I basted a bunch more shapes to the Tilda quilt this week. I think there are maybe ten more that need to go on to this center section. I did appliqué the rest of the green stems, so that was a a start to get closer to the finish. This quilt will be done before the recipients first birthday, really.

The pattern templates for the Eclipse quilt arrived yesterday. I made cardboard templates with them and promptly cut the 81 ten inch squares into convex and concave pieces. Sewing them together will take a bit longer, but the tedium is done.

The zippers and extra 1/4″ basting tape also arrived yesterday, for the two cushion covers. Everything is cut and ready for those to be finished. I also cut four 12 inch pillow covers out, I think I will have enough zipper to finish all of these by this weekend. I am honing my upholstery sewing skills with the very helpful videos on the Sailrite web site. I feel so much more confident in the making of these cushions. Three dimensional things are sewn a bit differently, and the ½ inch seam allowance makes it easier. Maneuvering the bulky fabric however, makes it tough on my hands.

The haunted house is finally finished, it took the longest, not because it was the most dense one of the 12, but because I took a month off from stitching on it. I started on the log cabin, the last one – hooray. I had been shopping for a frame, looking at some of the more decorative moldings. I want to frame this myself, since I stitched it on even weave aida cloth, it should be easy to get mounted straight and square. The finished size is 19″ x 26″, most of the frames I was looking at were over a hundred dollars, and truthfully not that nice looking. I did think of an old poster I had framed in the late 1900’s, that was about the same size. I found it at the back of my closet, and it is 19″ x 28″. I can even re-use the backing board to mount the cloth on for the win!

The Winter Village is slowly getting quilted. I wanted to use a blue bobbin thread, called Hawaiian Blue as it matched the backing very well. There were only two left of that color in my stash, so I ordered another jar of them. That order was canceled (due to no inventory) two days later, so I had to find it else where and order it again. I can sew two rows of the feathers with a full bobbin, which has 135 yards on it. I stopped at three rows, just waiting on the mailman now.

I’m also waiting on delivery of the first installment of the Blooming Beauty BOM, End of the month delivery is okay, since the constellation Starry Signs BOM is the first week of the month. Once these blocks are done, I’ll think about what is next on the to-do list. Looking back to my January 30th post, I have a list, and I don’t think I am going to do the Bonnie Hunter Old Town quilt yet, or maybe not at all. I may start the batik log cabin I have in mind, must stay focused.

Be Kind.

Flocks of sparrows and a peacock too. I finished the Sparrows top Wednesday and the peacock quilt got a binding yesterday. Both projects were supposed to be simple and quick, and as is my “way” neither were.

The Sparrows quilt project is the second time I have worked with this pattern. I remembered all the unsewing I had to do with the first one, and thought the second time would be easier. I got all my fabric cut and labeled, and started sewing assembly line/chain stitching the 36 blocks I needed. The smaller size sparrow quilt, has 24 blocks, 12 left facing and twelve right facing. So naturally I made 18 left and 18 right facing for the larger one. But, not reading through the whole pattern addendum, I missed the part where it states “21 left facing and 15 right facing”. As I was carefully laying the blocks out in a random but deliberate way, I realized what I hadn’t done. There was no way I wanted to remake any of these blocks, so I came up with another setting. Now the birds have friends to talk with and friends to follow or lead. A happy flock of birds ready to quilt.

The fabric backing piece I ordered came for the short peacock backing. It was actually pretty simple to sew them together with the quilt still attached to the upper rail of the long arm. I un-pinned the short backing edge from the leader and flipped the unfinished quilt to the back of the frame. I had to unroll about 3/4’s of it so that it would lay on the frames table in a mostly flat manner. Then I set up my singer 401 on a sturdy tray table behind the frame. I pinned the two fabrics together and carefully sewed the pieces together. I had to move the singer a few times to keep it from pulling on the fabric, but it was manageable. When the seam was finished, I flipped the quilt back over to the front side and re-pinned the backing to the front leader. The last row of quilting was humming along, when I realized that my spool of thread wasn’t going to last. I lost at thread chicken, this quilt was just one thing after another. I didn’t have the same color, but one that was similar enough, that unless I point it out, no one will know. The binding went on with no trouble and thus it is finished.

Next up I seamed the backing piece for the Winter village quilt and both are resting not the frame, waiting for pinning. I am thinking of doing an all over feather design on this one, but maybe snowflakes and swirls.

The Fabulous Houses are being stitched nearly every day. I am seeing the end of the Haunted house nearing. I will admit that this one has been a bit more challenging than the others. There have been a lot of fudges, and almost right stitches in this house. It is a wonky house, so no one will be the wiser, in fact I have forgotten where the flubs are already.

In other sewing news the pattern I bought for the Eclipse quilt didn’t include the templates. I have been working with customer service at The Fat Quarter shop to get them. Apparently it was a printing problem, as the templates didn’t fit on the paper, so the printer didn’t include them. The very kind customer rep at FQS is sending me the templates soon. I wonder how many of the patterns have sold this way, and if any one else has realized it yet? The funny thing is that I thought I bought the PDF version, but accidentally bought not one, but two of the patterns. It’ll all work out in the end.

When I bought the peacock backing fabric I saw that they had two new-to-me Gingiber panels from the Woodland friends collection. I bought them and a pattern and a ½ yard bundle of matching fabrics. Off on a tangent, and more fabric is coming in than going out. What can I say, other than it was a good sale?

Be Kind.

The Winter Village houses have received their borders and all appliqués are securely zig-zagged. Into the TBQ pile it goes (reminder stitch backing together soon). Next up was the Starry Signs BOM blocks, January and February editions. These went together fairly easily, as there are good instructions and cutting lists to follow. I had an oh-no moment when I thought I may have done most of block 1 (Capricorn) on the wrong side of the paper. After checking the video, I confirmed that I was doing it right, and there was a huge sigh of relief. These blocks aren’t the easiest, but not the most difficult either. I have been using the Add an Eighth ruler for some of the inner seams to prevent too much build up of folded fabric. I am using a Riley Blake Blue for the background, a Craftsy Ombre yellow I unearthed recently, and a lighter blue piece of cut off backing fabric. Some stash reduction, but not enough to offset the recently acquired Sparrow quilt fabrics.

I started the bed size Sparrow quilt yesterday, got all the pieces cut and 108 HSTs sew together. Having everything cut and ready to go is going to make this quilt easy to put together. I did use my Accuquilt cutter to get all the HSTs and 2 ½ inch squares cut quickly. Making 36 blocks sounds easy, but each one has about 27 pieces. There is some fold and cut too, but not a lot of waste. There will be a lot of assembly line stitching today, I have to remember that there are left and right facing birds.

With all this rainy weather I have had lots of indoor time to sew and ignore cleaning house, although I did manage a bit of vacuuming and laundry. The Tilda quilt top got a bunch more appliqués sewn down. I am at the point where I need to add more basted shapes. I ended up ordering more backing fabric for the peacock quilt, a quick search found me a half yard of the 108″ wide feather print I used. It should be here this weekend, so that project will move into the binding pile soon. I did purchase a few layer cakes for a quilt wanted to make, from Zen Chic quilt patterns called Eclipse. That fabric is up in the mail box, if the rain lets up a little I’ll go grab it. Hopefully the pattern isn’t too fiddly, curved piecing Yay! – said no one ever.

Be Kind.

This week I am working on the Winter Village quilt kit I bought on sale last year. It was a good deal, as it included all the fabrics and the appliqué cut-outs. The houses went together fairly quickly, although cutting the pieces often took longer than sewing them together. The appliqués are pre-cut and have adhesive on them. It is sticky enough to adhere to the top before ironing it on, which is nice as there are a lot of branches and pieces. The machine stitching part is tedious, a small zig zag, and happily I finished the snowflakes yesterday. I am using non-stick needles as the glue is building up, I also noticed that there is a residue on the bottom of my presser foot. I have been wiping the two periodically, stitches look good though. I would like to finish this today, the two borders are cut and I get extra credit for cutting and ironing the binding. Maybe I can get it on the long arm once I finish the Peacock quilt.

The Peacock quilt was started yesterday, I had gotten it on the frame Thursday, but needed to make a pieced batting for it so it was delayed a day or so. As I started advancing it, I realized that I had put the top on upside down, luckily the panto isn’t up/down directional, just left-right. As I advanced the rows, I saw that my backing was too short, some swearing ensued. I had pieced the backing a few months ago, and didn’t re-measure it before mounting it, because I never make mistakes in measuring . Well, it’s about ten inches too short, and I don’t have any more of the backing used. I “found” a purple print that is going to work. Now I am hoping to keep the quilt attached to the top leader and sew the extra piece on with my small sewing machine. I am thinking I can put the machine on the back of the frame’s table and stitch the pieces together. It will be awkward, but if I don’t have to re-mount the quilt, it will be easier to line up that last row of quilting.

Happily the new lighting system is working out well, I can really see what I am doing. No more “bring the sew head over to provide light” on the quilt. It will be very helpful when I do more design placement and ruler work. Plus I will be able to see appliqué edges easier for stitching around them.

I have been stitching on the Fabulous Houses – Haunted house this week. I would like to finish this whole project soon. It’s been a long year of monogamy, so many other project temptations ignored. I don’t think I will do another giant piece like this for a long while. I will finish up the Consider the Lillies after this is done and then I will try not to be tempted by anything larger than 8″ x 10″. I have already sworn off samplers, especially ones with big red houses. I did buy a pattern for a new baby sampler, but it doesn’t have a house. Maybe my enthusiasm for cross stitch is waning again, it has been five years of stitching since a twenty year hiatus.

The de-cluttering of the sewing room has finished. I made a dent, and lost the mojo when I started sorting fabric drawers. I did get through my large pieces drawers (fabric pieces over two yards) and for extra credit, I marked their sizes on them. Plus I separated specialty fabrics from the quilting cottons. When I got to my main fabric stash drawers, I was done. These drawers of fabrics need to be taken out and re-folded and organized. I’ll revisit in a six months or so.

Be Kind.

I had a nice time away from home, now I am back and recharged. I have lists of things I want to accomplish and lists of things I need to finish and lists of things I want to start. Then there is two weeks of laundry, vacuuming and dusting, yard work and such to do too. Guess what gets priority?

While I was away, I ordered a light bar set up for my long arm machine. Currently the machine is in the lower level of my home, because it fits there and it is more accessible. The space is nice because it is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. There is a slider door and a large window, but they face east. The ceiling lights are old style can lights with HID lights in them. Due to the ever safety consciousness of CA, I cannot get bright enough lightbulbs to use in them. I checked with an Electrician about changing them to LED spots, but the cans are not the right type. Changing those fixtures (redoing ceiling) would be more expensive than the light bar set up. Being a rational person, I got the light bar. It was relatively easy to set up, I just needed an extra hand to get the bar attached to the legs. I turned it on and wow! my first though was daylight is here, my second was, look at all the dust and thread scraps. Before the next LA project there will be a thorough vacuuming and dusting of the room.

Off site, I got a chance to work on the Tilda appliqué quilt top. Before I left, I basted about 20 pieces to it, that way I could stitch a few on at a sitting. Plus I only had to bring the top, thread needles and scissors. I had some time for a little shopping, I got a few more patterns and a commission project. I have made a bunny from Julie Williams Little Cotton Rabbits patterns a while back, probably close to 10 years (yikes) ago. I really enjoyed making the piebald one and a little sweater for it. I got the fox/deer pattern and the horse pattern. These patterns are well written and many-stepped, but the resulting stuffies are worth the effort. The commission project is for four bench pillows, a few days sewing. I did a little fabric shopping too, I want to make a bed sized Sparrow quilt. The throw size one I made a few years ago, sold quickly, I had briefly wanted keep it for myself. Although it’s a relatively easy block to make, I hadn’t felt the need to make another until I saw the cutting sheet for the bigger one. The pattern is from Pen and Paper Patterns and lucky me, there was a sale on Bella solids at 123stitch.com. I generally used to buy only thread and cross stitch supplies from them, but they have a relatively large fabric selection and notions too.

Before I left, I was also trying to participate in the 21 day decluttering challenge by Just Get it Done by Karen Brown. I made it through the first 12 days, left off on the notions clear out. I have a small dresser that I use for my notions. I think I’ll go through it drawer by drawer, the top drawer is bag hardware and zippers. That should take about an hour, as I want to inventory and organize it. The challenge is to declutter only, but I want to organize it while decluttering. This need to organize is what is stopping me from going through the fabrics. Karen has the fabric decluttering on days 19 and 20. My fabrics are in three systems of wire drawers and shelves. This doesn’t include the large bins of scraps. Eww, I’m getting an overwhelming feeling of chaos just writing about it. It’s not that bad, really. I have a sort-of-plan to do it drawer by drawer. I just need to empty one drawer and then fill it with a category/type. In my mind I have a mass dump and sort scenario, ha! that way lies madness for sure.

Be Kind.