LOCK DOWN IN THE SEWING ROOM

It was very busy this past week at home.  We have needed some painting done in our home for sometime.  I usually do the painting, but this was a much bigger job than I felt able to handle.  We have a fairly large home and the laundry room, kitchen/eating area, living room/family room, dining room, entry area, and guest bathroom, along with 27 doors through out the home needed painting.  Painters arrived on Monday and finished on Wednesday.

I did manage to finish this small quilt which was originally the sample of a class I have been teaching beginning quilters at our local quilt store.  The painters contributed greatly to me getting it done.

This was my doorway in my sewing room.  On Tuesday the painters were spraying the ceilings and walls throughout the home.  Everything was covered in plastic including and all the doorways into rooms not being painted  I was told it was best to find a room I wanted to stay in for a few hours.  I selected my sewing room.  If one is going to be imprisoned in one room, it was a great choice.

The rest of the house looked like this.  

During my sew room lock down, basically from 10 to 3, I also managed to finish my last two pillowcases started in March for the children's hospital.

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SWEET TWEET QUILT FINISHED AT LAST

I finished my Sweet Tweet quilt top this past week.  I started it in July of 2023, a long journey.  Off to the quilter for sure.  

The last block #9, on the bottom right.  Just to get that border on now.

Just a simple border.  I ended up at 48" wide by 56" long.  The perfect size for over the buffet in the dining room.

I also got the quilt top together from last week's scrap strips post.  I am pleased with it.  Organizing my scraps into 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 inch strips sure made it easy to whip up a charity quilt top in no time at all.

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FABRIC SCRAPS AND WHAT TO DO WITH THEM

 This past week I have been working on dealing with an enormously growing amount of fabric scraps.  Luckily I happened on to a post by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter discussing Sorting, Saving, and Using Fabric Scraps.  I spent the week doing something about my problem with great results.

I cut up all my scraps by color into some 4 1/2" and 2 1/2" strips and loaded them into plastic containers.  What a chore, but finally I am able to do something constructive with them.

My pink container has both pink and purple strips and yellow/gold and orange that share a container due to those colors that I seem to have less scraps of.  They are 12 inch blocks, and I managed to get 3 blocks of pink and orange and 2 of the purple and yellow/gold without repeating any fabrics on each block.

Blue, red, and green scraps each got 5 blocks each from them.  I have ended up with 25 blocks, a charity quilt is now on its way.  And no those scrap containers are far from empty but at least now I have a good plan to get them into some useful purpose and maybe actually gone. 

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APRONS, A RUNNER AND SUN BONNET SUE FINISHED

I accomplished a good deal over this past week.  Both the Raiders aprons are finished and I had enough fabric left over to make a runner to go with one, both are gifts for two friends of one of my daughters.  

 

I am  pleased with how easy the aprons were to make and the runner came out nicely.  I had left overs from one Raiders fabric that I used to make pillowcases and another runner durning the Christmas season for one that same daughter's friends.

I finished the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt this week.  I am so pleased to get it done, as it was started a good 20 years ago.  It goes to my  granddaughter Suren that started it with me when she was 10 or 12 years old.  When I reorganized the storage systems in my sewing room I happened upon it, forgotten for years.  

This is the backing fabric.  Yes it is perfect for it.  I happened to pick this fabric up off the free table a my guild meeting several months before unearthing the quilt.  Who would have thought at that time it would be the perfect backing for that long forgotten quilt.  

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NATIONAL QUILT DAY AND SOUTHERN CHARM FINISH

On Saturday I attended  my guild's National Quilt Day sewing event.  We celebrate by making pillowcases for a local children's hospital each year.  About 20 of us gathered and between what we accomplished on Saturday and what we will take home and finish we will donate 125 pillowcases to the hospital.  

My contribution was the one on the far left with the blue rabbits print and the green cuff, and the tan polkadot with the dark red cuff next to it.  I have two more I still have to finish at home.  

My Southern Charm came back from the quilter last week.  So pretty!

I really love this back on it too.  Also have a good deal left over from it to use making something else. 

Oh, the quilting Hollie used on it is just wonderful.  It is a pale green and the pattern is just perfect for it.  I never select either the thread or pattern when Hollie does my quilting for me.  She is an artist, and I just let her loose to do her magic.  

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BOUTIQUE SEWING AGAIN, SCRAP BINS AND SUE

 This has been another week of sewing for my guild's quilt show boutique.  A request went out that the boutique needs many more home made items.  Our last quilt show made a profit of $15,000 and the boutique contributed $5,000 of that.  Obviously it is important to stock the boutique well.  Placemats, table runners and table topers were the primary items that sold like crazy.

I knocked out these nine this week and have another 7 ready to go.  A good part of all this sewing is cleaning out some of my scraps bins.  

I have 5 wire racks with scraps in various colors in my sewing room closet like this.

Three wire bins like this.  Really time to try to clean some of this out.  So I fear that the next couple weeks will be madly sewing boutique items.

I did take a bit of a break though and worked on the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt.  This is the fourth and final row ready to quilt.  I will admit that it has been a real chore, but it is going well and I am very happy with the quilting results.  

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RAIDERS FOOTBALL APRONS AND PATTERNS

 This past week had me spending some of my time working on finally preparing appliqué pieces for my Sweet Tweet final bird block number 9.  I still have vines, leaves and a couple more flowers to cut out and fuse, but I am getting there.

It's a start, as fabric selection is the hardest for me and takes the most time to pick out.

My daughter recently asked me to make Raider football team pillowcases for her friend for Christmas.  So this past week she asked if I could make an apron for this friend for her birthday.  Yes, Raider themed.  I headed to JoAnn's to pick up a pattern.  After a good 30 minutes and selecting multiple patterns, every one was out of stock.  To make matters more interesting, patterns are very expensive.  Yes, a simple apron pattern runs between $15.99 to $19.99.  While they offer 30% off not one of them was available.  Only choice at that point was Amazon, yes $15.99 plus tax.  I am putting this one in a very safe place.

The good news was I found Raiders fabric on sale at Hobby Lobby at 40%, and it is 90" wide and a nice heavy weight fabric for that pattern.

Plus a perfect back for my Southern Charm quilt top too.  Off to the quilters this coming week.

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SOUTHERN CHARM AND BLOCK 9

This week I spent a good deal of time working on my Souther Charm quilt top.  After fininally finishing Sweet Tweet block 8 I needed a break from appliqué for a few days and Sun Bonnet Sue as well.  Something easy and somewhat mindless.

Southern Charm is finished.  This top was a lot of fun to work on as    I had lots of half yard pieces in the bundle I purchased to work with   and lots of pieced blocks that I could use to make it interesting.          

Block 9 of Sweet Tweets is finally here.  I do have one more month which is a pieced border.  I do not plan to do that border.  I think a simple border is just fine.  Who knows I could change my mind, but as of now that is my plan. 

This is the border fabric I selected and the binding.  I don't think I have any blocks in 1 through 8 that have any lavender or purple fabric in them, so block 9's bird might need a bit of that color.  So I may need to do a bit of shopping for some lavender or purplish fabric or even a good climb through my stash. 

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HEARTS AND STARS

This has been an interesting week.  Between multiple guild meetings at my home and teaching a beginning quilting class to three new students at our local quilt shop, and trying to work on the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt  things have been just CRAZY around here.

I ran into an issue with quilting the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt.  Started 20 years ago and stashed away only to be found last month as a completely forgotten UFO I had sewn buttons on many of the blocks.  How does one quilt it around those?  My solution was to quilt individual heart on the blocks.  Yes, CRAZY!  I knew I was out of my mind, but I have two rows of the 4 done on the quilt and not as bad as I thought it would be.

My solution to dealing with a project that is making me crazy is to     

start a new one that is simpler and easier to deal with.  In my January

reorganization of my sewing room I turned up this half yard fabric bundle.

This pattern came with the fabric.  Easy to deal with.

However, I did not want plain star blocks.  This Free Style Star pattern has been a go to for many of my quilts.  I like the idea of the points being a bit wonky and not worrying about cutting off the points either.  

Block one done, measures 10.5" quilt will be 70" by 70".  A perfect project to rest one's nerves.

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SWEET TWEET 7 PLUS 8 AND ATTIC WINDOWS

I am finally back to working on Sweet Tweets again.  I took most of January off dealing with reorganizing my sewing room.  Glad that is done, and sure discovered a lot of really old UFO's and have spent some time dealing with them.  Oh yes, there are more in there but it was a start.

Block 7 is completed and block 8 has a very good start.  Just a couple more blossoms to finish up and fuse on.  Just block 9 to go and it should be available later this week.  The 10th month is just the border instructions.  Once I have all 9 of the blocks done and sewn together I will see about the border fabric and binding.

I pulled out my Attic Windows blocks this past week and got them sewn together.  It is bright and cheery but with very limited fat quarter fabrics available it has lots of repeats.  I am quilting it with a serpentine stitch and variegated orange thread.  It will be going to my guild's charity quilt group and off to someone that hopefully will love it.  It is 48 by 56 in size so a nice size quilt for this purpose.  

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