A Slow Start In The Sewing Room

I've been busy since the start of the year, working on the computer, visiting family in Adelaide, bringing Isla home for a 5 day visit, and another stint in Adelaide, babysitting and catching up with everyone. Even if I had time to sew, I didn't really feel like it. I guess I just needed some recovery time.

I had no idea what I should do first, so I just sewed together the pieces for the red and cream Jacob's Ladder.  

Then they were pressed, and sat on my cutting table for days, waiting for me to cut the pieced strips into units for 4-patches

And now I've done that, so I suppose I should get busy and sew them together.  Soon....

I went through some boxes and sorted out things that had been untouched for more than 10 years. Actually, these boxes fell off a shelf, which was a drastic way to get my attention, but it worked. I threw out some ancient pieces that I didn't want to finish, tidied up a lot of papers, and made a few decisions about some old samples. I used this book to teach classes after the beginners had completed their basic class. It has some lovely patterns, and introduces new techniques in easy steps. But I never finished this demo block.

The quilt is one I still like, I should put it on my Someday list.

The block was fun to sew, but for now it's going in the orphan pile. I'm thinking it might be fun to do it completely scrappy.

Then I found this pile of blocks leftover from my Scrap Chain quilt. I'm going to sew then into blocks of 4, I bagged them up and they're next to my machine, waiting till I feel like tackling them. I need a few more, so I should cut pieces for that as well. Soon...

And then I saw these blocks.

I have a bad habit of not sewing the corner triangles on blocks, it just slows me down, so I leave it. Then I have dozens of blocks to catch up with, and I don't like that either. I cut a heap of the little triangles, and I've matched them up with each block. and I'll get them sewn on in between other tasks.  Then I have to trim them all.  I'll get to that, soon.

With all this other stuff to do, why did I pull out the 2" modern strips that I was working with in 2021? It's not as if I don't have enough to do anyway. But I wanted to work on reducing this section of my stash, and starting with the strips seems logical. I'm going to make little 9-patches, and decide on a pattern later.

When Isla was here she graduated to using the machine entirely by herself. Previously I've sat with her, controlling the foot pedal and giving her advice on what she's doing. This time, after some more pointers, I let her do it all. She was so good, keeping the machine at a steady pace, adjusting the fabric to sew a straight line, keeping her hands in the correct spot to control the fabric. This machine, that belonged to her great-grandmother, doesn't have a needle up/down button, and she was very careful to always turn the flywheel to position the needle in the up position. She never once unthreaded the needle by mistake; I've taught plenty of grown women who never mastered that little skill. 

I was so impressed with her; she can be headstrong and impulsive, but she can also concentrate  and work really hard at doing a good job. She made a laundry bag for her clothes when she visits, and several small bags for her pens and pencils. I think a pillowcase will be our next project, and maybe a patchwork cushion. I taught her mother to sew, but Seonaid was never really interested in doing much with it. I'm loving teaching Isla, she's so eager to learn, and I hope I can pass on my love of fabric and quilting. She's the only one that would be interested in my stash!

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2022 Finishes

I finished 11 tops in 2022.

Top left, clockwise: Maymont baby quilt, Ladder, Blue Ridge Beauty, Boxy Bowties, Big Dipper

Top left clockwise: Nearly Vintage Stars, Remnant, Double 4patch, Home Country, 

Then there was the British Frame quilt and the other commission quilt which I can't show you just yet.

I quilted 11 tops in 2022.

Top to bottom: Many Trips Around The World, Blue Bargello, Stairstep cot quilt, Teal scrap cot quilt

British Frame Quilt, Antique Cross, Shirt Rails, Double Ninepatch

Maymont cot quilt, Paintbox. 

Being as I can't show you the commission quilt, you'll just have to take my word for it that it was the 11th quilt. I did want to have 12 finishes for the year, and contemplated quickly quilting a runner, but I just didn't have time in the end.  I'll try and do better this year. 

I'm not going to make any grand plans for this year, but I intend to keep on working on the UFO list, which currently stands at 27 projects. I'm considering altering my plans for quite a few, and making them smaller so I have a better chance of finishing them. Once again, I'll aim for 12 finished quilts this year. I would have been able to quilt a lot more of my tops if I hadn't had so many interruptions, so I'm hoping that I can stay more focused. Onward!

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2023

 The end of 2022 is just a blur, I don't even have photos to remind me of what went on. I was super busy right up until I left to go to Adelaide on the 22nd, and once I was there I was laid low with a dental abcess. Luckily I got to see a dentist on the Friday and got it all seen to. The offending tooth was cracked, no saving it, so it had to go. Christmas lunch was very subdued, I couldn't eat much, but yay, I didn't put on any weight.

We had a full house Christmas morning, the kids were so excited and it was lovely to see them enjoying their new toys. 

It's true though, they enjoy the big boxes just as much as the toys in them.

Seonaid and I started our Christmas puzzle and I read a few books over the next few days. A couple of long time friends came to visit, it was lovely to catch up with them. One I have known for 45 years, which makes me feel old. We were so young when we met...

The temperatures were quite hot leading up to the New Year and the kids were happy to cool off in the pool. 

It's too tiny for the three of them, I can see we'll have to invest in something bigger for the rest of summer. They had fun, even thought they were crammed in there.

Ice blocks for everyone afterwards, they were happy campers.

It was all very relaxing. I stayed till the day after New Year, and I would have stayed longer but I have work to do.. Darnit!

I walked into my sewing room and couldn't even remember what I was up to when I left. I've been tidying up and sorting out the mess, but I'm not really in the mood for much sewing just yet. I was really surprised to realise that I'd sewn 60 of the Scrappy Mountain Majesty blocks together, more than half finished. 

I've been sewing the remaining 40 together a few at a time, and I'll have that in one piece later today probably. So I could have an early finish for 2023, if I can find the energy to sort out borders.

I'll find some photos and do a collage of what I finished in 2022, but now I have to go do some of that work. Darnit!

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Back to Scraps

I'm on the final stages of my commission quilt, and soon I'll be able to get back to my own projects. Except Christmas is only a few days away, so I won't be doing much before I head down to the family in Adelaide.

I was working on Scrappy Mountain Majesty blocks before I got sidetracked, so I finished the blocks that I'd started. That's 26 new blocks, 

all nicely ironed and waiting to go onto the design wall.

It's going to be very scrappy, I usually try to control the colour scheme, but this time I'm using it all. I have 138 blocks now, and I usually use 100 for a good size quilt. Whatever is left over will be the beginnings of another top, and I still have lots of squares in the box. It's one of my favorite patterns to make, especially when I'm rushed for time, or stressed and needing some mindless sewing.

I dug out a hand piecing project last week, and discovered that I can no longer see to thread a needle. That made me sad, I've been threading needles effortlessly since I was 3 years old. I have some clip-on magnifying lenses that I use when I do cross stitch, so it looks like I'll have to wear them for all my hand work now.

A stack of Periwinkle blocks need to be pressed; I've been making these for about 8 years. I'm still only halfway to the 35 blocks I need. Talk about slow stitching!

I just remembered this strange needle threader I bought a few years ago, when I didn't need it, so it never got used. It does work, so I'll put that in my hand sewing kit from now on.

 

I'm glad that my glasses mostly still work, and that I'll be getting my cataracts seen to next year. The inconvenience is temporary, and if all else fails I'll crochet something with chunky wool to keep busy.

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Frame quilt

Way back in time, about April this year, I was asked if I would make a quilt with Di Ford-Hall fabrics as a tribute to that Australian designer. I love her fabrics and her beautifully designed quilts, so I gladly agreed.

A little while later I received a box of fabrics and began designing a quilt that reflected Di's love of British quilts and textiles. 

I had to keep within the size guidelines for the magazine, but left to myself I would have made it much bigger because I was enjoying those fabrics so much.

I quilted it with a simple overall cable design, sent it off to the magazine with the instructions, and recently I received my copy of Great Australian Quilts.

Our local newsagent didn't have it in, but it's worth asking for, it's an amazing issue.

My quilt was presented beautifully, I'm pretty excited about how good it looks.

It was quite intense, designing this to a deadline, and that might explain why I was so happy to sew squares and simple scrap quilts afterwards. I needed something easy to work on, that didn't require a lot of brainpower. And having had such a nice holiday from the pressure of designing, I then said yes to another commission. But the end is in sight, possible this weekend, and then I can clear away all the mess, and go back to my simple checkerboards again. Just in time for Christmas preparations to hit their stride. What's that song that goes "It's the most wonderful time of the year"? Well yes it is, but it's also the busiest; I'd best get cracking then.

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Catch Up

 I've had a busy few weeks, lots of appointments and a bit of travel. Most of November is just a blur at this stage, I'm hoping that going through my photos will jog my memory of what I've been up to.

There was a trip to Adelaide to drop my machine off at the repair shop. They have changed location, and are now situated in the Adelaide hills, which rather dismayed me. It's an hour away from Shonny's house, up a terrifyingly steep, 6 lane highway that gives me conniptions. There have been so many dreadful accidents on that stretch, a lot involving trucks that have lost their brakes. I put my anxiety to one side and tackled it, and my dear little car laboured up the incline. The down lanes on the other side were full of emergency vehicles attending a truck that had gone into an arrester lane because.....it's brakes had failed. I hate going near that stretch.

I was following Google maps instructions and it was frustrating to be told "Continue straight on Mt. Barker Rd. Take the next left to stay on Mt Barker Rd. Turn right to stay on Mt. Barker Rd. " The only left turn was onto a church frontage, so I missed it, had to circle back, and discovered a little lane that led off to my destination. It was all very pretty, but nerve wracking. We'd just had an enormous storm, so the roadsides were lined with fallen branches and whole trees sawn into manageable pieces. It must have been frightening to listen to all those trees come down.

The machine was delivered, and Google directed me to go the long way home because of current traffic conditions. That way led straight past Costco, so I happily agreed to that. Down the hill I went, past the truck still stuck in the arrester lane with a single police car still in attendance, past lines of trucks crawling down the hill and hoping their brakes wouldn't fail, and finally on to flat land again with a sigh of relief. I'm just not cut out for city traffic, and I never was. I don't know how thousands of people commute up and down that hill every day, I'd be a mess.

I spent a couple of days with the grandkids, who were overjoyed to see me after such a long break. I get three excited conversations going all at the same time, as they try to tell me all their news. I miss them so much, but the sad fact is they pass on all their cold germs to me, so I can only visit when they're all healthy. Between school and childcare germs, that's not often.

I've been sewing on a secret project, and my sewing room is a catastrophe. This project has a deadline, so I'm not bothering to clean up, just cutting and sewing and squinting at things on the design wall. I'm making progress, and hopefully it will be done by the end of November and I can go back to my own projects. I can't even remember what I was doing, it will be enjoyable to excavate old projects when I finally clean up.

My Home Oxygen Therapy set up was delivered, and I've been using it whenever I get breathless; it's made a big difference I'm happy to say. I was feeling a bit like an invalid as I read the booklet that came with it, and then at the back there was a section on Oxygen Therapy for Children. That made me stop feeling sorry for myself. I can't imagine how bad it would feel to have a child requiring oxygen, so I'm grateful that no-one in our family has to deal with that. I'm going to keep thanking God that my family are healthy and that this set up is working for me. (If you haven't read my blog before, I have a chronic lung condition, caused by ...... Budgies! I'm allergic. Who knew that was a thing?)

Turns out I didn't take many photos in the last 3 weeks. The last quilting photos were of Scrappy Mountain Majesty blocks, made from my 8.5" squares. 

I didn't get very far with them, before my commission quilt took over. But there are a few more to add to the pile.

I'm still sewing checkerboard blocks, as leader enders, but I haven't cut the black triangles for them.

 They're just strips of squares, waiting till I can clean off my cutting table and get back to it. 

And I've quilted 4 quilts with the new software, including one of my own, and it's starting to feel familiar.

 Now I need to teach Mereth how to use it, and she's reluctant. I made her video me setting the pattern for her quilt, so if she gets stuck in future she can watch it and see what I did. Fingers crossed there are no dramas there. 

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Fussy Cutting

 I've been making a collection of fabric I think would be good for fussy cutting. 

I toyed with the notion of making a Patchwork Of The Crosses quilt, but I haven't actually begun one. I linked to a pinterest board of beautiful examples, very inspriring, but that hasn't motivated me to start yet.

In 2015 Temecula Quilt Company did a quilt-a-long called Little Gems, using the Jewel shape. I loved it, but just tucked that idea away, along with all the fussy cutting fabric. Last month I decided that either I start a project, or I put all that fabric back in it's respective stash drawers and call it quits. I'm not ready to give up just yet, so I got busy with templates and needle and thread. English Paper Piecing hurts my hands, so I'm just sewing them together on the drawn line.

I have a bolt of this coverlet print, sent to us in a job-lot of cheap fabric bolts. I think fussy cutting this will make some lovely motifs, and I won't cry over the fabric that gets wasted. I have 9 metres, and I never wanted any of it!

This Anna Griffin fabric is full of possibilities. It's very pale, but setting it with darker fabric could work.

Swiss cheese. 

This William Morris style fabric is my favourite, I wish I had a bolt of this so I could make a large quilt of these lovely rosettes. I only have 2 metres, which will make quite a few motifs, but I wouldn't get a border from it as well. 

There are a lot more fabrics in the box, but they don't really go together, so I will probably have to use them in separate projects. Next time I go shopping I might try and find more prints that work with these, instead of buying random prints. And I need to start pondering the setting I'd like. It's a nice change from machine piecing, restful, but exciting when the central pattern emerges. It's like Stack'n'Whack, unplugged.

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 We've had a spate of equipment problems lately, from software to computers to cables to sewing machines, and I'm ready for some quiet time where I don't have to try and fix something. 

The major problem was the Statler computer finally refusing to turn on, which we knew was coming. It was 16 years old, which is ancient for a computer, and we babied it along for several months, but the day came when there was just a blank olive green screen when we tried to turn it on. Luckily I'd already researched a replacement, so I rang up and ordered that, it arrived in 4 days, and we were ready to go again. There was a minor drama with our monitor, but a new HDMI cable fixed that. The computer is preloaded with the latest Statler stitching software, so I will have to learn how to use it while I do the next batch of customer quilts. They say learning new stuff keeps you young, but I just end up tearing my hair out.  Hopefully I can pick it up quickly.

I did the first customer quilt today; there were some tense moments when I couldn't work out how to use the new software, but I got there in the end. Mereth was treated to a whole slew of exclamations; "What the....!  Where is the ...? Oh never mind, there it is. What on earth??? That's ridiculous!!  Oh, I see what it does.... That's actually pretty cool...." I keep reminding myself that in 3 months time I'll probably wonder why I had such a hard time with it.

Mereth bought a laptop, and I've been trying to load stuff on that. My head is so full of passwords and usernames and protocols and things that need to be downloaded for anything to work. I feel like a dinosaur, I'm so out of date.

The worst thing was my Janome 6500 seized up (again) and now I'm sewing on my old Bernina Record. 

She's a dear old girl, but she can't be hurried, so I have to slow down and match her speed. It made me realise how quickly I sew, I'm always in a hurry. It's quite pleasant taking things at a more leisurely pace, but I'll be glad once I have my 6500 back. It should be 3 weeks till I can take it in to my favourite repair shop, and I'll just have to deal with Bernie in the meantime.

It's been hard to fine tune the quarter inch seam allowance, even though Bernie has a proper quarter inch foot. My eyesight is getting worse, and I'm finally on the list for cataract surgery early next year. They do one eye a time, so it will be a bit dodgy until the second one is done, but I have a contingency plan.  I'll string piece and improv piece when I can't see to do detail work. I'm amassing a folder of string pieced quilts, so when the time comes I'll have lots of choices.

I'm working on (yet) another checkerboard quilt.  Mary at Country Threads showed a quilt made by a reader, and I loved it. (Scroll down to the checkerboard with the black background).

It will use up a lot of those pesky oranges and yellows that I have too many of, and it's perfect to sew on Bernie while I get used to her foibles. I'm using 2"strips, but the original looks like it's made with 1"squares.  I'm not willing to go smaller while I'm struggling to see; I'll make fewer blocks, and they will be roughly 10.5".  A checkerboard is one of the few patterns where a consistent seam allowance is perfectly acceptable, even if it's not exactly a quarter inch. I'm having lots of fun, and I've chopped up a huge number of scraps. 

Rust, orange, yellow, lots of warm colours. But I'm also throwing in greys and reds for a bit of interest.

I would rather have these fabrics as 2"strips than cluttering up the scrap drawers; I'm far more likely to use them once they're cut.

And I do have another pattern in mind, to use up the leftovers. I always have a Plan B....

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 I fell off the grid for a while there, but now I'm back. My absence was caused by getting another (!) cold, getting hospitalised for oxygen and IV antibiotics , then a trip to Adelaide and more tests and consultations at the Thoracic Unit down there. I feel much better after all that, and here's hoping no more colds and viruses find me for a while. There are more tests and scans in the future, but I have a treatment plan now, which includes home oxygen; then I'll really feel like an invalid, but maybe I'll be able to be more active too. Silver linings, and all that.

My sewing room feels like alien territory, I can barely remember what I was working on so enthusiastically before I got sick. I've been tackling the remnants of my scrap cutting mania, packing things away into boxes and drawers, and makings labels straight away, so at least my workspace is ready for me to start work. But on what?

I was thinking back on my decision to work on projects and Make A Difference, which led to many MAD cutting and sewing sessions. That was great, but many of those sessions were with new projects, and my existing ones languished. Some of them are many years old, and they are starting to weigh on me. I really hope I can continue to live on my own, but I need to start sorting out all my stuff, while I'm still able to. So I'm going to buckle down and tackle some of the older UFOs.

The red and cream Jacob's Ladder was top of the list. There were still boxes and trays of red and  cream scraps and strips everywhere, and I wanted the whole thing kitted and the leftovers dealt with. First of all I drew it up in EQ8 so that I knew how many blocks I needed; the answer was 56, and I already had 27 blocks completed.

I had a huge cutting session, and kitted up 14 blocks. 

I sewed the  four HSTs and the five 4-patches needed for each block, and packed each block in a ziplock bag.

 That took quite a while; 56 HSTs and 70 4-patches. I was a bit disheartened to realise that it was only half of the blocks I needed, and I still had 15 to cut, kit and sew. Oh well, the only thing to do was keep on with it. I cut all the strips I needed for the remaining blocks, but I couldn't face sewing the units in one big batch. I'll do them a few at a time in between other sewing.

That was rather tiring, but it certainly made a difference to that project. Red fabric is back in it's drawers; the cream fabric was mostly scraps, so it's all gone or cut into 2"strips for the strip drawers. I'm quite pleased with that effort. 35 blocks finished, and the rest are just waiting their turn.

My leader-enders were the Flying Geese units; I'm going to play around with the idea of a pieced border for this, maybe little squares on point, maybe Flying Geese. Those red fabrics might have to come out again.

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Scrap Chaos (Again)

My cutting table looked like this again. It never stays clear for very long.

It was a mammoth effort to sort it all, and cut up the bits for all the various projects. It took the better part of a day, and my mind was fried at the end. So many decisions!! So even though I was tempted to abandon it halfway through and go back to making a mess, I remained dedicated. 

It will be much nicer to work in this space now, and I won't lose rulers and cutters under the mess. I can't guarantee that it will stay like this for much longer, because there are still scraps to cut, but at least I won't be building on the mess that was there.

Every time I start a random scrap quilt I pull containers off shelves and out of cupboards and act like I'll be getting rid of the bits once and for all. But every time I find new containers that I didn't know were full of scraps, so they are never going to go away completely. After years of foisting scraps onto Mereth, years of scrap quilts, I'm still inundated with them. 

I drew up the Ladder quilt in EQ8 and it says it takes 4.5m. Is that all? 4.5m of scraps is a lot of ironing and cutting, but it's hardly a dent in the pile. I think I'll end up making at least 1 more quilt in this pattern, using some of the really bright fabrics that I don't like. Someone will like them, and I can just add it to the donation pile. 

I want to be sewing on my good projects, but I'm stuck on the scrap dealing for some reason. I guess I don't want to pull out good fabric and iron it and cut it when my room is still covered in these bits and pieces. I think it will be worth a few more days of cutting if I can get all this stuff dealt with.

This is how I'm working through the piles. First I pull out all the light fabrics and they get cut into 3"squares for my Flying Geese blocks. Any leftover bits are cut into 2.5"squares for my Scrap Squares leader-ender, or 1.5"squares to go into the box.

My dark and medium scraps are dealt with differently. If it's a big piece, like a FQ remnant, I cut an 8.5"strip. This gets cut into 8.5"squares for the Scrappy Montain Majesty blocks. There's often a little bit of the strip left and it becomes a 2.5" strip, which I cut into a 4.5" brick, and a square. The bricks are being amassed for another Brickwork quilt, and the squares go into the box for the current leader-ender.

If it's a smaller scrap I try to get a 4.5"strip from it. That gets sub-cut into 2.5"slices; sets of 4 go into the Ladder project box, the rest go into the bricks collection. If I can get four 1.5" strips at the end then they go into the Ladder box as well. If there's not enough for 4 then the 1.5"strips go into a drawer for a future piano key border.

Little scraps get cut into 2.5", 2", or 1.5"strips. The 2"strips are going to become another Carolina Chain quilt, or a variation of it, and the others go into the Ladder project, or the bricks, or the piano key border. 

And some scraps are only enough for a single square, and that just gets filed in the right box. So far, this system is working really well, it's removed a lot of decisions I normally go through. Should I cut a 6.5"strip, it's big enough, but what will I do with that. Should I cut this or that, or both, or....Just being committed to the 8.5"and 4.5" strips means that a whole chunk of the scrap can be decided with 2 cuts.

My scrap drawers are pretty full already, so cutting directly to projects stops me from scrunching more into them. Once I have a handle on all this I'll have to pick a project and cut from the drawers. And someone needs to call an intervention if I ever buy another scrapbag from Facebook.

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