Leggings!

I'm not exactly the size and shape nor age to wear leggings, but I wanted to join the Christine Johnson Facebook Sewalong on making them so purchased the very well designed pattern and used some old (very old! Malden Mills Power Dry fabric and sewed them up and after a bit of tweaking (they were much too long and wide in the thigh area but a bit too tight around my calves), I now have a pair of leggings that I can wear, at least around the house, but they are so comfy that I'm definitely going to be making more!

I'm baaacccckk (cue Polgetergiest music)

Been so long since I posted that I don't remember where I left off, but just finished an outfit in time for my sewing guild's annual meeting so thought I should write about that in case anyone has been wondering what I've been up to!

I purchased a piece of denim colored knit from Fabric Mart last summer based on a swatch in my first Julie's Pick's samples, but it ended up being a lot slipperier, stretchier, and shinier than I would have liked, however I used that fabric to make a pair of Silhouette Yoga pants and a Cutting Line Designs Pure and Simple shell and after wearing those garments during the long meeting last Saturday, I have to say that it is quite comfortable plus created the "inner column" of color that our guest speaker Nancy Nix Rice had said in her book was very flattering.

The jacket is another story, though, since even though I chose the fabric from my stash at the same time I started working on my top and pants (I'm still trying to make 6pacs of clothing for the various seasons, but this was supposed to be part of my Fall collection!) and was pretty sure I was again going to use my Little Somethin jacket pattern, I didn't get around to making my jacket until the week before our annual meeting and didn't finish it until the day before our meeting, which is when I told the woman in charge of our fashion show that I was going to be another model on Saturday. I've always been big on last minute sewing, but this was a bit ridiculous even for me!

I did something even crazier than that, though, since Nancy Nix Rice taught a workshop for our guild on Sunday and I wanted something to wear with my old pair of pants made from a denim stretch fabric so I cut out and sewed another Pure and Simple shell from a piece of blue knit fabric that I'd bought to go with those pants at the Worcester Expo this year, but never had gotten around to making and I finished it in time to wear to that meeting. No pictures of that, since I kept my jacket on for most of the day, but I felt good about having a top to match my pants, another "column of color"!

All of this has gotten me back in the sewing mood, so hopefully I will continue to make a few new garments, even without those deadlines and hopefully post some stories about my creations on this site!

Another monthly report

I'm still plugging away on the anvil blocks I started working on during the Feb. Drop and Give me Twenty challenge I joined when I was stuck inside this winter, but since I can now wear something other than fleece from head to toe, I've also begun working on a few clothing projects.

First want to share my progress with my anvil quilt, though, since I am 1/4 of the way done with the quilting and binding of each block and think (hope!) it's going to end up being a pretty nice looking quilt, if I ever finish it.

I'm still trying to work on it in 20 minute segments, something that doesn't move things along very quickly, but which seems to work for me now that I've become a much more lazy quilter than I once was, in fact, I also made a Dear Jane block that I began over a dozen years ago recently and could not believe that I once used to make 6 of them each month to exchange with other quilters across the country, something I did from 1997 until 2003! I decided to take a picture of what my old and new approach to quilting projects looks like to show just how much things have changed:

I am also still making clothes, including working on a Little Somethin jacket that a woman from my American Sewing Guild group began and abandoned, but it's still not finished since it needs to be hemmed and to have the front facing sewn in place. I'm fairly happy with the way it fits and feels, though, a definite improvement over the larger, longer Little Somethin I made from some old striped fabric from my stash recently.

My other clothes sewing project in May involved preparing for a Sure Fit Designs demo that I and 5 other members of my ASG group did for the rest of our guild, however the garments I wore that day were made a couple of years ago when I first started working with that system, so they no longer fit as well as they once did, something I should have taken into account before choosing what to wear that day. At least I had a dress and vest made from my SFD patterns to show the people who attended that meeting, though, and they fit a bit better than they look in this photo, but I thought this was a good shot of the demo that I did that day, how to add parts of a commercial pattern (a Sandra Betzina vest) to a Sure Fit Designs pattern in order to create an entirely new design.

Decluttering and more clothes sewing

Been over a month since I last wrote, but have spent most of the time going through all the clothes in my closet, trying to get rid of enough stuff so I could put the new things I have bought and made in there, but despite the fact that I took five bags of clothes to the City Mission, things are still awfully jam packed.

Maybe someday I can really downsize since I mostly wear the same few things over and over again, in fact, could, as a friend of mine with a winter condo in SC said, easily live out of a couple of suitcases.That doesn't stop me from continuing to try and make new clothes to wear, though, even though I hardly ever wear them!




The vest I made in March had a specific purpose, to show Linda Lee how one of her Sewing Workshop patterns turned out when I took a class with her at the Worcester MA Expo in April, a pattern I had bought when Linda last visited Worcester (in 2005!) but of course had never gotten around to using.

I wanted to try and use a drapey fabric for the SW Peony vest, but the piece I chose was so flimsy when sewn together that I decided I needed to add another layer so cut up a rummage sale dress made from what I believe is African fabric.

Linda's instructions for lining the Peony vest were so good that making my new top reversible was fairly easy, but I'm afraid the two layers ended up being a bit stiffer than I wanted, however Linda seemed to like the way it looked and took a photo of me modeling it to put in the Gallery on the Sewing Workshop site. The picture hasn't appeared yet, though, so maybe she was just being nice!

I also decided to finally make the 6th piece of the 6pac wardrobe I began as part of the Artisan's Square fall 2014 challenge, a jacket that has the collar and slight hi-lo hemline of the super popular McCall's 6844 pattern with the sleeves (which are apparently too tight in the McCall's pattern, I didn't even try since regular sleeves are often tight on me) and sides (my sides are much straighter than this curvy pattern) from my Sure Fit Designs shirt kit pattern.

I used the same gray performance fabric that I bought at JoAnn's (the only option for clothes fabric in the Albany, NY area) and used for a pair of pants in the fall but I had to cut out two backs since my first one had permanent yellow writing on it indicating it was the end of the bolt of fabric. I had planned to also make a sleeveless top from that fabric to go with my jacket and/or pants, but unless I can figure out a way to make that yellow writing look like a design element, that's not going to happen.

Some quilting, some sewing

It's been over a month since I last wrote about my anvil quilt project and I only have gotten four blocks quilted and bound since then, but at least I am still making progress and after attending the Mark Lipinski lecture on the slow stitching movement the other night, a project that again involves devoting 20 minutes a day to a quilt project, I hope to soon have even more to report.

In the meantime, here's a shot of the three finished blocks that are already on my wall with the fourth block that I completed this morning soon to be added:

I have been doing a bit of clothes sewing, too, trying to make a few things to wear now that I can finally shed the polar fleece garments that always cover me head to to during our cold winter months.

My sewing guild's challenge for the month of March was to make something from our stash, an approach to sewing projects that I have been using for some time now since I have SO much fabric to use up, and my garment for March was the Little Somethin jacket that I began (from stash fabric!) ages ago but didn't finish since I didn't like the way it fit. I removed quite a bit of fabric from the side seams and center front and now think it's something I can wear, even though still not a garment I'm all that crazy about, but at least it's done!

I also made a machine embroidered wedding sampler as a shower gift this month and a Peony vest from a Sewing Workshop pattern that I purchased in 2005 since I was taking a class with Linda Lee at the Worcester MA Expo last week, but I don't yet have a photo of that. To be continued...

All the blocks are pieced! / the quilting begins

Wish I knew when I got the Civil War repro anvil block kits from the now closed Flying Geese quilt shop, but know it was a long time ago, and the box I had saved them in is finally empty and the blocks are now up on my design wall.

I plan to machine quilt each block separately, in the style of the potholder quilts that were sometimes made during that time period, and wanted to back each block with fabric that was similar to the pieces used in the front so that it would be easier to lay the quilt blocks out to sew them together when I was done.

Discovered when I started going through my Civil War fabric (collected back when I was making hundreds of little Dear Jane blocks) that even though I have a lot of different pieces, not many of them are large enough to go behind my 12" blocks with enough left to bring around to the front to make a faux binding, so, as usual for me lately, close is going to have to be good enough, but hopefully the back will still look good enough to make this quilt reversible.

I also had a harder time than expected finding batting to use inside my blocks since it's been so long since I last made a quilt that all my batting is tucked away in my closet, behind all the thrift store clothes that keep piling up, waiting for me to do my usual spring cleaning and take most of them back to a second hand store.

I finally dug out a bag of Quilter's Dream 70% cotton, 30% poly, a batting I've never used before, but thought sounded like a good idea, since cotton is sometimes too stiff and all poly too puffy, but it was a king sized batting that cost a lot of money so I'm tempted to "save" it for some future project, however considering how little quilting I do lately and how much it would cost to go out and buy something else, this is going to have to do.

I also used another quilting product that I bought some time ago but never used, foam pin covers called Pinmoors that I purchased from Leah Day's site since I don't like dealing with safety pins for basting but am tired of getting stuck by straight pins. Not as important with these small 12" blocks, but I'd hate to bleed on my fabric, so am hoping they work OK, too. Time will tell...

Starting to look like a quilt!

Had to take a photo of my design wall with my TWENTY anvil blocks on it since the sun finally came out yesterday and I think they deserve a blog post, but I am going to have to start digging through my Civil War fabric stash to see if I have enough fabric to back the 24 blocks I will have when I finish using up the pieces I got at that quilt shop all those years ago since I'm getting close to being ready to start quilting!

I will feel a bit sad when all my blocks are sewn together since I've really enjoyed working this way, not having to decide what fabrics or patterns to use, but rather following the instructions for this one block (nice to get into a rhythm and not have to think about what you are doing) and using all the pretty fabrics I got each month at the Flying Geese Quilt Shop (something I definitely prefer to choosing my own fabrics and making my usual mistakes with my choices). 

I'm not sure I would have chosen a lot of the fabric in my kits, esp. not the stripes that ended up being off kilter in most of my blocks since I only had a certain amount of fabric to work with and couldn't always orient things in the proper way, but I actually kind of like the way the blocks end up looking as a result of that limitation, more like the way a real Civil War quilt might have looked when people were having to "make do" with whatever fabric they had. 

The block below (obviously unpressed) is my least favorite since everything is so uneven, but even it has a certain "charm", at least to me, a far cry from the days where I thought everything had to be perfect, fabric, seams, etc., while now close is usually good enough.

Don't think I have any more packets left in my BOM stash since I'm pretty sure I used up all the other kits I was given for other projects I purchased in the past, I just never sewed them together since I didn't collect enough blocks for a quilt, but it will be a long time before I am ready to tackle another project, especially since I am having fun working at a slow pace for a change, so I am just going to continue to enjoy this quilt for a while longer.

20 minutes a day = 140 minutes a week

Spending 20 minutes a day on my old unfinished quilt project doesn't sound like much, but I started with 7 blocks and now have 15 up on my design wall, so I definitely am making progress, especially since I more than doubled the number of blocks that I have made for that quilt and have made more than twice as many as I am going to need to complete it.

I think the 20 minute a day approach is perfect for someone like me who often has a hard time getting going on projects since no matter how busy or lazy I might be, even I can manage to make myself work on something for that small amount of time each day and, as I said in my title, even 20 minutes a day adds up to 140 minutes a week, so it's not really surprising that I have managed to finish 8 more blocks for my quilt with this approach!

More UFO progress

Since I am only trying to spend 20 minutes a day on my old Civil War repro BOM project, I don't have enough to report to post very often, but I now have 10 blocks on my design wall, rather than the 7 I started with so I am making progress, even if very slow progress.

I was trying to do some of the piecing by hand, something else that slowed me down, but I  sewed some of the diagonal seams on my 9th block with my Pfaff so that block went together much more quickly, perhaps a bit TOO quickly...

I used to be very precise with my piecing, but  now feel that close is good enough, however that attitude unfortunately also seems to mean that I'm a bit too careless about sewing my blocks together since I sewed ANOTHER row wrong and I wasn't even moving from one sewing space to another.

I pieced the 10th block entirely by machine and didn't make any mistakes this time so perhaps I'm getting back into the swing of things, sure hope so since I have a lot more blocks to make in order to turn this into a twin sized quilt.

The 11th block is all cut out and ready to be sewn together, though, so the progress continues...

On to block two / Musical sewing machines

I cut out and marked the second block of my Civil War repro quilt yesterday, but also spent time playing musical sewing machines so I'd be all set to go when I completed the hand piecing part of this block.

I've been a sewing machine collector for many years, started when I bought my first Singer Featherweight and joined the online FWFanatics email digest, a group that made me think it was normal to own multiple sewing machines, but I eventually stopped counting just how many machines I own when it began to appall even me.

I don't use many of my old machines anymore, though, prefer to sew on my new (to me) machines, like my Pfaff 1473 for machine piecing, my Bernina 1230 for machine quilting, and my Bernina 170 for some machine sewing and also machine embroidery projects.

I like to leave my machines set up and ready to go when I am since I know I'd be less likely to sew if I had to take the time to get things ready when I wanted to start sewing, so I also own multiple sewing machine cabinets, but I put different machines in different cabinets depending on what type of sewing I am doing.

At the moment, I have my Pfaff set up in the living room (where it's nice and warm!) so I can piece my quilt blocks on that.

 I moved my Bernina 1230 up into my son's old room where I have lots of space to sew and can work on either a larger quilt or one of my clothes sewing projects (note the "vintage" computer in the background!).

I have my Bernina 170 set up with its embroidery unit attached on top of yet another cabinet in case I want to do machine embroidery, but since my embroidery software and reader/writer box no longer work with my new computer, I may not be using this machine for a while.

I have plenty of other projects to work on, though, esp. my Civil War repro BOM quilt, which is finally moving towards completion after waiting patiently in its box for so many years.

One block done!

After finishing the hand piecing on the half square triangles for my Civil War repro UFO, I used a sewing machine to complete the block since my hands are too old and sore to do that much hand work anymore.

Unfortunately, I ran into problems when working on the machine that I keep in a cabinet in my LR (the only room in our house that is warm at all this time of year), a Bernina 170 that I just never bonded with, and after yesterday's experience, I can see why, since the presser foot pushes the top layer so much that the blocks ended up 1/8" off at the end of each seam, however I didn't want to use a walking foot since it's hard to get an accurate 1/4" seam that way.

I decided to finish sewing the block on the Pfaff 1473 that I have set up in my son's old BR since I love its built in walking foot and that worked much better, but in moving the pieces upstairs halfway through the project, things got turned around and I had to not only rip out one row, but also the blocks in that row (photo taken after I'd done some unsewing).

I also discovered when using a seam ripper on those pieces that even though this fabric came from a quilt shop and is supposedly part of the Harriet Hargrave collection (at least the dark prints have that written on their seam allowances), the light fabric frayed so badly that I hardly have any seam allowance at all left in one area.

I finally managed to sew the block together properly, though, and it's now on my wall with the 7 other CWR (from now on my abbreviation for Civil War Repro) blocks that I made sometime in the past. 

Think the main thing I learned from this experience, other than to not use my Bernina 170 for piecing, is that I shouldn't wait so much time to complete a project in the future since I'd probably have sewn the pieces together properly if I'd kept on going back when I'd gotten into the rhythm of this block. Oh well, one new block down, 16 more to go...

Start of the DaGMT (even though it's not yet February!)

I often decide that really simple things "count" as doing something creative, but since I started keeping a journal, I have tried each day to do something to write about, even if it's only reading instructions or a book, watching a how to video, etc., but I guess that does make my sewing projects a bit easier when I finally tackle them since I have a better idea what I am doing.

I did actually do something on my old Civil War repro quilt project on Saturday, though, I cut out enough pieces to make one of the blocks and then marked sewing lines on those pieces since I plan to hand piece some of this block, same as I did the 7 blocks of the quilt that I already completed. Since I think I have 18 more of these blocks to go, I may end up machine sewing them together, esp. since I have other UFOs I want to tackle this year.

I also went through my quilt books this weekend, trying to find the Jinny Beyer book on hand piecing (a very well done book) that I thought I owned and finally found (Quiltmaking by Hand), and I also discovered that the free Jinny Beyer Craftsy Block of the Month for 2015 which I recently signed up for has a great video which shows just how she does her hand piecing, so I did a bit of that on my Civil War block yesterday.

Fabric choices

Think it's interesting that with all the modern fabrics out there today that I am still drawn to the Civil War repros in my old BOM kits, fabrics like the ones that I used for so many years making all those tiny little Dear Jane blocks, but I think I find these fabrics kind of calming while modern prints are anything but.

Guess there's a time and place for everything tho, and perhaps my next quilt project will be more modern since those fabrics and styles appeal to me too, just in a different way, and I kind of like the idea of alternating a UFO with a new quilt project this year. First have to finish ONE project though...

My DaGMT plan for February

Since my Civil War repro blocks are my favorite of my UFO projects, I think that is going to be the one I tackle in Feb.

I first have to cut out and then piece the rest of the fabric that I got when I started that project in 2011 (amazingly enough, my most recent UFO!) but I think the quilt's setting will be determined by how many blocks I end up with since I want a new quilt for my couch and have decided that a twin sized quilt works best because I need to be fully covered in my super cold house. 

I think I will make this quilt as a quilt as you go project since I have a lot of Civil War repro fabric left from my Dear Jane block days and think it would be neat if my quilt were reversible with a different repro fabric on the back of each block. I also find it very difficult to machine quilt a large quilt on my home machine, but don't want to pay someone to do my quilting for me. First things first, though...

It was overwhelming to see all the projects that I have to work on once I started digging things out of my boxes, but as I learned back in my FlyLady days, it's best to take baby steps and focus on one thing at a time, so that's what I am going to do, and working for 20 minutes a day as part of this challenge is a great way to do that!

Yet more BOMs...

I once made a calendar holder with a place for a quilt block on top from an old Quiltmaker's magazine, think maybe in the late 1990s, and as a result, I  made a block a month for a very long time so have a huge collection of unfinished blocks.

My last post focused on the smaller, older block sets, while the ones in this entry are more recent (in my world) and hopefully are big enough to turn into lap sized quilts that I might actually use.


The first blocks were part of another year long BOM class at a local quilt shop that is no longer in business, where I believe each month you received the pattern and fabric for a block for a minimal fee and also had a class on how to make each block. Don't have a record of when these blocks were made, though, as usual.

The larger batik blocks on my design wall were also made in a year long class at the old Flying Geese quilt shop, I believe in 2010, so it was very appropriate that all these blocks were made from various flying geese quilt patterns. The smaller batik blocks were from an exchange I did with friends who had once exchanged traditional Dear Jane blocks, using the same traditional patterns with very non traditional fabric. I think the sets of blocks work quite well together, though, and should make a nice lap quilt once I add some black sashing in between the blocks.

Below is another BOM from the Flying Geese quilt shop, I think in 2011, but this time you were given enough fabric each month to make two Civil War repro blocks using the same pattern each time. I think I have enough of that fabric left to make 18 more blocks, so this might even end up being a quilt that is big enough for a bed, esp. if I add borders. These blocks were hand pieced, though, and since I'd kind of like to keep doing that, it may be quite some time before this is ready to be put on a bed!

These blocks look much better in person than they do in this photo, all from a BOM book that I purchased at a local quilt show, in 2008 when I was started to get interested in less traditional quilt blocks, and each month you used a different technique to make a different block, so this project was a lot of fun. I actually made all 12 of these blocks in the book plus bought the fabric to go in between them, but think it was the end of the bolt so I didn't have quite enough fabric to set the blocks the way the book instructed, adn that is probably why they are still unfinished. Might try doing something different, though, to get these blocks out of a box and on a bed/couch.

Hard as it is to believe, I still have MORE calendar holder blocks in my stash, so may get them out eventually, too, but this is depressing enough already, makes me feel like it will be impossible to ever finish them, but hopefully if I stick to the 20 minute a day plan, I'll at least make SOME progress in Feb.2015, once I figure out what I want to work on first...         

UFOs continued...

 I put a bunch of my UFO blocks up on my design wall yesterday so I (and anyone else who read my blog!) could see what I was faced with, but I will divide those photos into two posts since I'm not sure how many I can add at one time, even four may be too much.

The first set were blocks that I hand appliqued in a year long Block of the Month class (only completed four month's worth) in 1992, in addition to the tulip block which I machine appliqued in a class with Harriet Hargrave much more recently.

I'm not sure when I pieced these crazy quilt blocks but since they each have an embroidery design in the center for the various months of the year, it must have been around 2005 since I think that's when I got my embroidery machine.

I don't recall where I got the patterns for these paper pieced crystal blocks, but paper piecing hasn't been popular for all that long, so perhaps these weren't made too long ago either. I do recall them being a ton of work, though, in fact, I should photograph the back of one with its paper still attached so you can see just how many pieces each block contains.

I think I have the magazine where I got the pattern for these stained glass paper pieced blocks in the box with the rest of the fabrics for this project, so I might be able to come up with a date for them, but they also were a lot of work, as are most paper pieced projects.

I am not sure I will do much with blocks like this that won't make anything larger than a wall hanging since I already have plenty of stuff to hang on my walls, but most of these blocks are too pretty to remain stuck in boxes, so hopefully I will put them up on the wall eventually, as actual quilts rather than just blocks put on my design wall for a photo.

The beginning of the DaGMT project...

Never done two posts in one day, was hard enough doing one a month for the 2014 Make a Garment a Month challenge, but since my first challenge for 2015, the DaGMT, only lasts for one month, I'll have to write here more than once in Feb.!

The first step I have to take in my attempt to finally complete some of my quilt UFOs is to go through my things and make a list of just what needs to be finished, so I brought one of the sweater boxes where I store some of my UFOs (once thought having them out in plain site would help, but that obviously did not work) downstairs from my sewing room and plan to look at it this evening.

From a quick glance, though, I can see that there is part of one of the Craftsy Block of the Month classes I started working on a while ago as well as the fabric and instructions for a repro Block of the Month class that I began in a local quilt shop that no longer exists, and I think there is more under that. Boy, do I ever have my work cut out for me...

Third Annual DaGMT event

"I, Sue Mc, owner of too many UFOs and/or more fabric than I can hope to use up in my lifetime, am joining Quilting Hottie Haven's third annual DaGMT event, and pledge to quilt for at least 20 minutes every day of the month of February, 2015. 

In doing so, I hope to complete some of the quilts (have lost track of how many, but that list is first thing on my agenda!) that have been languishing in boxes for far too long, and I think Beth Helfter is brilliant for coming up with this concept and inspiring me to join."

More info  http://www.evapaigequiltdesigns.blogspot.com/p/drop-and-give-me-twenty-2014-is-almost.html