Making Some Totes

I finally got around to quilting some yardage to make totes. 

I used a wide back and was able to do three one-yard pieces with Bosal foam in the middle. I used a pretty dense quilting design as I will be cutting this yardage into much smaller pieces, and I want to make sure there are plenty of stitches in each piece to hold everything together. 

The texture of the quilting really shows up well with the Bosal foam in the middle. This is the back:

I got the pieces cut out for the first tote and started applying the contrasting binding. I like the way it looks so far. 

These are the side panels. The top piece forms the pocket. I still have quite a bit more work to do, but I was anxious to get started and get a little done. 

Trash and Treasure

No quilting right now. The technician came from Richmond yesterday to do the routine maintenance on my longarm. I get it done every 18 months to two years. I needed a new thrust bearing on the belly bar and a new shaft adapter for quick change feet. He also tightened all the belts, changed the tension spring, cleaned everything, etc. I will need to get back to quilting today. I did do some sewing though.

I often sew at home in the evenings, but lately I haven’t been in the mood. In fact, my small machine was still in the travel bag where I put it after the placemat workshop two weeks ago. I got it out and removed the walking foot I had left on it, and proceeded to figure out I don’t have the ankle that the regular feet attach to.

I robbed the one off my Janome 6019, but that’s not a permanent solution. I will either need to find the missing ankle or order a new one. I can probably get one from Sewing Parts Online. I hope. 

Someone had given me a bag of scrap fabrics, and I found these 10” squares in the bag. 

Well, you know how I am. I like the challenge of figuring out how to make something beautiful from someone else’s rejects. I made a cute baby quilt top that took all of about ten minutes.

I will put minkee or flannel on the back, and it will be a nice quilt for a baby girl. I had 8 squares left over, and I don’t now what to do with those. I may end up cutting them up into 5” squares and adding them to the charm squares boxes. I’m not sure yet.

I also cut up some more potato chips from some random scraps.

There are still some more scraps I need to process (always). I need to get back to work on the Summer Challenge, but now that I have the machine out and working, I will be able to do that.

Two of the dogs go to the vet today for checkups and shots, so this will be an expensive week for me!

Crafts and Stuff

Happy Monday! I have been working on some different things. Is this true, or did someone just make it up? 

I decided I need to make some totes from this pattern, 

and I spent more than a little time looking for it. I am going to prequilt the fabrics and then cut out the pieces. I have pulled the fabrics I want to use, but they aren’t quilted yet. The technician is coming today to do the periodic maintenance on my longarm, so I didn’t bother to load anything for quilting. I will work on my paperwork while the machine is down. 

I have a goal of better utilizing my free time in the evening, and I am currently working on a crochet project. A quilt guild friend gifted me one of these.

It’s a face scrubby or facial puff…..I’ve seen them called both things. I was determined to go home and figure out how to make them. It took a few tries, but I finally got this made. They kind of look like sea urchins to me…. https://seathingsventura.com/products/pink-sea-urchin?srsltid=AfmBOop0dC60mOX0g3pTaqgJxZ47T1RtLfHJgiL5ztyvNbTKjqZt33wC

I haven’t picked up a crochet hook since last October when I crocheted all those pot scrubbies. I needed a break, but now I’m having fun. I got out all my cotton yarn.

I have three of the pink, two of these

 and two of these

They’re not hard so it’s going pretty fast.

Yesterday was my oldest granddaughter’s birthday, and her choice of where to celebrate will generally include crawfish. 

She can put away a lot of crawfish. I’m still doing weight watchers, so I had boiled shrimp, one corn, and one potato. It was good! 

What I've Been Working On

 I've gotten a lot done this week, but not all of it was quilting or sewing. In fact, I still haven't had time to work on the placemats I wanted to make. I hope I can do that soon. I got these quilts done for Joycelynn. 

I also do the binding on hers, so it takes a little longer. I was happy to get them finished and back to her. 

I also finished two for a new customer named Megan.

I see I forgot to edit my feet out of that one. LOL. Both of the quilts had Minkee on the back, 

Megan hasn't been quilting long and needed a longarmer to get these done. She found my name on my Facebook business page. I hope she is happy with them. 

My youngest grandson had his awards presentation on Wednesday. His school is year-round, so their schedule is a little different. I think he will be out a couple of weeks and then go into fifth grade. 

Here he is with his mom.

Other than that, we have been busy at church doing all the policy revisions. I think we are finished with all the mark-ups. We got them all printed out yesterday so we can review them at our council meeting on Monday. Hopefully, I didn't miss anything when I did the revisions! If I did, I will hear about on Monday! 

I have been making an effort to quit wasting time in the evenings looking at my iPad. I can waste several hours just looking at TikTok and YouTube videos. I have been crocheting some and doing some hand sewing. I will share more of that in the next post. 

Lots of Placemats

Happy Sunday! It’s been a full week. We had a Community Service workshop Thursday and Friday at quilt guild. Our workshop participation hasn’t been great, but 10 people stayed to sew placemats, and a couple of people took stuff home to work on. I didn’t take pictures at the workshop, but I do have pictures of what we accomplished. 

We managed to complete 45 placemats which will be donated to Meals on Wheels. Here’s a picture of them all together:

This was two days of sewing. Not everyone could come Friday, but five of us were able to. I posted this tutorial for the group, in case they wanted to an easy self-binding type of placemat. I haven’t tried it yet, but I picked up some inexpensive fat quarters at Walmart the last time I was in there, so I will experiment and see what I can do with the tutorial.

I also had prequilted some yardage as did another lady who has a longarm.

I had pre-made some binding, but it went fast, so I spent most of Friday morning making more. Some people wanted to bind instead of sewing, and it worked out well having everything prepared and ready to go. 

I have a few more quilted and not bound that I brought home with me. I hope to get them finished this weekend, but I don’t know if I will have time. I’ll get them done eventually and post pictures when I finish. 

Summer Challenge

Every year on Memorial Day, one of our local quilt shops sponsors a Summer Challenge. It’s hosted by A Little Fabric Store in Yorktown, Texas. 

This year she’s using one of the potato chip patterns from the class I taught last fall. The challenge runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and as long as you complete a quilt top with a minimum of 20 blocks and send her a picture of the completed top, you are entered into a drawing for a $250 gift card. It costs $10 to enter. 

I paid my $10 online this morning and already made two blocks. 

I will make more than 20 blocks; probably 30 or 36 so mine will be a little bigger. I really don’t have a lot of need for small quilts, but at least a twin size will work well for the groups I donate to.

You don’t have to be local to enter, and this quilt pattern is a lot of fun to make. Here’s a link to the sign-up form if you are interested. 

Weekend Update

 Happy Memorial Day friends! 

I don’t have any big plans for today; maybe some yard work, and if I’m lucky, a nap. 

I got another quilt finished Saturday. It’s for a high school graduation. 

The graduate is a baseball Player who is going to college on a baseball scholarship. Here’s a closeup of the fabrics:

And, the back is balls and bats.

I have to say, I finally went to the doctor on Friday. I am so tired of not feeling well, and just didn’t want to go another week with no energy and not feeling my best. It was Friday evening when I decided to go, and my doctor was already to closed so I went to the walk in clinic. There was a nice NP working there who gave me a steroid shot and a prescription for nasal spray and antibiotics. She didn’t say for sure but said it’s probably a sinus infection. After two months with an ear infection and now two weeks of a sinus infection, I’m hoping I can finally get back to normal. 

Good news! I had some luck locating this fabric I was looking for. 

I kept looking on Etsy using different search criteria and located a half yard of something that looked similar but I couldn’t tell for sure. I ordered it, and it turned out to be the same. Luckily, it said in the description who the manufacturer was and the name of the fabric line. I was able to locate another 2.5 yards on eBay, and I got it a few days ago. 

I started a new quilt last night. I am using a fat quarter pack I had that looks patriotic. I think it’s a good choice for some Memorial Day sewing.

I’m using the Villa Rosa Honey Bouquet pattern. 

I’ve made it before, and it goes pretty fast, but it’s only 54” x 60” so I’ll have to add a border. 

Catching Up

I’m working hard to get caught up on all my quilting. So far, it’s going pretty well, although I volunteered at church on Tuesday so no quilting got done that day. I got this table runner quilted and bound on Monday. 

Then yesterday I got this one finished. 

I have one more to finish for Joycelyn; I got the quilting done, but I still need to put the binding on. I’m going to try and get it done this morning. I have Bunco in the afternoon, and as usual, I pick Roger up at 3:25. After I picked him up yesterday, I took him for his haircut. 

He was in a grumpy mood, but he tolerated my photography. The final look:

I can tell he’s tired. Between school and soccer and video games, I don’t think he gets enough rest, but I try to keep my comments to myself. I don’t always succeed. 

Friday!

Oh gosh, another week is coming to an end. How do they pass so fast? I am still not very energetic, but I did get a quilt top of mine quilted and bound. 

It may look familiar; it’s something I made when I was stuck at home during the January freeze. It was a way to use up some of my large collection of 5” squares!

This is the top. 

It’s always amazing to me how much better they look once they are quilted. This quilt is big enough to meet the size requirement for the foster kids graduation program. It’s 63” x 72”, and the minimum size is 50” x 70”, so I have it labeled and added to my stack of donation quilts. 

Last night I went downtown to DeLeon Plaza for a street dance. There were vendors and food trucks starting at 5:00. 

I met five or six of my friends there. The Spasmatics started playing at 7:00.

I like their music—they play 80’s music, which is my era. There was a pretty good crowd there. 

They played until 10:00, but I didn’t stay that long. I just didn’t feel up to it. I’m glad I went, though. 

By the way, yesterday’s post was super late, so you can go back and read it if you happened to miss it! I’m blaming it on the sinus medicine!