Sister's Choice Quilts

Machine Binding: Shall We Give It a Try?

I have always had an issue with hand sewing quilt bindings. My problem is that I procrastinate something awful and put off finishing those bindings for a very long time. Years in fact. It isn't that it is difficult, I just find it B.o.r.i.n.g. It is better when I can sit with an audiobook and listen to something entertaining to pass the time. For the past couple of years, my schedule has been so busy that I just don't have time to sit for an hour or so at a time to do this handwork. Many people advise me, "Oh, you should do it in front of the tv in the evening". That just doesn't work for me. I am rubbish at sewing in the evening. The light is never good enough and I drink a couple of glasses of chardonnay every night, which does not lend itself to nice stitching.

So, my quilts pile up. They are quilted, the binding is partially sewn on, it just needs to be sewn down by hand. And I do not do it. I am not kidding, I must have ten quilts sitting around waiting for me to finish the binding. Hang on a minute, I am going to go count them. Be right back.

Eight.

Better than I thought. But still. I just sent five table toppers to be quilted, which will bring my total up to 13, so there.

This brings me to the point of this blog post. I discovered a tutorial by one of my favorite quilt designers, Vanessa at Lella Boutique. On Instagram and on her blog, Vanessa demonstrates her method for stitching quilt bindings by machine. The process involves Elmer's School Glue, believe it or not. Her Instagram post is a video, and her blog post goes into great detail with photos as to her binding method and machine stitching process.

So, what do you think? Do you want to take a look at her method and give it a try with me?

I won't have a chance to sew again until Sunday, but with luck, maybe I can have one or two bindings done to share on Monday? If any of you try it as well, please report back to us and let us know how it went, ok?

 

 

Sewcialites Quilt is Finished

The Sewcialites Quilt Along was a completely free program hosted by Fatquarter Shop and Kimberly Jolly.  A total of 18 designers contributed block patterns each week. There were 36 blocks in all.

I thoroughly enjoyed working on my block each week of the sew-along and am pleased with my quilt top. The blocks were offered in three sizes: 3 inches, 6 inches, and 9 inches. I opted to make the 6-inch size. My finished quilt is approximately 48 inches square. I will probably add a 4 1/2 inch wide solid cream border to finish it off. I'm still considering that.

Kimberly offered weekly YouTube tutorials showing how to construct each block in the various sizes. It was fun to watch her tutorials while I sewed the blocks and I actually picked up a lot of useful tips.

Did you participate in the sew-along? Did you enjoy it? Have you finished your top?

Sorry for my spotty posting this week. I am afraid it will be like that for a while. There is an awful lot going on in my life this summer: my eye surgeries, my husband's illness, caring for my 95-year-old dad each weekend, hanging out with my 9-year-old granddaughter during the week, and my part-time writing job. I will try to post as often as I can, but sometimes I have no content lately! During my three-hour drive to my dad's house on Fridays and Sundays, I have been listening to some great audiobooks, and I will share my favorites with you soon. 

Making Progress

I'm about halfway finished with sewing the blocks together in my Moda BlockHeads 3 quilt. Woo Hoo! I love this little quartet above. Did you know that when a bee returns to the hive she can tell the other bees where the good flowers are by doing a little dance? She explains it all by her movements and the other gals can fly out and find the spot she is describing. No map required.

I tell you, sewing the lattices around each of these blocks is a time-consuming process. Whoever figured out what size the lattices need to be for the different-sized blocks was a genius. So far, all my blocks are lining up and the rows are exactly the same length. I refer to my notes all the time to be sure I don't get something wrong. It is really best to keep on working on this and not stop. When I took a break a few months ago, I totally forgot all the details and had to start all over to wrap my head around the complicated directions. The directions aren't easy to find either. A lovely lady whose name I forget showed her quilt setting on Instagram and I loved it. I reached out to her for her measurements for the lattices and she kindly told me what she had done. So I just have scribbled notes to follow. I'm not sure I could tell you where to go to see what she did.

Yesterday Eva and I celebrated our last day of school by having lunch out. There is a new place in town where one can eat outside on a covered porch. They just serve sandwiches and salads and have a kid's menu. We both had BLTs. The second half of mine is going to be my dinner. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and were happy to be out in public. The best thing was seeing other people out and about having a great time.

Do you find as you get older your appetite decreases? I remember my mother-in-law saying that all the time. When she and my father-in-law would go out to eat, both of them would bring half their meal home in a box to eat later. I know I haven't had much of an appetite lately. It may be more stress-related than age-related though! Whatever the reason, I have lost 15 pounds and will take it. I have to wear a belt to keep my pants up! Would you believe my shoes are even loose? A couple of pairs of sandals I like keep flying off my feet when I try to wear them!

Well, look at me, rambling away. I hope you all are having a terrific week!

Light At the End of the Tunnel (in more ways than one!)

I have been sewing! I wasn't completely sure what I was going to share with you today, because there are choices! My number one priority right now is to get the rows of Moda BlockHeads 3 together and get this monster off my design wall. 

Naturally, I had forgotten all the details of what size lattice strips I needed for the various sized blocks in this quilt. It took me a moment to get back on track. There was some ripping and some trimming, but all is lining up nicely now and I have completed almost four vertical rows! It is coming together and I could not be more thrilled. I hope to wrap this up this week. 

My summer schedule is also falling into place, and it seems I will have some large blocks of time for sewing, which is what I have been craving. Grabbing an hour or two is great for sewing blocks for a sew along, but I need hours of uninterrupted time to actually complete something.

I sure hope you all had a great weekend. It was a long one for us in America, and I understand that many of you in Europe had a "bank holiday weekend" as well. 

I haven't shared this until now, but my husband has been in the Bay Area five days a week for the past month undergoing radiation treatments for cancer. He has two more weeks to go, and he will be finished with his treatments. It has been worrisome for sure, but his spirits are great and we are both looking forward to him being home and regaining his health. My plate has been very full with his illness, caring for my dad, and homeschooling my granddaughter. I am so looking forward to a more carefree summer. I will still be spending weekends with my father, but the schedule for the rest of the week should be easier.

Happy June everyone!

Done and Dusted

The Little Village quilt is officially finished. All the borders are attached and it is ready for quilting. Here are the quilt details:

It was a sew-along hosted by Jessical Dayon called Little Village
It consists of 16 free block patterns with different classic quilt block "inserts"
I used Minick and Simpson fabrics from several collections, mostly Farmhouse Reds
Quilt finished at 64" square

It was a fun sew-along, and the instructions were mistake-free and easy to understand. I had all the fabric on hand in my stash except for the lattice and outer borders. I was able to buy those through Etsy sellers, which was fortunate since Farmhouse Reds was an older collection.

I hope your week is going well. Would you believe outdoor sports activities have resumed in my area, and Eva is back to swimming. It was gosh darn cold when we went at 11 yesterday morning, but she was tough. I sat on the sidelines huddled in my coat and had her discarded clothes draped over me for extra warmth! I was actually glad for the mask covering my face as it provided protection from the wind.

Eva is sitting right in the middle of the photo in her coral tankini and goggles. The instructors for swimming are always the perkiest friendliest older teenaged girls. They make it a blast for everyone who participates. Eva will sleep well tonight after swimming a gazillion laps. So glad she can exercise again and be around other kids.

Two Down, One to Go

I came home from seeing my father on Sunday afternoon thinking I would tear upstairs to the sewing room and get those three outer borders on this Little Village quilt. And I just couldn't. I was running on empty. The kind of empty where you just want to sit and play solitaire, or scroll mindlessly through Instagram, or watch make-up gurus on YouTube.

So, I did nothing. I may have read my book for a bit, but certainly did nothing sewing-related. Or housework related, or cooking related. And that's that. My weekend was a wrap. My dad is great, and oh, get this! He has gained almost 10 pounds since my sisters and I started staying with him and making sure he eats three times a day. Back in January, he was quite frail looking in the low 150's, and was 163 when he saw his doctor last Friday. She was a bit alarmed at the sudden gain, but my sisters and I are delighted. He seems much more robust. I told him he weighs more than I do, and he looked at me skeptically.  Seriously Dad? Give me some credit.

Monday was better. Eva and I put in our time with homeschooling. Long division. Ugh, that is a time sink. We took a walk with a friend who has been housebound (even more than normal!), made a delicious coffee cake, and started a new book called The Beast and the Bethany.

When Eva left at 2:30 I did go upstairs and got two of the outer borders on. I wanted to make the lentil soup that Kathe recommended recently, so I quit around 4:30 to cook.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.  Some notes on the recipes linked above: The coffee cake calls for
2 1/2 cups of cake flour OR a combination of regular flour and corn starch. Use cake flour. I got the most amazing rise and the cake was really good. I was afraid it wasn't done after 55 minutes and left it in the oven for another 5 minutes, and probably should not have done that. The recipe calls for an astonishing amount of streusel for the top, but trust me, go with it.

The lentil soup has a twist that makes it so much better. Kathe emailed me when I asked readers for their favorite soup recipes, and this one is a keeper. It is called Molly Ringwald's Mom's Mom's Lentil Soup. Everything about it is pretty standard: lentils, onion, celery, carrot, broth, a ham hock. But then you add a pound of browned Italian sausage at the end and that takes it up considerable notches.

Wish you could smell my kitchen right now!

Maybe You Should Finish Something

My husband and I were sitting in the living room visiting with each other while dinner cooked. We do that most nights. Take some time at the end of the day to sit together with a glass of wine and connect with one another. He asked me "So what project are you working on right now?"

Sound of crickets....

"Well," I said finally, "I have five or six different projects spread out all over the place at the moment".

"How is that working for you?" he inquired. 

"Honestly, not great", was my answer. "I feel very disjointed, unorganized, scattered, messy, and kind of frazzled". 

"Maybe you should finish something", he offered.

Wow. Imagine that. Finish something? Really? 

The next time I was up in my sewing room, I took an honest assessment of all the unfinished, half-started projects I have in various states of disorganization throughout my sewing room. The major project that I would like to get done is my Moda BlockHeads 3 quilt. Those blocks have been on my design boards for well over a year. A lot of excitement, fabric, time, and effort went into making those 50 some blocks.

I have been dithering over how to set them in a way that shows off the blocks rather than a busy, confusing, mess. When you make a quilt with several different sizes of blocks, finding a setting that works is extremely challenging. I wanted those blocks to be set apart from one another so the eye has a place to rest when looking at the whole quilt.

Julie Lloyd at Julesccreates on Instagram had a brilliant setting for her MBH3 blocks. I commented on her post and asked her if she would share the size of her lattice strips because I wanted to recreate her setting with my blocks. She very kindly responded with her measurements and I ordered lattice fabric in Bella Solids Porcelain (which matches my 3 Sisters fabrics). And then the fabric sat on the shelf and the blocks stayed on the wall and nothing got done.

Until yesterday. I took my husband's words to heart and got to work. This quilt is sewn together in vertical rows. Each block has a lattice around it, which is trimmed down to size when you sew the blocks into rows. You can see my first row on the far left in the photo. I am so pleased with how it is turning out.

I plan on having 7 rows. Four rows will have 12", 6", and 4" blocks. Three rows will have 8" and 4" blocks. I do not have quite as many blocks as I will need, so there will be a bit more block construction before I am done. This quilt is going to be very large and will cover my queen-sized bed with a good amount of overhang.

I am so excited to turn these blocks into a beautiful quilt. 

Miles of Binding to Sew

These are five of eight quilts that are patiently waiting for me to sew down their bindings. I am one of those people who hates sewing bindings, so I put it off as long as I can. One of my problems is that I don't want to sit around and waste time during the day doing it. I would much rather do this type of hand sewing in the evening in front of the TV. Except I can't see to do it. 

Over the past few years, as my cataracts have developed, I have found that I need more and more light to see things properly. My table lamps just don't put out enough light for me. When I do any sort of hand sewing, I like to go outside if possible and sew in bright daylight. This works fine for me for nine months out of the year, but right now it isn't very nice for sitting outside.

So, look at this cool neck light I purchased from Amazon. I heard it recommended for reading on a book podcast I was listening to. The wheels started turning and I thought "Ah-ha. I could use this for hand sewing". I think it will also be great for reading a physical book in my bed, as well as for knitting. It is supposed to be delivered this week, and I will be sure to let you know how it works.

I guess I can put off doing those bindings for a few more days?

Last Finish of 2020

Happy New Year friends! I hope you all started the year off healthy and full of hope for a great 2021. My husband and I managed to stay up, or should I say wake up at midnight to give each other a smooch and a Happy New Year wish. There was lots of banging and fireworks sounds going on in my neighborhood, so evidently, others nearby were giving 2020 a big send-off.

The photo above is of my Red Pineapple quilt. What a project that quilt has been. I can't tell you how happy I am to have this quilt finally finished. I started this quilt back in 2013 and used up most of my stash of French General fabrics on hand at the time. Which was a lot. I used a special trimming ruler called The Pineapple Rule, made by Possibilities, which you cannot buy anymore. Trimming the blocks was a horrendous chore, I don't mind telling you. In retrospect, I should have paper pieced these blocks. 

I would work on the blocks for a week or so, get totally sick of the process and put the project away. When I was reminded of how spectacular a Pineapple quilt can be, I was prompted to take it out again and work on it for a bit until I couldn't stand it anymore. I would always find myself thinking, I should have paper pieced these blocks.

Despite the supposed precision of the trimming ruler, the white strips along the edges were not all exactly the same length, even though the blocks all came out at 12 1/2" unfinished. Sewing the blocks and rows together was made much more complicated and unpleasant by that issue. I should have paper pieced those blocks.

I made 42 blocks and sewed them into seven rows of six blocks each. 45 pieces in each block for a total of 1890 pieces. It will fit nicely on my queen-sized bed. The best part of the quilt is that I didn't give up and waste all that beautiful French General fabric. However, it will be some time before I ever tackle a large Pineapple block project such as this.  Probably never.  But if I do, I can tell you I will paper piece those blocks.

This and That

I know I've shown this a million times, but the latest update is that I have completed all 42 blocks and have begun to sew them together! The intersections where the cream sections have to fit together isn't absolutely consistent, which is driving me a bit bonkers. If it is really off, I have had to re-do the places where the seams need to meet, so it is slow going. I sure would love to finish this dinosaur up before New Year's.

What I've been spending my time on is wrapping Christmas presents. I worked on that for most of yesterday and finished, except for a few gifts that have not yet been delivered. And oh my gosh, is USPS ever overwhelmed. I'll be surprised if everything I am waiting for even gets here by Christmas Eve. I have one package that has been sitting on the bottom of a pile at the post office of a town only an hour away from me since Dec. 11.

Oh and here is a funny story. One of my neighbors sent out an email to everyone on the street saying he had gotten a notice saying that a package had been delivered to his front door that day.  No package. He asked us all if it could have been delivered to one of our front doors by mistake.  Nope. A week went by and we all got another email from him. It was trash day, so he went to the area under his house where he keeps his garbage cans, and there was the package. USPS had delivered it to the door to the crawl space under his house.  I am not kidding.

Here is a little fabric bundle I treated myself to recently. It is Bess' Flower Garden by Pam Buda. I thought it would be fun to sew something up for the summer/4th of July. I am toying with the idea of decorating my front porch in all red, white, and blue quilts for summer.

Well, that's all I've got for today. I am going to go reward myself with a cup of hot cocoa. With marshmallows. Hope you are all having a great week!