I got a lot of sewing in yesterday, finished up the Starry Signs quilt top. It took me about eight hours on Monday to stitch the mountains section. You would think that these large size PFP pieces would be easy, but I found some difficult to wrangle and there was a bit of ripping involved. Whole Circle Studio has a good video on how to make large size FPP blocks on YouTube. It also helped that I precut all the pieces before hand. Usually I just cut strips and use them as I go. I am not sure how I want to quilt this yet, maybe part manually and part Qmatic. I was thinking of adding lines to the mountains to give them a bit more texture. Adding swirls to the clouds too, but the sky is so dark I think any custom designs would be lost. The original quilt has ½” spaced horizontal lines, very tedious to execute on a 88″ square quilt. I am really happy to finish up this BOM, and I can start something new.

Speaking of BOM, I got the second block of Merry Halloween ironed together. I need to figure out how I want to finish the edges and embellish them. I made Berties Year a few years ago, and it was a BOM with flannel. It was easy to do the hand embroidery on the blocks when they were separate. It was done with Perle cottons, I wonder if I have enough left overs from that to do this one too. It might be too much though with the thinner cottons of these blocks.

I also finished the Log cabin re-do quilt. I made the binding slightly larger than usual, 3″ wide. I sewed it to the back with a 3/8ths inch seam, so when it was folded over, it shows 5/8ths on the front. I am really happy with how this came out, and will be returning it to the happy couple tomorrow.

Today I am working on a Walker Saddle Bag, a By Annie Pattern. Lots of steps involved, I was able to quilt the main pieces last night and will try to get this mostly together today. I had to order some folded elastic, poly-webbing and a zipper in matching colors. This is one of those times I miss Joanns. Amazon actually had these available for delivery today. I feel like I should do some carbon neutral activities to offset this purchase though.

I was reading through Jo’s Country Junction the other day and she showed a new sampler from Heartstring Samplers called All things Wise and Wonderful. It’s going to be available at Nashville this coming month. I wish it had been around before I started the Lilies, I like it so much more. I doubt I will do another huge sampler of this type again. I would rather do a Long Dog Sampler, if I am going to invest a years worth of stitching. I really want to start a smaller piece – must be strong and finish Consider the Lilies.

Be Kind.