Saturday, March 9, 2024

Festival of Quilts 2024

Our local quilt guild hosted a quilt show this weekend, The Festival of Quilts. This is the first time I've ever submitted quilts into a show. I mainly wanted to be able to get good photos of my quilts hanging up because they were too big to get good photos by holding them up. LOL

I was successful!

Snake River Log Cabin
Morris Garden
I got a third place ribbon for my long arm quilting!

Bordeaux Violette
Look! I got First Place! Yay me!

I didn't take a lot of other photos and I'm not sure I should share those I did take because I didn't make them. There were some pretty quilts and I was surprised about my ribbons but I am so pleased.


Thursday, February 22, 2024

Customer Quilt

I had a paid quilting gig today! I'm still new enough to long arm quilting that I always breathe a sigh of relief when I finish a project. I didn't get good photos because the customer was in a huge rush to get it back so I just took the photos I could while it was still on the long arm. She actually dropped it off at about lunch time and picked it up this evening, just as I was taking it off the long arm.

This is a very scrappy quilt and most of the printed fabrics were African prints.

I used the Tiger Stripes pantograph from Christy Dillon. (Yes, I know there are not tigers in Africa; the customer liked this pantograph the best.) It also looked pretty amazing on the back.

We used Quilter's Dream Green batting on it and I stitched it up with gold Maxilock Serger thread.

She said she was delighted with the finished quilt.  Yay!

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Drawer Organization

I've spent the last couple of weeks working on house projects. I've sold some excess furniture and been deep cleaning, but while I've been working on these things, I ordered some drawer organizers for my sewing room table drawers. For this month's Friday Night Sew-In, I decided to spend some time organizing my sewing room.

Wow, I had a lot of stuff crammed in them. The drawers were full to bursting and I couldn't find stuff when I needed it.

As I sifted through everything, I found about thirty seam rippers and fifteen measuring tapes. LOL At least now I can find them and I'll stop buying more. Anyway, I'll probably downsize some of my excess supplies.

I bought some organizers from Amazon and they fit the drawers pretty well. I'm double-stacking the bins in the deep drawers.

Friday, February 2, 2024

Quilting Bag Canvas

I'm quilting up more fabric to make insulated shopping bags. My goal is to make three of them. Even though I still haven't been able to finish the last seams on the last one, I'm confident I found a solution to get them finished, so I am preparing to make at least two more bags. I quilted more fabric, this time light canvas. They're not the greatest quality as they were pretty inexpensive from JoAnn, but I liked the colors.


I had a long piece of the solid navy canvas for the backing and I quilted one of the printed pieces and then I added the second. This first piece is quilted with Let it Bloom! Edge-to-Edge 3 by Christy Dillon.

This second piece is quilted with a pantograph called Jacobean Flower & Vine by Jessica Schick. I really like it, but I may have shrunk it down a bit too much.

As for my solution for sewing these bags, I bought a new-to-me light-industrial sewing machine, a Pfaff Grand Quilter with an extra high lift of the presser foot. I got a really great bargain because the woman who was selling it lost all the accessories for it. She did still have the power cord and foot pedal to make sure it would actually work but she was missing the bobbins, feet, etc.

I've ordered the replacement parts and I should get them in the next week then I'll be able to take it for a spin, and hopefully finish my Ultimate Travel Bag.

Linking up with:

Finished or Not Friday
Friday Foto Fun
Whoop Whoop


Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Ultimate Travel Bag Progress

I had a good time participating in this past weekend's online quilt retreat, offered by the Northwest Quilters guild. It gave me an excuse to sew all weekend and it was fun to hear other folks chattering away about mostly quilt-related topics.

I decided to work on my Ultimate Travel Bag during the retreat as I had almost everything ready to get started. I didn't take any in-progress photos, sadly, because I was determined to finish the bag during the retreat so I was quite single-minded in my focus.

But, I haven't quite finished. Everything is ready for the last step of sewing the pieces together
but there are so many layers my sewing machine can't sew it. On that final seam where I need to sew this bag together I need to sew through the 5 layers of cotton on the panels, 2 layers of cotton on the handle, 4 layers of batting, and the poly strapping. I had to replace my needle three times getting to this point and re-thread the needle due to broken threads at least eight times. 

I was thinking the new plastic machines just aren't up to it, so I actually bought a used older Pfaff machine with metal guts and it can't handle it either. It's just too thick to fit under the foot. 
I may try squishing the layers flatter with a tool, but I don't have time right now. This project will have to wait for the finish. I may also ask around my sewing friends and see if any have an industrial machine I can use.

I was hoping to make several more of these bags while the process is fresh in my mind, but I'm definitely going to need to omit some layers.

I also finished making quilt labels and binding my Morris Garden Quilt. I've submitted it to the Festival of Quilts for display so I'm looking forward to being able to get a better photo of it.
This coming week I actually need to work on some painting in the house, so it may be a couple of weeks before I post again. 

But when I have time, I would like to quilt up fabric for more of these bags. LOL I'll have to figure out how I can simplify the project because I want to make at least two more insulated shopping bags.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Tuesday ToDo #86

Other than finishing my green stained glass blocks, I haven't really done much sewing this month.

But my local quilt guild has a quilt show⏤the Festival of Quilts⏤planned in March and I'd like to display some of my best finished quilts, so I am trying to get those ready. Most can go as they are, but I'll need to add labels to any that don't already have them.

I've also decided to finally get back to work on an insulated shopping bag for my husband. After my earlier failed attempt, I decided to try a largish-ByAnnie Bag: Her Ultimate Travel Bag 2.0. I've finally cut out the fabric I quilted last August.


So, my plan for the coming week is to:

  • Make Muslin quilt labels for the quilts that still need them. (I think there are 4 total.)
  • Finish binding the Morris Garden quilt so I can submit it to the quilt show.
  • Add hanging sleeves, if required, to all the quilts.
  • Begin working on the Ultimate Travel Bag. I still need to cut out the coordinating fabric pieces. And I've ordered the required hardware bits, so it will be several days before I can really get started.

Linking up with TuesdayToDo.

Sunday, January 14, 2024

Green Blocks Finished

The later blocks definitely look better than the first few, but I doubt I'll take the time to make more of them. These blocks are easy, but VERY time consuming. Admittedly, I did not have a tidy workstation set up with everything in reach so I was getting up to iron and cut quite a lot. 

To be honest, I don't love these blocks. I've made quite a lot of scrap quilts over the past couple of years and many of them had green fabrics so my green scrap supply was pretty picked over. These blocks would have looked a lot better with more medium greens in them. 

Anyway, this is my planned arrangement of the rainbow blocks when I'm finally finished making them.

I've already finished the red and yellow blocks a couple years ago, so I'll be back at it when purple, blue or orange next come up.

Linking up with 

Scrap Happy Saturday
Oh Scrap!