It’s Been a While….

…since I used a satin binding on a quilt. When I started quilting (around 1980), a lot of people used the wide satin binding on their quilts. I used it myself on some baby quilts I made. Of course, we also used that thick polyester batting. I have some customers that still want the thick poly binding, but no one had asked for satin binding until a few weeks ago when one of my customers brought two baby quilts for me to do. 

She brought some wide ribbon for the binding but I couldn’t make it work. I was able to find some of the blanket binding at Walmart. 

I had remembered it being really hard to work with, but it really wasn’t bad at all. I used the dual feed feature on my machine, and it didn’t give me any problems. 

It took a little longer to do the binding on these, but that may have been because it wasn’t the method I usually use. 

Oh by the way, I went and got my shingles shot. 

Our exercise instructor had to cancel a couple of days last week because of shingles, and when she came back and told us how horribly painful it was, well you don’t have to tell me twice. I went straight to CVS and got vaccinated. My arm is still bruised and sore. That’s okay. I’m sure shingles is worse! I will have to go back in a few months and get the second shot. 

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. 

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!