What's been happening in the past week.

For the past week I have been wrapping up all the loose ends before I road trip to Wisconsin.  
Kelly decided she really liked my blue floral Kimono cover that I posted a few days ago, so I gave it to her!

Picked up this lovely lady at an auction on Sunday. And I have to say that this machine & cabinet are in near mint condition.  The cabinet has the original foot pedal built into the bottom right and there are very few nicks & ticks in the wood. Plus she has her original stool! She sews beautifully and seems to have been used very little. She is a Centennial 15-91 made in St. John's, Quebec, Canada between 1948-1951.  I'll call her Ruth for the lady who took such loving care of it.

Next, I finally got the labels sewn on the 2 quilts I have to take back with me. I'll post pics of them at a later date. I can't get good photos in the wind and rain.

Finished the last step of my Bonnie Hunter 2016 

En Provence mystery quilt.  CLICK HERE  This is just a portion of it on my design wall. I'm going to sew small sections everyday til I leave.  I really need to get this done and off the wall.

 Tried my hand at couching with my long arm.  I don't have the couching feet for this machine so I was using some thicker yarn and feeding it through the hopping foot.  It was actually quite fun. Now if I had some creative artist abilities I would have made a picture that didn't look like a little kid drew it.  Yes, I had to do some ripping out of the yarn.  It was too thin for the hopping foot which made a mess and got all tangled up.  Enter the engineer husband.  He actually made a small insert for the foot so the thinner yarn can feed through a 2mm hole and follow the needle better. I found this process from a video on You Tube by Helen Godden.  She's really good!!  CLICK HERE

Then I tried out the zig-zagger on my 301.  Honestly I wasn't impressed.  It seemed too tight even after releasing the pressure on the presser foot to near nothing as sugested.  It might have been a problem with the zig-zagger it self, because even after oiling it, it still felt stiff.  I just didn't have the time to mess with it at the moment but I will re-visit it when I get home.

And finally... made these cute cloth diapers with inserts for the new granddaughter the Easter bunny is bringing to daughter #2.  I did a video on how I made these and I'll get it posted in a bit.  They were so easy and used up a good portion of scrap flannel and 100% cotton batting I had left over from other quilts and projects.

Have a great day!

Brigid

A different take on the kimono cover up.

    I have been wanting to make a kimono style shirt/jacket/cover up for some time now.  And this afternoon I was looking online for an easy pattern.  I knew these shirts could be made very easily with 2 side seams and bias tape to finish the raw edges.  I found one, decided it was the type I was looking for and set about to make it with a few modifications.    

This material had been aging in the closet so it was time to be used.  The print is a floral denim blues and grays with a white background.

Instead of leaving the side seams long and bat like (hence the kimono style) I chose to taper the arms to give it a more fitted look.  Also had to turn under the neck line and front which caused a facing of sorts.  I trimmed off close to the edge of the front where it wanted to naturally roll and put a rolled hem around the whole shirt.  I think it turned out nicely!!  A bit too form fitted but it will be fine!

Tomorrow I'll dig out some more silky type material and make one a bit different...longer piece of fabric will give the shirt longer sleeves. Maybe I'll make one from some light weight t-shirt knit I have too!

Have a good day!

Brig

Boarder Fixed

I knew there wouldn't be a problem putting this back on the frame and quilting the parts of the boarder I had missed!!  Nice job!

Now for it's label telling who made & quilted it and it'll be all done!

Have fun doing what you do!

Brig

It finally happened!

Oh my goodness, it finally happened.
I forgot/missed the quilting on a complete section of the boarder for this quilt.  I noticed it while I was putting the binding on but didn't panic because I can put it back on the frame and finish the quilting tomorrow.  It's all good!

Brig

Wall Hangings complete!!

So I haven't been posting for the last week.  Not much to post about when I didn't get anything done as I had planned. But, the wall hangings are finished!! Pay no attention to the backgound.  Those were some flannels I was auditioning for another quilt in waiting.

Marion's wall hanging

Nova Lee's wall hanging

Olivia's wall hanging

Logan's wall hanging

All 4 completed!

Now that those are finished, I have a computer room and living room to get back to normal. Putting all the xmas boxes and things put away so they arent still sitting in the walk way come July.  The next quilts that I need to complete are my Allietare and Michaela's sunflower, and let's not forget the trash can for the crafts room..  Hopefully I can get to these in the next few weeks.

Have a good one,

Brig

Today's goals

Now that everyone has left for work or school and I have completed my morning Sudoku puzzle, it's just me & the cats until roughly 6pm.  By then I hope to have completed the borders, backings and batting for all 5 of the heart wall hangings. At that point I'll be ready to quilt and bind on Wednesday.  A quick wash to remove all markings and cat hair, wrap them all pretty and mail them off by Friday.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Brig

Getting there

I haven't done much sewing for the past few days.  I did manage to get all the hearts sewn down on the wall hangings for the granddaughters.  And as I was trying to figure out what Valentines type thing to make for my grandson that he might like but wouldn't look to girly, Michaela says, "How about using all blue hearts?"  Brilliant, why didn't I think of that???  Well no blue hearts, they kinda looked weird.  So I did a wall hanging for him using only red hearts.  Good thing he likes red and there was only a touch of pink.  Not "girly" at all.

 Again, why didn't I think of this to begin with?

   One with the borders almost complete.

That's it for today!

Brig