I think I have been busy I have much progress to show for the time, but not many words. I have been working on my BOMs, Reunion and Ribbon runs through it. I’m happy to report that I am caught up. For reunion I finished the 16 “different” blocks, they are different colors and same pattern. They have 117 pieces each, finish at 12 inches and take about 3 hours to cut, sew and put together. I was looking forward to starting the secondary blocks, all same colors and pattern, because I thought they would be easier. Alas, no. They have the same number of pieces, the difference being that they have a modified nine patch in place of the double flying geese. The centers are a bit bigger too, I was surprised when I counted that they had the same numbers.

The Pilgrim is making progress, I have been steadily working on it most evenings. Thankfully more stitching than ripping. I don’t have a side project, although that may change soon. I get a little bored stitching one color, so I have been doing smaller cross stitch pieces along with this large one. I have this Cardinal one kitted up, but I am not sure about the linen I have here for it. It is actually a woven hemp, that has been hand dyed. Its a 32 count, and the resulting stitchery would be too large for the frame I have for it. I ordered a few pieces of 36 count linen last week, I may change it out when that shipment gets here.

I started on the quilt restoration project. I carefully took the whole quilt apart, it was like an archeological project, it took me a few days. This quilt was made in the 70’s, with all the skills of that time. Some machine stitching lots of hand stitching, scissor cut fabrics, and templates were involved. For example the quilt was finished envelope style, after it was hand quilted in the center, the edges were turned in and invisibly hand stitched together. This is a large quilt, almost a queen size, I guess its akin to hand stitching binding, bleh. The borders were machine stitched on and the stitched in the ditch by machine. It seems to me that maybe the sewist did a sort of quilt as you go method. I must mention the batting, it was polyester, a decent grade of it too, but, for some reason, the quilter used two different bats, one was slightly thinner than the other, so it was folded in half and doubled. This made half the quilt heavier on one side, I was happy to get that out and separated. The backing fabric seems to be a poly blend muslin type. It is pieced, but not too much. There seem to be some seams that are industrial machine sewn. I am wondering if the fabric may have been curtain lining at one time. I washed it in my front loader, but it still looked dingy. I am soaking it in dish washer detergent and water now, it seems to be getting cleaner. The problem with quilts that have been used, is that they pick up skin oils, grime and dust and “stuff” that becomes one with the fibers. Rhonda Dort has an excellent tutorial about cleaning vintage linens at her blog Rhonda Dort . I would like to use this backing to replace some of the backing on the Dresden blocks. The dark green blades bled when this quilt was laundered and left ugly yellow stains. I am going to remove the green blades and repair and replace the blades that need it. Then I’ll resew the blades to the new/old backing. I am hoping that I can also wash these blocks once they are repaired, so they can be made into a new quilt. I am thinking of adding some sashing, and different borders. The lady to whom this belongs to, didn’t like the original brown, red and yellow borders, I am thinking a softer pallet may be better. Plus, the originals are faded on one half from the sun.

I have another commission for a twin size quilt too. Last year I made this quilt (above), Cats in the Stars, to use up my Julie Paschkis fabric stash, this client would like a similar one in a twin size for her son. As is the case with OOP fabric, finding it is tough. She has been scouring the internet here and in Canada, for pieces of the Catkin line and complimentary lines. She sends them directly to me, so I get these happy little packages of pretty fabric. I am awaiting the delivery of some solids and black fabric to start the scrappy stars, plus I do have the matching center cat panel left over. Hoping to get this one done quickly, and off to its new bed.

I have purchased a bunch of fabric too. I bought all the batiks to make the Swordfish quilt from Judy Neyermeyer. There is a clearance/retirement sale still running at Batiks Plus, when I got mine it was 30% off, now it is 40%. I also bought a fabric kit to make the Enchanting Stars Pattern from Jacqueline de Jonge. It was on sale too, and I have the pattern already, so why not? So I have two monster sized quilts to make this summer, as well as finishing the two BOMs.

On top of that, we are replacing all the windows in our bedroom and redoing the landscaping in our back yard. Yup, going to be busy around here.

Be Kind.

I have a bunch of finishes I accomplished in the past two-ish weeks. I am procrastinating though, by making and finishing things I am putting off starting a big commissioned project. The quilt is a Dresden plate that was made in the 70’s. Its got some shattered fabrics, a poly batting, hand quilting and machine quilting, and a bit of wonky-ness. I have talked with the customer and come up with a plan for it, even wrote it down, so I wouldn’t forget. I just don’t want to start it yet. The customer is in no hurry either, but I am at the point I want to get it done and out of my sewing room.

Things finished this month

• Summer cross stitch – framed
• Christmas Figs bound and finished
• Four small quilts quilted and bound
• Estrella quilted
• Two pillow shams quilted and made
• Table runner made
• Sold four quilts (yay!)

I have another quilt on the frame, the Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern, called Posh Snowball. I’m using a Panto called Mr. Marbles, its coming together nicely.

I have been steadily stitching on the Pilgrims Progress, although I did start another small piece. I friend and I have a tradition of saying “Rabbit Rabbit” upon waking up on the first morning of a new month. We kid each other about it, and often forget, but when we do remember, its a lucky month. This piece is a gift, not only is it a rabbit piece, but its part of a monthly series by Ink Circle. This one is for June, my friends birth month.

I finally got my 4 month seven blocks together for the Reunion quilt BOM. There was a mix up in the cutting room and everyone got the wrong fabric, purple instead of pink. It was number 6 instead of number 9, I can only imagine how organized one must have to be when cutting these kits. I have to check and recheck the colors before I cut my pieces. Funny thing is that the other BOM I am doing, A Ribbon Runs Through, had a similar problem, but they just forgot to add a strip of a blue printed fabric. I had a little of it left from a previous month, but not enough for the block. They are sending it with next months kit.

Off to sew.

Be Kind.

Last month I posted a picture of my current cross stitch piece, Pilgrim Progress -by LongDog Samplers. I have been stitching a bit every day (almost every day:). The process is really starting to show, I have almost finished the four pages of pattern that go across the bottom. There are twelve pages in all, so I’m about a third done. This sampler(?) is still fun and engaging for me, all the interesting motifs, and geometric shapes, its easy to skip around and work on bits of something. Or if I want a little challenge, try to stitch something in its entirety, like the fox or rabbit.

Recently, LongDog came out with two new chart, that I bought, called Tap Dancers. It just appealed to me, the motifs and the story of it. Just look at the submarine and the little scene in the bottom right corner, fun! The description is below.

This design is a slightly tongue in cheek tribute to the British architect Richard Rogers who died in 2021. He turned architecture not just inside out but on its head too with his striking plans for the tubular Pompidou Centre in Paris, the vast Millennium Dome in London and the brash Lloyd’s of London building with its soaring atrium.

I am plugging along on the longarm too. It is working very well after its spa day and replacement of its upper tension assembly. I finished the Christmas Figs quilting, just need to bind it. It actually have the binding all ready to go, I made it when I finished the top, back in July 2019. I have two quilts done on this large backing and I am going to try to fit two more. This saves me time, not having to re-pin backings on, but it also makes it very easy to get four done in the time of one big one.

Off to quilt a bit.

Be Kind.

I last posted on 3/15, about my upcoming retreat to Empty Spools in Asilomar. I had a very good time, too much to go over in print. I communed with the quilting community, and had a few nice walks on the beach and through the town of Pacific Grove. I worked a lot on collage-ing too. The hardest part for me was letting go of the “paint-by-number” mentality, allowing the print of the fabric to do the textures and coloring. Susan Carlsen is a good mentor/teacher for this, she has a very encouraging way about her, to help you get the feel for collage and make it work. I have this photo of my owl, Trusty Friend. I still need to add some layers of tulle, and quilting.

Part of the Empty Spools program is to have a classroom walk about on the last full day. I get a lot of inspiration doing this and get to see a bunch of techniques and ideas to try on my own. Pricilla Bianchi was giving a class using her striped fabrics and Guatemalan woven fabrics. I took her class a while ago at PIQF, I bought a few ½ yard woven stripe patterned pieces at the time too. I can’t find the quilt blocks we worked on in class, but I was inspired to do another stripe quilt. Pricilla had this one with her, on display, and a few more on her website.

I really like the log cabin one, but I didn’t have enough of the “right” material to make it. The stripes, however, I did. I cut as many 3 ½” triangles as I could, and sewed them into squares. There were too many to lay out on my design board, so I switched to the guest bed. Once I got them together in a pleasing way, I sewed the diagonal rows together and added blue HST’s to the edges. This is where the “shrinkage” occurred, my final top size is 42 x 55. Its a good throw size, but I was kinda shooting for a full size, like the bed it was on.

I’ve been working on finishing the Christmas figs quilt currently on my frame. Yesterday I quilted the last block, now I just need to do the sashing, I am planning on computer stitched bead strings in each part. The outer borders are skinny too, only about two inches wide. I may just do parallel lines an inch apart.

Be Kind.

I started this BOM in January of this year, with the first four blocks. Then, due to some kind of supply/shipping issue, I didn’t get the February set until last week. I have been working on them this week, and realized that they have a lot of pieces and take a few hours to make. I counted the pieces, 115, which I probably shouldn’t have, but I figured out why it is taking so long to put these together. After seven of them, I have a system down, thankfully the instructions are easy to use and helpful. There are 16 of these blocks in total, and then 8 different ones. I think I have said this before, but I am glad this is a BOM, otherwise I don’t think I would finish it.

Speaking of long term projects, I am steadily stitching on the Pilgrims Progress Sampler. It is starting to look like something now. I have completed two pages, there are twelve in all, the small motifs and patterns are interesting to stitch. I like to have a goal each time I stitch, to do one, last night I did the bird cage and a bit of the lettering. I started to fall asleep (thanks to the hour lost thing) while stitching, which is not conducive to counting, so I packed it up. Generally though I do about 200 stitches in a session, not having to change colors makes it a little easier. Still have to count accurately though.

I am really looking forward to my up coming retreat at Empty Spools next week. I have a class with Susan Carlson, Fabric Collage. We have already met in an introductory Zoom session, and talked over what we need to do before class and what we need to bring. No sewing machines will be used, as the process of collage-ing will most likely take all five days. I am using this Great Gray Owl photo as my inspiration.

The Great Gray Owl is a character named “Trusty Friend” in the novel “Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr. I really enjoyed listening to the story, and due to the magic of the internet, Gray owls started popping up in my Pinterest feed. I had been searching for an animal to collage for a few months, when this photo came up. A magnificent bird, more pictures here, the eyes are really that yellow too. I’m thinking of bringing a suitcase full of fabrics, as I know I’ll be using lots of little bits to create the shadings in the feathers. Since I’ll be driving there, I can load up my car, and not have to worry about overweight bags and checking them. I may do a blog post from there, we’ll see.

Be Kind.