It's a good time for a Friday Night Sew In

I don't know if I will have made the decision to go larger with the Tea Towel quilt by the end of the week–I'm still waffling not hat one, pull out some teal scraps for some more Briar Patch blocks, or focus on one of two more barely started projects that I haven't yet blogged about, but ...

I do know that I will be playing along with this month's Friday Night Sew in.  How about you?

You can sign up here.

Friday Night Sew-In Results

I'm afraid the new photo looks a lot like the old one.  Besides making February blocks for the Block Lotto–which I cannot yet share–it was more of the same, as I returned to the quilting of the border of this quilt.

 

It seems I mis-remembered how much was left to do ... and so my optimistic plan to be making some scrappy binding by the end of the night was was, well, a little too optimistic, even with the moral support of Grace Hopper, the material cat.

Today the sky is dull and gray and filled with dark, low clouds. With a weather forecast of lots of much-needed rain on the way, I've decided that it's a good day to make soup and stay in the studio and re-aquaint myself with the little purple machine that could.

How did your Friday Night Sew-in go?

Late afternoon update 

I have persevered and the end is in sight. Johnny Be Good recently came downstairs to provide second shift support cat duty.  He's still a little sleepy–both he and his sister have spent most the day cat-napping upstairs.  Now, I think, they've come down for an early dinner ... but I am determined to finish the quilting before I stop to cook (or feed them).

 

Saturday Update

The quilt has been trimmed and the binding sewn on and now I'm enjoying the process of stitching it down by hand ... all 10 yards of it. I decided on a red/green/gold poinsettia print from my stash for the binding because I liked how it looked with both the front and the back of my quilt–although there's no way anyone will see poinsettias in that skinny binding ;-)

I think another night of movies and stitching and my quilt will be done, done, done ... in time for Christmas.

I also decided to use two of the leftover star blocks to make big square pillow shams.

Inspired by the leftover triangle squares, I added a pieced border around the star blocks:

 

And then a plain border to make them the size I need–24 inches

 

I am looking forward to quilting these smaller pieces--it will be so much easier and quicker.

I need another Friday Night Sew In ...

... and fortunately for me, I'm not alone.  I'm joining this Friday night's Sew In, in hopes of finishing In the (holiday) Mood, my quilt made from swap blocks. 

The quilting is essentially* done.  I plan to trim it, bind it, cross my fingers and send it through the washer and dryer ... and put it on my bed.

I'd also like to make a couple of pillow shams using the leftover star blocks (still on my design wall.

* I still need to figure out what to quilt inside the plain 6" print square centers of some of the blocks (like the one at the top of this photo). Most have interesting prints, so I'd like to keep the quilting to a minimum, which I fear may be at odds with the wonky, bendy, sometimes pretty dense feathers which cover all the white areas of the quilt. I had a little brainstorm about it yesterday, but if you have a good idea, please suggest away ...


If you have a project in mind to complete before the holiday, why not join me for the Friday Night Sew in? 

Update from the Occupation

This in-progress photo of my Occupation project will tell you a few things.

After my Singer 301 completely balked at sewing with the feed dogs lowered; after trying everything I could think of, talking to a couple of knowledgeable friends;  asking some locals for a recommendation for a good sewing machine mechanic ... I decided to see if I could quilt this large quilt (90" square) on my little Bernina 153.   After muscling through the center blocks, it got easier and seemed possible and so I decided to put diagnosing my 301 on hold and to continue quilting on my purple Bernina.

I am filling all the white areas with unmarked, bendy, wonky, feather shapes–have I used enough adjectives to let you know they are imperfect?  Whether they look like feathers or not, they are adding great texture to the quilt. 

The quilting may not be finished before Occupy your Sewing Room ends, but I am still hopeful that I will be done for Christmas.

After a big Friday Night Sew-in (FNSI) Push, I am now quilting the last round of blocks.  The end is in sight.
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I was becoming quite obsessed with getting this done last night.  Good thing for me, someone insisted–and she really did dig in and INSIST–that it was time to take a break . . .  or my shoulders would have really been hurting this morning. 

Playing with Patterns

Here's how I spent my Friday Night Sew-In (FNSI)–playing with (quilting) patterns.

 

This is my table topper, a 18 by 27 inch "super" rectangle, made from 9 of the easy 3-patch rectangle blocks.  

I decided that I would quilt each of the 27 different rectangles (3 in each block) with a different design.  They are all based on quilting designs in Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project.   I chose a bunch of the more organic-looking shapes, a mix of edge-to-edge, center fill, echoing and pivoting designs ... as well as mix of designs I liked and felt confident I could accomplish and some that I didn't think I'd like and thought were a bit beyond my technical reach.


Someone suggested variegated thread, so I pulled out a rainbow of sulky rayon threads from my thread box.  The color changes didn't always work in a pleasing way . . . and I confess that I ripped out one design when it was almost completed because it didn't work at all ;-)

At the end of the night, the quilting was done. I plan to bind it, wash it, and put it on my table soon.

 

I enjoyed losing myself in this little project last night, even if, this morning, it doesn't necessarily feel like I accomplished a LOT.  I always start the FNSI with a list of things I plan to work on . . .

In other news, I made a big covered button, with a cover pieced from scraps.  The button and loop closure to the string pieced tote.  The loop is actually a stretchy poly tail holder ;-)

Get ready, Get set, Sew

Tomorrow is the third friday of the month and time for June's Friday Night Sew-in.  Haven't decided on WHAT I'll be sewing, but I'm definitely planning to participate this month.

How about you? Participation is as easy as one-two-three:

1. Commit.  Sign up and post your intention on your blog.
2. Sew.  On Friday night, get your house and family settled, get comfortable and work on projects of your choice.
3. Share. Sometime on Saturday, publish a post about what you worked on (and share photos in the FNSI Flickr group–something I usually forget about, so I'm reminding myself here ;-) 

The Circle Game

It didn't feel like much of a sew-in, but there was some (hand) sewing–if the running stitches in the seam allowance of all those circles count– and at the end of the night I had prepared these 40 circles for machine appliqué . . . it seems a little less impressive in the morning light ;-)

I am using this method for the circles: Preparing Circular Elements for Appliqué

No, I did NOT decide to add appliqué to the sampler quilt, these circles, along with the leaves that will turn them into "flowers" will be going onto the setting triangles for Road Trip to the 30's, my BYOS quilt made from feed sacks.