Rag Quilt Class

I totally forgot to post this yesterday! I think I may have been tired from two days of classes. It really wasn’t bad, and the kids were good. I had mentioned that we had less than usual. I think there were six that were sewing on Friday. Two sisters worked together, and they actually finished their quilt! 

The two oldest did the sewing. The rest of the kids are their brothers and sisters. I may be wrong, but I think they even got their seam allowances snipped. If you are familiar with rag quilts, you know what I am talking about. 

Nevea got all her blocks sewn and two rows out together.

She was catching on well and will be able to finish it on her own. She and her grandmother are planning to join the guild so she can continue to learn more about quilting. 

There were some others that were in various stages of completion and they may or may not get completed. 

I think the makers were starting to lose focus and had wandered off to do other things. 

Yvonne had door prizes and did drawings for them.

She had everyone’s attention at that point! 

On Friday we had more instructors than students, so I took my machine and did quite a bit of sewing when the kids didn’t need my help. 

I was able to get quite a bit done. 

Free Pattern Friday

I was at quilt guild yesterday, and will be there today. We had show and tell yesterday after our business meeting, and someone showed this quilt. 

I asked her the name of it, and she said “Bee Creative”. It was so pretty! When I got home I googled the pattern, and found a place where I can get it free! 

Of course I downloaded it. If you want the pattern, you can find it here. 

We spent the afternoon teaching youth quilters how to make a rag quilt. We didn’t have a lot of kids this time….i think we had 15 last year and less than 10 this year.

The rag quilts are great for the kids because it is simple sewing and, and they don’t need to be quilted. The class will continue today. Hopefully they can finish and start enjoying their quilts!

What I’ve Been Working On

I haven’t really been in a sewing mood, but I finally decided to work on something…anything was better than nothing. I went through my stash and ended up cutting enough 10” squares to do a cute baby quilt.

It’s not very big; I may end up adding a small border. I had made one a few weeks ago from some donated blocks.

I decided I wanted a boy one in addition to this girl one. Each one is 30” x 40”. I think I will add a border to both of them.

After I finished that, I pulled out the one I started on Memorial Day weekend. I used these fat quarters 

and the Honey Bouquet pattern.

It had been set aside and not completed, but once I pulled it out and sat down at the sewing machine, it didn’t take that long. 

Those two pieces on the right are what I am considering for borders. The top is 54” x 60” without borders, and that’s not quite large enough for the places I donate to. Now that I look at the photo, I think I will use the navy for a narrow border, and the red and navy stars for a wider outer border. My original plan was to use a solid cream for the inner border, but I think the navy will look nicer. 

While I was busy sewing on these, I did potato chip blocks as leader and enders and got six more of those finished. 

That makes eight total. LOL. I’m not setting the world on fire with these, but I have until Labor Day to finish the summer challenge, so I’m on schedule. I want to make 30 blocks. If I can get seven more done this week, I’ll be halfway there! 

I did some crochet last night while I was watching American Ninja Warrior. I am working on a new pattern. I’ll show it another day. 

Rainy Saturday

I had good intentions of working in the yard Saturday, bit it rained all day. Hard! It was a better day for sewing than for yard work. I will have to find time to get it done soon though. It’s time to get it back into shape. In the meantime, I got Marian’s second quilt finished. 

It is a Villa Rosa pattern called Dainty Machines. She had seen the pattern at my shop one day when she was picking up quilts and asked the name of it. I’m a little jealous that she got it finished already, and I have never even started it! 

The Farmers Market was postponed until 10 am, when the weather forecast said there would be a break in the rain. That gave the vendors time to get set up. There weren’t as many people there as usual; I hope the vendors were able to sell everything they brought. 

I got some tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, and onions. No eggplant though; that’s the one vegetable I don’t care for. My favorite booth is the loaded tea. I always buy a large one when I’m there.

I got the orange/pineapple for a change this time. I usually get cherry and ocean water. 

Weekend Again

I hope everyone is slated to have a wonderful weekend! I feel like I don’t have much sewing mo-jo right now. I have steadily been cutting up scraps into potato chip pieces, and I just need to sit down and sew them together, but I really don’t feel like it. Maybe mentioning it here will motivate me to get something done. I also have two more totes to finish, but blah. I haven’t wanted to do it.

I finished the quilting and binding on Marian’s quilt, so that was good. 

It’s Tim Holz fabric and really a lot prettier than my photography shows. I still have another for her that needs binding. I plan to get that done today.

Also on the schedule today is the farmers market. I need more tomatoes! It will be interesting to see if they survived the rain storms we had earlier this week. And then Thursday was 98 degrees with about 83% humidity. Needless to say, I didn’t walk that day! LOL! 

I’m still doing pretty well with my walking and my weight loss. I had sort of plateaued after losing 10 pounds, and I typically get bored and give up when that happens. This time, I continued tracking everything in the Weight Watcher app, and I am now 15 pounds down. My pants were getting pretty tight, and I can tell they are looser. The WW app has gone through several evolutions, and I really like the current version because it doesn’t just focus on points; it also tracks my macros, activities, and how much water I drink.

You can see I have trouble eating enough protein. I had a boiled egg for breakfast and a turkey sandwich for lunch. This was my supper, and my plate is at least a third protein, but it’s still not as much as I should be eating. 

Baked pork chop with roasted broccoli and roasted zucchini. 

There is a quilter named Barbara Black who lost over 100 pounds just focusing on macros and how many steps she logs each day. My app recommends 5200 steps per day based on my age and current weight, but I typically aim for something in the 6000’s or 7000’s. This is yesterday:

So, bottom line is focusing on the macros keeps me from getting bored with the points and calories. It also helps me watch my sodium which is another challenge for me. I just need to figure out how to eat more protein. 

Quick Update

Not much is new here. I have not been sewing much. I had to report for jury selection on Monday—lucky me! We were there for most of the day, and then they said we were all free to go. I assume the case was settled out of court, although I really don’t know. I didn’t ask any questions! 

It has rained pretty much all day for the last three days. Luckily, it was clear Saturday morning and I was able to get to the farmers market. I got there at nine when they opened and people were already lined up. 

I was in line for a while, but I got tomatoes, zucchini, and okra. 

The tomatoes are not beautiful—we’ve had too much rain this summer, but I did eat one for lunch.

I know my weight watcher lunch doesn’t look very exciting but it was good. 

I did a little bit of sewing. Betty gave me two pillow panels that her sister bought at a garage sale. They are totally 1980’s. Or maybe early 90’s. My grandmother made a quilt from these panels around that time, so I remember them.

They hadn’t been cut apart, so I fused some fusible fleece to the entire thing, folded it in half, and boxed the bottom. I added handles and now it’s a bag. 

I didn’t want to make pillows, but the bag is cute. It will go in our church craft sale.

I have another stray cat that showed up at my shop. He/she is white with black patches and is not full grown. It’s hungry all the time. LOL. 

I really don’t know where all these cats come from. I can’t take them home because my dogs are not cat-friendly, but I don’t mind feeding them. 

One Tote Done

I spent pretty much the entire day cutting and sewing a tote. I’m using this pattern: 

I have had the pattern almost a year, and I’m just now getting around to making it. The pattern has three sizes, and I made the large one. I was hoping using Bosal foam as the filler would give it enough body to stand up, even in the large size. Did it work? I think it worked well enough. I’m not unhappy with it. 

I also filled the handles with strips of the foam, so they will be comfortable to carry. The handles weren’t hard to make, but they took a little more time than I would have liked. I am going to try and think of some kind of alternative. Suggestions, as always, are welcome.

Putting the bias binding around the edges of the bag was a little fiddly, but I used my large sewing machine with the dual feed foot engaged and was able to get through it. 

My friend Janice sent me a picture of the one she just finished. I like the Texas fabric theme, which made me want to make more. LOL. 

I enlarged the picture a little bit to see her handles, and I see she did hers differently. She is also sewing her binding down by hand which is no doubt a neater finish, but I’m not willing to hand sew anything I can do by machine. 

I have two more prequilted pieces which I want to cut out and sew hopefully this week, and then I will think about a Texas A&M one and I think I have some of the Texas fabric somewhere. I plan to donate these to sell at our church festival and also at our quilt guild open house, so a good number would be six. We’ll see how much time I have.

Speaking of the church festival, Betty and I got together for a few hours today and made pillowcases to sell. We had both pre-cut some, and thanks mostly to her, they are all done now. I’ll get pictures later if I remember. I also cut some more scraps into potato chips. 

Every little bit adds up! Maybe tonight I can find time to work on potato chip blocks. I hope so. Becky and I are going to a barbecue this evening in Dacosta. Becky is our  Luther Fest chairman, and I’m in charge of the silent auction, so we are going to see what their setup looks like. Or as Becky said, we are going to do some reconnaissance. LOL.