Stories from the Sewing Room

Do you have people in your quilting journey that have totally changed the way you look at things? I have a few:

Donna, a late coworker who convinced me to use pretty fabric on the back of quilts (I had always used muslin previously.)
anonymous person from the internet who showed me a better way to hand-stitch binding (their website is gone now and I don't remember their name)
Denise from A Quiltery, who made me more successful at paper piecing
Teresa Silva, who helped me get over my fear of ruining quilts when quilting by hand
Kelly Young, who helped me look at my fabric scraps and improv quilting in a favorable way

Last week I got to spend the day with Kelly and it was so fun! We made the Churn, Churn, Churn mini from her Scrappy Improv Quilting book. If you are looking for a guild speaker, please consider Kelly. Her trunk show was fabulous and the class was perfect. She's booking 2025 right now, I believe.

Wednesday was a bit odd because we'd had a tornado warning overnight which interrupted our sleep. (No actual tornados occurred.) I felt bad because I knew Kelly was staying in a hotel and I thought about how that must be scary, especially since you aren't familiar with an area.

Then I was driving in to class and got a text from my son that a teacher had died and the kids had been evacuated to the football field due to a gas leak. About three hours and around 35 phone calls, texts, emails, and automated voicemail messages later, we determined that they didn't know the cause of the smell, but the building was cleared as safe, the teacher died in hospice care, not at school, and the kids were all sent home early as a precaution. I wish I were joking about the number of messages. I had to have my ringer off because it was going non-stop for a while.

Anyway, once the phone situation calmed down, I was able to relax and enjoy sewing. I didn't have quite enough time to finish during class, but got it done the next day. It's now awaiting quilting and binding.

Of course I've been working away at my quilting queue too. First up is a baby quilt by Sara. We picked Moon and Stars for the quilting.

Next is Barbara's quilt, quilted with Songbird.

Then Charles', quilted with Spaceman. This quilt is made using fabrics from Karen Nyberg, an astronaut.

Finally, another of Barbara's, quilted with Cobwebs.

I admire all of her perfectly spun seams. This is something that I know how to do in theory, but really struggle with in practice.

I also got all three quilts that needed binding done over the weekend and shipped back to their owners.

Out in the vegetable garden, I cleared out the weeds from the garden tanks (again) and got almost everything planted. I decided to hold off a bit on the bell pepper seedlings to let them get a bit bigger before transplanting. I also dug the walnut saplings out of the upper flower gardens. The lower garden needs a lot of help still.

My son took this photo the other evening. I'm glad you can't really tell that this garden is full of unwanted trees that nature planted.

Were you able to see the northern lights over the weekend? We tried the second night, but were unsuccessful. Good thing people like to share their photos on social media. Here's the picture I took. Clearly no northern lights. I thought it was interesting that the moon looks full in the picture, but was more of a crescent shape in reality.

A friend who lives nearby really wanted to see them and spent much more time outdoors looking than we did. She was so disappointed that she wasn't seeing anything. She finally posted a picture of the sky near her house where she had drawn pink and purple lines over the sky to create her own. I thought that was cute.

Oh, my sponsor prize from the Villa Rosa blog hop arrived. I received two charm packs.

Finally, I have an update about this month's OMG--making my dress form. I was planning to get started over the weekend. I went to YouTube to pull up the step-by-step video I'd found helpful previously. It was GONE! 😫😫 The person seems to have wiped their channel and their social media. This is what happens when you procrastinate. Ugh! So I've been pouting and haven't started yet. Maybe this weekend. Especially since I'm now down to about a week and a half before I need to post the OMG finish link up. Yikes!

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

I have completed the Swiss Star QAL top. The pattern was provided free on the Bernina blog. The original quilt was made of three colors. My daughter decided to recolor it into a rainbow. Everything except the background was from my stash. Though the pattern was labeled as advanced beginner/intermediate, I found this pattern to be very challenging and I would have labeled it as advanced based on the cutting techniques and construction methods used. Anyway, I'm glad the top is done. I'm annoyed that it came out a bit wavy (again, due to construction and large amounts of bias on the edges). We're considering options for backing fabric and I think my daughter will be okay with an E2E design on it.

Today I am taking a class with Kelly Young from My Quilt Infatuation! We are doing the Churn, Churn, Churn quilt from her Scrappy Improv book. She spoke at our guild last night. It was so much fun!

I attended the h+h americas trade show in Chicago last week. If you are a longarm quilter, it's probably not the best use of your time and resources unless you were interested in taking some of the classes or listening to the speakers. I was, but the things I was interested in were above my current budget. Plus, I only had one day to spend due to driving time and needing to be home in time for my daughter's Friday morning graduation ceremony. I'll spare you our selfie and just show the backdrop. 😄

There were a lot of really gorgeous yarns and knitted or crocheted projects. Truly amazing! Here are a few pictures of the Mochi Mochi table that my husband took.

Many of the major fabric distributors were also there, along with some of the notions marketers. Hobbs had a booth, as did a batting company I wasn't familiar with--Air Lite. It was very much a time to see products in person and place your orders for your retail sites.

While I was there, I met LORI HOLT! She's just as nice as you'd expect. I didn't do photos with her or anyone else I recognized because I'm an introvert and it feels like invading their personal space. She was crocheting and had lots of her chunky yarn and granny squares on display.

Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame was also there. We didn't speak to her. She's got a new line coming out with Riley Blake.

After Quilt Con and h+h, I am totally realizing my shortcomings. I need to be more outgoing and speak to more people and take more photos. Same things, I feel like I'm invading people's personal space and also, several of the people I did introduce myself to at Quilt Con seemed as if I was a bother or it was just very awkward. Or they didn't remember me at all from previous interactions. I guess I'm pretty forgettable. Maybe I should join the FBI. LOL.

I did decide to circle back to talk the the Villa Rosa people, and I'm so glad I did. I talked to Pat Fryer herself and thanked her for the quilt I won in the recent blog hop. She handed me a baggie of all of the latest VR cards free of charge!! I told her that was the highlight of my day and she kinda gave me side-eye. Oh well. I was thrilled!

If I go again next year, I'd like to go for more than one day and be able to take my time and maybe push myself by doing some meet-ups. I found the crowds and the lights overwhelming and felt rushed and unprepared, so I probably didn't take advantage of what was available to me.

While we were in Chicago, we were able to have dinner with my husband's aunt, uncle, and cousins, who we hadn't seen in close to 15 years! We stayed overnight with the cousins and that was very enjoyable. Meanwhile, I noticed I had a rash popping up on my arms and I wasn't feeling the greatest. At first I thought it was chiggers, but it wasn't reacting the same and I was really dragging.

After the graduation ceremony Friday morning, I took myself to the urgent care. It turns out I have poison ivy. I've never had it before. It took all afternoon to get through the appointment and actually get the prescriptions filled. In a weird turn of events, one of the meds was being filled by robot and had gotten stuck in there. They said there was nothing they could do besides wait until it came out. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I'm finally starting to feel more like myself again, but I'm scared to do more yard work now because I don't know where I encountered the poison ivy. I had been weeding the lower garden and there is not any growing there. We considered that maybe it was on the gloves or the bag we put weeds in. We'll probably never know. I do have some Farmer's Defense sleeves that I wasn't wearing but should have been as I am prone to contact dermatitis anyway. I also think I have it in one of my eyes. 😒

Our lilac is blooming right now and is very fragrant. It's raining a lot of petals into my sewing room window well. Our yard zucchinis are looking good. It's about time to transfer my tomato starts out to the garden and get beans planted. My four little pepper starts look okay. I'll probably let them go another week or so before transferring them so that I don't accidentally pull them out. Our strawberry patches got neglected, but we were able to harvest a couple strawberries this week.