Ongoing June Update

Well, it has been quite busy around here for the last couple of weeks.

I finally got this little lap quilt quilted.  It took much longer than I would have liked.  Only because, I chose to quilt each little piece of the quilt.  Starting and stopping, cutting the thread and starting again takes a lot of time.  But, it is now done, and it went on a trip with my mom.  Her favorite color is blue.  More can be seen about this quilt here.

I have jumped on the vintage sewing machine bandwagon, and decided to get this one out of my garage storage to see what I could do with it.  It is a Bernina Model 1130, and is still selling for around $800 - $1200.  It was made in the '70's, so it is holding it's value nicely.  It has 10 feet, including a walking foot, a retractable plug in cord, and a leg lift attachment that will lift the pressure foot while you are sewing.  Never used one before, but can see where they would come in handy.  But after all that, it is missing the correct pressure foot.  I looked for one online, but a new one, genuine or not,  runs around $140.  WOW!  A lot to spend just to see if the machine works well,  I can turn the flywheel, the light comes on, and the bobbin winder works, so now I have to ponder if I want to spend that kind of money to get a pressure foot.  I wrote about this with my own Viking Designer II machine's pressure foot that cracked and is not working properly, and its replacement cost is around $250!  It all boils down to the machines that are electronic, and have electronic connections to the foot pedals causes the high prices.

I think everyone knows by now that my favorite color is pink.  My sewing room oozes pink, and it has all kinds of pink sewing decor.  So, when I was out garage sale(ing) with a friend, and I came across this pink iron, I knew I had to have it for my sewing room.  When I saw that it was only $8, I knew I really had to get it, and the little sticker swore it still works!  So I bought it, brought it home, tested it and sure enough it works.  The retractable cord does not work, so I just put a little clip on the cord to hold it out so it stays plugged in.  

The garden work continues, I have pulled the pea plants and then planted beans in the spot.  Below is the picture of the pepper plants that I started from seed in my green house.  I planted over 35 plants, hoping to get enough with the tomato plants to make salsa this year.

I made a resolution the last two years, to work on getting UFO's done in my stash.  This few months I have pulled out tops that I had completed.  I have had 5 done at my long arm quilter to date, she currently has 4 more to quilt, and the picture below is 8 more ready to go.  When I say ready to go, I have to stitch the backing together and cut batting off a big roll.  Then I have to fill out paperwork for each quilt before I can drop them off.  But, I will have to wait until she is done with the 4 she has before I send over any more.  I am still waiting for a nice day here in the Pacific Northwest (and when I don't have any gardening work to do) to get pictures of the completed quilts.  Most of these completed quilts are BOM's from 2004 - 2008.  I didn't get pictures of the progress work of any of these quilts, so it will be limited posts about them when I do get pictures of the final quilt.

While I was digging through my old UFO's, I came across this next project.  Back in 2013, I was spending late nights trolling through all kinds of quilting blogs, and came across this "Mystery Quilt" by Heather Spence.  I felt that it was a good cause (for cancer), and I was intrigued by doing a mystery quilt.

This mystery quilt called for a jelly roll in the fabric requirements, and I had just picked up this jelly roll at the quilt shop I worked at back in 2013.  It is a fabric line called Whimsy, by Fig Tree for Moda.  See the red line through the price?  It meant that it was half off, and I then got my employee discount, so I was invested in this mystery quilt for about $15.00.  

What I didn't do well in considering this jelly roll for this quilt, is the fact that there were not distinct darks and lights.  This is what I would call a "muted" color line of fabric.  So after I tried to sort out the darkest colors and made up the top, it is really hard to see the the pattern of the block and the way it should look in the quilt top.

This is an isolated block, and it is hard to see how it should be for the quilt.  

Oh well, I am going to go ahead and quilt it up and use it for a travel lap quilt or a donation quilt.

Thanks for stopping in and catching up with all my ongoing projects.  As always, there will be more to come.

Warmest...

Vintage Sampler Month 1

Remember in this post when I said I signed up for this new BOM?   Well the package came the other day, and I was able to get it cut out and sewn up.

The first month involves three different blocks, scattered out all over the quilt.  There are a couple of things that are different about this BOM.

First, it give you three ways of doing the cutting out of the pieces.  Rotary, templates, or die cuts.  I chose the templates, because they are Marti Michell acrylic templates, and I already have them.  Using the templates takes longer to get them cut out, but when you go to sew them together, the pieces fit like a dream and the block comes out perfect.

Second, each block has instructions to add the sashing pieces as you make the blocks, so when you go to put the sampler together, it is just putting together all the big pieces.

This block was very amusing to me, it is a BOWTIE, just like the hundreds of cheddar bowties that I have been making for the last few months.  I made these without even looking at the pattern. Ha!

And, I am a sucker for basket blocks.  One of the better blocks I have made only because of the templates.

I am really liking the fabric, the prints, and the blocks so far, I am going to be looking forward to each months package.

Warmest...

Gardening and Sewing - Hand and Hand

This time of year is picking up in the garden, my mom and I shelled peas this week, ended putting up about 9 quarts.  Doesn't sound like much, but when you are shelling them, it is a lot to get done.

The rest of the garden is planted, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and soon lots of peppers.  I have fenced off the chickens, so they can do some free ranging in the back yard.  They are happy campers.

This is under my needle for the last few days.  I finally got it back out to do the quilting myself.  

I am so close to being done, I have two corners and the border left to get done, but as always, something seems to pop up that take the front burner.

We went to a city in our fair State of Oregon, called Bend (supposedly it is in the top 10 best places to live in the whole United States).  It is a fairly small town, and they have three quilt shops.  So we stopped at one and they were holding a parking lot sale, where customers can rent a parking space and set up to sell their extra quilting stuff and fabric.  It is just awesome to attend.

This is the first thing I came across, a vintage toy Singer sewing machine.  It was made in the 50's and is so cool.  It has an on/off switch (no foot pedal) and no bobbin.  Simple and a nice addition to my vintage collection.

Then I moved on to another parking space and this quilter had a extra large bin of scraps with a free sign taped to it.  I asked if I could have all the scraps, because you know, I am still needing about 400 different fabrics to finish my cheddar bow ties.  To my surprise, she said take them all.  I bagged them up, two grocery bags full, and brought them home and sorted them out.  This is a pile that is being cut for the cheddar squares.

This is just the start of the pile I am going to be cutting out over the next couple of days.

And alas, the progress of my cheddars to date.  The bag in the back of the picture has 600 completed squares.  The bowl has about 250 so far.

Then yesterday, that new BOM I posted about here came in the mail yesterday.  It is block one and the initial flyer of the BOM.   

I better get going and get busy!

Warmest...