Take Me With You!

Retreat season is nearly here,

and I thought it would be a good time to inventory

the little work drawer in my featherweight!

I can get almost all I need for a weekend away sewing

in the little drawer or the machine box.

There are lots of extras I take to retreats;

larger cutting boards, bigger rotary cutters,

long rulers, but I have sewn for a whole weekend

with just what I had in my featherweight box!

Here's a quick list. 

                                            Spare bobbins

Needle threader

snips

Sewer's ease

Chain piecing Cutter

Two small rulers

Emery board 

Machine brush

reading glasses

Bag of clips

Machine feet

Band-Aid

Screwdriver

Angled tweezers

Pencil

Pen

Pins

Straight tweezers

Small scissors

Chapstick

Spare needles

Magnifying glasses

Many of the projects I take are 

cut out at home so I don't have to 

worry about the activities are retreat 

distracting me from measurements!

The machine power foot goes into the 

main box instead of the drawer to make 

room for my supplies. 

The retreat pile is growing daily!

Happy retreating!

Stay safe and sew on !

August One Monthly Goal - Great Progress

The goal of working on my quilt rack backlog and 

getting some charity quilting done was a success!

The last of the charity quilts were quilted,

actually only one.

This big beauty proved more than enough 

for my domestic machine.

I graciously bowed out of doing the second 

that was measuring  97"x 97".

The  use of various sizes, widths and changes in direction,

give this quilt a unique eclectic look.

Another success for the charity group!

Two items are off the ladder and on their way  

to the long arm quilter.

One will probably be a keeper for my cozy collection,

and the other is a gift for my DD

 to warm her bed in the winter.

Another cheery twin size quilt,

Hopscotch, is on the table and ready to be pinned.

The top did require an extra bit of work,

as you can see one of the blocks was turned.

I rectified this problem by first 

taking out a block that was correct!

Then I went on to take out the errant block.

Restitching everything and giving it a a press

got it back on the pinning table in a timely fashion.

Two others were finished up

using my favorite quilt binding workhorse machine.

The curved 9 patch was trimmed and bound,

and the last of the Irish chains

was quilted, trimmed and bound.

On to the next challenge! 

Stay Safe and Sew on!

Bind It Up!

 It's binding time!

Finally I've  a goodly stack of quilts to bind.

One is mine, and three are charity quilts.

I don't always get to the charity day,

so I swing by later and pick up,

some quilts that are back from quilting and ready to bind .

I also did quilting on some tied quilts a while back.

I have two more of those to finish up.

The largest ones ended up at the end of the workload,

so I still have those two get started on.

Here are all my binders!

First is the end of the road

for Irish chains from last year's stash buster.

This has all the leftover blocks,

and it really went together in a nice rainbow.

The binding is a medley

of rainbow colors and really pulls it all together.

This is my second finish for the year,

but I many tops close to the quilting stage!

The next one up and done was a smaller, child's quilt 

from the charity committee.

It has a dainty little pattern on the front with loads of blue triangles.

 The back is a beautiful,

fuzzy fabric that sure to delight any child  receives it.

The pale blue binding matches the back and front  

perfectly and frames the design nicely.

Then a beautiful orange white and floral quilt 

from the charity committee

received a beautiful, matching binding.

This one is called , "Flowers on White".

The simple small block is stunning when 

joined with its fellow and the orange border

just enhances it all. 

To finish this wonderful quilt, 

the longarmer used a loftier batt and 

a delightful swirl design to take this to the next level!

The quilting shows up wonderfully in the detail. 

I had a bit of trouble with the black backing 

thread showing up on the back binding but

a little pickin', grinnin' and restitching 

solved that problem.

Last but not least, is a potato chip charity

quilt with pink accents, 

highlighted by a pink binding.

 I wasn't sure about the pink binding

but once complete it really  

bring out  the subtle pinks in the top.

Congratulations to the charity committee members 

 for  their beautiful work. 

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with : 

Monday Musing

Design Wall Monday

Monday Sew & Tell

SrSPS

Handmade Monday

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Design Wall Friday

Finished or Not Friday

TGIFF

Beauty Pageant

Home Matters

Patchwork & Quilts

RSC 2025

Oh Scrap!

Stash Reporting

Stitching Stuff

 

One and a Two!

 Finally a quilt  finished!

This is the last of the Irish chains,

and combines all the leftover blocks.

It turned out to be a lovely rainbow,

with lots of interesting things to look at.

The backing on my second quilt for the year 

is a beautiful feather print!

No new yardage came in this week

so that makes my annual total:

50.5  YTD Purchased

Used  5 m, 3 m ( baby quilt)

6m ( twin)

36.5 total Purchased YTD

Yay! I am chiseling away at the total. 

More quilts to quilt and bits to stitch!

Happy Sewing!

Linking up with :

Stash Reporting

Sew Along Time Stitching

The Sew Along is finished!

That means all the clues/steps are posted, 

but I am not out of the woods yet. 

I started stitching rows together.

There were a few false starts. 

Twosies were stitched together then 

one final block added. The last block

received another border piece. 

Yes, I put the whole first row

together upside down, with the

left and top border treatment 

turned around.  Started picking,

then restarted. 

All that picking and I still 

ended up with a "What?" area.  

Two border blocks together

since one block is turned. 

I made it thru the blocks minus 

the bottom row and placed them 

on the design wall. 

Can I say 'Holy Hannah, this thing is huge!"

I obviously missed the dimension talk

and happily sewed on, making a quilt 

that would cover my entire family!

This is when I again noticed a block

just a little different and had to 

do some rearranging.

 

I began to notice the size overwhelming 

my design wall, so only 6 blocks made it into 

each row. It is now 75" wide without 

the 10" border added ( 1 1/2" + 3 1/2 " on each side) 

and it is 84" long,

It should finish about 96" square complete,

 which is a bit out of my comfort zone. 

I do like the design and other than a few 

too light browns, the first and secondary 

patterns are wowzer!

Soo...I think I will make one more block, 

then split the top into 2

using a 5 x 5 arrangement.

Each should be around 65" x 65" and 

the pieced border will be added to the top 

and bottom to step up the length. 

That is the current plan. 

Update. 

Two tops  ready for the pieced border.

Yay!  More stitching to come later in the 

week after guild planning and enjoying 

beautiful summer weather.  

We even listened to symphony in the park!

Look at that beautiful sky !

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Handmade Monday

Monday Musings

Sr SPS

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Needle & Thread Thursday

Finished or Not Friday

Design Wall Friday

Home Matters

RSC 2025

Patchwork & Quilts

Oh Scrap!

Life in Pieces

Great Buys , Stash increase!

One quilter's extras are another one's stash.

A quilt group I belong to took a small road trip

to a sale run by a group of Quilters

who spent many years wintering in the south!

Truly Canadian Snow Birds. One had moved into a smaller space.

The other two were just overwhelmed by their excessive stashes.

They decided to liquidate some and we were happy to help.

I managed to break my fast of fabric purchasing,

and ended up with a quantity of nice backing fabric.

They were also selling some recycling bags of big bits.

I couldn't resist and grabbed a surprise bag of goodies.

Here's a quick rundown of  my wonderful purchase.

The backing fabrics were about 3 meters each,

with one surprise of 4 meters when I got home.

They needed a nice wash and then into 

 the bin with the other backings.

The goodie bag yielded almost 10 m of

yardage!!

This beautiful red, and

a lovely forest print with silvery trunk tree trunks,

I also found  rich green that I just fell in love with,

but I later noticed that it is a cemetery print!

This beautiful techy type black and white print,

will really enhance a scrappy front.

The total increase for my stash this year is:

 42 m from this great sale 

8.5m Jan- Jun

50.5  YTD Purchased

Used  5 m, 3 m ( baby quilt)

42.5 total Purchased YTD

There are a few items near 

finishing so the numbers 

will change soon. 

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with: 

Stash Report

Donation Sewing

 The end of the meeting year 

caught one of the groups I attend,

with quite few quilts unfinished. 

Ever the optimist,

I asked for a bag and received,

seven quilts to tie or stitch up.

This group ties all their quilts.

So to prepare for tying, the quilts are

layered right sides together with batting,

stitched leaving an opening,

then turn right side, and a faux 

binding stitched around the outer edge.

I don't like to tie so I quilt some of these quilts.

Puckering usually isn't a problem.

If it feels or looks like it may pucker or shift, 

some pinning seems to stabilize it enough 

to get a smooth look without bunching. 

Here's a look at the ones I finished up so far.

Please note, I did not make these beautiful quilts,

 I am just doing the final step so they can be labeled and donated.

 

They were great fun to do 

and I certainly need practice to 

get used to my new sewing room buddy, 

a Bernina 820. 

Happy Stitching!