Stories from the Sewing Room

Alas, my vacation time has come to an end. I am grateful to have plenty of quilts waiting for me. Before we get into that, let's look at what I've sewn this month. 

I've finished all the spire pieces for the Linda J. Hahn Beach Bumz project. I like that you can chain-piece these foundations. I don't love tracing them from stencils.

I took the time to grade the seams so that I won't have dark blue shadows (hopefully). Can you see it in the photo below?

I alternated trimming the Magnificent mystery blocks with piecing the Beach Bumz spires. There were 16 spires in all. They are all fully trimmed but I haven't removed the foundation yet. Linda says to leave the foundation in. I don't want to because you can see my lines through some of the fabrics I used and the foundations still have the faintest smoke smell.

I have been hard at work on the Magnificent mystery pieces too. There is sooo much trimming of blocks for this quilt. I have all of month three (large hourglass blocks) completed. I did month four (Irish chain) ages ago. I am part way through month five, which is smaller hourglass blocks. The blocks are all made now and I am working on trimming them. 

After they are all trimmed, another piece of background fabric gets sewn to one side. I haven't started months six or seven yet. The final design is revealed in February. I took the sneak peek, so I know what I'm sewing. Here's all the pieces of my project, minus the backing.

I put off working on this project for a while because I really dislike making hourglass blocks. They rarely come out with all four corners exact. I purchased some marking tools. It was a fail. Can you see how the marks were larger than 1/4"? In the end I just went back to using the markings on my machine and took care not to let the edges pull in towards the needle at the end.

Back to the quilting work...I got off to a slow start, realizing I needed to spend a day doing design work, tracking down quilts and setting up appointments and so on. I got the first quilts on the frames yesterday.

Toni picked Dragonfly Dance for her quilt. 

Ann K. requested Cakewalk 2 for this comfort quilt. I'll add her binding to the front so she can stitch it down when I ship it back. 

In other quilting news, I attended the big guild meeting last night for the first time since last August. I donated the race car quilt! Woo hoo, it's gone! 

I've been working on my knitted blanket too. I've finished four skeins, but made some mistakes that I need to fix. I have one missed stitch for sure that's about four rows down and it looks like I dropped a stitch in the same row too, but I can't find proof of it. I'm hoping to work on the repairs tonight. 

Finally, I don't normally take pictures of most of our food, but I was chatting with my sister and sent her a picture of my dinner. The recipe for Better-Than-Takeout Cashew Chicken can be found here. It's so good. When we have it for dinner, we usually serve it with rice. When I eat the rest as a leftover, I often just eat it as-is. Let me know if you try it. 

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

Happy New Year!

I have a few projects to show that I finished before Christmas. First up is this Easy Charm Baby Quilt. I used fabrics from Stacy Iest Hsu's Jungle Paradise line and a free pattern from Jessica Dayon. I quilted it using the Jungle Party design and lime green thread. 

Next is a panel project, Ponderosa, also from Stacy Iest Hsu. It makes a barn, stuffed horses, and stuffed hay bales. I made it for my niece's child. It was kind of difficult, especially when it was left until the last moment.

Sooo hard to turn right side out!

Overall, I think it turned out cute. I hope she likes it; I haven't heard anything at all from them.

I think I have the final layout for my Log Cabin Stars quilt.

I'm a bit behind on my Malted Mystery quilt. I have to make a ton of pinwheel blocks for December. I have them laid out, ready to sew. The next clue comes out tomorrow! Like I always say though, it's so easy to catch back up on Cheryl's quilts if you get behind. I am confident I'll be back on track with both clues done by the end of January.

I'm ready to start sewing the Grassy Creek borders too. Just need a minute. Once everyone is back and work and/or school it should get easier.

Sadly, I still haven't had a chance to work on my dress form. I really thought I'd be able to knock it out over the past week, but no. 

Which leads me to the biggest thing--after waiting for 18 months (nine months to gather all the parts, then nine months of waiting on my husband to be willing to work on it), my master closet redo is in progress!!!!!!

We emptied everything out and hauled most of it downstairs last week. No before picture because it was embarrassing. Our closet was kind of a catch-all. I really need to reduce the number of quilts in my home. And old pillows? Where can you go with those besides the landfill? 🤔 After the closet was emptied, my husband removed the wire shelving and the base trim. We debated cutting back the carpet and building frames for under the cabinets, but decided to just build right on the carpet. I painted the walls--I guess we only put on primer before moving in. At this point we were two days in. I was only supposed to paint partway down on two of the walls since they're behind the cabinets, but I ended up painting all the walls during the second coat.

Suddenly the chickens were crowing and carrying on. Why? Oh. There's a squirrel sitting on the sawhorse taunting them by waving his tail around. 

Back to the cabinets. The leveling feet weren't quite long enough, so someone made extender feet for them. 

We made a trip into town to buy lumber to make trim. My son and I sat in the car waiting because we really wanted to see who this car belongs to. Sadly, it will remain a mystery. (Guess what we've been watching on PBS? Endeavour!)

We are now six days into the project. All the cabinets are in place. We have put in most of the drawers; one had some issues, but it's been so long that we cannot return it. We still need to put in the shelves and rods. My husband has built filler pieces for the sides, custom base and crown, and some new base trim. He's in the process of priming and painting it. We were in need of a specific paint and had to wait two days for the store to reopen. Once all the trim is on, we can finish installing everything and move our clothing back in. I ordered a bunch of hole filler pieces from IKEA to plug all the extra holes. I even counted wrong and ordered like 300 extra! 🤪 😳 They didn't include anything to cover the large metal cabinet cam locks, and they don't sell anything either. I found some on Amazon. All the covers should arrive tomorrow if all goes well. 

I made a new soup recipe the other night that I thought was really good. It's called Bavarian Lentil Soup. The only change I made is adding about 1.5 cups of water during cooking since the broth was absorbed really quickly and the lentils weren't done cooking.

I saw this at the grocery store and thought it was funny.

I haven't quilted anything in about two weeks. I'll be back at it starting today. Oh, if you're interested, I quilted 205 pieces for other people last year and completed 22 of my own quilted projects. My most quilted pattern for the second year in a row was Stipple. 😄 Diagonal Plaid came in second for the second year in a row. If you need something quilted, my wait time is really short right now. 

Well, here we are, another week gone by, another year of my life as well. I feel very aware of my shortcomings, but a kind of resignation as well. I'm pretty set in my ways at this point in my life. I have a happy life as long as I limit my social media and, at times, news consumption. Comparison is certainly the thief of joy.

This month hasn't been as productive as I hoped, but then again, sewing is supposed to be my hobby, not a chore. Though quilting as a job kind of blurs that line at times. ha ha. I thought I'd do all sorts of fun projects. I did almost no sewing at all, though I did a lot of planning and learning about clothes sewing. 

I'm still a bit scared to cut into my shirt fabrics, but I need to get over it and just try one. My serger probably needs a cleaning and oiling prior to starting. It's been long-neglected. I was thinking that I wanted to make either a paper tape or duct tape form. I mentioned it to my husband that I'd like him to take some time away from the barn to help me do it. He seemed somewhat amenable. I went to research a bit more, leaning toward the paper tape, until I found many blog posts about how uncomfortable it is and how long it takes--up to four hours of standing totally still. Many mentioned how snug it got after the first layer and at that point, being highly claustrophobic, I started looking for other options.

I was watching videos of other methods when I found several talking about Bootstrap. It's a service where you enter all your measurements and body type and they send you a PDF with a custom form that you sew. It will cost more, but I won't be a live mummy having a panic attack. I think this is my next project.

Moving on to quilting, one minor accomplishment this week is that I attached binding to front of my Under the Sea quilt. I'm still making very slow progress on the strawberry quilt binding, so I'm not ready for this one yet. That's totally okay.  At least it's basically finished and the stitches are locked in now.

I finished my Betty quilt top, my July OMG, but it took much longer than I anticipated. It was easy sewing; I just didn't seem to find time to work on it. I had hoped to have it quilted and bound this month too--there are still a few days left this month, so maybe? I have to piece a backing.

I did do a little selective seam ripping prior to assembling the top. I felt that one of the fabric combos I'd included was just too dark compared to the others. Do you ever use selective seam ripping?

Sorry for the weird camera angles. I was trying to avoid capturing my shadow. My blocks are square.

I am still waiting on the two pieces of fabric I ordered for my Malted Mystery quilt. I do not recommend ineedfabric.com. I ordered several weeks ago and they have not yet shipped my fabric, which was listed as in stock, ready to ship. I should have researched better prior to ordering, because they have loads of one-star reviews that mention the very slow shipping time and lack of communication. At the time I was just excited to find a store that had both things I wanted in stock. I ordered alternate pieces from an Etsy shop this week. Those shipped within 24 hours and will definitely arrive before the others. 

As a bit of fun, I cut out a mini Buttercups quilts (Fig Tree Quilts) to use as leaders/enders. {I love cutting fabric. I find it relaxing.} I haven't tried a leader/ender project before, other than joining trimmings into HST, not that I've done anything with the millions of HST I've sewn. I don't know if it will stay as a leader/ender or if I will just sew it. 

I've worked on lots of colorful quilts this week. 

This one belongs to SCQG and is destined for a community organization. There wasn't quite enough backing provided, but one of the ladies had added her remaining fabric from the inner border and there was a scrap of one of the other fabrics, so I inserted those in the center of the provided backing to make it big enough. This is quilted with Gulf Stream.

Typically on these, they give me fabric for the binding and I trim the quilt and apply the binding to the front. Someone else then stitches it down. Well--the binding pieces provided were cut at 1.25". Oopsie. There were also some inner border pieces that had been overlooked. Those were 1.5". Hmmm...I think I can just squeeze a flanged binding from those. So I did it.  

Next was Terry's giant quilt. I spent several days on this one. The quilting design is More Square Drama and she wanted the teal thread to try to tone down the green. Each row of stitching took an hour. It was an intense, challenging project.

I quilted Pat's patriotic quilt with Star Spangled. It felt like a fitting choice. I need to bind this one. I may work on that today while I quilt the other top she sent.

Trish's star quilt was the next one. She picked Flirtatious and it looks perfect!

Finally, another of Trish's. I love the fabrics she picked. Robin Pickens is the designer and I admire how she puts colors together. I really love lilies, but so do the deer and rabbits in my neighborhood. Most of the time mine end up as stumps, so I have given up. Anyway, I enjoyed this quilt. We went with Trillium for the quilting. 

Out in the vegetable garden, we've been hit with a bug infestation. I entered the garden enclosure over the weekend, noticed weird bugs and lots of bug poop all over the tomato leaves, got grossed out, and left the garden. I Googled and found out they were blister beetles, so I'm very glad I didn't walk further in. We did apply some Neem oil Monday night, but the damage has already been done. I think I can still eat the tomatoes if they ripen?

Google tells me that blister beetles like plants in the nightshade family--horse nettle, black nightshade, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes. They are on my dill as well as my tomatoes. I don't think dill is a nightshade?? And probably on the horse nettle and nightshade weeds in the flower gardens and surrounding wild areas. They are also all over the ground, in the front door frame, etc. Gross.

Anyway, back to the garden. My husband braved the bugs and picked this zucchini. This one is number two this year, and it looks like we should get at least one more. I did get a good chuckle out of how it grew on the plant. It's a bit large since I was scared to go pick it. I'll probably make bread with it if I can find some fresh chives--mine are growing, but very small. I like this zucchini, cheddar, and chive bread.

I also really like Cook's Country/America's Test Kitchen skillet chicken, zucchini, and cheesy rice dish. I can't find a free link, so here is the recipe.

The kids and I have watched several series/shows lately that we enjoyed. 

• Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper (National Geographic/Disney+ or Hulu)
• Wham! (Netflix)
• Claim to Fame (NBC/Hulu)--we watched last year and were happy to see season two. We're working hard to avoid spoilers on this one and we haven't watched this week's episode yet.

Things are moving along here, mostly slowly, but still forward motion. I completed my Melodic Mystery top over the weekend. In case you didn't see my OMG Link Up post Monday, here is my quilt top. I have a vague plan to custom quilt it at some point. I shared it on the Meadow Mist Facebook page and am feeling really flattered by all the positive attention/feedback it's getting. 🥹

I finished ripping out the stitching on my Loves Me, Loves Me Not top over the weekend and re-quilted it yesterday with my original pick, which I should have done in the first place. Here it is in progress. I quilted it with the African Foliage design. 

I'm planning a flanged binding on this one and will hopefully complete it within the week and do the full reveal after.

I'm also working on a secret project. I'm slowly making progress on it, but it doesn't make for decent blog content. 😏

I will soon have most of my personal quilt commitments completed and I am pondering what I might like to work on next. I picked up a recent copy of Quiltmaker magazine over the weekend and I really want to make this quilt. I don't think I actually have enough of the correct colors in my stash to do it, but it is sooooo tempting!

I would like to reduce my UFO list, so I probably need to look there first. I'm okay with having a ton of things in the to-be-quilted pile since my longarm time is at a premium, but I'm not okay with my quantity of half-done quilt tops. I think I will start assembling my long-neglected Women's Voices blocks. I liked the idea of this project when I started it around 2000, but the fabrics are not to my taste and times change and this pattern was written in a way that I found somewhat incomprehensible and I'm ready to be done with it.  {Side note: a good amount of people have contacted me over the years, asking me to provide copies of the pattern to them. This pattern is still available for purchase from the designer and I respect designers and their copyrights. Also--sketch out the block yourself; it will probably be easier to understand than what was provided.}

Unfortunately, past me didn't leave very good notes with the assembly instructions on what still needed to be done--maybe some sashing and definitely outer borders. Past me also didn't do the best job on piecing some of the blocks. We'll just say it adds to its historical charm. 

I've quilted just a few things over the last week. I hope I don't sound like a constant advertisement when I share these. That isn't my ever my intention. It's just what I did in my sewing room during the week and hopefully you like seeing a bit of what other people are working on. Kind of like a show and tell. 

This first one belongs to Sara. We decided on Grandmother's Bubbles for the pattern and she stepped out of her gray thread comfort zone to go with Glide Sprout. (I did use gray thread on the back though. 😄) It looks so good! 

Next I worked on Amber's Confetti Star. I love that Amber loves color. I picked Toss Up for her design and she wanted neutral thread. She hasn't seen it yet. I hope she loves it!

I also quilted Amber's baby quilt. I decided on Stipple for this one since there are a lot of seams and baby quilts get washed a lot.

Keetah wanted the Play Baseball design on her quilt. This is one I don't offer (not listed on my website) unless someone asks for it specifically because I don't love how the lacing part of the design stitches out. I'd love to find a better baseball design that isn't too fussy and that doesn't snap the thread on the lacing.

Out in the garden, things are slow. The weird weather is not helping things. We did clear out all the flower beds over the weekend, minus the 🤬 spearmint. I pulled out some of that, but there is always more and more. My irises are very stubby, but they are budding. I noticed a few in the neighborhood that are already blooming. It's way early for irises. Then again, the daffodils started very early this year too. The redbuds are about halfway through and the dogwoods are full force, as are my allergies.

My upper front garden needs a big re-do, but I'm not in a rush because sooner than later we need to remove the front porch and columns (ugh!) to fix what an incompetent subcontractor did--didn't insert the provided rebar, so the porch is sinking and pulling away from the house. Super UGH! We have this evergreen standard out there and I had noticed cardinals and robins going in and out. I cannot believe it, but they both have nests in there, with eggs, about 6" apart. 

We haven't seen any hummingbirds yet, but the orioles have returned. Edited to add: first hummingbird was spotted in the afternoon, after I posted this.

We are nearing the end of the school year. I volunteered for something in the community that I thought would be a quick thing. It's not. It requires a lot of time and effort and has a very quick, very firm completion date. So I'll be trying to meet my commitment while keeping up with everything else. No good deed goes unpunished, right? These next few weeks will be a bit stressful for me.

Let's leave with something more positive, shall we? You know how I've mentioned that people seem to drive into buildings a lot in this town? We went into town the other day and noticed this. Sure looks like someone drove into it. Okay, so maybe that's not really positive, but I find it amusing because I am just astounded at how many people drive into or through things here. 

And I made this Mexican Rice recipe for dinner the other night. It was easy and quite tasty. This one is a positive. 🙂

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