Heading off to Craft Week

I'm heading out this morning to go to the river for 5 days of sewing (and whatever) with 2 of my friends. I'm going to be starting a new project and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm getting a little fatigued by the Summer Sunset quilt so a few days away will be a good thing. I'll try to be good and blog about what we are up to every day. 

Meanwhile, this weekend, I had a good number of chores so didn't get quite as far along as I wanted on my projects, but each is moving forward and that is the ultimate goal.

On the longarm I'm practicing feather quilting on a veterans quilt. That feathered wreath center isn't perfect but is is 1000 times better that what I was able to do a month ago! I was hoping to have at least one of the veterans quilts done but I have been having an issue with my top thread snapping at the tension disc. I figured it was related to the last time I replaced the check spring. Thankfully Renee Haddadin has some great videos on Innova maintenance topics and I was able to fix it with this one. It did take a while but when I get back I'll be ready to go.

In the big version of Summer Sunset I have all 8 star points together with the ring sets. I am seriously tired of working on this quilt. I think it's because I have realized that I am not going to be able to do any fancy quilting on it. There are just way too many bulky points so SID work will be out of the question. 

Here's an example. Look at the big photo above and see where the triangle on the ring touches the star point. You can see the close up here. From an engineering point of view it's perfect. But from a quilting point of view it simply creates too many layers. Add in the "leave in" foundation paper layers and the bulk is out of control. I'm pulling the foundation paper out of the bulky areas but there's still simply too many fabric layers to get in there and do nice quilting. By the time I get back from the river I'll be over it and will be ready to wrap it up and will be resolved to pantograph quilting. It's a quilt for my bed so it really doesn't matter how I quilt it. I have 2 other quilts that I can devote excessive time to quilting.

On the crochet front I decided not to start another project until I get back. Instead I have come up with a plan for using up my scraps of yarn. A rectangle granny square seems to fit the bill fine. As I finish projects I'll use what I can for hats and will add the rest to this. It can take ages to grow and it will be pretty ugly. But it will be a fine car or camping blanket for someone or a donation to a shelter of some sort. This will be for leftover 4 weight yarn. I'll probably start a separate one for 3 weight or I can use it double in this one. I'm not a big fan of crocheting with double strands because I always seem to keep losing one of them.

I'm taking a couple of balls of yarn to the river to work on some hats this week. Or I might just sit around for 5 days and watch the river flow by.