I have started a new project.  It’s an older Judy Niemeyer pattern called “Feathered Star”.  I found the fabric kit for it on sale earlier this summer, and the pattern was on sale too.  I’ve been chipping away at each “chapter” of this quilt.  If you’ve never made a Quiltworx pattern, they have a system, and it is very effective, helps you organize and it breaks down each step of their complex patterns.  I find it comforting in a methodical way, but first I have to let go of my need to do it my way.

This week I promised a friend that I would help her make a halloween costume.  She wants to be a magical mushroom.  Yeah, not your typical cape or jump suit costume, It mostly involves a hat, shaped like a mushroom cap.  I am trying to come up with a way to make it light, as no one needs more weight on their head, and she needs to fly with it to NY.  There will be upholstery foam and glue gun work involved.

I finished off the hand sewing on “So She Did”.  The binding, ugh black on black, I used quilting thread.  It’s a full binding, and I knew if I used regular thread, it would pop with the stress.  It worked well, and it was easy to thread the needles.  I also had to sew the hanging sleeve on and make a label with my name and address on it.  I’ve gotten out of the habit of making quilt labels.  I think its because I sign most of them with my initials and date when I long arm.  But most of my quilts are for sale or donations, and no one is interested in that.  I think if I ever make that quilt that is in my head, it’ll have a label on it.

Last week I got the unicorn quilt back on the long arm.  I had taken it off before I started “Sew She Did” and then the Lions club donation had to be quilted.  When I first put the sparkle Minky backing on the frame, I did what I always do with Minky, I pinned the selvedge edges to the leaders.  However I didn’t orient the quilt top so that the long side was parallel to the long side of the Minky.  I  found this out the hard way as I advanced the quilt to the last rows of the pantograph.  The backing was eleven inches too short, Minky is 60 wide, quilt is 71 long.  I was able to cut the extra backing from the side and add it to the bottom.   Thankfully I hadn’t centered the quilt top on the backing, as I wanted to have a decent sized scrap left over when the quilting was done.  One side was 4 inches and the other was 12.  Phew.

I want to start quilting the Christmas figs quilt after the Unicorn is done.  I also saw a quilt that will use up most of the scraps from it.  I drafted it on EQ8, and it is mostly HSTs, squares, and HSTs with one part split into two ( is there a name for them?).  Recently I signed up for an online class with Kari Schell at On Point Quilter to further my knowledge of EQ8.  It’s really helpful so far, Kari is a good teacher, and along with the handout PDFs and videos I feel like I getting a better understanding of the software and what it can do.