Stories from the Sewing Room

I can't believe I'm done with a week to spare! Especially with how things have been going lately. More on that later. My goal this month was to finish piecing and quilt my Flower Patch quilt from Denise's SAL. Here is it is fully pieced.

Quilting in progress (quilting design is called Wishing):

A few detail shots with poor late evening lighting.

I hope to find some time to make binding soon.

I've also been working on piecing a test quilt, but cannot share pictures.

I've been working really hard to get lots of quilts knocked out. I had a few challenging ones recently that caused my longarm to skip a tooth on the belt. The needle bar also needed alignment and then we had to retime the machine. It took Tuesday - Friday to address everything. After all that, I thought I'd work on a baby quilt of my own to make sure everything was functioning properly prior to getting back to work. So I was all full of hope Saturday and working along on the quilt. 

You might remember this quilt from past posts. I made it 16 years ago and the quilting was less than ideal, so it got abandoned part way through the quilting process. For your viewing pleasure, here is how it used to look.

I ripped it all out this spring, removed some really odd batting--no idea what it was, but it was weird, and replaced it with a nice piece of Quilter's Dream 80/20 in white (my favorite). I quilted this with a combination of hand guided ruler work and Intelliquilter blocks.

I stopped to research border quilting methods using Intelliquilter and also to take a walk before more rain moved in. Well, we got part way into our walk and it started dumping rain, so we had to run back through the edge of the neighbor's property to get back to our house. Yes, we did check the radar before we went, and according to that, we should have had about an hour. Pretty much as soon as we got back in the house the rain stopped. I was watching a video and reading a tutorial when the power started blipping. And then it was out. A brief but very strong storm moved through and there was no more power for the next 16.5 hours. I am fortunate to live in an area where we rarely lose power, and if we do it is usually not more than an hour or two. So the 16.5 hours really sucked. We were able to get our generator running (for the first time in about nine years) so that we could power the fridge and freezer. Turns out one of our neighbors had a bunch of trees fall on the line. They still had power, but everyone south of them did not. 😒

Sunday afternoon I was able to get back to quilting. First I finished the pink and green quilt. Here's what I've done since then:

My Flower Patch (see above).

Keetah's baby quilt, quilted with Play Baseball (wouldn't recommend this pantograph).

Two baby quilts for Amber, quilted with loopy meander.

Finally, Keetah's huge, beautiful quilt, quilted with Plumeria (this one took 8+ hours! 🤯).

I have an abundance of milkweed everywhere. 😆 Unfortunately, I still have an abundance of spearmint infiltrating this garden as well.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back next week to find out what my June goal will be.

Linking with For the Love of Geese and My Quilt Infatuation.

Not much to report here. I either forgot to photo or can't share what I've been working on. Saturday I had a  Sewcial with my small guild so that we could work on assembling a top we are donating to a local organization for their fundraiser. I arrived several hours late since I was getting a hair cut. Once I got there, I was really busy with the sewing. We then had a very heavy rain/thunder/hail storm move through. I didn't even know it was supposed to rain! We all had to wait it out. I neglected to take pictures, but you can see part of the blocks I donated in last week's post.

This is what I can share of my current project. I can say that it will be a baby quilt.

I finished three quilts. First is Sara's, quilted with Circle Drama.

Next is Jo Ellen's, quilted with Knit 1, Purl 2.

Then I worked on Martha's antique quilt--hand guided meander.

It appears to mostly be made from bits of old clothes and was assembled with both hand and machine sewing. The back is also old clothes and some possible feed sacks.

Unbeknownst to me, the timing belt on my Lucey had slipped a bit and the challenge of very thick seams made it slip a tooth. Luckily, APQS has fantastic service. They emailed me video instructions last night while we were at my son's school recognition night (he won an award; we are so proud of him) and my husband was able to get the belt back into place. I do need to double-check things and check in with APQS, but I should be able to get back at it today. 

My yard is looking nice. The clematis in the front garden are in full bloom. 

The unusual clematis in the side garden is starting to blossom. The back one hasn't started yet.

Lots of the spiky purple plants I seem to favor (I have multiple varieties, mostly catmint, Veronica, and salvia, because they do great in my setting) are starting to blossom around the whole yard. Here's one of my favorites.

The irises are putting on a nice display. The purple ones are Caesar's Brother and the white in the back is Immortality. My very most favorite Crater Lake Blue (not pictured) have so far put up one blossom. It's probably time to divide them again.

I didn't have time to check the outdoor veggies or fruit, but here is the final picture of my indoor lettuce. I double-checked and I planted this around January 12. I harvested what was left yesterday (and added it my lunch salad) and cleaned out the machine. I'll be starting herbs next, just because that's the refill I have. Most of them are herbs we don't commonly use, but I will find a way. Maybe they can just get added to my salads.