Finishes #15 and 16

So far so good on my goal of averaging two finishes per month. If I can manage to stay home (as in not travel) the rest of this year, I'm hoping to far surpass that goal, but we'll see. Family is more important than any quilting goals I have, and there are things going on that may require more travel this year. 

For now, I'm at home and working away at UFO's. I finished two more quilts, and I realized that so far this year, all of my finishes have been UFO's, which is pretty great. I do have some quilt requests for Christmas, which will all be be new starts, but I'll see how I do on that front. I am starting to plan those out, and even do a little bit of cutting, but time will tell if I actually get those requested quilts finished in time. 

I have some other non-quilt related sewing I need to do this year too, some for DH's scooter rally, some for non-quilty Christmas presents. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about Christmas this year, and it's only August! Sometimes I end up having to ditch my Christmas sewing plans when life gets super busy, and I know that may happen this year. For now I'll just see what I can do without making myself crazy.

As for my finishes?

I made this from a layer cake. I have no idea where I got the layer cake, it's not really my style, but I managed to use the whole layer cake with no background fabric necessary. I think it looks like a picnic quilt. 

This quilt started out from some jelly roll strips I was given. It was only part of a jelly roll, so I added some strips from my scrap user system, as well as some background fabric. I really liked this quilt pattern, and I plan to use it again. You need one 1.5" cut WOF  background strip for each jelly roll strip. If you had a print jelly roll and a solid honeybun, you could do it, but you'd have to find a different border fabric whereas I used the background fabric for my border too. 

I'm already quilting another quilt, and the stack of basted quilts I had to work on when I got home is going down quickly. The quilts I have basted are mostly throws or kids quilts, so they quilt up fast. It won't be too long before I'll need to baste some more quilts!

Time for an Upgrade...Bernina Style

 I am a spoiled quilter, and I recognize that fact. I am very thankful we are in a position to afford some fun stuff for both of our hobbies. That said, DH and I are both thoughtful shoppers. We'll wait for sales, buy used, sell stuff to aren't using to fund what we want, etc...

I think I'm not alone in the search for the perfect sewing machine. I started sewing on a vintage Singer, straight stitch only, that I was borrowing from a family member. I made all my maternity clothes with it, as well as lots of baby clothes and home decor items. I gave the vintage machine back when my parents bought me a sewing machine for Christmas one year. It was a Montgomery Ward badged machine and I had it over 20 years. I made countless items of clothing on it, made my first foray into quilting on it, and so many curtains, pillows and such. When my stitch selector broke, and we had no sew and vac guys around to repair it, I went to a Brother from a big box store. I liked it well enough that when I wore it out, I bought another, but I was frustrated by the plastic gears and how quickly they wore out. I had started seriously quilting by now, and the small throat space was also a problem.

I did a bunch of research, and I bought a Bernina 1080 used. That was a quality machine! I used the heck out of that machine, and that was the machine I started quilting my own quilts on. Up until this point I was tying them. 

In the search for a larger throat space, I bought a Juki TL98. I tried it on a frame first, but I had nothing but tension issues. Sold the frame, and the Juki sewed just fine. I crosshatched a lot of quilts with the walking foot at this time with that machine. The thing is, I hated the Juki walking foot, and I found changing the bobbin to be quite awkward. I still had the Bernina 1080, and I just liked it better. 

I started researching a Bernina with a larger throat space, and I decided I wanted a Bernina 440. I didn't want to pay for a Bernina 440, so I kept putting off the purchase. Then I found out they were discontinuing the Bernina 440, so I went and bought the floor model at my local Bernina shop. I got it for half price, and I sold both the Juki and my Bernina 1080 to help offset the cost. 

As kids moved out and I had more space, I discovered I really preferred to have more than one machine set up at all times. One to piece on, one for the actual quilting, and if I can have three, one for everything else, like garment sewing. I started collecting vintage machines, larger throat, best for accuracy in 1/4" seams if it's a straight stitch only machine.

I make a lot of big quilts, and although I have quilted king sized quilts on the Bernina 440, it's still a bit of a wrestling match. In the search for a larger throat space, I bought a Tin Lizzie sit down long arm. The throat space was fantastic, the machine, meh. I traded it in for the Janome M7. It was my first and only Janome. I LOVED the dual feed, and the amount of accessories that came with that machine was crazy! The fact it came with two walking feet, a regular one and a 1/4" one, was amazing. I had the Janome for 6 years, and for five of those years, it did great. This last year it's been in the shop more than not. This last time, I told them do everything to it, because I'm going to sell it. I don't want to sell a bad machine, so I had them fix everything that was even questionable. 

What was I going to replace the Janome with? I decided I really wanted a larger Bernina. After all, I loved my 440 so much, I bought a second one used so I'd have a backup. I was looking at Berninas, and decided I wanted a 735, but you know what? They are discontinuing that model, so I went to the store, bought the floor model, and saved about 40%. I sold the Janome with the cabinet it was in, because that cabinet was too tall for me, and ergonomically just didn't work. I had that cabinet for about 8 years, and every time I used it, my shoulders hurt. 

I looked at cabinets, decided on the Christa cabinet by Arrow, which is the same height as the other cabinet I have that I do like. I found the Christa cabinet on sale for about 40% off. I didn't realize it was backordered when I ordered it, so it actually came while I was out of town. Thankfully, I managed to have it delivered to my daughters house, and she and my SIL assembled it for me while I was out of town. So now I am back home, and can quilt on my new Bernina 735 in my Christa Cabinet!

With all the extensions up, I've got a ton of flat surface to support the quilt. If I drop all the extensions, including the back extension it's footprint is drastically reduced. I've already been quilting on it, and I've already noticed I get better results with poly thread when FMQ, though if I use the walking foot or bind, it likes cotton thread just fine. The cabinet height is working much better for me. 

Could I have purchased a Bernina with a larger throat? Yes. Did I think I needed one? No. I have a few queen/king quilts already started, and those I do plan on quilting myself. The throat space on this is smaller than the Janome, but still more than adequate to quilt a large quilt. The main reason is, I've already decided than any queen/king quilts I start from this point onward, I will pay to have longarmed. If I can't pay to have it longarmed, I won't be making it. My RSI really acts up when I'm quilting the huge quilts, and I've decided the pain isn't worth it anymore. My RSI doesn't really bother me on twin sized and smaller quilts. 

Besides the price break on the 735 since it's being discontinued, the other thing I really liked about it was all the presser feet I have for my 440's will work on it. I didn't have to start buying new presser feet, and Bernina presser feet are expensive. If I had gone with a 900 series machine, I would have had to buy all new presser feet, which added to the increased base cost really wasn't in my budget. 

I never thought I'd be brand specific quilter, but after sewing on several other branded machines at this point, I really do prefer Berninas. I still love my vintage machines, though I have thinned the herd of those due to space. Vintage machines, the heavy, all metal, weigh as much as a boat anchor, are almost all better than the cheap plastic stuff you can get from a big box store, but for higher end modern machines, I've discovered I am indeed a Bernina girl.

Traveling

 I scheduled blog posts to post while I was gone, so you were unlikely to notice that I had been out of town. I'm back now, but what a trip it was! 

We went almost 9,000 miles, through 25 states. We went to two scooter rallies, multiple scooter shops, all for DH's business (He publishes The Scooter 'Zine) We saw our three out of state kids and their families, we spent a couple weeks with my parents, trying to improve their situation a bit. We went to five national parks, and two Civil War battlefields. We went on two covered bridge driving tours, one in Vermont and one in Indiana. We avoided interstate highways as much as possible, I think less than 500 miles were done on the interstate. 

Since we were on the backroads, we got to see lots of wildlife. So many wild turkeys, deer, elk, pronghorn, even a bear right on the side of the road just watching the cars go by. We saw lots of free range chickens, even a flock that was wearing clothes! I looked it up and I saw that sometimes they put clothes on chickens to protect them from roosters who claw them while mating. I saw several options for that online but these looked homemade, they even had flowers appliqued on them! Of course we saw the usual assortment of farm animals, horses, cows, goats, pigs, donkeys, a few emus, and even some alpacas. 

So much happened over the eight weeks we were gone, I won't bore you with a ton of photos, but I will give you a couple highlights. 

One of the many elk we saw in Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

Views from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Deer in Shenandoah National Park

Acadia National Park in Maine

A covered bridge in Vermont that was built in 1833, it has a pedestrian section and a section to drive on. You can still drive on that almost 200 year old bridge, and we did.

Waterfall in Vermont

Waterfall in New York

Covered Bridge in Indiana

We were in Indiana for my birthday, But DH got me a couple roses for the hotel room, red because he loves me, yellow because we are friends. His soda bottle made an adequate vase!

Now that we are home again, it's time to get back into a normal routine. I really did a lot of quilting prep before I left, so now that everything from the trip is put away, I can get right back into sewing. Goodness knows, I've got lots of sewing to do!

A Couple Items For ME!

I don't know about you, but I rarely sew anything for myself. I mostly give away everything I make. I really wanted a couple book sleeves, and I found a great tutorial here.

Now, I haven't read a paper book in ages aside from cook books and quilting books. If it's fiction, I read on my kindle, and I read A LOT. I wanted book sleeves for my ipad, kindle and a notebook or two. I have cases on my ipad and kindle, but when traveling I keep those in my backpack, which I always crammed full. I've had things slip between the cover and the body of the case, which drains my battery. I figured a book sleeve would prevent that.  I was given some fabric that I love, and as soon as I saw it, I decided it was going to be my book sleeve.

I also had some find a word fabric with sewing words that I had purchased, and I thought it would be a fun sleeve too. 

Here are the flip sides of the cases, where the pocket is. You may have noticed that one has the button closure on the pocket side and the other has it on the plain side. That was my mistake, but even though I caught the mistake earlier enough to fix it, it didn't bother me enough to take the time to actually fix it. Another plus of sewing for myself, if I don't mind, mistakes don't matter.  

I ended up using the find a word case for my EPP project, which is already in a zipper pouch, but I put the pouch in the main pocket, and my neck light in the front pocket. I only work on my EPP project when we are travelling, and hotels usually have lousy lighting. 

I made the largest size, but if I were to make them again, I'd add an inch in each direction. I used scraps of regular fleece instead of fusible fleece or batting, and it's nicely padded, but a bit bulky so the bag is a little smaller than I wanted. I'm always at a loss on how to use scrap fleece. For years I cut it all into squares and made weighted blankets, but I'm pretty much over making those now. I have enough pellets left to make one more weighted blanket, and eventually I probably will make that, but who knows, maybe I'll have DH make some cornhole boards and use the pellets in bean bags instead. If the fleece scraps are WOF, I'll piece them into a backing, but fleece seams are thick, so I don't like doing too much piecing on a fleece backing. I'll see DD#1 later this year, so I'll show these to her and see if she'd like something similar for her country store. If I make multiple sizes I could use up a lot of fleece scraps. I could even use orphan blocks on the pockets. 

I'm already thinking about Christmas, and I thought I could make book sleeves and buy a book to put in them, and that should be a decent gift. I could make a game of it, and give myself bonus points if the sleeve matches the book. I've seen some great book fabric too, but I'd have to buy that, and I'm trying to stay low buy this year. We'll see. I still have a little time before I need to be in full blown Christmas mode. 

Two Finishes for July!

 I took a tip from my June quilting, and worked on two quilts that could be quilted with the same color of thread, and bound the same as well. 

I really love these super bright batiks I was given. I did add some of my own batiks to the mix, but I made three quilt tops from the fabrics I was given. This is the first one finished, and quilt number 13 for the year. It's a larger throw. The other two are not the same pattern.

You've seen these blocks before! I made three quilt tops from these black/neutral log cabin blocks. The other two are twin sized, and I may or may not have finished those, I honestly can't remember. At any rate, I do remember this is the smallest of the three, it's a large baby sized or kid quilt. 

I used a black thread on both of these quilts, and just did a simple meander. The black thread was very fine, so it doesn't show up much, even on the light areas. 

July is the seventh month, and I've got 14 quilts done, so right on target. I'm actually hoping the second half of the year is even more productive, because I've got so much prepped and ready to go. I've still got 9 quilts basted, I've got multiple quilts cut out, and how's this for leader/enders?

This tote is completely filled with blocks that are easy to use as leader/enders. All Civil War reproduction fabrics, so it's going towards my busting those fabrics goal too! 

I took these fabric scraps from my latest basting spree and processed those before they even hit my scrap bin. My scrap user system is outgrowing its designated area again, so when I get a few of the projects I have cut out sewn, I'll be looking for an idea to use up some of those strips. The thing about sewing a lot is, the more you sew, the more scraps you have, so you sew more scraps, but make more scraps. Good thing I enjoy working with scraps! I had a bunch of bird fabric scraps, so I'm thinking I'll make a bird quilt (or two), and I had a very large scale print of African animals, that I used most of on the back of a quilt, but I think I have enough left to be the focus in another quilt. The bird fabrics and the animal fabrics were not all cut to the same sizes. I've been wanting to do something more improv lately, and if I go through my orphan blocks and scraps to make more units, I think I can add to the multi-sized blocks and come up with some fun quilts. I haven't done anything like that for a while, and it sounds like fun!