Stories from the Sewing Room

I finally got a break from all the binding and got some of my own sewing done! 

I made the backing for Forever Neverland. I cut and applied the borders correctly for the quilt top. I got fancy and tried to match the print as best I could across the top and bottom borders.

It's ready to quilt!

I sewed more of the stitch-and-flip corners on the race car quilt blocks. 

I made good progress on Nancy's quilt, though all those foundations are going to take forever to trim. I have trimmed eight of 40 pieces so far. 

Meanwhile, I have spent a number of hours trying to figure out why I can no longer email people with Yahoo email addresses from first my blog domain and now my business domain. Ugh. No great resolution, but hopefully I can figure out something soon, especially for my business, where it's pretty critical. 

I've quilted a few things since last week. I love the variety of quilts that come through my door. 

First is Carol's, quilted with Cassava.

I quilted Radio Waves on Shelly's quilt.

Marsali picked 60s Mod Butterfly.

I had a great moment when I advanced the quilt and saw that the backing and the quilt top centers matched up perfectly. {She had requested I center the middle piece of fabric she used in her backing as closely as possible and I nailed it.}

I started quilting Diagonal Plaid Bias on Kayle's quilt. 

I quilted Paw Prints on Jae's quilt. 

Moving over to the rest of my life, the perimeter of our house has now been treated for termites. The porch is formed and ready for cement. Because the volume of cement for the porch isn't enough for a cement truck, my husband has been prepping a covered parking spot on the end of the barn as well. Hopefully those two together should be enough. 

We had a bit of a surprise when my husband fed the chickens the other day. 

Apparently none of us had checked for eggs in a week or so (or maybe four days if they both laid). 😳 I really thought I had checked, because I usually do when it's my turn to feed them, but I guess not. They haven't laid since then. LOL.

The garden is still hanging in there. I was sad to discover that all the cucumbers I harvested recently are inedible--super bitter. I think it's due to the crazy water fluctuations, but maybe the soil quality too. I have a ton of tomatoes; the picture shows only a fraction. The carrot tops were looking pretty raggedy, so I grabbed a couple and pulled out little carrots! This is the first time I've successfully grown them. I was super excited about that. 😄

We have a pumpkin that is growing up in the air. This picture isn't the greatest, but you can kind of tell. My husband put a block of fence post under it to support it. 

Here's a few other pictures I took the other day. 

Beyond that, my eye doctor and I have settled on a contact lens combo that is a good compromise to real the issues I was having. Not great, but good. I've been there three times in three and a half weeks. I still have the follow-up foot appointment next week. 

My son's developed an open bite over the last year, so it looks like we might have to do another round of orthodontic treatment. The poor kid already had braces for like seven years and his teeth are still totally straight and he wears his retainers as directed. We are switching providers since we weren't happy with the one who took over his original orthodontist's practice after he retired. I felt comfortable with the first place I called other than potential cost I was quoted was shocking. I'm debating calling a second as well. None of us is thrilled with this, but we need to fix it. 

Meanwhile, he has completed and submitted his application for next summer's internship. He's going to retake the SAT on Saturday. He's interested in a high-value scholarship where he has to apply to a selection committee at school with the hopes of being one of two who are picked to advance to the actual application at the college. He dropped the ball on that and it's due Monday, so not only does he have a lot of SAT studying to do, he also has to write three essays as part of the application. We haven't even made it to the actual college applications yet. It's going to be a busy few weeks.  

In other random news, I saw that Hulu now has Bewitched available. I thought it would be fun to watch--I used to watch it as a kid--but my son kind of pooh-poohed it. It turns out he really enjoys the show. It also turns out that the actor who played Darren lived fairly close to my aunt and my grandfather and is buried in the cemetery behind Grandpa's house. Who knew? 

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

I'm feeling a bit panicky that it's already September. Completing my PHD this year feels like a long-shot based on my progress thus far. However, sewing is supposed to be fun and the point of PHD is to move projects forward even if I don't actually complete the PHD. Here is my progress for this month.

Linking with Ms. P Designs

I started and finished a cardinal mini that I gifted at the beginning of the month (start #5). 

I started Meadow Mist Design's Magnificent Mystery (start #6). I have all of the cutting complete. This project won't finish until 2026, so I'm not concerned about it.

 

I have not made any progress on the Linda Hahn class (start #1). It feels like forever ago that I took that class, but it was only March. 

I have made progress on Forever Neverland (start #2). I mis-cut the outer border fabric and had to order more. It arrived yesterday and I'm hoping to get it cut and sewn this week.  

I quilted Pink Grapefruit in Blue (UFO #7) and am working on hand-stitching the binding. I'm hoping to finish it off this month. 

I moved the race car quilt (UFO #11) very slightly forward by sewing and cutting more strip sets and dividing all the strip sets into block units. These block units need a stitch-and-flip corner added, which I am currently working on. I have one set finished and two more sets marked and ready to sew. I feel confident that I'll be able to finish this quilt this year. 

I have not made any progress on UFO #4, 6, or 10. These all just need to be quilted and bound. I do want to custom quilt them and occasionally try to work out a quilting plan. 

Those of you who are eagle-eyed may have noticed that I switched out UFO #8. It used to be alligator quilt, but now it's Nancy's quilt. In case you missed my previous post about it, one of my fellow guild members passed in May. In August many of us brought home her projects with the intent to finish at least some of them this year. This is a full kit that she hadn't started yet, so I'm gonna try to meet the guild challenge to complete it this year in her honor. 

Moving away from PHD, I quilted a few things since last week. I finished up quilting Box Tie on Sonja's quilt. This one took me two days to quilt. 

I attached the binding to Gina's king-size quilt. 

I made and attached the binding to Leslie's quilt. 

I stitched tiny-scale Threaded on Deb's quilt. This was a multi-day project. 

I stitched Triangle Meander on Maria's quilt after adding the borders and seaming the back. I'll add the binding to the front of this one too. 

I quilted Beaded Clam on Sara's quilt. 

So, on a happier note, my son took some fun pictures of the chickens the other night. 

Agatha

Smoky

Peanut

Henry

Thanks for indulging me with these. :) Hoping for happier days ahead.

I'm sticking with my to-do list format for a while until I feel like I have things more under control. 

1. Forever Neverland 🔜

I attempted to finish this over the weekend, but I neglected to read the instructions. As a result, I messed up the outer border fabric and had to order more in order (an ordeal in itself; not everyone shares my shipping timeframe standards) to get closer to the look I wanted. You know what happens when you assume...🤦🏻‍♀️

2. Race Car quilt 🆗

I have created all the strip units and paired them with their stitch and flip corners. I'll start on these after I finish all my work binding.

I did watch more of the video content from the class. I have one video left to watch plus all the tweaking of my own sloper. I don't mind the sewing part as it goes pretty quickly, but getting the muslin ready to cut each pattern version feels like a lot of work. 

4. Work on the postcard from big guild 🚫

5. Cut Meadow Mist Magnificent Mystery quilt ✅

6. Figure out the Beach Bumz class quilt 🚫

7. Continue working on the behind-the-scenes tasks for business 🚫🔜

I have found a plug-in that should do what I want for one of my more major tasks. It does cost money, but on the plus side, it's not subscription-based. I do have to learn Java and/or CSS in order to use it. It will probably take quite some time to implement, but it will be easier (I think) than what I was planning to do as a work-around. I have a few smaller tasks to complete too.

Here are the quilts I've completed for work over the past week:

Annie's, quilted with Hopscotch. It looks like I used a light thread, but it's actually 60 wt. Bottom Line Tan, which is a light gold color. 

April's, quilted with loopy meander.

Sara's, quilted with Unwind.

Leslie's quilt, quilted with Diagonal Plaid Bias. I need to fully bind this one.

Mary Ann's quilt, quilted with In the Swirls. She wanted fuchsia thread to match the cornerstone fabrics that are not pictured. 

I started quilting Box Tie on Sonja's quilt. This is a more advanced panto that requires care to align, particularly since there are so many seams to take into account. 

I have completed the binding on one of Gina's quilts. 

I have 2.5 more quilts to bind at the moment. I'm looking forward to getting them finished so that I can sew my own things.

If you're wondering about how my podiatry appointment for my injury went, I ruptured/tore my plantar fascia. I should have been in a boot at the time of the injury (late May), but it's too late now. I have various orthotic options to explore, some stretching exercises to do, and have been instructed to buy new shoes as well. I already had a new pair of shoes, but hadn't switched over yet. I had been feeling pretty good, but all the prodding of the foot hurt and set me back a bit. Additional shoes and various orthotics have been ordered and a follow-up appointment scheduled. 

Meanwhile, the optometrist has me trying some different contact lenses that I'm unsure about. I have a follow-up on these this week. This middle-age vision change stinks.

Out in the garden, we had a surprisingly large harvest of cucumbers and tomatoes. The cucumber plants are burning out. The tomatoes all appear to be intact, so maybe we really did have just the two hornworms? Seems odd to have just a few, but I'll take it. We also harvested one green pepper and have one other that's just about ready. 

The pepper looks somewhat like a cucumber in the above photo. 😄 I actually have about two pounds of tomatoes, but they didn't all make it into the picture. I added two pounds of grocery store tomatoes and made spaghetti sauce. It turned out okay, but not great. It's very bland. The grocery store tomatoes probably didn't help. They were labeled on the shelf as local, but when I got home, I saw that they had product of Mexico labels. Oh well. We did not starve.

We have four watermelons that look promising. I'm super-excited about this because I don't think we've ever successfully grown a melon. Two of the three pumpkins are already changing color and we found a fourth start that might make it. I might get one more zucchini. I've harvested six this year, which is a record for us. I grated the three I had in the fridge, made a loaf of bread, and froze the rest.

My husband has thankfully cleared the debris (all the damaged wood and foam insulation boards) out of the front garden, so I have to weed that part in preparation for the termite treatment. He finished the last of the house repairs over the weekend and is moving on to prepping the porch for new cement. Hopefully this nightmare will be over soon. That being said, we will still have to replace the drywall in the dining room and office once the outside is done and that will be a different kind of dusty nightmare. 

A few other, random things that made me smile:

I caught my car's odometer at just the right moment. Don't worry; I was sitting in a parking lot and happened to notice the mileage. My car needs to be detailed. 

This hummingbird sitting on a hummingbird. Sorry it's blurry. I was taking the picture through the screen.

Two female hummingbirds sharing the feeder instead of fighting each other. 

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