Mystery is Moving Along!

 Galloping ahead on the mystery quilt, 

I am glad to say that all the cutting is complete.

Except for the borders of course, they will come later. 

My effort is of the scrappy variety so 

the borders will get chosen with the overall

quilt in mind at the end of stitching.  

The major colors are green, blue and red with 

white on whites and a few low volumes for background. 

The first clue with stitching instructions came

thru yesterday, so after drawing lots of lines, 

I am off to the featherweight to start sewing!

My scrap bins look exactly the same!

I was hoping to use up more fabric!

Anything helps tho, so let's stay positive!

Great progress on the stitching

for the mystery. 

All the first round of sewing is complete 

and this morning is the Get Goin' Sewing trim up . 

I put my retreat prize to work and tried the

slotted trimmer for the first time.

Trimming off corner points will 

be a new experience for me. 

I usually just sew thru them!

Well , everything is trimmed, but 

I had no idea how many little 

dog ears would litter the floor!

We love a mystery and a vacumn!

I had a good time sewing up a storm!

Whoops!

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up to :

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Monday Musings

Salon Monday

To Do Tuesday

Midweek Makers

Wednesday Wait Loss

Free Motion Mavericks

Of the Wall Friday

Patchwork & Quilts

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Oh Scrap!

Psssttt! What's that?

 We all remember the clean out, organize that 

came  over us a while ago?

Well one thing that didn't get "sorted"

was a steamer I "left behind -inherited" 

when one of the offspring moved lodgings.

It is a Conair clothing steamer!

My BB has recently started

using a small steamer purchased by her husband.

When she waxed enthusiastic about it,

I remembered I had one sitting in the bedroom!

I dragged it out, filled the ample reservoir wit water,

and voila. Great to press large pieces of fabric,

and does fairly well on smaller pieces too, but my iron with the

 charging station is more suited to that.

The steamer allowed me to press a quantity of backs.

Now almost all my pins are used up and I can get busy stitching

the half dozen Irish chains I have all layered!

Everything old is new again!

If only that worked for our skin, hair and energy!

Happy stitching.

Stay safe and sew on!

Who Knows How a Mystery Goes?

 It's that time of year when  the weather starts cool,

snow is in the future,

and we all start to think about hibernating.

Yes it's mystery time!

Our guild is doing a mystery quilt and 

I'm going to do mine Scrappy.

The clue master assured us that it will look very nice

using scrappy fabrics. Clues come out every 

three weeks.  Just saw the first sewing portion today!

So glad I purchase the Perfectly Slotted trimmer set 

with a portion of my retreat door prize !

Three colors and one background fabric are the 

requirements from the invitation. 

The second clue gave us a hint that there 

may be a lot of half squares,

but with hundreds of patterns for half square settings,

 who knows what it will be?

So here are the three color families I have chosen.

The scrap universe decreed that the most 

scraps win so my colors are:

1.5 m  of green scraps

2 m  of blue scraps  

.7m of red. 

Featured as part of the Monday morning 

Get Goin' Sewn' will be cutting a 

stack of parts for each color family,

100 ~ 4" x 4" of each color and the backgrounds.

That GGS club sounds like a winner!  I 

have a few quilters I will invite to join me Monday

morning to stitch!

Now, back to the mystery!

I'll be using beige and white scraps. 

Then a big stack of 3 1/2" x 3 1/2"

of everything. 

Thank you world for rotary cutters!

This project should relieve the stress on my overfull

scrap drawers. 

The chunk stacks will also get a break if 

I dice up some them for the mystery units!

The box of 4" squares can 

be sorted too!  

I have 2 young helpers 

I can enlist to pile up the color families!

Have a great week stitching!

Oh , we are off to school, not the fabric store!

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Monday Musings

Sunday Stash Report

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Midweek Makers

Put Your Food Down

Needle & Thread Thursday

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

Patchwork & Quilts

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The Learning Curve Hurts!

Sometimes it's fun to learn but sometimes it hurts.

I finally decided to start really 

using my "new to me" sewing machine.

Yes,  I did read the manual and visited YouTube

to get some good advice on where to start

and some hints on making free motion quilting easier.

I started doing some straight line quilting and gradually

upped the speed for the sewing.

A really productive morning happened.

Two small quilts were stitched up.

Later that afternoon stitching began on a slightly larger quilt.

A little bit of distraction got in the way 

and I ran over my finger with the needle.

Yes, it hurt and yes, I did the instinctive thing 

and pulled my hand away.

You won't have to see the painful result but here is the needle!

 Yikes! Yes it went all the way through 

but the poke cleaned itself out effectively. 

Now I only have a little bruise and no permanent damage.

It is a good reminder to not let your mind drift 

while  stitching .

Here's a quilt I was working on.

It was one of the smaller legacy quilts 

finished and bound last week.

This week, I managed to pin base three lap quilts.

The top  one here, 

the bottom quilt here and

the finished one on the bottom.

Stitching went fairly fast but safely. 

Three are binding ready!

Look at this great line up of 

quilts on the move!

I am enjoying the new machine.

 It has a feature like my featherweight.

Unusual, I know but the bobbin area 

underneath a singer featherweight is open.

It is easy to keep the area clean with a small brush

 or a nice blast of pressurized air.

My new and much more modern 

machine also has a bobbin free to the outside world.

 A  blast of pressurized air chases out all the thread

cutoffs lint and dust bunnies. It is oddly rewarding too!

This product is available at my local bargain store.

I  stock up with three of four cans and label them,

1/4, 2/4 etc. When I get to 4/4, I swing by and restock.

The week is getting pretty busy, with some family time, 

snow, home chores, and some medical assistance,

so it may be a lean week for finished quilts.

Happy stitching this week and keep focused 

so you don't run over your fingers.

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with:

Design wall Monday

Monday Musings

Sew & Tell

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Midweek Makers

Put Your Foot Down

Needle & Thread Thursday

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

Beauty Pageant

Oh Scrap!

Patchwork & Quilts

Big News!

 A new resident has joined the work room as 

I am now the proud owner of a Bernina 820.

This machine was a donation to a local quilting club. 

They were selling it to raise funds for additional quilting materials. 

I had mentioned, at our monthly meeting,

 that my bigger machine I used for quilting lost its timing. 

It was getting quite costly to repair. 

Now it is a parts donor machine at the repair shop.

Anyway, I haven't been intimidated 

by anything in a long time,

but this machine has a lot of 

bells and whistles that I have yet to learn.

Here is my first block made with my new quilting partner. 

I found the tension a little tight. 

I was getting a tiniest bit of rippling in the seams. 

 I'll just rethread again and that may take care of the problem

It certainly sews fast.

 I'm not even up to half speed yet!

I would like to get a bit more comfortable before I try to quilt.

There  are two, pinned Legacy quilt tops on the to do pile.  

I would like to get them quilted it up this month.

The box that came with this new machine is pretty incredible .

It's more like a wagon for sewing machines.

It has a lovely pull handle and 

can carry  two small children in a pinch. 

Retreat supplies will fit nicely.

Next up on my sewing schedule,

 aside from doing more UFOs, is a 

project just found during with an estate clear out.

I was gifted a big bin of fabric and it turned

out to be mostly Halloween!

There was a pattern in the box that looked interesting 

 but I knew there was an easier way to put the pattern together.

I called my incredibly organized BB.

She remembered where we did it and managed 

to pull out the pattern! It really pays to have an organized friend!

 It is called "a shaded four patch".

 You end up with a square sitting next to a bigger triangle.

It's just wonderful and  should work 

very well with those Halloween fabrics.

I also have a very lovely Halloween panel

 that I can put on the reverse of the quilt.

I'll end up with a two-sided Halloween quilt.

I can't see it being given as a wedding quilt so I

 think I will actually be able to keep this one.

One of my quilting buddies youngest members 

is now engaged so we do all feel a wedding 

quilt coming on. 

Stay safe and sew on.

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Sew & Tell

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foot Down

Midweek Makers

Free Motion Mavericks

Needle & Thread Thursday

Design Wall Friday

Finished or Not Friday

Beauty Pageant

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Patchwork & Quilts