Lookie what's coming together!

Can you believe it? This quilt has now officially been four years in the making. I got the first delivery in June of 2016. As I suspected when I started it back then, although I definitely hoped for better, it wasn’t going to get done by that first October.

After spending a significant amount of time today cleaning out my bedroom closet, relegating clothes I’m unlikely to need in this pandemic situation to the unused closet in my daughter’s room (I’m not doing much in person in the next several months so dress clothes are tops only), moving summer-colored clothes out and moving my cold-weather clothes in (although we’ll still have warm weather, I do a lot of layering so my fall wardrobe will do double-duty), and generally re-organizing and cleaning things up…I rewarded myself with some time in my sewing room.

It actually took me almost an hour to sort this BOTM out, put all the parts in order, and read through the piecing directions to make sure I understood everything. Then I tackled the first couple of blocks.

It’s very easy piecing, as you can tell. The tricky thing is that I’m cutting the pieces for each block individually and, as we always say, “random is hard.” It’s going to just keep getting harder, too, as I get into lower rows and am trying to make sure I don’t have the same fabric in any of the connecting pieces. So it’s pokey, but not difficult.

It is, however, fun to finally see how it all comes together.

I clearly got lazy partway through the embroidery. The first few blocks I’d carefully pressed and gotten the marks out as soon as I finished them and before putting them away in the project bin. Not so much everything after about block four. When I got done with what I wanted to sew today, I took out the next few blocks and hit them with a spray bottle of water to get rid of the water soluble pen. It may be too late for some of the darker marks at corners, but I have hopes. The water will also help with remaining embroidery hoop creases. Fortunately, I’m cutting them all down small enough that I’ll likely be cutting out all of the hoop marks.

So stay tuned…

And by the way, since one of y’all talked me into it, I did buy a couple of Angela Walters’ Creative Grids Machine Quilting Tools. I looked on her blog and she very helpfully listed which she used the most, so I only bought two of her go-to’s, “Slim” and “Elvira.”

I’m still uncertain I’m going to be able to manage these. I’ll keep you posted once I get to the point of experimenting with them.

Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly rain, so I’m predicting some more sewing time in my future!

Staycation Day 5: Have I mentioned how much I hate doing backings?

With a purple passion.

So, on the happy side of things, I finally got Cosmos done. This was one of my Cotton Cuts Puzzle Mystery Quilts—I think from maybe 2018? It’s an older one. I did the smaller size on this so it’s finished something like 48x60” or something along those lines. You have the option of adding borders but I didn’t choose to.

Learn from me: The difficulty with doing a BOTM over several years is you may not remember exactly what you did in terms of the 1/4” seam. Was I using a scant one when I started? A full one? Was I using this foot or the other foot? In other words, the end result didn’t come out exactly square. I’m not sweating it. It’s close enough for horseshoes and I’m not doing this for a show or anything. But I should remind myself to put a post-it in the project box with my exact foot and needle settings for consistency.

That being said, done is done. And done is good.

I then worked on the backings for both of the Puzzle Mystery Quilts (see Stratford here).

The backing on Cosmos went just fine. I still hated working with it. It’s something about wrestling with large swaths of fabric that gets to me. Even a pieced backing is irritating because eventually it still becomes a large swath of fabric—it just takes longer to get to that point. Which is equally irritating. When I get to the backing, I just want it over with as quickly as possible.

Then I got to the backing for Stratford, which is a larger quilt than Cosmos so it required a little different logic around how to cut and sew things back together to get them large enough in the right proportions. Somehow, I managed to cut it wrong. It would’ve been just barely big enough for the quilt itself, but not leave any to spare for attaching to the longarm machine correctly and to allow for the slack that the quilting process needs. I ended up having to sew the scraps from the original cuts together and sew them onto the end of the backing, so there’s a seam in an awkward place. It’s possible the seam may end up right along the outer edge of the border and might be able to get trimmed off in the end, but we’ll see. It was irritation on irritation, but again, “Done is Done and Done is Good.”

That was it for Day 5, except some reading and more binge-watching of History Channel’s Alone. (I’m hooked.)

It's open and I bit...Cotton Cuts Puzzle Mystery Quilt

The Fall 2020 Puzzle Mystery Quilt just opened for orders today. I had picked out a couple of the colorways I liked but when I went into the website (and it’s still morning) those were already sold out. I debated putting my name on the waiting list for one of them but then as I was looking at the others I finally made the connection—this time the theme is games, and one of the colorways was named “Catan.”

Had to do it.

Our family has a long-standing history of Catan tournaments with my kids and their friends. We haven’t had one in awhile as the kids are all adults now and harder to track down, but we keep talking about it. I’m sure whenever we feel free to move about again, we’ll celebrate with a Catan tourney.

Admittedly, this isn’t my favorite colorway as I’m a bit concerned about all those mediums and darks, but I trust the designer. It may turn out to be my favorite yet. And if not, I have a few young adults I know who would appreciate the connection. Some gifting possibilities there.

These really are fun to do. Check it out at https://www.cottoncuts.com/about-pmq.

More on the Stratford Puzzle Mystery Quilt

Look, ma, I finally got on the sewing machine again!

I just completed Month 5 of whatever-year-it-was Cotton Cuts Puzzle Mystery Quilt that I’m doing in the Stratford colorway.

It took me awhile to get the 5a part done—if you’ve been following along at home, that’s the one that I had to sew and re-sew not once, not twice, but apparently three times. When I unsewed it on Saturday and then sewed it back together correctly on Monday morning, I saw tell-tale signs of another ripped out seam along the third side of that same dang red triangle. How did I manage to get it wrong so many times? And I don’t even remember now getting it wrong the first time!

I just have too many very smart things going on in my head. It makes me do stupid things in quilting. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I’m mostly proud of myself for actually getting into my sewing room today. I’d had the intention ever since I went to bed last night. “Tomorrow I’ll sew. I’ll have time after work.” Well, yes I did. But then my husband took another couple of steps backwards in his recovery, again, and then my son came down with something—stomach, not sure about anything else. So I was in a bit of a funk, and trying to figure out if I should quarantine myself, and trying to decide what to tell my daughter about coming home this weekend…and I just wanted to curl up in front of the TV with something big and chocolate. But instead, I made myself a good dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, got critical stuff out of the bedroom so I could bunk in my daughter’s room again tonight just so my husband can get a good night’s sleep without worrying about keeping me up, and at 8:45p finally made it into my sewing room. Normally I don’t start sewing that late but I knew I only had eight straight seams left to sew before I could call month 5 finished, so I got it done and dusted before 9p.

Hallelujah. And I do feel better having kept my commitment to myself to sew today.

And tomorrow’s post will have a little update about a self-indulgent very VERY early birthday gift I’m giving myself…

#CVSI Coronavirus Sew-in and some reading

Too soon?

As you may recall from last week’s post, I had expected to be busy with work events all day yesterday and most of today. Then we had our first couple of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Rochester.

Bam. Everything cancelled.

To be honest, I’m more concerned about the repercussions if I pick it up and then spread it than I am the consequences of getting sick myself. But after the last few months in which I was sick for a significant period of time in December, then again in January, and then again in February, catching every single bug that made its way through, I am feeling a bit fatalistic about the fact that I likely will catch this. My theory is that working from home for nearly 20 years lowered my immune system and now that I’ve been “released to the wild” with this new job, around boatloads of people every week, my body doesn’t know what to do with itself. And, frankly, I’m just sick of being sick. So I’m doin’ it hermit-style.

I also have one staffperson with a compromised immune system and a second one with 5 kids under 10 at home so, after the school system in the suburb in which our offices are located announced their closure for the next two weeks, I told the staff to work from home for the foreseeable future. They’re both very grateful. I’ll probably still go into my office on occasion because heck, I’ll be the only one there, and I’m taking advantage of all this “found time” to work on finally getting my filing system into shape.

In any case, yesterday (Saturday) I mostly read. I was oddly sleepy all day. I finished The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan. It’s a cute enough chick-lit book. Although it’s partially a romance, it focuses more on the main character herself, her relationship with her son and other children who come into her care, and her friendships. The romance almost an afterthought, which I prefer. Good characters, fun writing. It’s a sequel of sorts to The Bookshop on the Corner, also cute. Both are good reads for when you just want to relax, enjoy, and not be challenged.

I also read most of this morning. I’m still reading Children of Virtue and Vengeance, by Tomi Adeyemi. I actually hope to finish that this afternoon. So good! As soon as I finish that, the next book on my library stack is Amazing Grace: William Wilbeforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric Metaxas. This one has been on my to-read list ever since I read Metaxas’ Martin Luther last summer. He writes a great biography. I actually wasn’t all that interested in Luther until someone recommended the book to me so I thought, “What the heck.” And I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. I’m also about halfway through The Bat by Jo Nesbo. This is a highly reviewed mystery series with a Norwegian main character, detective Harry Hole (pronounced Ho-lay). Since I’m really into wonderfully noir TV mystery series from various Scandinavian countries available on Acorn TV, I thought it would be fun. I’m having a little difficulty really getting into it, though. Fortunately I got it through my local library (using Libby) onto my Kindle so I don’t have any money invested in it. We’ll see how it ends. If it ends well, I’ll probably read the second book in the series to see if character development brings it up a notch or two.

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And did I sew? Yes, I got about an hour in this afternoon. I’m not as sleepy-tired as I was yesterday so I thought I’d be able to get a solid session in.

I got month 4 of the way-overdue BOTM done.

I know—as a block on its own it’s fairly wild. But I think I can imagine how some pieces may come together in the end. I like doing a BOTM this way rather than other ones I’ve done where you do four of one block one month, 2 of another one another month…this has me intrigued. “How is that weird-butt piece going to fit in?”

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I then got started on month 5. But my husband came in to talk to me partway through and after I finished piecing the second step, I realized I’d done it backwards. And immediately it stopped being fun for me. So, abiding by my new rules, I put it down and walked away.

After all, I’m going to be home all week now…

Trying to re-enter the quilting world with limited success

So my last post was entitled “Survived my first week” and then you didn’t hear from me again. I guess that’s about as descriptive as I can be about life in my new job. Still loving it, but it has been busy! I took yesterday (Friday) as a comp day for the fact I’d worked most of the last weekend and realized it was probably the third full day off I’d had since I started five weeks ago. I’m slowly learning how to control my schedule better. Yesterday I spent running some errands and doing some Christmas decorating.

I decided to bag doing housework and such today (which has also fallen behind a bit) and focus on reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming (loving it!), and getting back into my sewing room.

Unfortunately, the sewing room part has been a bit frustrating. I have been sadly reminded of why I gave up doing blocks of the month. The first one I tried many years ago kept sending me incorrrect sizes of fabric to cut my pieces out of, and I ended up giving up and cancelling about four months into it. This time around, last year I bit on the Cotton Cuts puzzle mystery quilt. I loved the fabrics and the idea of everything being die-cut so all I had to do was assemble seemed tailor-made for my busy schedule while I was finishing my doctoral work.

However, I’ve had multiple go-arounds with Kim at Cotton Cuts trying to correct mistakes—I was sent the wrong size piece for month 6, then when she sent me the correction I received the same wrongly-sized pieces. We finally got that straightened out but, today when I went to finally assemble the quilt, I’ve discovered I was actually sent the wrong month 6 altogether. Each month we were instructed to label our completed pieces by some letter/number combination, which I did faithfully. The layout for the size I’m working on requires blocks labeled F. I looked over my stacks of blocks. “F? Where’s F? I have no F!”

I spent about 15 minutes going back through everything, laying them out in the order of the months I received (I did always keep the instructions each month, thank God, or I’d have been totally lost), and came to the conclusion that nope, I was never instructed to make blocks labeled F. Also fortunately, the last layout “clue” includes a list of which months we were supposed to make which blocks, so I could pinpoint the exact month that went awry—yep, the one I kept getting the wrong sized pieces for. Strangely, though, my instructions for month 6 are labeled for the correct size quilt I’m making, but the blocks are distinctly not what’s needed. Stranger and stranger.

I’ve sent yet another email to Kim at Cotton Cuts with photos of the two blocks I ended up with and instructions for month 6 to point out how messed up all this is, and then said that I had originally been thinking I’d join the new BOM mystery puzzle quilt that just opened this week but am now hesitant to do so because of these problems. It’s frustrating that something I was enjoying should have this kind of an end-story. Especially frustrating that I get so little time to sew and I was stymied at the get-go.

So I have it all laid out on my design wall with big gaps where block F is supposed to go. I can certainly start sewing together the pieces that form the borders and such so I’m ready to finish it when I get the corrected month, but at this point I’m already a little worried they’ll be out of the fabrics needed. Fingers crossed I won’t end up with a slew of orphan blocks all for want of month 6.

At the moment, I’m also not keen on the fabric they sent for the binding. I’m going to wait until I get everything assembled and then decide final steps. But that’s a small thing. I would just love to finally be able to have a finish under my belt, for the first time in months!

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Meanwhile, I am happy to say that my desk got assembled and my office is finally put together!

The panoramic style makes it look a little bigger than it is, but it’s a comfortable space for me now. Note the space heater—the radiator under the windows is finicky and often needs help.

The quilt on the wall is one my mother made. I don’t know the origin story although it’s a sampler that smacks of a block of the month or class or something. But one of the blocks is a church and most of the rest are either crosses or biblically-related blocks (ie Jacob’s Ladder), and the office really needed some warmth and color in it, so it seemed fitting.

And no, I can’t put an area rug under the conference table because it’s strategically placed over a large old-fashioned metal outlet box that protrudes up from the middle of the floor. I do now (after this pic was taken) have a small quilted Christmas table-topper on the round wooden table at the side. Eventually more little bits and pieces may make their way into the office but for now I’m comfortable for working and have room for people to come visit and drink tea or coffee with me. And that’s happened a lot!

After 17 years of working from home, I have to confess that I’m enjoying having an office.

Now, back to my sewing table and figuring out what I might actually be able to accomplish today, that’s not under the control of external forces!

Look, Ma, I’m Sewing!

90% caught up on Cotton Cuts BOM! The one on top is the one I’m waiting for the missing pieces; I think it’ll take me 15 mins to finish once they arrive. On to the next project!

Making it Monday on Tuesday

How I get 'em...

I was out of town from Thursday through Monday morning around 10a, having taken a red-eye flight back from my work trip on the West coast. Therefore, Monday was a total loss. Well, not total. I did a couple of "mindsweeps" for work and home and got a bunch of tasks plunked into my list for the next few weeks. So there is that. 

Today, however, although still pretty fried (as of this writing in the afternoon I'm still debating if I'm up to going to my guild meeting tonight), I did get some necessary errands run and I unpacked. After that, I figure anything else I actually get done is gravy. I got my Cotton Cuts Puzzle Mystery block of the month in today's mail and, since those aren't overly challenging, decided to stick to my "get it done immediately" record from the last two weeks. And sure 'nuff, an hour later I had the blocks done. The only unsewing I had to do was when I ran out of bobbin thread halfway through a piece. Given how exhausted I am, I consider that a serious win.

Completed blocks

To recap: This is Cotton Cut's Puzzle Mystery Block of the Month, and I'm doing the Portofino Colorway. I'm part of the Facebook group for this mystery quilt and it's wonderful to see all the different colorways (I almost jumped on the bandwagon to do a second one once I saw some of the other fabrics being used, but sanity won the day). It's also available as a large or small size--I'm doing the small, if I recall, and it's a throw size. But the blocks aren't identical between the two sizes so I can't wait to see the difference in the two quilts once they're put together. 

This BOM is already closed, although they do suggest you can email them (email address is at the link I've given above) to find out if there are still any available in any of the colorways. Sign-up for their fall quilt opens on May 25, and the first block ships in July. I'm already pretty sure I'll be signing up for that one--I've been averaging about an hour a month putting these blocks together so it's extremely do-able, no matter how busy I get!

I think I'm going to risk doing a little more sewing. I'll probably last another 15 minutes before the tired-dumb kicks in. Then I'll go back to things that don't involve sharp objects.

Cotton Cuts Mystery Quilt--Month 1 Done!

You may recall me mentioning awhile back (and on my podcast episode too, I believe) that I'd signed up for the mystery quilt available through Cotton Cuts. I had in my head that I wouldn't get it until the middle of February but it shipped on February 2nd and I got it Monday! 

I didn't have anything on my schedule Monday evening and had already planned on spending some time sewing. I confess to some "Squirrel"ing, however, as I really should've been focused on the 9-Patch Pizzazz (aka 9PP). However, I was excited to break open the Cotton Cuts bright pink padded envelope, plus I really don't want to get behind in this thing, so I sat right down and got to it.

As you can see from the photo, the first month included a pattern page, the die-cut pieces, and a little package of doo-dads.

At first glance, I thought the doo-dads were embellishments for the quilt that I'd have to put away and keep track of. Then I realized...wait, they're snackies!

And very tasty, too, especially since I was doing all of this in the hour before dinner. Ahem. They're like little slices of fruity candy-canes. Yum.

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Anyway, back to the sewing. This mystery quilt BOM is all pre-cut. All you have to do is follow the directions to put the blocks together. It's about as fool-proof as you can get, although I did still manage to have to do a little reverse sewing a couple of times. I'm rusty. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

They provide this very handy swatch sheet to use. Since there were something like 12 possible colorways, this allows us to all follow the instructions easily. They only send this swatch sheet once, though, so they warn you to make sure to keep track of it. 

I chose the Portofino colorway, which makes me #teamportofino. Woo--I'm on a team! I love these colors even more in person than when I chose them on the website. This is going to be so bright and cheery.

And here are my finished blocks for month 1. 

All in, it probably took me about an hour, including the reverse sewing. I had to unstitch one set of half-square triangles because the stacks of fabric pieces were obviously packaged "as-is" from when they were die-cut. In other words, each stack had one piece right-side up followed by the next piece wrong-side up, then right-side up, wrong-side up, etc. I noticed it on the print fabrics right away as they're really obvious which side is which. I had already sewn one of the background pieces in wrong-side up, though, before catching myself. It's a tone-on-tone and not as obvious...until you do it wrong. The other unstitching was just because I didn't like the way one of my long strips had gone on. I knew I could do better.

Boy, it felt good to get one "assignment" for the month done. And this one wasn't even on my list! Now it's back to the 9PP.

Making It Monday

Thanks to a couple of sick days and a major power outage in the same week, Block 5 is now done.

This one went really smoothly. The only issue was that one of the third little kitty's french-knot eyeballs started hanging on by a thread as I stitched the rest of the block. Although that has an appropriately-Halloween-y feel to it, it was a bit more gruesome than this project requires.

So I had to stab him right through the middle of his eye with a sharp needle to tack it back down again.

Gruesome.

Pretty Mail (AKA: Like I Really Have Time for This)

Yesterday I got the first couple of installments of the embroidery Block of the Month (BOM) that I signed up for at The Quilt Block, Inc., when I was in Exton, PA, in April. Woot!

I ended up getting month 1 and 2 at the same time due to some delays around getting my payment info to them, etc., which is part of the fun-tricky part of doing a LQS BOM from a distance. Still, we worked it out, and it's all good. It was a kick getting a box filled with goodies!

The BOM is "Postcard Cuties for Halloween," from Bunny Hill Designs. My package included all sorts of great stuff to get me rolling!

Even candy corn for a mid-project sugar fix!

There's a jelly roll of fabrics to work with--Moda's Spooky Delights by Bunny Hill Designs.

As you can see if you use the link for the whole project above, ultimately this finishes to a 38" x 36" finished wallhanging. To date, I've never made a Halloween quilted decor item of any kind, although I do have a few patterns I've collected over the years. As I told my daughter yesterday when she was admiring my pretty mail with me, this isn't my usual style. But even if I don't love it when it's done, it would only be hanging up for, at most, a couple of weeks a year. (More likely, the way I usually forget to decorate until the last moment, a couple of days a year.) 

I do the cutting for each block as I work on them, and it looks like I can choose which fabric I want to use each time, so that'll be fun too. The only thing I'm a little worried about is whether I'd end up with two fabrics sitting next to each other in the finished wallhanging (which would bug me no end) so I may end up, for simplicity's sake, just following her picture. That's not normally like me, either, but much of the time I'll be working on this I'll be deeply enmeshed in work travel and schoolwork again and won't want to unduly stress myself out for what's supposed to be a fun project.

I know my limits.

The package also included some Tulip embroidery needles. This is a Japanese brand made in Hiroshima. According to the packaging, they're made in such a way as to make them slide more easily through the fabric. I bought some Tulip needles when I was at the shop but I made the mistake of opening the package and dumping them into my usual magnetic needle case with all the rest, so I have no idea now which is which to compare. I'll keep these needles separate with this project to make it easier for me to get a feel for them.

And then there's the embroidery thread--everything I'll need for the project. This is Cosmo embroidery floss, another product from Japan. I noticed that it's also sold on the Bunny Hill Designs website so she must be a fan of this floss; hence, it's use in her project. 

I'm not familiar with Cosmo, but since it's from Japan, and since Bunny Hill Designs is Australian, I'm thinking maybe Cosmo is more common in Australia...? Any of my Australian/New Zealander buddies want to comment on that? I'm looking forward to using it to compare it with DMC and the other threads I'm used to working with. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Error here--sorry. I had Bunny Hill Designs and Lynette Anderson Designs mixed up in my head. Bunny Hill is not in Australia, Lynnette Anderson is. So Australian/New Zealanders would have no more reason to be familiar with Cosmo thread than I do!

And just to be extra nice, they included a water soluble marking pen. I already use this type and really like it, so I'm glad to have another!

Month 1 will be fun--I get to start out embroidering bats. Woot! I need to make five bat blocks altogether, but it's a really simple design so I don't think it'll take too long. I will have to practice my satin stitch a little more--I've not gotten that one really smooth yet and it's used for the bats' eyes. The bats are scattered throughout the finished wallhanging on that orange dot fabric included with the package. The official first block includes a cat and spider (on the off-white background). It's got a little more going on, especially in the satin stitch department. If I'm not good at that satin stitch now, I will be by the time this puppy is finished!

Month 2 is another cat block with some lettering. That one is simple enough that again, it should go pretty quickly. (I know, I know: "Famous last words.")

Month 3 comes in July, but I do have a few other projects I really ought to get done before starting on this so I may end up with Month 3 arriving before I've managed to get both 1 and 2 done. I'm determined not to fall too far behind, though!

I'm thinking I may have found the ultimate use for the Annie Unrein toiletries bag--I feel like it would be the perfect project bag for this BOM. It would easily hold all the supplies, so it's just a matter of what size hoop I'll need for the blocks. I'll keep you posted...