Bag making is fun. Bag making is enriching. Bag making is frustrating. Bag making is a process. Last week I started making the Everyday Everyway bag from ByAnnie. I thought maybe I would have it finished by Friday, when we left for the weekend. By Thursday night I was on the inside pocket divider. I had finished all the straps. If you’ve ever made a ByAnnie bag, you know that all strapping is covered with fabric. It looks really nice, and makes the straps less slippery, but what a lot of sewing. Make a tube, turn it right side out, insert the strapping, then sew around the edges. This bag is called every-way because of all the strap options. There are regular handles, a shoulder strap, stroller straps, and back-pack straps. A lot of hardware too, all the pieces I ordered from ByAnnie, came in little plastic boxes. I am determined to find a use for them as they close tightly and are a good quality plastic.

Yesterday I spent two hours on the side panels of the bag. Today I am hoping to get the front and back panels done, and maybe get the bag put together. I think there is inside binding that needs to be hand sewn, I don’t want to look ahead in the pattern and spoil the fun. I am enjoying the process though. Really.

As a break from the bag, I started the ABC cardigan. I really like this Debbie Bliss Cashmerino yarn. It is the same yarn I used to make the hoodie out of. Everyone loved the hoodie btw, the blanket was a big hit too. I think my DIL was expecting the quilt (Tilda Anniversary quilt). I have that ready for appliqué, just have to get started on the process of sorting the prints and cutting chunks for the flowers. I drew all the shapes on to the reverse side of the background with permanent ink pen using my projector. Sadly, or rather frustratingly, I had to do it twice, as the first time I did it too small. It’s kinda of a mess back there, but it doesn’t show on the front.

After the bag of all bags is finished, I am going to start the two Pumpkin Patches quilts. One from the kit fabric and another from the stash fabric. I am ready for some mindless chain piecing about now. I sold one of the Halloween quilts and the other one, the zig zag, is in someone’s cart. Two more fall themed quilts would be a good addition. Probably should do another Christmas themed one too. I would like to use up the rest of the All Hallows Eve fabrics this year. I think that I have a small Fig Tree quilt pattern around here that’ll work.

I really should get quilting on the purple pineapple top. It is all ready to go, first row set. There are only so many hours in the day. I am going to be home for the next few months, no excuses not to get some more things finished. There are still 37 days left of official summer.

I just got notification that the next Fabulous house has shipped. I really need to make some more stitches on the Light House. I don’t like being behind on BOM’s as it soon leads to UFO’s for me.

Be Kind.

Last years post from the end of July had me finishing the last of my Etsy client quilts. That was a big finish, 10 quilts in four months. Sadly, or happily, depending on how you look at it, I miss the business and the busy-ness. There are only so many quilts a person can use, and this client has over 20 from me. One assumes that it is probably a once in a lifetime thing for ones business, but one can hope. Anyway, I have been finishing things and starting to catch up a bit on my to-do list. I updated my white board to reflect what is happening in the studio. I would rather erase than add, but there were some things erased. Trying to keep in mind what I am accomplishing and what is gathering dust.

The two kits I ordered came in the mail. The one, Pumpkin Patches is the pattern I was going to repeat using Fig Tree fabrics from stash. Sadly, not enough oranges left for that. I did a little shopping and found that the fabrics from All Hallows Eve aren’t around anymore. I shopped my stash and came up with a layer cake of Stacy Iest Hsu Holiday Essentials Halloween that will do for a sub in the pattern. Yay!, stash reduction and the pattern is adaptable for layer cakes. What I am hoping to do is to make two at a time, cut everything and then chain piece like nobodies business. The other kit, is cute forest animals, but I don’t see the pattern being replicated for another line of fabrics. Although, I may have enough of the Farm charm line, or the forest babies line (can’t remember the name of it).

Indigo way was quilted, bound and off to the Lions Veterans benefit. The benefit raffle is in October, so it is a bit early. I wanted to get it done because my DH has officially retired from the office where the benefit coordinator worked too. I donated a quilt back in 2019, a big red white and blue star quilt from a Judy Martin pattern. That quilt garnered 250.00 donation, that person definitely got a deal on a really nice quilt. I hope Indigo Way goes for more, I was happy to make it from mostly scraps and with all the Quiltville friends camaraderie.

I have been steadily working on the hoodie sweater, specifically the hood, I need to measure and see how many more rows I need to do. Then I’ll move on to the arm/sleeves, thankfully babies have short arms.

Yesterday I worked on block 16 of Message in a bottle – MIAB. Only 10 more blocks to go, I think 5 are appliqué, then it’s on to the border. The border is appliqué too, diamonds on squares and leaves in squares. Those leaves remind me of the BOM autumn quilt I made a while ago, there were hundreds of leaf shapes. I don’t think I have a picture of it on this computer, nope. I think I made it in 2012 or 2013.

The purple pineapple top was loaded and started too. In my quest to organize all my digital quilting designs, I have found quite a few block designs to choose from. I found a set from Prostitcher that work well, and they stitch out fairly quickly. I’m using a king tut thread that is variegated light lavender on the top. I have to figure out what to do for the borders and the 1 ½ inch strip around it too. This ufo is on its way to being an FO, yay.

The next Fabulous House pattern was released yesterday. It’s a floating house, as in house boat. Brings back memories of a time when I worked as a dock attendant for a few summers. We had a floating shack with a few chairs, a freezer for bait and a fridge for sodas. There was a cash register, the gas pump controls, some bagged chips and a tip jar. That tip jar helped me pay for school and other things. Perfect summer job, as it was a self serve gas station, all we did was hang-out in the sun on the water and read or listen to music.

I need to stitch more on the current Lighthouse piece. I finished the whales head and I’m moving into the base of the lighthouse itself. The lines coming out of the whale are a seagulls legs.

Be Kind.

I first saw this quilt in an ad for Fat Quarter shop on Facebook. I was making the Summer Swag quilt from my El camino fabric stash and thought it would be a good pattern to use up the scraps. I found the pattern and downloaded it, it is by Chrissy Lux of Branch and Blume. Also layer cake friendly, so I knew having a bunch of scraps would work. Once I read through the pattern, I realized that it was a folded corners technique using one. I dislike folded corner blocks because they create more scraps. I re-drafted the pieces by making one block as per pattern and then carefully measuring the pieces. I then cut parallelograms instead of strips and HST’s in place of squares. I was able to get a good variety of prints and use up most of the scraps to have a few yards (total) left of the El Camino fabrics. There are 36 – 8 ½” blocks for this pattern and each block has 19 pieces. I spent a few hours cutting and the next day started chain piecing. It was all going so smoothly, until I realized I had 72 of wrongly cut chisel pieces. There may have been a few words uttered unsuitable for general audiences. Flashbacks to the Washboard quilt top too, and the hours spent re-doing those blocks. The problem here was that I couldn’t turn the pieces over and use them, as this was printed fabric, so right facing angles can’t be turned into left facing ones. My solution involved adding another piece to the block and only having to recut 36 pieces. The only seam ripping was done to the sample blocks I had made.

All the blocks are on the design wall, I think I have them assorted enough to not have any same ones touching. Just have to add the sashing and outer border and it’ll be a top. I was going to use the dark blue print for the sashing squares, but since I used the ones I originally cut for in the blocks, I needed to cut 49 more. I went with a mix of all the fabrics instead, yay! for scrappy.

In other handwork news, I started the Light House. Lots of solid blue X’es, the whale makes up a lot of them. Other blue stitches are in the knitted Hoodie I am making. I decided to make the 9-12 month size, room to grow into. Slightly odd construction technique with this Debbie Bliss pattern. Make the flat back, make the flat front and then divide for neck. Insert a few increase stitches, bind off shoulders and keep knitting the hood. I think I may do a Crochet edging on this hood to make it a bit more feminine, and reinforce the V at the center neck.

I got the backing for Indigo Way on the frame, and put out the batting to relax on it. I ended up doing yard work instead, as it was wonderfully cool yesterday and there were a bunch of things that needed pruning and cleaning up. I may do some more gardening today as the weather is very similar.

Be Kind.

I finished the Fabulous House barn last night by stitching the last cow. The barn got finished Sunday and half of the left sunflower on Monday then yesterday buckled down and finished it all. The new pattern, Lighthouse, was in the mailbox, so technically I didn’t “have” the next pattern yet. Each one of these houses has taken almost four weeks for me to stitch, although I still enjoy doing them, I am always complaining about the solid-ness of them. So many stitches, so little time, well that’s not really true I usually stitch for an hour or two a day. To my credit, I have not had time to start a new cross stitch project since starting this giant sampler. Nor have I bought any more charts, (think not) I certainly don’t need to do that.

Since yesterday was a HOT day I stayed inside and sewed a few things together. I pulled the Washboard and Sage triangle baby quilt (lacking a proper name) off the frame and got bindings on them, and for the final huzzah I bound the Morning Glories quilt. AND I finished weaving in all the ends (64) on the Good Morning blanket. Along with the Paisley Fizz quilt finish on Monday, I feeling pretty productive. I ordered four backing pieces yesterday, Missouri Star had a decent one day sale, for some of the tops in the TBQ pile. This time I made a note to myself so I don’t get the fabric and scratch my head wondering why I ordered this stuff.

The last two blocks for my Simple Days quilt got put together this week too. I need to do the embroidery and appliqué, but at least all the blocks are finished and the backing is ordered. I am thinking of pulling out the Shiny and Bright Christmas wreath piece I embroidered a few years (7/2019) ago. I have a little stash of pink and turquoise colored winter themed fabrics that go with it. The pattern calls for a border of pinwheels and a solid outer border for a wall hanging.

Also in my shopping cart this week are two throw size kits, they were both 40% off. I figure I can’t buy the fabrics and patterns for that price, so why not? They are fall themed, one is a pattern from Denise Russell and the other is from Cluck Cluck Sew. I think I may have enough scraps left over from the All Hallows Fig tree line to make a second quilt from this pattern. It’s cute and scrappy, and everyone likes pumpkins. The third quilt pictured, a panel user, Grand Central, from Sentimental Stitches. It uses a peacock panel that I have in stash also. Pretty sure I have enough coordinating fabrics to go with it to make into a throw too.

The Memory tee shirt quilt was picked up, and will be a graduation gift this weekend. The Dad really liked it, and I had made them a different one a while ago, so I think we’re good:)

With all these finishes I am itching to start something new. I’ll be “good” and pull out a UFO and start something new. I did open up the pattern, Enchanting Stars from Jacqueline De Jong – Be Colorful Quilts . It is unlike any pattern I have done before. The format is very different from the one that Judy Niemeyer/Quiltworx uses. Similar in the separating segments and such into baggies, but the charts and organization methods will require full concentration on my part. Id like to sit down with it and read through it a few times before diving into it. Maybe I’ll like it better, or maybe I can combine the two different ways into one better one. Check back on that.

Be Kind.

Do it again, but better. A second chance for this quilt top came this week. I started it on July 24th 2021, so if I can get it quilted this week it’ll be a three year UFO project done. The problem with it wasn’t that it was put together, but that it wasn’t the quilt that matched the pattern. When I sewed the blocks, I used solid colored fabrics and white. It made cutting the triangles and rhomboid shaped pieces a lot easier to assembly-line cut, very little waste. However when I chain pieced them together, I made all 80 blocks the same, there are supposed to be 40 A blocks and 40 B blocks. They are supposed to mirror image each other, well I thought I would just make a new layout. I sewed them all together and the top sat for almost three years in the TBQ pile. I found a backing for it recently and got it all set up to finally quilt the Washboard road. My DH walked in while I was basting the top to the backing/batting and said that the design looked like a symbol from WWII. Mmm, yeah, thats what I thought too, and it had been bugging me, but I thought once I got it quilted it wouldn’t be so obvious. If my DH noticed it, then it must be pretty obvious.

I took the quilt top back to the sewing room and separated all the blocks and then sorted out 40 of them to dismantle and re-sew. Tedious and boring, but you know, I am much happier with the quilt top now. I want to get it quilted before the 24th, and the three year mark, another UFO done.

In the finished category this week is the memory quilt. I was thinking about all the things that were not “easy” about this quilt. The tee shirts, the mix of fabrics, satins and flannels and cotton prints. The bead work, some rhinestones, little bows, some lace and pockets. All quilted to a Minkee appliquéd backing, what could possibly go wrong? It all worked out, I learned a little, and I think that having the right equipment and a little experience with using it were the things that helped make this work. Where would I be without a few Youtube videos and tutorials to help me? I ended up binding the quilt by cutting the backing one and a half inches wide than the top and double folding it over to the front and sewing it down. It is such a soft binding for a cuddly quilt.

The Barn grew another sunflower and a cow, I think the barn building fairies are skipping me. This morning I saw a new Long Dog Sampler, Love at First Sight. I must resist. I have too many other charts and cross stitch projects already. I was just thinking about the Consider the Lillies piece that has been up-staged by the fabulous houses. So many projects, so little time. Oh! I did finish the Good Morning blanket Wednesday night. I am about half-way through weaving in all the ends. I also got/ordered more cashmerino yarn for the cutest baby sweater from Debby Bliss yarns. My rational is that baby sweaters are small and quick to knit. <insert eye roll> Yep.

Be Kind.