Stories from the Sewing Room

Looking at my pictures for the last week, all I have to say is that I thought I did a lot more than I did.

I did have two days that were devoted to the guild's market sale, so maybe that's it.

I also had a board meeting for the other guild I belong to and already completed typing the minutes, only one day after the meeting. It may be a record!!

The quilts I completed this week are:

Two for Sonja, each quilted with Frost. It's fun seeing fabrics I recognize from her past projects show up in current projects.

One for Amber, quilted with Ginger Heart.

And one for Trish, quilted with Soho. It's hard to tell here, but the thread is mint green.

I've lost track of how many more I have to do. I think six, but maybe there are more. Sometimes there are surprises. Soon it will be my turn in the queue.

I thought I'd get a lot more personal sewing done, but I didn't. I cut out a quilt. This one has a deadline. Also, I really dislike layer cakes. That is all.

I started working on the flying geese units that are this month's clue for the Melodic Mystery from Meadow Mist Designs.

I have not started working on this month's OMG, which is to make all the string pieced border units for my Grassy Creek mystery. I have a week left. Will it happen? Who even knows at this point! 😆 I am having some difficulties focusing, but I feel pretty relaxed. I really need to clean up my sewing room. There is stuff everywhere, which is not my usual.

My AeroGarden herbs are ready to harvest. The Thai basil is the huge one this go around. It did not sprout in the first one. Chives are not the thing to grow here. I think you'd have to plant a big clump to have enough to harvest. I put three seeds in each pod this time and there is like one or two strands growing in each. 

We have a very large, low clump of dill growing in one of the outside tanks. We thought it was a weed at first because it didn't smell like dill, but it does now. The chickens love it. They also like finely diced broccoli stems. We caught the white rooster mounting one of the hens last night. 😟 They are approximately four months old right now. The rooster(s) are crowing pretty much every morning. I can't tell if it's one or both of them. Most of the time it's not super loud and it lasts up to five minutes. At least it's around 7:30 and not the crack of dawn. The white one is establishing himself as the leader, but he's also kind of a bully now. We will have to continue to monitor these situations, not that I have any idea at all of what to do.

My younger child got his learner's permit yesterday. 

I hope you have a nice holiday.

Another week has slipped past and it seems like I haven't been very productive. Though I actually have, just not on my own projects.

My sole accomplishment for the week outside of working on others' quilts is creating a table runner for one of the guilds I belong to. I wanted to serge the edges and I haven't touched my sergers in ages. I had to clean a pretty thick layer of dust off the dust cover. Then I ran out of thread and had to think about how to properly rethread the machine. You do have to use the proper threading order if you want it to actually form stitches. Why? Who knows? But I reminded myself of why when it didn't work when I did it out of order. 

I used a big chunk of what I think is muslin from my stash. I couldn't get the wrinkles out with my regular iron. We used the Cricut Easy Press since my husband had cut vinyl letters for me. The Easy Press has a pretty short cord, so I had it plugged into my extension cord. It kept way overheating--like 150+ degrees too hot--and shutting off. I'm wondering if the cord had anything to do with it. It is a normal extension cord, not a lightweight household one. Anyway, the super hot temperature worked wonders with the intensely wrinkled fabric. This picture is prior to ironing.

The big sale is this weekend. I'm hosting a pre-sale booth trial set up party this afternoon and then I'm on official set up duty Friday morning and working my shift Friday late afternoon. I hope people aren't scared off by the pricing on the quilts. People who don't quilt are pretty clueless about the amount of time, effort, and money that go into it. $50 is not going to cut it. You want a $50 bedspread, go to a big box or Amazon. You want art, you pay for art.

Meanwhile, I have still been hard at work getting everyone's quilts done. I had a big chunk that needed to be bound in addition, so that's what I've been doing. Speaking of binding, I lost the needle I'd been using to hand bind one of my own quilts. Oops! Magnets were not successful in locating it. It will turn up eventually. 

Back to the quilts. I finished up the binding on Pat's two quilts from last week.

Then I quilted Sandy's checked baby quilt with Ginger Heart. I bound this one as well.

Next up is Linda's half-square triangle quilt, quilted with Stipple.

Then Elizabeth's quilt, made for her by Kayle, quilted with Rumble. Binding is in process.

A memory quilt made by Annie, quilted with Tamarack Wood Grain. Still need to finish the binding on this one, to be completed by Friday.

Another of Linda's quilts, quilted with Starlets.

Then one for Sonja, quilted with Christmas. 

I think I have 10 more to go. These things seem to be a bit fluid. 😄

We got our first snowfall of the season Friday night. They estimated a dusting up to one inch, but it ended up being more like three or four inches. It was pretty and oddly raised my spirits. I don't really care for snow, but the white is better than all the dead grass. The chickens were not amused by the snow! It melted really quickly even though we haven't gotten much above 35 degrees. I'm thankful for the moisture.