Sewing Space Sunday

I'm happy to report that the spiders have not completely taken over my sewing space. I managed to find a few days to sew this week, and I added a column to my sewing report. I wish I could take credit for this addition, but I must admit, I saw it on someone else's blog. I know it is not the intent of Kate who started this challenge to see how much actual time was spent sewing. I think her goal is to just get at least 15 minutes of sewing time in every day, and truly, it does help me to do that. Once I'm sewing, it's easier to come back to it the next day. Like anything, the longer away from something, the harder to take it up again. But since I can't sew everyday at this time of year, I had been feeling that my report made it look like I wasn't really sewing at all. So I added in an hours column, for myself, to see how much time I actually spent sewing.

I used some fabric, but not for sewing. I needed some shade over windows and made some simple no-sew curtains, and a no-sew cushion cover too. That helped my stash report too.

Meanwhile, life on the farm continues. We still a lot of weeds in the hay, but we'll be doing a first cutting in the next week or two. Then the serious mowing begins again.

Linking to:
15 Minute Challenge at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

Awww Rats Monday! and Design Board

This was supposed to be an Awww Monday post. I've been watching for a chance to take a picture of the neighbors' new calf. It's a cutie and would make a great Awww post. Yesterday, I looked out the window and saw my chance. The two calves (only one of them is still cute) were near my fence and the cows were a safe distance away. If you don't know much about cattle, the cows leave their calves napping in a group while they graze around the pasture. A cow's mother's day out.

I grabbed the good camera and jumped in the pickup and headed over to the fence. Before I could get out the door and around the pickup, the cute calf stood up and turned his back to me. Not an awww shot by any means. The hind end of a calf is just as unattractive as the hind end of a grown cow. Then, he turned his head and looked at me, and it was so cute, I nearly took a picture. But it would still be the hind end of a cow. So I waited for him to turn around.

By then, mama cow was getting concerned and headed our way. "Turn baby, turn," I crooned. He walked away and plopped back down in the grass. By then, mama cow was next to the fence giving me the evil eye. I call her Freckles.

I talked to her a minute and thought she might go over the calf and nurse him. That would be a cute picture, right? She did go over to him to see if he was okay, but he didn't get up. Then, a horse came over to see what was going on and he gave me the evil eye. I think I'll call him Nosy.

Right before I left, mama cow moved out of the way a little and I took a picture of the two calves. Not an awww picture, just a picture. Of cows. Cats can be cute doing nothing, but cows have to be doing something pretty special to get into the cute category. These animals were totally uncooperative and totally uncute. It's like they didn't care that the next day they could be featured on Awww Mondays. Maybe I'll get another chance before the calf grows into the not cute stage.

In other news, I did manage to get some sewing time in yesterday. I quilted two more Antique Tiles blocks and joined the last block on one row. I think if I complete a row today and tomorrow, and join the rows Wednesday, I can get the quilt finished by the April 30 deadline. I may have to buy fabric for the border. I thought I'd get the blocks together before trying out any of my stash fabric. And since this stage of the quilt isn't Awww some either, I just used my low quality iphone to take the picture.

The other thing occupying my time today is getting a closet finished. Even though we aren't ready for sheetrock, and don't plan on sheetrocking the whole house ourselves, we did decide to finish another closet (Hubby finished the storm room closet himself and put up some sheetrock in the guest bath for workmen privacy.  You see, in the trailer, we have two tiny closets. Really, they're fifteen inches wide and sixty inches tall. Big enough for several shirts and pants each. But a coat takes up half the closet so coats and most of our good clothes are still in a hanging closet moving box. So we decided that we needed a clean, finished space in the house for those clothes and quit fumbling with a box every day.  Well, Hubby has to fiddle with the box every day because he has to wear nice clothes to work.  I just wear jeans and a t-shirt and I don't care if they have fold wrinkles.   Yesterday, Hubby sheetrocked the little guest room closet and today, I taped and bedded.

And now, two cornish hens need to go in the oven, and they won't be cute enough for a photo either.

Linking to:
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Sewing Room Sunday

I normally call this post Sewing Repot Sunday, but I have nothing to report today. I did absolutely no sewing this week and didn't add or subtract from my stash. I'm not sure what I did this week really. I know I spent a couple of days looking for a dishwasher and then decided not to buy one right now. But the rest of the week is a blur.

One thing I did was finish a couple of storage boxes. I have a few Creative Options plastic storage boxes but I needed more. I didn't want to buy more of those boxes for a couple of reasons, the main one being that they didn't fit in my wire cubes very well. I had some scrap quarter inch plywood from the closet project and wondered if I could make a box, similar to a cigar box. I made it out of the plywood, and then starched fabric onto it. I even printed a label on fabric and starched it to the side. The nice thing about starched fabric is that it is just as easy to get off as it is to put on.

I'm linking to these two linky parties, not because I have anything to show, but because one of my unwritten resolutions this year was to participate in them all year. And now I am off to do some sewing so next week's report will look better.
15 Minute Challenge at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

Sewing Report Sunday

This is just a driveby report today. I'm supposed to be insulating a closet right now. I would have skipped it but then I remembered that I both bought and used fabric this week. No sewing though. So how did I use fabric? That is a post for another day - if it is successful. The fabric I bought is for clothing, not quilting, so maybe it doesn't belong on this report either. But buying is buying, right?

Linking to:
15 Minute Challenge at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

Sunday Sewing Reports

I thought I'd get a jump on the reports by posting tonight. I've spent time sewing 6 out of 7 days this week. Not perfect, but good. I don't know what is going on with the stash report. I am using more fabric lately than usual and not buying much, but it doesn't seem to be changing.

I've been working on my April UFO, Antique Tiles. When I made the blocks, umpteen years ago, I was going to join them the traditional way into a flimsy and then quilt it. But when I decided to make this my April UFO, I decided to make it easier on my shoulder by using the QAYO method. I've made a couple of QAYO quilts, using a method where you make the block, batting, and backing the same size and then quilt it. But I've always had some shrinkage in the size of the block after quilting, so began looking around for another method.

After hours online looking at website, blog, and youtube tutorials, I have become a fan of Leah Day. Her method is to make the blocks larger than needed and cut to size after quilting AND she recommends sewing a double row of stitches around the edge to make it easier to put on the sashing strips. And it IS so much easier. After quilting, my 12-1/2 inch block was just under 12-1/4 inch, so I just cut it down to 12 inch. Yes, the outer pieces won't be the same as the inner, but at least it will be square and there will be a full quarter inch seam allowance.

I quilted the first block with straight lines beside each seam and that was almost a disaster when the stitches crossed.  It puckered where the stitching crossed and stitching in both directions distorted the block.  I tried to straighten it before trimming but didn't feel like ripping out every stitch even though I probably should have.  So I just sewed a quarter inch inside each piece on the next block. The block as a whole was straighter and I didn't have a problem with fabric bunching at the stitching crosses.  For the rest of the blocks, I won't finish the quilting around the outer pieces.  It will be too hard to figure out where the stitching should be after I cut the block down.

As I've griped about before, there are a lot of disadvantages to finishing a quilt years after starting it: loss of interest in the project I once thought was great, improvement in skills since beginning makes finishing a chore, not having a written pattern in the package of blocks and bits of fabrics makes me wonder what I originally planned, and now, not having enough fabric to finish the quilt. I looked through my stash and there wasn't anything remotely complementary in any color. A trip to my local quilt store gave me a few choices and I bought a quarter yard of each to try out. I finally decided on a yellow with tiny orange and green stripes. It isn't great, but it has enough of the same colors that it will do. One of the other colors, a blue, will work for a border, and the other color, a light gold will work as a sashing with the backing fabric that I found in my stash.

Linking to:
15 Minute Challenge at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

April One Monthly Goal and Second Quarter Finish-a-Long

Number four on my twelve UFOs list is Christmas Among Friends. However, I haven't found that one yet. I have found number five, Antique Tiles, so I'm going to bump it up for April and hope I find Christmas Among Friends this month. My plan is to use the quilt-as-you-go method and have a complete finish by the end of the month.

My Second Quarter Goals for 2018 Finish-A-Long are:

1. (also) Antique Tiles - completely finished. I don't have any fabric that will work as sashing so I will have to buy fabric this month.

2. Second Saturday Sampler - finish the last block and make the quilt top, and backing. I don't want to quilt it yet.

3. Finish the blocks for Sweet Sixteen. I probably should have said find the blocks, but I saw a couple of blocks and hope they are all together.

Linked to:
One Monthly Goal - April at Elm Street Quilts
2018 Finish-A-Long Second Quarter Goals at Marci Girl Designs

Sewing and Fabric Reports

Even though I didn't finish a quilt, I made a back for a quilt and cut strips for another UFO so used more fabric this week than I normally do in a month. That makes my stash report look pretty good.

I mananged to get my sewing space put back together and once again unpacked my fabric. Although I don't have finished walls there yet, at least there is framing now, so I screwed in a piece of foam board insulation and clipped my design wall flannel to it. It's nice to have that back in the same space instead of downstairs. I also got in a few days of sewing this week so that report looks better too.

Linking to:
15 Minute Challenge at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate