a lot of backtracking.

But I persevered and got the quilt done.

Next in line is Kayle's quilt. She participates in quite a few round robin swaps. This is one of them and it's a bed-sized quilt. She wanted Snails stitched on it. You may remember when I stitched this design on my daughter's quilt a few months ago. We went with a larger scale for this quilt and it went a lot better. I absolutely love the outer border of this quilt.

Not much else has been going on. The hinges rivets? on our mailbox door have been ripped off from apparently aggressive mail pick up and delivery and it's cheaper to buy a new mailbox than repair the door yet again. Our dishwasher, which is just over three years old, malfunctioned AGAIN. We already replaced a part two years ago and the same part quit this time. My husband tore it apart and cleaned it out and it's working for now. We have a replacement part on order in case. Remember when appliances used to work for like 30 years? Ugh. This dishwasher frequently makes the "most recommended" lists online. I purchased it during the pandemic when our previous one failed and there were only two choices that were available within a month's time. 

We've reached the final One Monthly Goal link up of the year. Tell me, is this something we should continue next year? Do you find it helpful?

New to One Monthly Goal?  Welcome!  To join, share a photo of your project plus some words about what you want to accomplish in a blog post or Instagram post and add that photo to the link up.  Return at the end of the month and share your results.  (Results link up opens for the last 7 days of the month.)

I have a few things left to complete on my 2024 PHD list. I didn't finish assembling my Batesville quilt yet. I haven't touched my Bedford Tiles quilt since October. While not technically part of my required PHD finishes for the year (clues don't finish until March 2025), I do have the Meadow Mist Marble Mystery listed as a new start. I haven't completed the November blocks yet and the December clue will be released this week.

Besides the PHD list, I'd like to work on something different. I've stayed pretty on-task this year and I'm starting to be bored. That being said, I feel like I need to stay with the PHD and see it through. My goal is to get the Batesville quilt completely finished. If I have any more time left this year, then I'll try to get the Bedford Tiles quilt into a top so that it can come off the design wall. 

The first picture is Batesville. I have sewn the additional HST needed to fill in the top and bottom rows and worked out what I'm putting in the corners. I just need to find the sewing time to get it done. 

My poor Bedford Tiles has been languishing on the design wall since October. I think putting in the sashing and adding the borders will really bring it all together. 

I shared these pictures last Wednesday too. Sorry, I've been overwhelmed and very busy these past few weeks as I finish up the client quilts and other business tasks for the year. I haven't had any personal time to sew or take updated photos of my own things.

Now it's your turn to link up. The link up will remain open through December 7.

The One Monthly Goal accomplishment link up will be available on December 25.  Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link up from your blog--just paste this link into your post:  

Stories from the Sewing Room One Monthly Goal December Link Up

It's hard to believe it's the end of November. My PHD report looks the same now as it did at the end of October. I haven't finished anything else. 

I have made some progress on the Batesville quilt. Here it is at the beginning of the month.    

And this is how it looked last night. I thought I would have plenty of HST, but as you may be able to see, I am short four. I have enough fabric left to get those last four, but they won't be on the bias like the rest are.  I'll also need to figure out something for the corners because there won't be any of the lighter fabric left after I make those last four HST. Maybe just plain squares of one of the pinks, or maybe a pieced block. I don't know.

Once I get past this border, the remaining two are just straight fabric, so they should go a little faster. I will need to figure out a backing.  

The only other major project left to finish this year is my Bedford Tiles quilt. The blocks are hanging on my design wall, waiting for me to add the sashing and borders. This picture is from the end of October.

I'm having a tiny amount of FOMO on the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery. I'm downloading the clues, but really can't justify starting a new quilt right now, particularly when I still have two unfinished BH quilts. I decided to pull out my Unity quilt and work on that instead of the new mystery. I highly doubt I'll be able to keep up the pace, but any work towards it is still progress. Here is clue 1 of Unity. I started this way back in 2020. I made the center block and then could not decide what to use for the border. I am not sure why this was the stumbling block because it really doesn't matter. I contemplated this so many times and put it back away. It's done now!

I also finished my little Nessie cross stitch. 

I started working on the chicken one I shared last week, but there's not enough progress to justify a picture.

I've completed three quilts for others. The first one is Shirley's, quilted with Radiate.

Next is Jeri's, quilted with Toss Up. It's a bit hard to tell, but I used Glide Pale Mist (a really light mint green) thread.

I stitched Cobwebs using Glide Peacock for Jeri's Halloween quilt. 

I have one more of Jeri's to go in this batch, plus completing the binding for all three. 

If you're wondering about how the helium balloon drone competition went, it was rather anti-climactic. They spent all morning working on fixing everything. After lunch we moved buildings and watched the end of the college competition, though I'm not really sure what it is we were watching! It was very slow-motion. The college-level balloons are much larger and are able to play defensively (not something that is allowed in our regular FTC robotics events), capturing the other teams' balloons or impeding their progress. The photo below shows the remnants of the college competition. You can see the purple and green balloons. They had to capture these balloons and then fly them through a circle, square, or triangle hanging from the ceiling (over a story up from this picture) in order to score. 

By the time the high school matches were ready to start, several of the teams' drones had completely stopped working, so those teams got to use the college drones. They did much better than those of us using the high school version. I think we got 3rd place out of 6. Our kids had to knock over foam bowling pins, knock foam X shapes off the table, and pilot through a square. 

I'd also mentioned that my regular machine was in for a cleaning and I was using my backup machine, which was making loud pounding noises whenever I sewed with any speed. I got out the C + S one instead. I knew it was lighter than my regular machine, but I didn't realize how much smaller it is until I tried to put it into the hole in my sewing desk. Yeah, this isn't going to work. LOL. It's a bit hard to tell, but not only is the free arm a good bit shorter, but it is also not as tall overall, so it was about 1/4" under the plexiglass insert.

I ended up putting a piece of MDF under it, which lifted it up high enough that I could use the slide-on table to fill in the gaps enough to use it. I received notice that my regular machine was done while we were at the drone competition, so I picked it up on Saturday morning and dropped off the pounding 430 for service. I'm glad to have my beloved 440 back. The shop owner did point out that my machine is getting up there in age. Shh!

I'm hoping to get the quilts bound, a few more quilts quilted, the Batesville BOM borders, and the re-do of my Marble Mystery square-in-a-square units done over the long weekend. I also need to write my business newsletter and get that sent out. If I manage to pull off all that, then I will perhaps work on more of Unity. Realistically, it will be finishing up Jeri's quilts and bindings and maybe getting a few more quilts done for others. I believe I'm under 15 to go now. Oh, and the newsletter, because that has a firm deadline. I'll be back Sunday with the December (!) OMG goal post.

Were you successful with your goal this month? Link up and share your progress.

So I let it sit while I thought about it. I have a limited amount of fabric left to complete this quilt, which dates to 2007. I decided to mock up a version in EQ8 to see if I could make what I have work. It looks like this:

The gray border is the problem one. Since I'd already cut part of the fabric, I decided to make four-at-a-time HST instead of regular HST from that fabric. I don't really love this method due to the extreme amount of bias it generates, but it would work best in this situation; at least that was my thought. These HST should be plenty big enough to trim as needed (could go up to 3.25" cut). The original pieced border was supposed to to be 4.25" wide finished. I'm looking at 2.25" finished instead. This will make both sides .33" short with piecing, but I think I can adjust the seam allowances very slightly to make it work. The top and bottom will be right on.

At the moment, I have the first thin green border sewn on. 

It's been super busy around here. I think that's good because my attention was diverted away from worrying over the election (I hope you went out and exercised your right to vote!). I opted not to look at the news and poll results until after I've published this; it all makes me anxious. 

Let's move along to the fun stuff. I went to my guild retreat for one day. It was at a place called Donkeytown. The route between my house and Donkeytown is full of very narrow, winding roads. I had to stop for a fairly large flock of turkeys on my way to the retreat center. Sorry about the very grainy picture. I zoomed in quite a bit to make them more visible and that yields grainy results through the car window.

I arrived at Donkeytown. Yes, there are donkeys. Yes, they roam pretty freely. There are also goats, sheep, chickens, and maybe more. I didn't go searching. There was a herd of at least 20 donkeys that stopped by the building looking for treats. They come right up to the door. I stayed inside and looked through the window! This picture shows only one donkey and two sheep.

I had been wondering what on earth I was going to bring to work on. I need to have projects that don't require a lot of attention when I'm sewing with friends. I didn't want to add anything new to my PHD lists for this year, so that left looking in my closet to find something older to work on. I changed my mind several times and settled on my long-term retreat project (imagine that 😏). This project used the cupcake papers from Miss Rosie's Cupcake Mix Recipe 3.

I sewed through most of a charm pack until I ran out of background fabric. I then started cutting apart some of the pieces, but didn't get a chance to start sewing more blocks. I wanted to get home before it started getting dark because those roads are not fun to drive. 

The picture below shows the stack of papers I've sewn that need to be cut apart. It's close to two charm packs' worth. The lower right shows the blocks I already had complete. The blocks finish at 3", I believe. I am using various lines of American Jane fabrics.

Saturday morning we had a robotics event at IU. The boys are going to participate in a drone competition in a few weeks. Saturday they received their kit, built most of it, and some of the participants at the build day got a chance to try to drive the helium balloon drone through a target. After the event was done, we grabbed lunch and then headed over to the Eskenazi Museum of Art (always free admission!) to check out John Mellencamp's art. 

We also walked through the rest of the museum since we'd never been there before. Here is one of the pieces I really enjoyed. 

After we finished in the museum, we wandered around trying to find the new statue of John Mellencamp. After a bit of bickering and a lot of wandering, we eventually found it. 

Someone put a flower in his hand and had also left one on Hoagy Carmichael's piano a bit further down the trail.

We were pretty exhausted by this point, but we had one more stop to go. We went to the local pottery, glass, and fiber show. My husband entered drawings from each of the guilds and we found out Monday that he won a piece of pottery. Not sure what yet because he can't pick it up until at least Thursday. I bought two skeins of alpaca blend yarn. 

Sunday we all slept in and then we had robotics practice. I've gotten a bit of work done on my Batesville quilt since then. 

Of course I have been busy quilting too. Tis the season. The first group of quilts all belong to Amber. I quilted Identity on the map and loopy meander on the other two.

Next I quilted Gulf Stream on Carol's quilt. 

Finally, Melissa selected JK Celtic for her Lord of the Rings quilt.