 Yesterday was a lovely day because I was finally able to sit down and do some sewing. I didn't have any dyeing scheduled because I'm going on a trip Friday and there wouldn't be time to process the fabrics. That meant a free day! First thing I wanted to do was to finish the next set of blocks for the Flora's Stars quilts. I really like this block pattern a lot. I don't know the block name but I'm going to have to remember it. I think it has a lot of possibilities.  I'm making 8 of each block, one for each of the 8 quilts and now this set is done. I gave 3 more sets cut out and ready to sew. Once those are done I'll stop and do a little planning and see where I want to go with this project.  Then I started on the stack of walker caddies that I cut out a couple of weeks ago. These are designed to hang over the top bar of the walker and tie to the side legs. There's one big pocket on one side and a smaller patch pocket on the other. Only 14 more to go!
I may not post tomorrow. Today I'm running a lot of errands, packing for the trip and we have company staying overnight so there might not be time. If not, I'll see you Monday. There's nothing like a good podcast or book to help keep me focused on my sewing projects. The past couple of days have been great for sewing. Nothing is done but there's been lots of activity.  I'm working on the nest set of 8 blocks for my Flora's Stars quilts. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I will do a post dedicated to this project to explain what it is. This is one of the 14 sets of blocks that I took on vacation to put together. I think I got 8 of them done so I'll work on these a little every day until they are done.  My priority now and for the foreseeable future is getting the postage stamp quilt done. I've started on the little blocks and I'm doing continuous curves in them. My CC stitching path isn't perfect but it's good enough for my bed. I can do this for about an hour at a time and then my hands and back need a rest. I'm going to try to get in 2 sessions every day so I can get this wrapped up soon. It is fun to revisit all of these fabrics. I started this quilt in 1998 so these fabrics are from older projects. A lot of the are from the collection of novelty fabrics that I used in that dreadful Cathedral Window quilt. I also recognize lots of fabrics from long forgotten quilts and from projects for my nieces and nephews who are all now 24 - 32 years old.  Having a very wide quilting area from the biggest machine isn't really a benefit for small scale quilting. It's most comfortable for me to work on this section 6 - 8 rows at a time. The ruler shows where I finished up yesterday. You might get tired of seeing this update over and over for the next week or so! I am determined to get this quilt off the machine as soon as possible. I'm really excited to get it finished and ready to put on my bed this winter.  After my sewing and quilting sessions I was straightening up the sewing room and was going to put away the upholstery fabric scraps that I picked up last week. Remember that when Mom and I delivered quilts to her former neighbor that he wanted us to take some of his wife's fabrics. I took upholstery and batting scraps because I knew I could use them pretty soon. The batting has all been dealt with. Instead of putting the upholstery fabrics in my cabinet I decided to go ahead and cut out kits for walker caddies. I got about halfway through the fabric last night. Here are the first bases and ties that I cut.  These are pockets for the fabrics in the previous photo and the rest of the fabrics that I need to cut. I'll finish with all of this today.  A few weeks ago someone else gave me rolls of fabric and lining. I'll use the lining fabric to cut lining for the caddies. The bolt of fabric will probably either be pet beds or will be passed along to another friend who has a friend who takes orphan fabric. I think the print is too big for walker caddies. Either way I will find it a home soon!
I've been doing crochet in the evenings but don't really have anything worth showing yet but I should have an update by Friday. I'm wrapping up September with very few finishes but I think October might be pretty amazing! I thought I'd get more done yesterday that I actually accomplished. But there was laundry, fabric to wash out and I needed to schedule our vacations for 2022. Stuff got accomplished but not so much on the sewing side of my life.  But I did get this set of blocks done. The yellow stars are obviously more successful than the green ones but these will be in a scrappy quilt and the green ones will work just fine.  After I finished those I packed up my things for sewing this weekend with my quilt club. After Mom and I go to the dentist we will be heading to the Montpelier Center and I can't wait to see my quilt buddies again.
Most of yesterday was about getting caught up on bills and being the magic shopping fairy. I have very little luck shopping for myself but, for some reason, I am the magic shopping fairy for my Mom. I picked her up to go shopping with me for new sneakers. We both found sneakers (a miracle in itself) but then she wanted some new pants. One stop, 3 pair of pants that fit! That happens for her every time we shop together. Seriously, I can spend her money faster than lightning! I hope that bragging about it doesn't erase the magic. Back at home I wanted to do some sewing in the afternoon.  Plan A was to start quilting the scrappy Serengeti placemats. I'm using my Juki machine and it's usually perfect. In fact, in about 25 years it's only been serviced once. I started having some serious tension issues that are identical to the issues that I had before I serviced it the first time. This project will have to wait until I can take the Juki to my brother. He can fix ANYTHING and I bet he will have it running like new in no time. Meanwhile, my friend borrowed the Brother machine while I was away and I won't get it back until this weekend.  So I set up the travel machine for Plan B and decided to work on more of the blocks for the family quilts (Flora's stars).  I had to start here. When I posted the photos of all the blocks I made on vacation and later looked at this set I cracked up. It looks like I was inebriated when I was sewing these. But I don't have that excuse. It's just sloppy sewing but easily fixed.  I also had this one block that was missing a piece.  Ahhh, much better. I'll continue working on these for the rest of the week. I think I have 6 more sets to sew. I won't cut anymore until I get all of these sewn and start doing a little planning on the setting for the 8 quilts. I'm loving the secondary pattern developing from this offset layout and I might need to explore this a little further because I don't have enough other ideas for new projects.  Here's the next block that I'll get pieced.
But not today. Today it's dyeing day and there's a lot of pent up demand. It's going to be a long day! We've finished up our first week in Maine, We are both having internet withdrawal so we went to the library yesterday to get our fix and I took the opportunity to schedule out this short post. The Moosehead Lake region of Maine is absolutely beautiful. Much more rustic than the Acadia area but that also means fewer stores and organized things to do. That's perfectly fine with us. There's great hiking, boating and fishing opportunities. We found a lake for Chris to fish for some small mouth bass and the pond that we are on is perfect for floating and for kayaking.  This is also the best place for a chance to meet a moose! It's the only animal sighting that I had on my animal list. We took a moose safari and got to watch this cow eat for a long time. We were very close so we could hear her blowing bubbles in the water and slurping her feed. What a treat! We've done some hiking too. There are lots of really good trails around here.  I've set up a little sewing space on one end of the table and I have a great view while I'm sewing. I started my week by working on some of the blocks I cut for the 8 Flora's Star quilts. I had cut out 14 sets of blocks so far and while sewing these I discovered that I cut half of the blocks 9" and half at 12". Uh oh. I will not go back and recut anything. I will figure out a layout that can use both and I guess I'll continue cutting blocks half and half as if I planned it that way.  On the crochet front I've been working on this shawl (Carrie Penny shawl on YouTube) using one ball of Mandala yarn. I just wanted to try the pattern and see if it would make a good donation shawl. So far I'm really pleased.
I finished a couple of loom knit items but got to the library and realized that I forgot to photograph them. I expect that you can imagine what a loom knit hat and scarf look like. I'll be back in a couple of days with another update. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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