A New Hand Quilting Project

 

I got a couple of borders on the basket quilt yesterday. The inner border was a bit sketchy. The combination of a thin border on a stretchy bias edge was almost too much. The second border seemed to bring everything back under control again, but it was touch and go for a while. I ordered a Baptist fan stencil, it should be here tomorrow. I was kind of surprised that I did not have one. I love doing fans, but they are usually free form. This quilt seemed to want something more regular though. I also ordered some 12 weight thread in a nice variegated yellow and pink shade that I think will work nicely. I have been streaming The Last Homely House on you tube while sewing lately and Kate does a lot of hand quilting with that type of thread. Sew, I thought I would give it a try. I have used lighter weight quilting thread as well as heavier Pearle cotton, so I am hoping that this will be somewhere in between. I got the back ready and pieced together some extra batting, but I don't want to layer it all up until after the stencil arrives. I am going to mark it with frixion pens that I have been using for my planner lately. I usually use Crayola washable markers, but they do tend to rub off over time, so I will see if I like this better. I am a slow hand quilter, so it needs to be sturdy to still be in good shape years from now when it is done.

There was a retirement party at work on Friday for our guidance clerk. She has always been so sweet and supportive of my quilting, so I just had to find a quilt for her to take with her. I chose a bullseye quilt which was one of my RSC22 quilts.  I am happy for her, but still sad that she will be gone. It is nice when people really want to help the kids. 

I have a draft of a paper that is due tonight on constructivist learning theory and educational standards. I will just give that a quick final edit and then make my way back down to the sewing space. I am thinking about pulling out a log cabin UFO that could be my next flimsy finish. I hope that you are finding time to sew something on this lazy Sunday. It is good to rest up before a new week comes on full force. Be sure to take some time to see what other slow stitching is happening at Kathy's Quilts before the weekends slips away. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Bold and Blue

I haven't put away the pink bin quite yet, but that will be first for today. The blue bin is a bit overflowing and will take some time to sort out. There are a few new blue blocks on the leader and ender project that is new for this year. I had a couple of random four patches lying around that got worked in as well.  

That all happened while I was webbing the top together for the basket quilt. You can't do simple stack and sew of of blocks with a diagonal setting like you can for a straight set, so it was a slow and steady process of sew a row and then check to make sure it is good before adding the next row.  I think some kind of border would be good. I would like to use the pink, but I pulled a 3.5 strip out of the scrap bin for the cornerstones and I think that is mostly used up. I will do a bit of digging and see what there is. It is a small quilt, so it won't take much. 

Even though it was a busy week at work, it looks like a nice calm weekend. I am thinking about loading another quilt on the frame. I think I have several with backing already pieced and I have a fresh new roll of batting to use along with some new spools of thread. Ah, the possibilities!

Sunday Slowdown

When I was clearing out and organizing for the new year, I found these hand applique baskets that have been done for quite a while. The last time I rediscovered them, I planned a layout and I figured out that I needed 4 more. I made the 4 more, but then set them aside again. I don't know why. 

Yesterday I submitted all of my work for grad school. It was an easy week. A very short paper and a presentation with a script. Easy and fast. So today I get to play before I start on next week's work. There were not a lot of choices for sashing, because it needed to read as solid. There was enough of the teal and so that won. Most of my yardage is for backings and borders. I usually work from the scrap bins. The cornerstones came from the pink scrap bin because it is still January and that is the one that is available. I don't know if you can see the backgrounds, but they are all different pastel dots. I had some multicolored dots for the setting triangles and so this one is ready to sew together. I tend the make the setting triangles extra large so that they can be trimmed up later. I think this will be one to hand quilt. Maybe a nice Baptist fan? Definitely something nicely traditional. 

Yesterday I went to a luncheon for Cuban missionaries. My friend Linda was organizing it and my friend Sherie was there from a different to support the cause. We used to work together and had so much fun collaborating. She retired though and we fell out of touch. Everyone who retires seems to be loving life all the time. Every so often I wonder why I keep working. Work is a tomorrow problem though, today, I will start sewing some rows together. Right after I go and visit Kathy at Slow Stitching Sunday to see what other handwork people are up to this week. 

Last Pink Saturday!

Where has the month gone? I got some pink blocks done, but there are still a lot of unsorted pink scraps. I got a new gift of scraps from my neighbor on Thursday, and it looks like there is some pink in there to add to the collection. I am mostly done with my graduate school work for the week, so I should have some time today to play with pink some more. Next Saturday will be the first of February and time to dig into blue.

Because Monday was a school holiday, I had an entire day to quilt! What a treat. I got the t-shirt quilt quilted and bound. There is just a tiny bit of binding to hand sew and I can get this back to its new owner. 

Donna at Mama Llama asked about what heat press I use for my t-shirt quilts. She is coming up as a "no reply" blogger for me, so I thought I would answer here. The exact one that I bought two years ago isn't available anymore, but this one is the most similar. The 15 x 15 size works well for t-shirts and you just sandwich the rough cut blocks with lightweight fusible interfacing between teflon ironing sheets like these. There are lots of good Youtube videos to learn how to use it. I think I have made three or four quilts for other people with it and have easily covered the cost of the machine. Having a press makes the process of t-shirts quilts so much more efficient. Stabilizing the shirts is the most time consuming part, and getting it done faster makes the process go much more smoothly. The only down side is that it is pretty bulky to store if you are not making t-shirt quilts often, so thinking about space can be a factor for occasional t-shirt quilt makers. 

I know that I should not say that it has been cold here, because I have seen how cold it is everywhere else. But is has been unusually chilly for us. The snow did not reach this far south in Florida, but the kids in at FSU were having snowball fights on campus for the first time in their lives. UF did not get snow, but they still cancelled class just in case. We just aren't good at cold weather here and people really freak out. It made for a chilly first day of the new metal detectors. It will take a bit of time for the kids to get trained on how to go through more efficiently. After that, it will just be a big time commitment for the staff who has to supervise them. Everyone who spends an hour every morning watching kids walk through metal detectors is not doing the work that they would normally be doing to help the kids learn. We are all pretending to have a positive attitude about keeping everyone safe, but really it is just sad that it feels necessary to do this. 

Misterlinky is below. I can't wait to see how your pinnk projects and blocks came together this month.

Saturday - Sewing Day?

 

I hope that you get some sewing time in today. I am enjoying a quick visit to the mountains to visit snow. 

Kurt came up a day early to to plow the driveway. We got a blade that attaches to the back of the UTV. Isn't he a sweetheart? He is up here for a couple of weeks in a row in the bitter cold and snow, so I am glad to get a weekend here.

Friday Funday

 I am in Virginia for the weekend with my good friend Linda and it is. As the airplane landed, I could see beautiful crystalline snowflakes sticking to the windows. It is sunny and 42 right now, but it is supposed to get quite cold right before the inauguration. I will be back home safely before then, so no need to worry about freezing my toes off. It is so nice to have a nice relaxing weekend in the snow. Being cold all winter would be an entirely different story!

Thursday - Spicy

 

The adventures in organization continue! I threw a bunch of cake decorating tips into the dishwasher yesterday. Anna was really into cake decorating for a while. I was thinking that I might just take the tips to her in Virginia because I was never much of a cake decorator. At one point I bought a clever little frosting tip storage box to keep them all organized. I thought it might be in a corner lazy Susan cabinet where we put mixing and baking things. So I started to dig through that and found the hand mixer. It has been missing for years! Unfortunately, I threw out the beaters yesterday when I was clearing out the bottom drawer. Kurt offered to dig through the trash to find them, but is it really worth digging through the trash to find something that hasn't been used in years? I decided that it was not. 

So while I was digging around for the cake tip box, I pulled out a little tin thinking that would work for storing the tips. Imagine how surprised I was to find it full of Christmas cookies. It wouldn't be quite as surprising if we had baked any cookies this year. Those were the cookies we baked last year. Kurt said they tasted fine and offered to take care of them for me. 

Happy Thursday. It has been a long week, but next week will be a short one, so it all works out in the end. 

Wednesday - A Quickie

 The spice drawer was the perfect choice for a busy weekday. I didn't even get a before photo. Just filled up any empty jars from the overstocks behind and sorted the extra bits into a few jars on the side. There are some empty jars in the dishwasher, but so they will come back soon enough. Having all my spices in matching jars brings me joy. My kids would say it is my OCD shining through, but everything is just so much easier to find when it is uniform and alphabetical. How many times have I bought mustard powder because I thought we were out when it was really just hiding? Nobody needs that much mustard powder! I even added some of the homegrown spices that I grew this summer. I love using sage that came from my own plants. 

I hope that you are having a happy hump day. 

Tuesday - One Day at a Time

  

Being at work again every day is hard! I could really do this if work weeks were 4 days. 5 in a row is just so much! Trying hard to work ahead on grad school so that I can take the weekend off. Wish me luck! This is the bottom drawer in our kitchen. It is supposed to hold baking supplies. It usually holds anything that doesn't have another home. First an empty, clean and then a sort. 

Like things are together now, and a bunch of scary things went into the trash. I ordered a couple of clear bins to keep things sorted. That was a quick one. The spice drawer is on the agenda for tomorrow. Nothing is more fun than alphabetizing the spices!

Monday - Here we go again

The upstairs bathroom was next on the list. I am using a random number generator to choose projects, so it is just luck of the draw that I have already done thee bathrooms. 

We had this one redone just after the pandemic and I love the views. Right now the beach includes backhoes and dump trucks, but it is still nice to look out at the ocean. We had the contractor basically make to entire room waterproof and then put up a barrier free two sided glass shower. The goal was to make it as open as possible. The glass tends to collect hard water spots, and I go in every couple of weeks and give it a good scrub while I am in the shower. The philodendron is getting a little out of control. Maybe I can put a stake in it to get it to grow up a bit more than out? 

There is always the random stuff that collects over time to be put away and then an extra deep clean is in order. It shouldn't take too long to cross this one off the list. 

It is cleaner now, and the counters are clear for the moment. I out a little bin under the sink with the things that get used every day. 

Kurt grabbed a lattice for me at Lowe's this morning and I tried to get the plant to go up a bit. I think I was semi successful. He has asked for a palm tree instead, but those are harder keep alive, so I will stick with this one for now. It is conveniently close to the tub with a spray head that makes watering easy. All the plants that I used to keep in the front steps died terrible thirsty deaths. 

I will cross that job off the list and move on to what is next. This will be a long week at school but then next week is only 4 days for MLK. For weekend I will head to Virginia for a few days, so that will be a bit nice change of pace. I am not sure how long I can keep up with the daily to do lists jobs. I might have to change to weekends only when things get busy again. Right now I need to finish a 3-5 page paper about teacher perceptions of Common Core Standards

Sunday for the Slowdown

It was a long week back at school. It is cold which is unusual for here. Getting back into the flow of things again will take a bit longer I think. I am thankful to have a weekend, even a cold and rainy one. My slow stitching time today will be devoted to hand stitching the binding on my first ever quilt. If I get energetic, I might even try a bit more hand quilting. Hand quilting is not easy through high loft polyester batting, but we live and learn as we evolve in our quilting. I am enjoying the idea of turning my first attempt at quilting into a finished project. It only took a bit more than 25 years. 

If you have more than one RSC25 project in the works, or have a few ongoing projects from years past, these tracking sheets are a great way to keep track. Stephanie makes them for us each year and there are several formats available depending on whether you want to use them electronically or print them and go analog. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in word

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in PDF

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in pages

I randomly drew the powder room as the next project on the "To Do" list. Honestly I thought it was in pretty good shape. It is just a half bath on the main floor that doesn't get used much. I keep some extra guest towels on the back of the potty. 

Then there is a little corner shelf for sunglasses, sunscreen and TP. Kurt has decided to turn old TP rolls into fire starters and so I will donate these to his new craft project. 

It was quick work to sort through the sunglasses and sunscreen. I am not sure who thought that bug spray, aloe and lotion should all start living in there, but they got moved out. There were some sad and broken sunglasses that have gone away. I really need a few matching containers that are slightly larger to hold those, so I will keep my eyes open. I am not much of a shopper, but maybe something will turn up. 

Then it was just a quick scrub, wipe down and polish to make everything all shiny. It was a quick one today, which is good because my first assignment for statistics is an essay that needs a bit more work. There is a group chat for the class and the professor seems to be fairly strict in her grading. Honestly, I thought I would be doing some math, but so far it is not that at all. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Pink is a Promise

 

I woke up bright and early this morning to put the binding on this quilt. It is the first that I ever started and it is a bit embarrassing to admit that it is still unfinished after more than 25 years. There was a lot that I didn't know back then and the blocks are poorly constructed by hand because I didn't have a sewing machine. I used puffy high loft polyester binding because I thought that quilts were supposed to be fluffy. That made hand quilting really difficult and binding was incomprehensible to be at that point in time. So in it went to a bag to be carted around from our first condo in Chicago through two Florida houses and finally to our beach condo here. I used walking foot straight line quilting in the muslin sashing and border areas to try to smush everything a bit flatter. The quilt blocks will still need some hand quilting, but I can do that during cold winter nights at the cabin in Virginia. For now I will sew the binding to the back tomorrow during slow stitching Sunday and it will be finished enough to use. Do you still have the first quilt that you ever started? It is fun to look back and appreciate how much more I know now than I did back then.

I think that I added a few more blocks to the pink cross and dots leaders and enders project for this year and I've got a few hexies along to the top of the diamond hexie quilt to straighten out the tip. I think it just needs some half hexies all along the outside to be done. What pink scraps have come out to play in your sewing room? Misterlinky is below. Please share

Friday - for the Finish

 I am fairly amazed that I made it through the first full week of back to school while still managing to cross more organizations tasks off of the list. 

This tiny bookshelf used to live in my sewing room and somehow through the years it ended up in Ryan's closet. I would like to take it to the cabin to keep a stack of games and puzzles. Most of what is there is honestly trash. 

I sorted through and picked out office supplies that should live at school, saving out a few books and magazines along with phone books and my quilting notebooks. Those will all move into the sewing room and the bookshelf will be free to move to the cabin. 

We had an evening event at school last night and I am dragging this morning. Thankfully the weekend is in sight! I didn't manage to do much that was quilting related other than distributing my donated fabric scraps into the appropriate colored bins. I hope you are finding time to fondle some fabric today as well, it is good for the soul!

Thursday - Sorting Out

 

I got the nicest text from my next door neighbor yesterday reminding me that she was bringing me some fabric scraps to play with. It looked like a pile of random until I sorted it by color. Now I can see lots of fun possibilities to add to my collection. I will start with pink of course. The beauty of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is that I know each color will get its turn and I don't have to do all of this right now. 

I used a random number generator to choose closet drawer 1 from the 2025 To Do List as my tiny organization project for today. I need a tiny project right now as I adjust to being back at school again. I seem to be hungry and cold all the time! Too much snuggling up under a cozy blanket with tea during the break I suppose. 

When I opened this drawer I had trouble figuring out what was supposed to live there. We got new bedroom furniture not too long ago and went from two dressers to one. That is when we put a couple of extra drawers into the closet. I guess that I never made a decision about what would go where. How else could I end up with a drawer of unmatched socks, slips, swimsuits and bras?  

I robbed some drawer dividers that don't work all that well in the new dresser and decided that this space would be for bras, nighties and silky things. Everything else went somewhere else to be a later problem. Tada. 10 minutes and a nice tidy space to enjoy. My two graduate classes for the new term have started and I have some reading to do for statistics along with a paper to right for standards based instruction. I think I will just enjoy my break for a few more minutes first. I pared down shoes while i was in there, but I think that now I need to add purses to the list. Those are also a mess.  

Wednesday - My First Quilt is a UFO

With the cleaning and organizing that comes with a new year, I unearthed my very first quilt. I started it before we moved to Florida which was in 1998.  I did not have a sewing machine or a rotary cutter at that time. I had a pattern book from the library book sale that had sampler blocks labelled with 1 through 3 thimbles to represent difficulty level. As I look back at how I started, I am pretty proud of how far I have come. The seams are not straight and do not lie flat.  They are loose and show on the front in some places. I chose puffy polyester batting that made quilting difficult which is how it ended up as a UFO. I did some straight link walking foot quilting in the borders and sashing to help everything stay together and now I will throw on some binding so that I can take it to the cabin and add some hand quilting to the blocks. 

Today I chose the laundry room to organize. It has become a dumping ground for everything that is homeless. A lot of it just needed to go away, but there is a stack for the cabin and several things that are back where they belong. 

It is certainly more functional now. Hopefully it will stay clear for at least a little while. I will add some cabinet organization to THE LIST which has now gone digital after my little bucket of paper slips fell onto the floor while I was quilting my UFO. The list keeps getting longer as each project reveals a deeper layer of chaos. 

Tuesday - A Rainbow Quilt

I found bin of random 16 patches while clearing out the ongoing project closet. This isn't all of them, but there were plenty to put together a quick twin sized rainbow flimsy that can go and live on one of the bunk beds at the cabin. No rush on this one, but a flimsy is nicer than a bin of blocks. 

The quilt rack was the project of the day. That meant sorting trough the ongoing projects and extra bags of randomness. 

I have four empty project bins now and a better idea of which projects are ongoing from last year. 

 

Monday - T-Shirt Quilt Progress

 It is back to school today, but I have a few projects still from the break. 

The t-shirt quilt top is ready to go. I got backing fabric and restocked my batting supply, so all that it needs is a few hours of time. 

Sheets came up in the task list. I got these nifty organizers, but there were a lot of extra bits that needed to go away. I had an entire basket full of old pillowcases that were sadly the worse for wear. 

So now all that is left is complete sets, two for here and two to go to live at the cabin. The last one is for the fold out sofa in the study. Those can go away now. It isn't exactly a makeover, but bit by bit things are getting tidy. How is your Monday? Massive snowstorms seem to be the big story of the day. Kurt was supposed to be flying to DC this morning, but he left yesterday to get ahead of the snow. Hopefully he will be patient enough to sit tight until the roads clear. Patient is not his strength.  

Slow Stitching Sunday - A Finish!

 

I took the last stitches in the Leap Year quilt last night and ran it through the wash. I use Crayola washables to mark the quilting lines. Those are all gone now and all the wear and tear from being carted around for years and years is gone now.  I started this quilt in 2016, appliquéing a circle in each block to represent whatever was going on in the sewing room on that day. For the most part it represents the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors of each month. 

The quilting was done with perle cotton in a rainbow of colors. Diagonal lines form crosses through each block and then a scalloped half circle form the border. I love the way the quilting crinkles up after the wash. Even if it does take me years to finish a hand quilted project, it looks great when it is done.  I am going to link up with Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts today, so be sure to head over and see the lovely hand sewing projects that are in the works

I started an organization project for the new year. I brainstormed a list of all the projects that need to be done in house - areas of chaos, backlogged clutter, messes galore. Rather than trying to tackle them all at once, I wrote each on a piece of paper. The idea is that I will pick a random task when the urge strikes and then do that thing. Yesterday, the job was the downstairs bathroom. It is connected to my sewing room and doesn't get used very often. We redid it a couple of years ago, but never fully finished it off. So first I cleared out all the randomness before giving everything a good scrub. 

I found some bathmats that used to live in a different bathroom and made a plan for towel holders and a tile backsplash. 

Kurt is going to do the backsplash for me and hang the towel bars, but it all looks a lot better and should be more useable now that it isn't a dumping ground. I also added two more jobs for me to the stack, the door needs to be painted and the walls need a second coat of paint. Today's project is sheets. That is another dumping ground that needs a good clear out. Wish me luck! 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Starting Fresh

A new year is always such a great chance to think about finishing off old things and starting something new. This will not be a big year of new starts for me as I focus instead on paring down the list on long ongoing projects. First up is Leap Year. This is a block a day quilt that has been hand quilted over a very long period of time. Hand quilting is a long and slow process and it feels good to finally be stitching the binding on to this one. It is ready for a trip through a washing machine after that as it has seen a lot of love while being carted around from place to place. You can see the ongoing t-shirt quilt in the background, that will be next on the list of projects to move along today. 

I am up bright and early this morning thanks to the renourishment machinery that is beeping up and down the beach. We are usually up early, even on weekends, but I do feel badly for the people that came for a nice relaxing beach vacation only to be greeted by giant piles of sand on a closed beach. 

Here is my one new project for now, a set of two blocks to be done as leaders and enders. The plus blocks are sashed 2.5 inch squares while the dot blocks are framed 2 inch four patches. Together they make a nice and easy background project while I find the next thing to cross off my list. A bit of organization is sure to reveal a fun ongoing project in need of a little bit of attention.

What new schemes and plans are in the works for your new year? Pink is the color for January and I hope that you have some scraps to play with this month. Whether you are new this year, returning or ongoing, it is always great to see what beautiful projects and plans come from the simple idea of using up scraps, one color at a time.