Stories from the Sewing Room

I've been thinking about all the things I need to do or would like to do. I probably spend more time thinking about what to do than I do actually doing. Maybe you can relate?

I have two pieces of mending. For one, I haven't been able to find the right color thread. The other isn't immediately urgent, but would be nice to have done and out of my sewing room.

I have plenty of projects that are half-done and several small, new start projects to complete. My daughter wants a Jimothy pillow (from Getting Jazzy with It). I had pulled part of the fabrics about a month ago and one of the times she was home, she picked a background from my stash. However, the fabric I had selected as the main raccoon fur was too close in scale to the background she picked. She really, really wanted to stick with the background fabric, which is a Debbie Mumm print. That should give you an idea of its age. Anyway, we went to the fabric store over the weekend and we eventually agreed upon a new fur fabric. The new fabric is a linen print that they had in the cotton markdown section. I'll need to wash it before I can get going on this one. 

The original and the replacement are the bottom two fabrics.

Since my daughter was home, I made her help me switch out the quilt on her bed. Thankfully the sides are long enough to cover the mattress (at least until I wash and dry it at some point in the future). Here are a few views of it in place, one in natural lighting (dark) and one with the light on. As you can see, she likes her stuffed animals. She is the personality type that likes all her things to be on display (outie) and I'm not (innie), so I usually don't go in her room unless I need to since it's too overwhelming for me. 

It's hard for me to get used to the purple in there. She had a very light pink quilt for 20+ years and four houses plus a rental or two. I'm trying to remember, but I think we've had three different paint colors. One more thing from her room. This thing is just about as tall as she is. She puts her clothes on it.

I still haven't started sewing the Ghostie Girls runners that I cut out a few weeks ago. I haven't been able to drag myself down into my sewing room the last few weekends. I did organize all the pieces to try to make it easier to find each one.

I am in need of an evening handwork project, so I pulled out a few knitting projects and a few partially completed small cross stitch projects to pick from. Or, more realistically, to rotate through. One of the knitting projects is a blanket on size 8 needles, so that will be a major commitment. I guess I'm kind of missing the utter mindlessness of the selvedge rugs.

I need to replace the fabric on our dining room chairs. They came with removable slip covers. I can only find two of the six. And they are just light natural canvas, so they show everything. We bought these chairs over 15 years ago and I put laminated cotton on them since the kids were little. Half of them are stained and torn now. It's hard to find laminated cotton these days. I'd prefer that since it's a quick job. Otherwise I'd need to recreate the slip covers and then I'd still have a hard time finding suitable fabric since Jo-Ann is gone. I really miss Jo-Ann.

Finally, we have been invited to an outdoor wedding with a semi-formal dress code. I have about two months to figure out something to wear. Since nothing ready-to-wear ever fits me correctly, I need to choose a pattern, find an appropriate fabric, do all the fitting, and complete it. 😬 I'd kind of forgotten about (or blocked?) this event, probably at least partially due to the dress requirement. 

I found it really hard last week to get any work done. I didn't feel all that great until Thursday and I also had 14 people stop by during the week with their quilts. I did finish a few quilts somehow. These are from Wednesday to Tuesday.

I completed Trudy's quilt, quilted with Star Spangled Banner.

I quilted Cinnamon Swirl on Heidi's quilt.

I bound Carole's t-shirt quilt that I shared last week.

I quilted Winterfest on Heidi's other quilt.

I quilted Diagonal Plaid Bias on the first of four memory quilts Annie made. These will be a bit of a challenge for me with the pieced front and back and the wide variety of fabrics included. I decided to do the most challenging one (front denim overall pocket with snaps) first. I'm supposed to bind all of these. I need to measure and see if there's enough backing fabric left to do the job.

Paula W. agreed to In the Swirls for her quilt and wanted purple thread. 

Jumping over to the great outdoors, my husband harvested a few tiny bell peppers and a watermelon. I've consumed one of the peppers. We haven't cut open the melon yet to see if it's even edible.

We made jalapeño poppers with our 11 coolapenos. They were quite tasty. Definitely better right out of the oven than reheated though.

We'd been discussing how the street sweeper hadn't been through our neighborhood this year. Friday it did come through, but it wasn't the normal one. It didn't use any water, mostly it just seemed to be blowing the dirt around and redistributing it. I couldn't see any of the brushes actually turning.

The sky was rather dramatic Saturday evening. I have a video of some lightning within a cloud, but I'm feeling too lazy to try to upload it. All the clouds we could see had lightning during our walk, but only just flashes within the clouds, never any bolts or anything.

This cloud is lit up mid-lightning flash. Not as fun as the actual flickering, but easier to upload. :)

It's time for another progress update. 

Linking with Ms. P Designs PHD program

August was fairly productive, all things considered. I completed the final selvedge knit rug from the "new starts" column. Here are all three I made this year. The last one is in the middle of the picture. One of these days I'll bury in those loose ends.

I completed the 16 secret items, finishing off the last one on the 31st. I had five done at the end of July, which means I did 11 in August! I was worried I was going to run out of one of the materials and ordered what I thought the item was. It wasn't, but for the cost, it wasn't worth the hassle of doing a return. Luckily I had enough of the original supply to finish all 16. No picture until end of December.

I started something new, the Ghostie Girls table runner. I cut enough to make two. I haven't cut the borders yet. I figured I'd cut the correct measurements for my pieces at the end. 

Over on the UFO side, I completed one project--item 17, solid colored bed quilt. This one is for my daughter's bed at my house. This project was not without a hiccup or two. My target size was 90" x 103". That allowed 3% extra in each dimension for shrinkage after washing. After quilting and binding, it ended up 87.5" x 102". I didn't expect it to shrink that much side-to-side during quilting. I'm hoping it's not too narrow, but too late now!  I bound it using the darker backing color because I thought I had matching all-purpose thread whereas I knew I didn't have the lighter color. I didn't have a match for the dark either. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I also accidentally ripped the binding during the final stitching and had to rip out and repair part of it. I don't love the darker binding on the front, but it is okay. I didn't feel like ripping the whole thing off to switch to the lighter fabric and she was indifferent to the color. Once she's home for a visit again (hopefully this weekend) we will get it onto her bed.

Ripped binding.

Best I could do to get a whole-quilt picture at the moment.

I made progress on Unity. Parts one and two are completely sewn. That leaves parts three through seven to go. I don't love some of the blocks, so I was poking around the internet for inspiration. I really like Kate's round four changes and I will probably do something similar. I also like her changes to parts six/seven and may consider changing my blocks as well. I've also seen some versions that are square that I think I prefer. Normally I'm totally team oblong for quilts, but the square ones are speaking to me for this design. We'll see in probably four or five more years. 😅 I'm a bit sad that my favorite cherry print barely shows so far. 

Remember those quilt blocks I was gifted from my cousin? She asked her older sister, who told her she thought their grandmother (my great aunt) made them before she lost her thumb and two fingers in a workplace accident. I think that was back in the 1940s? Anyway, now we know.

I've slowly been working on quilting, but my health has been a hindrance. This virus really hit me. I hate to think what it would be like without shots. While I feel much better overall, I still can't smell anything and can barely taste anything. I also tire very easily, so I've been taking a lot of breaks. I'd hoped to have completed a few more quilts this week, but here we are.

The first quilt belongs to Shireen. I quilted it with Loops and Swirls.

Next is Carole's t-shirt quilted, quilted with Diagonal Plaid Bias. I need to bind this one.

I have managed to keep up with my walking every day, although some of the days I was moving so slowly I felt like I was barely moving. One night I saw this sunset. I sent it to my son and he told me it made him think of Folgers coffee. Wasn't expecting that.

I don't have much to share this week since I've been sick. I thought I'd be done with my daughter's quilt by now, but I didn't feel as good yesterday as I did Monday. I have the binding sewn to one side. 

And in case you missed it yesterday, here it is in progress.

I've been working on my guild project that's due in November. I am 3/4 done and am running low on one of the materials. I ordered more, which I hope was the correct item/color. Fingers crossed it gets here quickly and is the correct item.

My cousin sent me a box of fabrics. It looks like most are vintage (80s) cottons, but there was a bag of hand-pieced blocks in there along with a note that says "Rumor has it these came from one of the great grandmothers." Her grandma is my great aunt (or grandaunt as Ancestry calls it), so I'm trying to work out who the potential great grandmothers may be since we only have one line in common. I will have to ask her for sure. There are 53 blocks, I think, and they are hand-pieced. 

I've finished a few more quilts.

This one is Connie's, quilted with Geoglyph. I also bound this one.

Charlene selected Cassava for this one. Her backing fabric had some glitter. 

Jan requested Hiding Out.

Sara picked Ginger Heart.

And Keetah wanted Sea of Snowflakes. It's really hard to see in this picture, but the border fabric was cream shades, but flashed to iridescent red. Look right down in the lower left corner. I've never seen any fabric like this before.

Moving outside, we harvested as many tomatoes as we could. I counted 65. We probably left close to that many on the plants because they'd been eaten. My husband made a double batch of spaghetti sauce using the tomatoes. He used my recipe, but it tastes nothing like when I make it. There is a lot. 

The pumpkins appear to have been hit by squash bugs or something and I'm not sure if the plants will survive. There's one fairly sizable pumpkin that's got a hint of orange and a few tiny ones. The grapefruit-sized one that was up in the air hanging from the fence fell off. 

It's been a tough garden year. Oh, I think I forgot to mention before that the Brussels sprouts are basically little leaf veins and stalks now. We won't be harvesting any of those.

This leaf bug was hanging around on our slider screen.

It's been a weird week with just the two of us home and both at various stages of sickness. I've lost my sense of smell, which is really odd. The only way I can think to describe it is that everything's really quiet. There are no distractions. I can barely taste any food. I finally had to have my husband smell the jug of milk because I couldn't tell if it was still good or not (it wasn't and I'd had it in my breakfast that morning). On the plus side, I haven't felt much like eating and nothing has flavor, so my diet is off to a good start. I've lost four pounds so far. 

Finally, I just want to take a moment to remember Dolly Parton. 😭

Linking with Quiltery and Alycia Quilts.

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!

I've been working more on all the little subunits for Unity Part 2. First I made some HST.

Then I started on the square-in-a-square pieces. Definitely not my favorite thing to make, but better than quarter-square triangles!

I didn't have quite enough of the pink to get all the dark pink/green square in a square units (three sets short). We decided it would look most intentional to make the corners out of a different pink fabric. Then I only needed to cut one additional set of triangles and set one of the original aside.

Now it looks like this and I have to piece together all the rows/rounds. This quilt is assembled in a round robin-type fashion. Some of the rows are inverted right now. The colors are so much prettier in real life. My camera really struggles with the lighting near the design wall.

I remembered to take a picture of the knit selvedge rug. I'm really close to a finish now.

I've also been slowly plugging away at the 16 items I need for our guild advent calendar. I'm just about half way done. I need to submit my items at our November meeting, so that means I have just over three months to finish.

I haven't started on the whole cloth quilt yet since I haven't pressed the fabric. I think that will be my project this weekend. 

Then I quilted Trillium on her other quilt.

She brought me a bouquet of sunflowers, mums, and roses when she picked up her quilts. They are so pretty. 🥰

I quilted Toss Up on Christi's baby quilt.

Sharon selected Two Simple for this super-large quilt. 

She also had me attach binding to the front.

Out in the gardens, I have weeded all of the upper front garden and most of the barn garden. We harvested a small bell pepper, a coolapeno, and a tomato from the vegetable garden. I forgot to take a picture of the bell pepper before I cut it up for dinner. As you can see, it was pretty tiny, but perfect for topping our pizza.

There are a ton of beans, tomatoes, some peppers, and maybe the watermelons ready for harvesting. We just haven't made time to do it, unfortunately. We really have to pick through the tomatoes because most of them have been eaten by bugs. Most of the plants themselves look pretty terrible with the exception of the peppers. I'm not sure if it's bugs, lack of water, or a combo of both. It's pretty gross out there right now.

I've decided to clear out the lower garden during the winter. I know this isn't ideal, but between all the weeds, the bugs, potential snakes and other critters, I think it makes the most sense. I'm still avoiding the side garden since I know snakes like to lurk in there.

The chickens are all still alive. Penny will be out of quarantine and able to go back in the coop on Friday. She's doing really well. Smoky has started eating feed again, so that is good.  We aren't sure Smoky, Henry, or Peanut are able to go back out and function on their own. Peanut's eyes have continued to be closed for the last week, so she unfortunately seems to be regressing.

The big college dorm move-in day will happen next week. We went to Target to buy a mini fridge that had a freezer and I decided I needed to treat myself to the new LEGO E.T. set. I've been slowly building it. He has a small phone and a tiny replica space ship inside. You can see the phone(red) and the ship just above the wide light blue piece if you look really closely. I thought it would be funny to move it around and hide it in various shelves (think doll closet in movie).

Finally, one for the "what's going to break in Anne-Marie's house this week" category...our water pressure has been quite low for several years now. We knew that the water company needed to add infrastructure to meet increased demand. Our neighborhood has gone from sparse to built out in the last few years and they are always adding new subdivisions. Our neighbors haven't noticed having less water pressure. Our is so bad that if I'm running the washer or dishwasher, nothing else can be run. If someone flushes the toilet while a shower is running, the pressure decreases very noticeably.