I'm Not Sewing, I'm Cleaning My Sewing Room!

The hubby asked if I would pick up my sewing projects that have buried the albatross - the hubby calls it a treadmill - that is in my sewing room. I admit the projects have kind of taken over that area of my small sewing room, so I started to organize them a week ago. That lasted all of five minutes when I uncovered a stack of my daughter's high school and college t-shirts that I had planned to make a t-shirt quilt for her someday. Well, I decided that someday was now and proceeded to start another project! The hubby is baffled how cleaning my sewing room always ends with me making a project rather than finishing cleaning. The good news is that I finished the quilt top this weekend! See honey, I did get some cleaning done!!!

As you can tell by the dates on some of the shirts, this has been a loooong over due project so it feels good to have the top complete and the stack of shirts gone. 

The shirts consisted of maroon, black, gray and white high school shirts and purple Kansas State shirts with a few 4-H shirts sprinkled in. With the variety of colors, I decided to use solid black and white fabric for the setting fabrics. I backed all of the shirts with Pellon SF101 (best I've found for backing t-shirts!) and then cut them out. Most of them were cut in 15.5" squares, with the smaller ones cut to fit into a grid that would end up a 15.5" square. After I figured out my layout - it's kind of like putting a puzzle together, I sashed each block, alternating with either black or white fabric.

I hope to quilt this in the next week or so. I plan to quilt it with an all-over pattern because I really don't want to spend a huge amount of time custom quilting it. I am a little worried about skipped stitches on a couple of the puffy rubbery designs on the shirts. Anyone have any tips for quilting through the designs on a long arm? I plan to use a spoon foot and I may put some Press 'n Seal over some of the decals so that the foot doesn't stick and pull the shirts.

Some of you may remember from my last post that I was spending last weekend at my mom's for her annual sister's sewing weekend. I took my quilt guild challenge quilt from last year (a row quilt) to work on. Of course, first order of business after getting set up was to lay out all my rows completed so far to show everyone.

I didn't get as much accomplished as I'd hoped, but I knocked out one more row. I made my own template to make these little 4" twinkly star blocks, 15 in all. Two and a half more rows to go!

Besides sewing, we spent the weekend playing cards, visiting and, of course, eating. I also taught my aunts a little EPP and they made hexie flowers to top their vintage planter pincushions that they made. Here they all are - mom and her 4 sisters (there are two more sisters that couldn't come) with their pincushions. (Mom is second from the right).

Remember, if you have any tips on quilting a t-shirt quilt, please share! Thanks!

~Sharla

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Progress & A Present

I've been stealing a few minutes here and there to sew. I'm working on my quilt guild row quilt challenge from last year. I updated my status on this project a couple of weeks ago here. Since then I've finished two rows! Here's a few of my railroad crossing blocks.....

And here are my little 2" hearts (although they look a little lot messy with all the untrimmed strings).....

Next row up is the star row. I debated what type of star block I wanted to make and settled on this 4" twinkle star one (I made my own pattern).....

I'm hoping to get lots accomplished this weekend. It's my mom's birthday weekend and she hosts a sewing retreat for her sisters and I every year to celebrate. After the stars, I have three rows left: card trick, goose tracks and snail's trail. I'm sure I won't get them all done because there will be lots of card playing and other things mixed in.

Speaking of mom's birthday, here's a little birthday card I gave her. I found this vintage postcard while antiquing in Texas and decided to frame it. Then I decorated the frame with vintage glass, mother of pearl, and metal buttons (plus a couple of other vintage things) since mom collects old buttons. Notice that I even set the time on the watch face to 1:18 - her birth date😊

Happy sewing everyone!

~Sharla

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My 2018 Finish-A-Long Q1 Goals

New year, new hopes to achieve some quilting goals, although I have no expectations to achieve a majority of these goals. Still, joining up with the 2018 Finish-A-Long is at least a motivation to try! Go check out the FAL info page and join me in my attempt to finish some UFOs this year! So here's a list of my first quarter goals - in no particular order.....

1. H.O.M.E. Individual Mini Quilts: My mom gave me this cool galvanized metal shelf with hanging rod for Christmas. Thanks to the hubby, the shelf is up and a quilt is hanging on the rod but I'd like to make four mini quilts to spell out 'home' for a little banner to layer on top of the quilt. I originally was going to spell 'howdy' but after measuring the rod, I think there is only room for 4 minis, so I changed my plan. I'm using Lori Holt's Spelling Bee book for the patterns.

2. HOME Mini Quilt: This mini quilt is from Lori Holt's Spelling Bee book also. I think it's so cute and would like to make it to hang on my vintage chippy door that leans against a wall in my living room. It's kind of repetitive with the previous mini quilts I want to make, but that's ok, it will only hang between holidays when I don't have a holiday mini quilt to hang on the door.

3. Just The Atoms Quilt: I started this quilt last fall using the scraps I had left from my "Molecules of Moda: Bella Solids" challenge quilt. I don't think this would be too time consuming so maybe I'll get around to working on it some more😏

4. Christmas Fabric Collection: One of my top goals this year is to design a collection of Christmas fabrics that I want to make personalized Christmas stockings for my kids and grandkids. Right now I've just been using some simple knit stockings from Target but that just isn't cutting it. I want to design fabric that will tie my red, green and brown Christmas decorations and my blue and brown living room together so it looks more cohesive. This quarter, I want to get the fabrics designed and printed. I start with small black ink sketches like these that I upload to Photoshop then color and manipulate from there.

5. Christmas Star Quilt: I made this quilt many years ago and did some basic line quilting on my DSM. The lines are few and far between so I decided I wanted to put this on my long arm and requilt it. I started in July, then broke my elbow and hands. I had to take it off the machine and tossed it in the corner to quilt my Moda Bella Challenge quilt and there it still lies.

6. Frivols Kindred Quilt: Another project I started last year that got derailed when I fell. I have half the blocks made.

7. 2017 Quilt Guild Row Quilt Challenge: I was doing great keeping up on this one until I fell in July. I have started working on it again (I blogged about it last week here), and actually got the heart row completed. My mom is hosting her annual Birthday Sewing Retreat next weekend with her sisters (and me) and this is the project I'm taking to work on.

I know I won't get all of these completed this quarter, especially since we hope to spend some time in Texas yet this winter too. But, at least I have a to-do list lined out and maybe I'll be able to mark one or two off my list!

I'll be linking this post up with the 2018 FAL Q1 Goals linky.

~Sharla

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New Year, Old Projects

With the new year, I'm hoping comes new motivation and inspiration. I'm hoping to bring my mojo/sewjo back with a little sewing each day. And I'm hoping to do it with some old projects that have been languishing for far too long. First project up is my row quilt that was last year's quilt guild challenge.

It's not that old of a project, in fact we just drew the last row - stars - in November. But, I've had pieces cut out for the hearts and railroad crossing rows that are getting scattered around. So yesterday, I gathered them all up (amazingly, all the pieces were accounted for) and I started sewing them together.

I'm several rows behind on this project. Everything was going hunky-dory until I fell in July and broke my elbow and hands. Then I got waaaay behind, so I have all six of the last rows to finish. Sure, I worked on it some. Right before each guild meeting, I'd try to make a couple of blocks for show and tell. But then it would get put aside. So here is an inventory of where I'm at: 

• Rows 1 - 6 complete: 9-patch variation, pinwheels, bear paws, flying geese, bow ties and baskets.
• Row 7: Snail's trail - two 8" blocks made, five to make.
• Rows 8 & 9: Card trick and goose tracks: nothing started, need to decide size of block and make all blocks.
• Row 10: Hearts - twenty 2" hearts are complete, remaining 10 are partially made.
• Row 11: Railroad Crossing - six 6" blocks are complete, the other six are partially made.
• Row 12: Stars - nothing started, need to decide type and size of block and make all blocks.

I'm making each row 60" wide, so I've been making a variety of sizes of blocks hoping that the smaller 2" and 3" blocks will offset the bigger 6" & 8" blocks and the quilt won't become too long. I'm adding a 1" sashing between each row. If I have enough fabric left from my fat quarter bundle of Moda Etchings, I think I'll make a piano key border. I blogged about this project here, here, here and here, so if you want to learn more about it, go check it out.

So how are you starting out your new sewing year? With old projects or new projects? How do you find your sewing mojo when it's been MIA?

Wishing you all a Sew Happy New Year!

~Sharla

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It's Not Christmas Until The Chocolate Covered Cherries Are Made

Christmas for my family is centered around spending time together, opening gifts, playing cards and eating. One thing that we always have to make for our Christmas sweets table is homemade chocolate covered cherries. It's a recipe my mom started making when I was a child. The duty was passed down to me when I married and now, my daughter also makes them (although she is known for soaking her cherries in alcohol first). I've shared the recipe here on my blog a couple of years ago, but I decided to share it with my family on an original recipe tea towel I designed.

I decided I wanted to expand my tea towel designing skills and actually incorporate my own drawings in a festive border. I drew lots of little black and white sketches that I uploaded into Photoshop. I colored the sketches in Photoshop then arranged the elements into a border. I used a couple of different fonts for the recipe heading and another font for the ingredients and directions. When I was happy with the design, I uploaded it to Spoonflower and ordered my fabric. I had the tea towels printed on linen cotton canvas ultra and I love the texture and weight of the fabric.

I'm having so much fun with this whole textile design thing, but I need to come up with new ideas on what to print it on because I think my family may get tired of tea towels for gifts! One of my goals for the new year is to design a collection of Christmas fabrics that I can use to make new Christmas stockings for my family. I have all sorts of ideas in my head and can't wait to start putting it on paper. Do you have any sewing, quilting, designing goals for the new year? Please share!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!

~Sharla

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