Stories from the Sewing Room

I've finished part 2 of Unity! I was super excited that the measurements are dead on. 🎉 That's especially important when you are doing a quilt with rounds.

I've also completed the final selvedge rug! Here are all three I've made this year. The final one is in the middle.

I've completed three quilts for others. First is the final bit of Christi's bow quilt, quilted with Christmas Bows. You may recall that the power went out last week just before I finished this one. 

Next is Heidi's, quilted with Starry.

And finally, another of Heidi's, quilted with Fall Foliage.

Beyond that, I just took it easy and worked on preparing things for my son's move in to the dorm. I did a lot of laundry and a lot of shuffling around of things. He kept bringing out more and more things to be packed. We fit everything plus three adults into my car. We did have to add on the hitch carrier to stow the foam mattress toppers for him and his roommate. I think we still added a few more things after I took this picture.

While we were loading the car, I noticed a luna moth on a car tire. I haven't seen one in a few years.

The big move was Monday morning. I had to stand outside with his things while my husband moved the car and my son went into the dorm to check in. 

It took us a few hours to unpack everything, help him move around some of the furniture, and put away enough stuff that we could bring the boxes and bags back home with us. He spent most of his time setting up his computer. His roommate was in there the whole time and I'm not sure he unloaded much of anything while we were there. They are friends from high school, so they are already familiar with each other though I hadn't ever talked to him before.

We did have to pick up another power strip, which I had expected, along with a few random things, so we did two more quick stops with stuff--he had to come out to meet us in the driveway. I'm glad he ended up having to do early move-in instead of the Tuesday/Wednesday grand move-in. It wasn't super busy. I saw a few videos from Tuesday morning and it was packed. He has two days of orientation and programming for the dorm LLC (living learning center). And then two days of programming in his college.

We are now getting used to our quiet empty nest. Our fish died Monday. Guess it waited until both kids were out of the house. My husband and daughter put both roosters plus Penny back in the coop over the weekend. My husband has had to move the roosters around since they haven't consistently gone back in the coop at night. Peanut is still in the garage, which smells much better with only one chicken in there instead of four. 

I'm planning to poke around the gardens a bit if the weather holds in the evenings. I need to finish weeding the barn garden. The electrical inspection is set up for Friday afternoon, so it would be nice to clear the weeds around the foundation before that. We harvested about two pounds of green beans over the weekend and I guess there's still more out there. The tomatoes need to be picked if the bugs/worms haven't totally destroyed them. Maybe the watermelons are ready? I need to pull out the remaining pea and lettuce plants and possibly sow more seeds for a fall harvest. One of the pumpkin vines has really spread. It's gone up and through the fence in various points. Can you see it?

We have a lot of giant ironweed on our spare lot right now. I always find it pretty.

I haven't started my purple whole cloth quilt OMG yet. The finish link up post will go live on the 25th, so I'd better get at it!

My small guild has a sleep-in-your-own-bed retreat this weekend. We are having a guest teacher do a New York Beauty class on Saturday, so I am trying to figure out what fabrics to use for that. 

I'd really like to work on some of my own things as well. However, I've found that I'm not particularly accurate when sewing away from home. I have several foundation projects planned. I think I'm going to take the Sun and Sand project, which was our guild project in 2024--I bought all my stuff in 2023. I'm excited for the project, but it is also very overwhelming. A few of the ladies who have either worked on or completed theirs will be there, so it seems like a good one to pack.

I've cut my Range project so it's ready to sew. 

I've determined that I have enough fabric to make two baby quilts from my dinosaur fabric. I originally had a different pattern in mind, but too many of my charm squares are cream on cream and wouldn't look good in that pattern. 

I'm not really sure how much I'll get sewn or even how long I'll be able to stay because my sister and kids may or may not be staying with me over the weekend. Plus I am not one who can just sit in one place all day. But hey, at least I have options now.

I thought I'd share a few progress photos of my projects. I've made and attached the binding on one side of my Magnificent Mystery quilt. 

I'm getting close on the third (and last) of the selvedge knit rugs. You can see the "yarn" balls are getting pretty small. I do have some additional selvedge that was gifted to me that I can add to finish this one. 

I made a Frankenbatting for my Linda J. Hahn quilt. I also decided on a backing. I have most of a custom quilting plan worked out--just need to find the longarm time in the next two weeks (this is my OMG). 😬😬😬

I've been quilting away on the client quilts. First is Trudy's USA quilt, quilted with Star Spangled Banner.

Next is Amber's, quilted with Winterfest.

I finished binding all of Jeri's quilts and shipped them back to her. 

I was thrilled that Mary selected the Element of Fire design out of the options I sent her. It's what I would have chosen if it were my quilt! This one took two days to quilt.

We decided on Primrose Stipple for Amber's other quilt. This one also took me two days.

I started on Ann L.'s current batch by quilting Persian on this one.

I also started Ann K.'s quilts by quilting Lisa's Raindrops on this one. I picked bright green thread (Limerick). I love it and I hope she does too. 

I will be binding or partially binding all of both Anns' quilts in the near future. 

Out in the chicken coop, things are still iffy. On the plus side, all three younger hens get along. 

On the negative side, the silkies are still not accepting any of them. They definitely try to keep the young ones away from the food and the scratch. My daughter visited over the weekend and said that one of the Barred Rocks looks like she got pecked right next to her eye. ☹️

We have tons of pears on both pear trees. However, there are bites out of many of them, especially all the Bartletts, and they are far from ready to harvest. This picture is on what is supposed to be an Asian pear. I don't know what type they really are, but there have never been this many on this tree before. 

I was pleasantly surprised to see some wildflowers, including a native rose, along the back property line. We have so many invasives around us that it's nice to see these. 

The day lilies look great.

I didn't make it all the way out to the vegetable garden for photos, but everything except the watermelon is doing pretty well. Hmm...actually I'm not sure how the Brussels sprouts are doing because we haven't grown those before, but they are alive. 

I sprayed all the Johnson grass in the lower flower garden with the garden grass killer spray. So far it doesn't seem to have done a thing. ☹️ There's a young man in our neighborhood who has started his own landscaping business. He left a flyer on our door. I'm tempted to have him quote weeding that bed. It's such a disaster. So many trees we didn't plant, the spearmint, the Johnson grass, grapevine, creeper, and who knows what else is lurking in there. It still really bothers my foot to stand on the angle down there. 

Linking with Alycia Quilts and Quiltery.

Last weekend my small guild had a "sewcial" day. Besides the business meeting, we also had a workshop on natural fabric dyeing presented by Kate (sorry, didn't catch her last name). She prepared pots of avocado, marigold, indigo, and madder. We each got four pieces of prepared fabric--one Kona, two other cotton, and one linen. My friends were adventurous and creative and made beautiful pieces. Here's just a few.

I was not so creative. I dipped my piece of Kona into the avocado dye. Funny how it comes out peachy. I can't recall if this dye was made just from the skin or if it had the pit as well. It was light peach when it came out of the pot and it's getting much darker now.

I tried various ways of dipping my other three pieces in the indigo. By the way, indigo dye smells. We took that one outside before opening the bucket. I did one where I attempted a gradient (linen) and then did a fold and a tie-dye on the other two (cotton). I should have done the gradient on the cotton rather than the linen. Here are my pieces hanging to dry--they are supposed to drip dry in the dark. Once they are fully dry, I have to rinse them until no more loose dye comes out. 

I also had some sewing time that I spent working on my Magnificent Mystery. I completed all the half blocks. It sure helps when you use thread in your sewing machine. 😉 I made decent progress on the pink and blue blocks. I didn't get to the green and blue ones yet. This is my OMG this month. It's not looking like I'll get it done, but we'll see. 

Everything fell off the green/blue block board during transport. I was lazy and didn't fix it for the picture.

I did complete a second knitted selvedge rug. I wish I would have done two more rows, but it's fine. I have enough selvedge prepared to get probably at least half way through one more rug. I still have all the selvedges that a guild mate gave me, so if need be, I can sort through those to try to get additional length. 

I'm not sure how to record this one in my PHD list. It's an old project--I'm using fabrics that I rolled onto the ball four years ago--but I only had one rug on my list because I didn't think there'd be enough for more than that. Right now I have it listed as a new start. I don't know, where would you put it? 

I've gotten a few more quilts done. I stitched Saffron Blossom on Jeri's sister's quilt. I'm working on the binding.

I stitched Marmalade on Jeri's quilt. 

This one is bound. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd inadvertently made an invisible/pattern-matched join on the binding.

I also bound Jeri's two quilts that I quilted last week. 

I quilted Cassava on Keetah's quilt.

I quilted In the Swirls on Toni's quilt. 

Out in the garden, we were able to make a sizable asparagus harvest. 😏 

We planted peas and lettuce. We bought a few Brussels sprout plants to try. The kale I planted last spring (and wasn't able to harvest at all) is going like gangbusters right now. 🤷🏻‍♀️ We were able to do some more weeding in the lower garden. We had a giant patch of some kind of weed and a bunch of Johnson grass. That stuff is awful. We're probably 40% done now, maybe a bit more. There's one swath remaining on the right side. I think most of that is spearmint. We can pull it, but it's kind of pointless. The far left side has a lot of weeds. We have a large weeping cherry tree that gets a lot of weeds and unwanted saplings under it because it's a favorite perch of many critters that drop seeds. 

Finally, here is this week's chick picture. These guys kinda scare me. They are so much bigger than the silkies and they are trying to fly and get out of the tote. Right now they are still under a heating plate, but I think that will change soon. We may need to locate a larger container to house them. They are almost three weeks old now. I think the Barnevelder (striped one) is a hen, but I'm concerned about the other two. Time will tell. Photos courtesy of my son.

Worshipping the queen? She mostly hides between them if we are looking at them.

One last picture to share from our walk last night. 

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts.

It's time for me to share last month's progress on my PHD. February had a lot of highs and lows personally, but I had a pretty good needlework month, finishing two projects and making good progress on three more. 

Linking with Ms. P's PHD Program

I finished knitting a throw blanket, #25 on my list.

I finished knitting a selvedge rug, #2 on my list. Sorry for all the dull pictures. We've been having a lot of rain and gloom.

I made progress on the history center quilt top, #3 on my list, pressing the washed wide backing and getting it quilted. I was originally planning to create a Frankenbatting for this quilt, but while working on a client's quilt, I realized that the wadded up end of the roll of Hobbs batting had the exact amount of batting I needed. So I used the excessively wrinkled up piece in this quilt. I am planning to  donate this quilt to the guild's community quilts program, so I will machine bind it soon.

I also made a lot of progress on my late guild mate's Cupcake Crossing quilt, AKA Nancy's Bonnie and Camille quilt, #8 on my list. I finished piecing the quilt top during February, made a Frankenbatting, pieced the backing, and got it quilted. I am currently hand-stitching the binding and I expect to have it finished tonight, or maybe tomorrow. March is shaping up to have lots of finishes.

I have also made some progress on my Linda J. Hahn class quilt from last March, #23 on the list. I have started piecing the units for the four star blocks. Those are the blue and white bits near the pattern. 

I have not worked on anything else on my list.

Maybe most notable is that I haven't started anything new yet. That's about to change since I'm taking some classes at IHQS this week. Also, once I finish binding Nancy's quilt, I will start a small knitting project. I'm finding knitting to be fairly relaxing for me of late. I'm still pretty much a beginner. The last time I knitted anything with any shaping was about 15 or 16 years ago when my sister's kids (and mine) were little. I made a ton of hats, a few blankets, and a few shaped toys. I just remembered that I also knitted some Ugg-style booties for my niece. Those were funny. I wonder if my sister ever put them on her?

I'm still working my way through my quilting queue, though at a slower clip than usual. Here's one from Shirley, quilted with Honeybee.

I bound this one. 

I quilted Driftwood on Valynda's quilt.

And Jeri's quilts are all bound now. That took me forever. 

In other news, we lost Agatha the hen last Wednesday. I went out to feed them and only three chickens came running. Then I saw her body. 😭😭😭 

That leaves us with the unfortunate situation of having two roosters and only one hen. I think our plan is to get several Orpingtons from my husband's co-worker. She will hatch them for us and if we end up with roosters or something doesn't work out, she will take them back. She said they are pretty docile and usually at the bottom of the pecking order, so hopefully they will integrate well with the existing flock. They will for sure be bigger than them.

Meanwhile, we attended a live "taping" of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last week. It was really fun. I hadn't smiled and laughed that much in at least a year. I may never view hummus the same ever again. 😳😂 I'm pretty sure that bit probably didn't make it into the final recording. The three of us also enjoyed walking across campus from the parking deck to the auditorium and back. It's such a gorgeous campus.

My husband celebrated his birthday over the weekend and we went and had lunch with our daughter.

We had a guild meeting last night with Heather Kojan as the speaker. I'll be taking classes with her and Sue Cortese this week at IHQS. In addition to the quilt show events (my son is volunteering as well), and getting the Prius back together so we can pass it to its new owner, we will also attend an art show where my son has a photo on display. He got his Invisalign this week too. It's been so busy lately. Probably distractions are good for me. 

Oh, we've still been hearing lots of woodcock calls and my husband said he startled a whole bunch of them in our yard when he left for work yesterday. 

And my back is feeling better (at least for today).

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, Quiltery, and Alycia Quilts.