Lego Sewing Room

Look at this Lego diorama Miss P built of my sewing room. There I am standing at the longarm. Behind me is my desk with the (very large) computer on it. To the right of my desk is my cutting table. In the background you can see the fabric cabinet and a RED Bernina. It would be pretty cool if I really had a red sewing machine, wouldn't it?

Lucky Girl Progress

I'm almost finished with my next Lucky Girl quilt forJennifer. I just completed the quilting and took it off the frame. I hope to get the binding on and share it with you soon.For now, I'll share my progress successes with you.Check it out!! I can stitch in the ditch now! I love learning new skills. I still need some practice on curves but look at that straight stitching there. I'm pretty thrilled with it.

And look how close I was to running out of thread on the last prewound bobbin.

I am a LUCKY GIRL; the stars must be aligned in my favor this week!

First Day of the Fair

Miss P and I enjoyed the first day of the local fair yesterday.It was all kicked off with a kids bike parade from downtown to the fairgrounds. The middle school band leads the way for all the kids and their decorated bikes.

Many of the kids get dressed up in costumes. This year there was even someone riding a unicycle.

It is fun because so many of the kids in town participate and they get to see their friends. The parade goes at a walking speed and can be a bit challenging for new bike riders so miss P chose to scooter in the parade this year.Some of the first events at the fair are a "trike pull" where the kids try to pull jugs of water in a milk crate tied to the back of a tricycle. There's a treasure hunt where you hunt for coins in a big pile of sawdust, and also the sack races.After the fun and games in the kids arena we went to check on our entries. P was thrilled that she won a blue ribbon on her geranium top. I guess those french seams paid off!

We did well with our entries. Everything we entered won a ribbon and all but one was blue! The kids hobby section can be very competitive.

I love looking at all the entries.

Next, we headed off to see the animals and use our ride tickets that P won from the kids activities! She is a big fan of the carousel so she has to do that every year. Last year she tried the big slide but wasn't quite heavy enough to make it down without stopping. She was pleased to have a fun ride down the slide this time.We always finish the evening with a ride on the Ferris wheel just as it is getting dark and the lights have come on.

The fair is a great event for our community and a wonderful way to start winding down our summer vacation.

Lucky Girl

In my summer of slow sewing I finally finished a quilt!!

This is a commission quilt for Jennifer Paganelli and uses her upcoming Lucky Girl line of fabrics. It was pretty fun to put together even if there are loads of partial seams. I love the herringbone effect.

I had fun quilting it with loopy loops on the longarm.

Finished measurements 60 x 80 inches.

I should probably also mention that my oldest son designed this quilt for me. Yeah, he's helpful like that AND he's good with quilt math.

I'm working on another more involved quilt from the same fabric line so stay tuned for that!

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Three Kitchen Fairies

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We have had some lovely weather this week in Michigan. I've been taking advantage of the cooler drier air by spending time outside reading and even doing a little hand stitching. It's been like a vacation without the hassle of packing and driving.

Paloma, of Three Kitchen Fairies, sent me some of her hexie papers to try and I finally got around to making a project with them. These are one inch on each side. The paper is thinner than the papers I had been using and I love that you can get a thin crisp turned edge with these papers. They are also easier to pop out after stitching. The papers in the photo have been used and are in great condition for using again. If you want to try them yourself you can get the papers here in Paloma's etsy shop. She also has some sweet instant download embroidery patterns. I especially like this one.

A few scraps, aurifil 50 wt thread, and hexie papers are the perfect ingredients for relaxing afternoon and a pretty transformation for a tea towel.

Now, I think I need to get some more of these bright tea towels to decorate.

Oceans of Notions

This is a reposting of a guest post I did on Pink Castle Fabrics as part of their "Oceans of Notions" series back in February. I thought it might be good to post it over here too.

When Megan first asked me to share some of my studio for her Oceans of Notions feature here I was a little nervous. My sewing room is far from what I would expect to see in an inspirational storage and studio feature. Megan assured me they are looking for inspirational ideas that anyone can use so I agreed to share. 

First, I need to tell you that I don't have a finished sewing room. We have been renovating our house for the last 25 years. Yes, you read that right twenty five YEARS. I no longer even notice that half of my sewing room doesn't have a ceiling. A few years ago, we removed the wood wall surface from one corner of my sewing room. In doing so, we discovered a hidden space under the stairs.  

We turned that space into a "queenly place" for my daughter. I let her decorate her room with some of my vintage linens and "tapestries".  She has spent many hours playing in there while I sew.  

I'm sharing this with you to illustrate that my studio is constantly changing. We are moving things and rearranging as the need arises. Now that my daughter is in second grade she doesn't use her queenly place as much but spends a lot of time at her desk which is also in my sewing room. She does homework, artwork, or sews while I work at my computer or on the sewing machine.

With our needs constantly changing I need storage for my sewing notions that can adapt to each incarnation of the room. I like using old items that I may already have to store things in. My collection of ribbons, trims, and rick rack are arranged in an old suitcase.

I keep my threads in an old wooden two drawer thread cabinet that belonged to my mother. Floss and perle cotton are stored in a more modern thread cabinet.

I keep this pin cushion jar right next to my sewing machine. The bottom holds the small safety pins that I use to baste the layers of a quilt together. I drop the open pins in the jar as I quilt and they are ready to use on the next quilt. The top has a pin cushion that holds a couple of "self threading" needles for burying threads as I quilt. The large flower head pins are the ones that my daughter uses when she sews. I like that the weight of the jar holds the cushion in place while I pull out the needles.

Much of my old sewing notion collection is stored in jars. I have jars and jars of old buttons.

Not all of the sewing notions are housed in my sewing room. This cabinet is in our entry but someday I hope to have a place to hang it in my sewing room. It has some antique sewing items and other goodies behind the glass. The drawers on the right are filled with elastic, beads, buttons, vintage lace, silk ribbon, and special embroidery threads. (Please note the additional jars of buttons and ignore the cracked plaster and old woodstove holes in the wall).

Some of my old sewing items are just for show and are kept in the livingroom in a glass cabinet. Here, you might be able to see a basket of antique needle books and another of antique buttons. The old basket on the left is filled with old wooden spools. Yeah, I have a real weakness for old sewing stuff. Is there a twelve step program for that?

I hope some of these storage ideas can help you keep your sewing notions tamed and easy to find.

Thread Play

Yesterday, I quilted a small baby quilt on the Gammill. It was good to get some practice loading, basting the sides, keeping it square, etc.

Today, I pinned the practice muslin back on the frame and switched to a darker thread for visibility over all my other practice.

I'm having fun switching back and forth between freeform sewing like these plants and feathers on one side of the practice piece

and skill building drills on the other half.

I think of it like the compulsory figures and and free skating sections in figure skating competitions.  (Yes, I know that they no longer judge compulsory figures but I do remember watching them and was impressed by the figures left on the ice - you didn't want to see a double line after skating the figure with both feet.) I hope the quilting drills will help build muscle memory for better freehand quilting.  I'm currently making rows and rows of circles working both horizontally and vertically and I'm getting better at making them the same on each row. 

Welcome to a New Member of the My Sewing Machine Family

Look! I have a new friend in the sewing room. It's a Gammill!!!!

The lovely Tammy from TK Quilting and Designs brought it to my house yesterday. After putting it together she taught me the basics on loading, oiling, threading and getting started with the quilting. She even stitched out a few feathers for me to stitch over, and over, and over.  I'm stitching it without thread for practice. It really does help build the muscle memory for making smooth curves and flowing feathers.

We had fun taking turns last night. Look, it's so easy a child can do it! Actually, Miss P was pretty good. She stitched out an awesome swirly border and a mermaid!

D tried the pantograph set up.

We filled up our practice quilt but didn't want to stop to load more fabric so we just kept stitching.I want to quilt all the things!

I think it might be time to load something new. I'll have to make a quick top... unless someone else has a quilt I can play on. Anyone?

Family Time

The pie was delicious.

We worked a 1000 piece puzzle, played badminton, ate watermelon, dinner on the grill, more badminton, a few other games and crafts, blueberry pie, more badminton, a few songs on the player piano, and smores over a "camp" fire - overall it was a pretty stellar day.

Also, have any of you locals noticed that we seem to have almost NO mosquitoes this summer??? This is quite a pleasant change from the past few summers when the mosquitoes have kept us prisoners in the house.

I hope you had a great Fourth of July too. 

Future Fruit

Miss P and I journeyed around the property this afternoon and found that we have home grown fruit in our future. I love the fruit trees because we don't really have to do anything for them. Did you hear that? NO WEEDING for all this fruit! We won't mention the state of the garden. No, let's not go there.

apples

pears

plums

grapes

We also found that part of a tree had fallen in the middle of one of our paths. I guess we get firewood too!

We look forward to a busy August of harvest, food preservation, and fire wood cutting. Yeehaw.

Do you have any exciting weekend plans? The kids will all be here for the Fourth and we've planned a cookout with smores! 

Look What I Found in the Sewing Room!

I've been doing some "extreme cleaning" in the sewing room and found my stack of hexagon flowers. They weren't really lost but I hadn't done anything with them in a while. I love the way they look all mashed up against each other.  I need to make MANY more for a bed size quilt. This is definitely a long term project. Currently, there is only one flower from each print but the center colors are used more than once. I need to sew some more quilts to make scraps for this - or, gasp, cut into yardage for the hexagons. 

Fabric Swap Projects

A while back, the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild had a "fabric swap" we all brought fabrics that we no longer needed in our stashes and made a very large pile of fabric on the floor. On the count of three we dove in and chose fabrics that we each wanted to add to our stash. It was quite a "free for all" luckily, no one was harmed. All unclaimed fabric was donated for charity quilts.

I tried to be particular with the fabrics I brought home and choose only fabrics that I knew I would use. I am please to report that I've already used some! Woot!!!I made this cross body bag to use at quilt market this  spring. I used Kathy Mack's Mail Sack pattern but added a pocket to the outside. It is a great place to pin all the fun buttons I collected at market. The heavy weight fabric is perfect for this bag that holds a lot of weight. The lining is a batik that has been in my stash for many years. I score bonus points for that, right?

Next up is a pair of Parsley pajama shorts for Miss P. She loves them.

They are made out of a lightweight searsucker stripe with a tiny sliver of silver metallic woven in.

Now that we know which size fits her she will be making her OWN Parsly pajama pants out of this swap score.

Thanks ladies, I don't know who brought these fun fabrics to the swap but I am thrilled with the projects we are making with them.

The Crafty Chloe Geranium

You have no idea how happy I am that today is the last day of school.So. Very. Ready.Miss P finished her geranium top (This is the Geranium for older girls pattern that we are testing for Rae. It will be released soon.) last night so that she could wear it to school today. I think she did a great job. Before starting this top, she remembered that last summer when she entered her skirt in the fair, the judges commented that she should finish the seams on the inside of a garment.She learned how to do French seams and also hand stitched the lining like I did on the dress version.

She wanted ruffles for sleeves so we added those too. That pattern piece was not in the pattern. Just cut an elongated D shape cut on the fold and gathered into the armhole. I love that P is learning new sewing skills and gaining confidence. I helped her a lot less with this project. And I let her use my "cool" sewing machine. She is still finding it hard to believe that I let her use the BIG machine.

Miss P got the book Crafty Chloe, illustrated by Heather Ross, for Christmas and we love it. It's about a craft loving girl who makes a gift for a friend - a great read for crafty girls.

I was thrilled to find this Crafty Chloe fabric, also by Heather Ross, for P to use in this top. She loves it too.

I snapped these photos quickly before we headed to school this morning.

I have now turned off my alarm clock for summer! Woo hoo. Here's to the more relaxed and slower pace of summer vacation!

Instagram Photos

I finished the Dala Sweater and couldn’t be happier with it! The pattern is #dalasweater by @elenormortensen. More details on my ravelry page. #knitter #strandedknitting #operationsweaterchest #handknitsweater #makersvillage #makersgonnamake
I started this sweater on our car trip last week. I had chosen a different yarn for the horses but it was thinner and didn’t work well with the blue. I frogged the few rows I had knit and subbed in some yarn from my stash when I got home. The y
Narrow hand appliquéd bias strips. 1/16” quilting lines not going over the appliqué. I’m about a month in on the quilting and ALMOST finished. Whoop! Quilted with Invisalign on top and Decobob in the bobbin. Threads by @wo
This summer we watched my two oldest grand kids one day a week. Towards the end of the summer they started making projects on their own in the sewing room. They made lots of little projects from my scrap basket including pillow cases and tiny quilts