Lucky Charm Mini

I am still getting over my cold.  I'm at day 10 and I think I've used two whole boxes of tissues so far.  Things have been close to a standstill, progress-wise. I finally finished up my Lucky Charm mini quilt top last night. Lucky Charm is a pattern from Primrose Cottage Quilts.  I bought the kit from their Etsy shop.  Not sure why, but I have such a hard time sewing hourglass blocks.  This one finishes at 30" square, so I will be putting it onto the long arm for sure.
Something I'm wondering about--do you press seams open or to the side?  Why?  I generally press seams to one side unless the pattern really isn't working out well, in which case I will try with open seams.  I feel like it is much easier to match intersections when seams are pressed to one side.  A complaint I have about open seams is that they always seem to split (I always backstitch at beginning and end of seams, but open seams always come undone).  And if I press joining row seams open, they don't stay flat.  It's like they want to close up.  How do get around that and have them stay flat?

 So, moving along.  We are getting a little closer on the sewing room.  The second closet door is installed and the cutout for my sewing machine is done.  My current bench is too short for the new counter, so I have a chair on order.  Fingers crossed it looks good.
We'd bought some "official color-matched" caulk for the countertop and it does not match.  It dried pretty yellow, so we are ripping it out and trying something different, I guess.  Can you notice the yellow line around the desk where it meets the wall?  So disappointing.
We still need to enlarge my long arm frame--the correct parts arrived Saturday.  Other than fixing the caulk situation, pretty much all that's left is to clean and figure out how to transport my cutting table down there. I think that's going to involve tearing it completely down into its components.

 Here's the updated sewing room to-do list:
  • wire the outlets
  • install one more light
  • install a drop ceiling in the big closet
  • install carpet in the big closet
  • install knobs and pulls on the desk and cabinets
  • clean all the cabinets and install the shelves inside them
  • finish the countertop
  • install shoe moulding along the cabinets
  • install a smoke alarm and wi-fi booster thing
  • put on the doors for both one more closets
  • install pocket door
  • get some glass cut for one set of cabinet doors on order
  • finish up the crown molding
  • finish making the top for my cutting table
  • break down, move, and reassemble the long arm
  • move all half the remainder of my stuff in

My son started taking a beginning tennis class over the weekend.  I played tennis in high school and took a class in college for fun.  It's been a long time since I played, but I'm happy that he is having fun and that he is willing to hit the ball around with me.  It feels good to have my racquet in my hand again.  😊

 Side note:  if you subscribe to my blog via email, you may have noticed that your email is now very short.  Just click on the post title to read the full post.
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Stuffed Animals & Star Wars

I made some stuffed animals for my kids for Valentine's Day.  Both were challenging projects, but for different reasons.
I made my daughter this corgi.  The pattern is by Fluffmonger and is a free download.  I purchased the fabrics from Fluffmonger's Etsy store.  This is the mini size and it's around 6" tall.  I had a really hard time fitting the butt onto the back fabric, but with the help of about 6,000 pins I finally got it in there.  It was a challenge to sew due to its tiny size.

I made my son an axolotl.  The pattern is by Bee Zee Art on Etsy.  I used micro fleece to sew the pattern.  I had two reasons for this.  One, I hate sewing with minky.  Two, I already had the light pink micro fleece, so only had to buy a small bit of the darker pink.  Overall the pattern was pretty easy to sew.  The only part I didn't like is that you have to hand sew the head to the body.  I would have rather had an open body seam to close up after stuffing.  For some reason my sewing machine had a complete meltdown while sewing this.  I had tons of ripping due to massively long skipped stitches.  And then, when I was almost done, I accidentally ripped a small hole near the mouth seam and had to make a really wonky seam to cover it.  Heartbreak!  The eyes ended up a bit crooked too, but he likes it and I am relieved.

On the plus side, both kids liked their gifts and my sewing machine seems to have recovered from whatever was possessing it while sewing the axolotl.

 I finished up the four Millennium Falcon mug rugs this week too.  The pattern is by Isabella's Whimsy on Etsy. I was amused while binding the first one because we were watching tv and Star Wars episode VII came on while I was binding one of the BB-8 backed pieces.  And then Han and Chewy came in.  😀

I've been trying to start sewing a kit I bought from Primrose Cottage Quilts on Etsy.  Life keeps intervening.  I finally got everything cut on Sunday, spent most of Monday resting with a nasty cold virus, then spent yesterday morning judging my teacher friend's elementary school science fair.  And yesterday afternoon resting again. Maybe in between resting periods today I can start sewing.
I've still been moving bits and pieces downstairs into the sewing room closet.  I've emptied most of the things out of the office, so it's looking quite spacious.  My replacement long arm frame pieces were shipped yesterday.  They show a delivery date of Monday, but I'm hoping they arrive before the weekend so that we can expand the frame to king size.  

 My husband spent part of the weekend working on the desk in the sewing room.  He's been experimenting with different templates to cut an inset into the desk.  The plan is to have the bed of the machine sit level with the counter.  He's going to cut a hole in the countertop and then cut a plexiglass piece to fit tightly around the machine (template at left in picture below). I think we're going to try doing the cutting tonight. We are a bit nervous about this, because one slip of the router and it's game over on the counter top!  If all goes well, I should be able to finish moving in within the next week or two.
Here's the updated sewing room to-do list:
  • wire the outlets
  • install one more light
  • install a drop ceiling in the big closet
  • install carpet in the big closet
  • install knobs and pulls on the desk and cabinets
  • clean all the cabinets and install the shelves inside them
  • finish the countertop
  • install shoe moulding along the cabinets
  • install a smoke alarm and wi-fi booster thing
  • put on the doors for both one more closets
  • install doorknobs
  • get some glass cut for one set of cabinet doors on order
  • finish up the crown molding
  • finish making the top for my cutting table
  • break down, move, and reassemble the long arm
  • move all half the remainder of my stuff in

We've had so much rain lately, mixed with small amounts of snow and ice, and most days it's been really gloomy.  I'm really hoping that spring is truly on its way.  My daffodils are coming up, there were flocks of robins in the yard last week, and this week I had some red winged black birds on the feeder--they are summer birds for us.  However, I do still have the juncos, which are winter birds. I'm gonna ignore them and go with spring's imminent arrival.

 Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.
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