Off the Clock

Update April 21:  Most of the blocks are done, just waiting for the patterns for the last 4 blocks.  I've got them all laid out on a sheet and pinned in place along with the border triangles.  You can see the four gaps for the last blocks.  Then it's assembly time.   Blocks 1 - 4 I have started on a virtual quilt-along project for a bright, scrappy quilt.  This is being put on my by local quilting shop and I am so pleased I joined in.  I'm having a lot of fun and learning new things.  For example, on block #12 I initially pieced in rows and then sewed the rows together.  My scant 1/4" seam may have been a bit too scant and my block was oversized to the point that after I trimmed it down I will lose some of my points when I assemble the quilt top.  When I made the second block #12 I instead assembled as 4-patches, trimmed to size and then assembled the block.  This gave me much better results. These are blocks 5 - 8.  I have bee...

 I mentioned in my last post that I had been working on a number of projects.  One of them was new covers for my two ironing surfaces; the ironing board and the padded tv tray I use for ironing at the sewing machine.  I also mentioned I may make another Bionic Gear Bag.  Well I decided that was a "go" and I took the plunge to get started.  This time around I found a video for the Sew Together Bag that I think the Bionic Bag was based on.  It is definitely helping.   I pieced and quilted the outer layer to coordinate with the needle case .  Then I cut and interfaced all the other sections and got as far as I could until I was ready for the zippers, which I had ordered on Ebay.  Well those zippers came in today - less than 2 weeks after ordering them from overseas, so I am really impressed! - and now I will be able to carry on with that project. Once I put that aside I decided to organize the eight bins of quilting scraps I had on ha...

  I have done a LOT of sewing lately.  I summarized my holiday sewing in my last post.  Since then I've made another pair of knit pants for me (because Covid-10 is a thing), a pair for my daughter, a couple of jersey tops, added back pockets to all the knit pants that didn't have any, made a pair of houndstooth dress pants, and I'm sure there's more.  To be honest I was a little tired of clothes sewing and quilt sewing when I ran across the Nancy Zieman needle case project .  Thanks to Ebay and Amazon I have a pretty good stash of needles, and this looked like a good project to practice some skills without getting overwhelmed.   I have seen a few scrappy quilting projects lately that caught my interest and thought this could be a cute little project to try out that idea.  I made scrappy 2 1/2" squares and then used a 2 1/2" sashing strip to showcase some embroidery to make the outer fabric.  I used a heavy natural cotton for the inner fabric....

I have spent so much time in the sewing room in the last few months that I need to come up for air.  A quick inventory shows that since the beginning of November I have: Finished the "Zen" quilt for stepson Finished the "Algonquin" quilt Made a wheelchair lap quilt for MIL Made a lap quilt for bestie Made pajama pants for daughter, son-in-law and 3 granddaughters Altered and embellished 3 t-shirts for 3 granddaughters Made knit pants for me Made "Dragonflies" quilt for middle granddaughter Phew! But I had the opportunity to get these gifts to the family and I can report back that it was all a complete success!  The jammer pants all fit well.  The lengths were perfect on all three.  I will add an inch or two to the rise for the smaller two if I make them again.  I just think they would be a bit more comfortable with a bit more room to bend over without them pulling down.  Daughter's fit perfectly and she says son-in-law's did as well.  For f...

 It's been almost three years since I finished the quilt for Granddaughter 1 , so I thought it was time to get one going for GD 2.  The girls currently share a bedroom and there's a good chance 2 of the 3 girls always will, so I thought it would make sense to use the same Irish Chain pattern and coordinating colours so that they will go together without being identical.  GD1's main colour was purple (#4 in the above pic), and I'm going with pink (#7) for GD2 and I'll use blue for GD3 when I finally get around to hers.  You may recognize fabrics #1, #2, and #3 from the first quilt, and #6 is very close to a previous fabric.  I really like the idea of using some of the same fabrics as it shows continuity between the quilts.  I'm not sure I will be able to do that with the third one but I will jump off that bridge when I get there. I'm pleased with how my points line up The quilt top assembled Quilt sandwiched and pinned I've never really kept track of the ...

  After making all the jammer pants  for the kids I thought that the granddaughters should have tops to go with theirs.  I don't have fabric in the stash to make plain white tees but I managed to find some at the grocery store.  Unfortunately they only had larger sizes, so I bought two 2-packs of girls size small, the smallest they had.   I initially had the idea of appliqueing a heart onto the front of the tees in the cheetah print from the jammie bottoms.  I went ahead and cut them out, sewed the border with a coverstitch from the Pfaff (I think it was #31), then sewed it down to the tee.   Then I thought that if they are all the same size then they need a way to tell them apart, so I embroidered round patches with their initial in them.  I used the last scraps of the pink flannel for this, having to sew a few pieces together to be able to hold it in the embroidery hoop!  At first I was going to sew it to the front of the shoulder...

  This is a Lutterloh pattern 249 from supplement 282.  When  I made this pattern last  I made some adjustments to the pants, but of course now I couldn't remember if I had actually made the adjustments to the pattern or just thought about it. Also, that was three years ago so my body may have changed.  So I decided I need to make another trial pair before cutting into the nice charcoal plaid in my stash.  I found this red plaid ponte in my stash that I figured would do the trick.  The print is asymmetrical so right off the bat I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge to line up the print.  I managed to get the horizontal lines pretty much perfect but I've ended up with a slant across one of the legs.  At first I thought I managed to twist the pattern on the fabric trying to line up the print or that the print was printed at a bit of an angle.     It turns out I had mistakenly drawn the grain line running parallel to...