Stories from the Sewing Room

Nancy's quilt is completed! I'll take it to guild Friday to share. Sorry for the cruddy indoor picture. It's raining again.

This is my first completed quilt of the year. I've also finished two knitting projects.

I've also been making some progress on my Linda J. Hahn quilt from last year's IHQS class. Please tell me this is relatable:

At least I didn't trim off the foundation bit as well. I'm also glad it's just plain white fabric. Anyway, they are all trimmed and the one needs to be repaired.

I've trimmed the history center quilt so that it's one step closer to binding. 

I also have a new start. I took a class with Heather Kojan at IHQS Thursday. She is a fun, laid-back teacher, which suits my taste just fine. I don't need a high-stress, quilt police environment. I was really happy to see a few younger people (<45) in class. I heard there were quite a few young people and kids in the fabric dyeing classes. Anyway, I had enough time to sew all of the Dresden ring together and create the background piece during the three-hour class. 

I opted to sew the center at home where there is better lighting and a sewing machine that I am more familiar with.  

I added an additional layer of interfacing between the center circle and the background to help mask that script fabric behind the light center. As you can see, everything is sewn down and ready for quilting. I think I'm going to trim the background down an inch or two on each side.

I had been planning to start a knitting project, but I've been reading a Patty Lyons book, which I recommend, and now I'm thinking that I need to do the practice exercises in the book before doing something (else) "wrong". 😐

I've quilted just a few things since last week. First is Marsali's quilt, quilted with Baptist Fan.

Next is a quilt Dawn's mom made at some point that she recently found in her things. I'm pretty certain the top fabrics are all poly blends. She picked Lacey Loops for this quilting. I will bind it and she'll have a great memento. 

I've also started working on Annie's t-shirt quilt. I can't totally remember, but I think she said these are her brother-in-law's shirts. Many of them were threadbare, but she patched them up and we are going for it. Also notable on this one is the Beavis and Butthead fabric they provided for the backing (not pictured because I didn't get far enough on it for it to show yet). 🤣 Oh, I'm doing my standard Diagonal Plaid Bias quilting. 

Switching over to the garden, my first daffodils bloomed on March 7 this year. 

They really popped Monday--most of them are blooming now. When we first started the gardens, they all bloomed at different times over the course of a month or so. Over time they seem to have just all started going at once. I love daffodils so here are some more pictures. 

I also keep track of the date the first bloom happens. Here's my data:

My goal for July was to create a koala mini using a pattern by Quiet Play.

I was able to complete it over the past week. I even took pictures in progress, which I rarely remember to do.

Some of these pieces are so tiny!

Moving right along...

Wow, this looks weird. I'm going to trust the process.

This is looking so cute!

But I feel like it needs something. I looked on Instagram and found an image where someone had turned it into a Polaroid-looking block. I thought I'd try to replicate it.

First few inner strips. They are approximately 1/4" finished.

I spent a bunch of time looking up the original, 80s-style, Polaroid size and crunching numbers to get a similar look. Ratios are so useful.  However, once I was 3/4 done sewing on my white pieces, I realized I'd forgotten to add seam allowances. I decided to just add the same size border to the bottom and call it good.

I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to try out invisible thread (Superior MonoPoly). It took a while to get it to work properly. I watched the APQS video and I had to loosen my tension significantly more than Dawn demonstrated. Like, so much that I was worried the knob was going to fall off the machine. I had a hard time keeping my invisible thread on my thread break sensor too. But I got it done and I'm happy with it for a first attempt. The quilting pattern is Keryn's Chevron.

Here's a funny thing: I trimmed my Frolic quilt and used the trimmings not only for the white borders, but for the backing as well. I didn't want to chop up a nice, long, usable piece, so I rolled the whole thing onto my frame to minimize waste. Unrolled, it runs almost the length of my 12' frame! I didn't realize it was quite that long.  LOL

The widescreen fabric that I used for my inner border and binding were also backing trimmings (from my Postcard from Sweden quilt ages ago).

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - July Finish Link-up

I thought I'd be able to share my secret project today as well, but I misread the date, so that will be here on the blog next week, and this week Friday on Instagram if all goes to plan.

I quilted Sara's quilt the other day using Saffron Blossom. It looks pretty cool.

I bought a few pounds of blueberries while we were in Michigan and I made blueberry coffee cake. I took it out of the oven and my husband told me it looked flat. It took a lot longer to cook than I expected too. Turns out I'd left the baking powder out. It still tasted good, but the texture was rubbery.

So I tried again. The second time worked as expected. They look so different from each other. Moral of the story: I need to pay more attention to what I am doing.

I've still been freaking out about school starting next week. I've done what I could by contacting the superintendent and the school board, asking them to follow AAP and CDC recommendations and do what they can to help keep my baby (and everyone else's) safe. I watched the live-stream of the board meeting last night (my birthday). They did not actually announce what the policy would be, and after watching the rather contentious, lacking valid scientific data, community comments, that was probably a good call. They did post the re-entry metrics on the website after the board approved them, and I am happy to say that all students and unvaccinated staff will be required to wear a mask at all times while in the buildings. My county is in the "substantial" spread metric according to CDC, so according to that, all people should be wearing masks. I'm feeling relieved, but still anxious. 

In the meantime, I'll be quilting, quilting, quilting, trying to tamp down my anxiety, and thinking about what next month's goal will be. I'm going to try my hand at some improv piecing in August. This technique is one I haven't tried before. I struggle with the no rules kinda thing--I have a degree in math. But I'm feeling pretty confident and have a great teacher. 😀 I think my linked up goal may be another chunk of Grassy Creek. I really need to finish that and move on.

I'll leave you with this image of the setting sun I took while walking the other night. It looked amazing in person, but it is unfortunately a side effect of raging wildfires.

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, For the Love of Geese, Alycia Quilts, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

March!  Hard to believe it's a year since the world kinda stopped.  Other than two trips to Riley last July, I have not been further than 20 miles from my house in the last year.  I go weeks at a time without even leaving my neighborhood (my husband does most of the grocery shopping).

My goal for March is to finish the remaining individual units for the borders for my For the Love of Geese quilt.  If I get really ambitious, I'll maybe have time to sew them together.  But for now, I will settle for just getting the units made.  There are 40 individual units to be made and I currently have 12 done.

Here are sneak peeks of a few recently quilted projects. This first one is my Morewood Mystery quilt, quilted with Overlapping Crop Circles.  This is next up in the binding category.

I have lots more to share soon.  Lots.  Watch Instagram for more photos. It might take me forever to get them posted, but they'll make it there eventually.

I finished binding my National Parks wall hanging.  I generally work on binding in the evenings and I've been too worn out by that point in the day most evenings lately, so it took me about a month to bind. This is my fourth finish of the year.  I've only finished small things, but at least I've finished something.

This is a panel from Riley Blake and I was really happy that it was not distorted. (I've purchased panels in the past that were really crooked/off grain.)  I chose Malachite for the quilting and I love how it gives the impression of a topographical map.

Oh, I can finally share a project I worked on last fall.  This quilt is made from the Charming Pirouette pattern from Yellow Umbrella Quilts.  I made my version using pinks and greens from my stash.  I added in a white fabric printed with little bows for my background and a Christopher Thompson Blossom print for the backing.

Finally, I leave you with an image of my sewing room that I call "detritus."

If you need me, I'll be quilting.  If you can arrange for more hours in a day, send some my way.  :)

Linking with For the Love of Geese, My Quilt Infatuation, Rebecca Grace, and From Bolt to Beauty.