Sewing Reports Week 22

It's been awhile. I've all but quit sewing; it's my eyes but not what you probably think. My eyes aren't focusing as well in the last couple of months and my sweet spot of vision has gone from 10-12 inches down to 4-6 inches. Getting that close to the sewing machine needle has been really hard on my back and I am only able to sit at the machine for a few minutes before it starts hurting. I was hoping to get my quilted tops completely finished before my next eye surgery, but I don't think that is going to happen. I can still read, and have been spending more time reading lately to take my mind off my decreasing vision.

While I should be working on UFO quilts, I decided to go off target and make something else instead.  What stitching I have been doing in the last month has been on a little project that I can work on for a few minutes at a time until my back needs a rest. They are pen holders for journals or reading books. I thought of the idea last month when I finally reached my limit with the inconvenience of hooking my pen into the spiral binding of my book journal and then either losing it or not being able to open the journal without removing it, and then I lay it down and leave it somewhere. I googled and sure enough, it was not a unique idea, but none of the ones I found were quite what I had in mind, so I designed my own. Cheap, easy to make, and no velcro or buckles that add bulk, plus it fits onto any size reading book from little paperbacks to large hardbacks. I'm making these for members of my book club so I have plenty of time to finish them before December even working at snail speed.

Because of my very slow pace and frequent breaks, my sewing reports are not impressive. But that's just what it is right now. I also had to buy some fat quarters this week in bright colors to go with the bright bands. Those only came in five colors and they are not my usual choice of colors so I had very little to choose from. I also had to buy some fusible interfacing. That purchase didn't help my stash report, but happily I've already made a dent in it. For the most part, I was able to use scraps from my stash.

I'm joining the usual Sunday groups here. It will be fun to see what everyone else has been doing while I've been lazy the past few weeks.

Sewing Sunday Week 17

I have done very little stitching this week, so I'm going to start with a picture of bluebonnets! I noticed a few cars stopping to take pictures today and thought I'd better get out there and take some pictures myself before the flowers were trampled flat.

Tis the season to be outside and even though I can't do much, I am still great at directing. This week Hubby got a couple of loads of dirt from a friend who was dredging his creek. You can see the piles to the right of the barndominium. They were too wet to spread Thursday and then Friday we got an inch and a half of rain, so they will be there awhile. While waiting for the dirt delivery, he moved more of the raised beds from the side to the back where they will be protected from the wind. Then he drained the stock tank where my water lilies live, pulled out all the lilies and fish, and moved the tank to the back. But first, he had to move the tank that was there. It developed a leak so now needs to be repaired and moved to the back pasture. Hopefully, the deer will go to it at night instead of coming to my lily tank and feasting on water lilies. The feral hogs have also been coming up to the house at night, so it looks like a fence will be needed soon. I may not get back to sewing until July.

I only sewed three days this week which made my success percentage take a dive. I didn't use any fabric, but I didn't report fabric use last week, so I'm doing that this week before I lose those little notes pinned to my design wall.

Join me at the two linky parties below to see what other quilters have been doing this week.

Sewing Reports for Week 12 of 2021

I'm late with my reports today due to computer issues. My new computer doesn't seem to like my new office software. So I am back on my old laptop and hope it stays on long enough to finish this.

It seems like I've missed a couple of weeks but looking back, I only skipped one week. I don't have much to show for that missing week. I feel like I am spinning my wheels on projects. I know what I need to do, but just couldn't make myself do them. Instead, I tried some new techniques and threw most of it in the trash. One thing I tried was painting on duck cloth. For the most part, it didn't work at all. This one bag (out of 3 panels painted) turned out okay, but I won't try this again. This particular cloth is ribbed like cordoroy and is almost impossible to paint a straight line across the ribs. But I had this purple cloth from a daybed cover Brownie wanted me to make years ago. Her purple stage lasted a long time and I'll be a long time getting through purple fabrics. This was good practice though and I'll donate it to the library, so some good will come of it.

I am also brushing up on my embroidery so I can make some simple gifts for Christmas. This was a free pattern online and the designer used tan thread for the white around the hat and coat. I thought that made it look a little dirty, so I used gray. It looks white against the muslin so now I know why the designer used tan. I may try this again in redwork so I don't have to deal with white trim against white beard.

I tried painting this same pattern with fabric paint, and it was cute, but again, the white against white made the center very blah.

My stash report makes it look like I used a lot of fabric this week, but this is a combination of last week and this week. I finished another quilt back and it is at the quilter's now. That accounts for most of my fabric usage. In spite of spinning my wheels, I sewed five days last week and every day this week.

I'm linking this to:
Stitching Time at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

Scrappy Pinwheel

Began 2018. Finished March 2021.

Sewing Sunday Week 8

I've been working on the Scrappy Pinwheel this week and have all the blocks put together. Today, I played around with a border idea. I haven't decided if I like it though. I think a border with alternating strips of red, white, and red again would look good, but I don't have any reds and buying fabric defeats the purpose of using up scraps, so this is my second choice. Borders are always my stumbling block.



My February One Monthly Goal was to have all the blocks quilted, and that is done.  Yay!  Now I just remember to link this to the OMG linkup when it is posted.

Between this and cross-stitch, I sewed every day this week. Hubby doesn't have excel on this laptop, so I don't know what that does to my yearly success percentage.

I used 3/4 yard of fabric this week finishing the scarf bibs and didn't add any fabric. My totals for the year are Fabric In: 0, Fabric Out: 10.25 yards.

Linking to:
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Sewing Reports for Week 6 of 2021

This was another week of where-did-the-time-go. I did get stitching in every day since Saturday, but just barely. With Hubby taking off next week and needing space in the garage, most of my time has been spent sorting and putting back tools in the tool chest. I'd like to say the coming week will be better, but with him here all week, it is more likely that I will be pressed into service.

The stash report is unchanged, but I'm showing it anyway. I plugged in a few numbers in my spreadsheet and I need use an average of three yards per week to achieve my goal of a 15% reduction by the end of the year. I'll try but I'm not optimistic. The stitching report doesn't look as bad as I thought it would after not sewing last weekend. But the two days were split over two reports so it looks a little better.

Linking to:
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

To Do Tuesday # 78

So much for having a sewing-at-home-retreat this weekend. I accomplished zero sewing this weekend, not even 15 minutes. After saying I will never help someone else move again, there we were Friday morning, schlepping up and down stairs loading our flat trailer and Daughter's car. Then Hubby left for a camping weekend of ham radio and I came home to recouperate. At least I thought I was going to rest. But then I thought since the travel trailer was out of the garage, I would sweep and clean up that bay. It was a mess and took all weekend and into Monday to clean and reorganize. Meanwhile, our flat trailer loaded with all Daughter's stuff is parked in the other bay and that side is quickly turning into a mess. But for now, my aching back and I are ready to sit at a nice, clean, sewing machine and get back to work.

I'm not going to start with a list of all last week's goals I finished, because there are none. Nope, not one. So my list for this week is the same as last week:

Now Goals for Febuary 2, 2021

• Make six more scarf bibs
• Finish quilting Jacob's Ladder
• Rip out the stitching from one pinwheel block so I can reuse the backing
• Quilt the string block on the new square in a square block

Sewing Reports for Week 5 of 2021

Since I was being covered with dust instead of threads this weekend, I didn't have time to make any Sunday sewing reports, so I'll include them here too, even though I'm disappointed to break my sewing streak so early in the year. But life happens and it was bound to happen eventually.

PhD Report for the first month of 2021

If you just look at the charts, it looks like I did nothing. But I am almost finished quilting Jacob's Ladder and Gairden Walk is at the quilter's. She still doesn't have her machine back from the repair shop though. He had started working on it and then got covid, so not telling when she will get it back. Also, there are four quilts ahead of mine to be quilted. Good thing I didn't list this as a finish for January.

Linking to these parties:
To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn by Us
PhD in 2021 at Quilting Gail
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate

Sewing Weekend for Week 4 of 2021

It's been a foggy, drizzly weekend so far with thunderstorms forecast late Sunday. The perfect weather for stitching and reading, so I stitch by day and read by night. The plumber was here Friday and Saturday and I sewed with my noise cancelling headphones on for most of the day. Not the most comfortable way to sew, but it was going to be loud no matter where I was. I had no idea plumbers made so much noise.

I decided not to send the Jacob's Ladder quilt out for quilting. I don't think I'll ever look at the quilt without seeing all the faults. I had considered throwing it away instead of finishing it into a flimsy, so spending more money on it seems like a waste. But I do need to practice quilting and it will be fine for that. I started quilting it this week, using a combination of straight lines with the walking foot and ruler foot and I'm having very little trouble seeing the dark green against white.

The pinwheel quilt blocks are a different story. The light colors against muslin are impossible to see. But I found that drawing a line with a dark Frixon pen is making it much easier. I thought I had all the string parts of the Scrappy Pinwheels quilted until I put them all on the wall yesterday and realized I had one too many pinwheels and one too few square in a square blocks. Since I had used every scrap of backing fabric, now I have to rip out the quilting on a pinwheel to reuse that backing. Why oh why couldn't it have been an extra square in a square with less quilting in it?!!

Getting down to business though, I have maintained my 100% daily stitching success rate for the year, and have used a little more fabric from the stash this week. I came very, very close to buying some unneccesary fabric, but I resisted. I thought I needed a little more muslin to finish my pinwheels, but I found another yard in my stash.

One Monthly Goal Complete!

My One Monthly Goal for January was to make 20 blocks for this quilt, and I have made the blocks and done most of the straight line quilting on them. I will be linking to Elm Street Quilts when Patty posts the final linkup.

I am linking this to:
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate
Patchwork & Quilts at Quilting Patchwork Applique
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Making at LoveLaughQuilt
One Monthly Goal January Finish at Elm Street Quilts

Scrappy Weekend Week 3

I am giving myself a sewing weekend. The plumber was supposed to be here Saturday, but he was a no-show. That was probably a good thing as then I didn't have to deal with any distractions. I waited for him until 10:00 Saturday morning and then put a note on the door and headed up to my sewing space.

My weekend actually started Friday afternood and I thought I'd get a lot of quilting done, but I decided to try making myself an eye patch first. Since I had no pattern, it was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of scraps in the trash. I never did come up with an over the glasses design that only allowed vision from one eye. As much as I don't like the idea, I think I'll have to make a regular eyepatch. So that was a whole day wasted. Meanwhile, I thought I'd show you the progress I've made with quilting on the Scrappy Pinwheel blocks. I decided to do a meandering stitch on the square in a square blocks, but now that I've done three of them, I think the quilting may be too dense. I'll quilt a few of the pinwheels and then decide if all of these need to be tossed.

Saturday afternoon, I quilted one pinwheel and it may be okay. I'm using the walking foot on the straight lines of the strings and the free motion foot on the open spaces. I need to either do all the walking foot part first and then switch to the free motion, or set up two sewing machines to do the quilting.

Now on to the sewing reports. I don't think I spent 15 minutes in the sewing space any day this week. It was more like two or three hours every day. Some days it was just cutting strips, or trying out patterns, and of course Friday afternoon and nearly all day Saturday were spent trying to come up with an eye patch design. I spent several hours last night quilting with the ruler foot and it was a struggle. Either the center bulk of this bulk is more of a problem than I've had before, or I've forgotten how to do it easily, but today my shoulder is killing me and the quilting doesn't look good either. I won't be doing any quilting today, only piecing, or I may work on cross-stitch. The positive out of all this is that I've maintained my 100% success rate for the year. I also pulled fabric from my stash to make the backing blocks so I finally have something to show in the stash report.

Linking to:
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate
Patchwork & Quilts at Quilting Patchwork Applique
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Sewing Weekend Week 2 of 2021

I hope everyone is well and enjoying this new year. So far, so good for me. I have discovered that using the sewing machine (first time since August) perfectly hits the sweet spot of my vision. The only problem I've had this week has been not being able to tell which is the right side of the fabric, which made me try out Mr. Ripper sooner than I wanted. And that was tough. I threw some pieces away because it just wasn't worth trying to hold the fabric and a magnifying glass at the same time. But all in all, it was a very encouraging week, and I got a lot done.

I worked mainly on my string Scrappy Pinwheels. Originally, I was going to make the quilt with all pinwheel blocks doing quilt as you go so each block would be separated by a half inch sashing. But I've been playing around with designs, and made then made another block to see how it would look. It looks better on the computerized design than it does on the design wall. Now I'm not sure which direction I'll go with it.  Sorry for the dark photos.  I should have taken pictures while it was still daylight.

On to the reports!

I stitched every day this week so my 15 minutes to stitch report still shows 100% success rate.

Since I am using scraps and previously cut muslin, my stash report remains the same as it has for the last eight months. I'm not going to reduce my stash at this rate.

I'm linking this post to these blogs. Click on them to see what other quilters are doing:
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at Quilt Paint Create
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt