A Bump in the Road

 Why does it seem the tighter the deadline, the more complications arise? Maybe that's just me. I was FMQ on my Janome when all of a sudden, the presser foot pressure increased to the point I could hardly move the quilt. Confession time- I have woefully neglected this machine. I bought it in 2020 and never had it serviced, nor had I ever updated the software. I know the computerized machines should be serviced annually, but at $200 a pop, that's a lot. I do keep the machine very clean, so I'm not neglecting regular upkeep, just the servicing. The only thing I use the Janome for is the actual quilting and binding. I've never used it for piecing or any other sewing. In hours of sewing, this machine gets the least use of the three machines I always have set up. 

To be honest, it's not the money that kept me from getting it serviced. I don't like the local dealer, the only one authorized to do the repairs. I love my Bernina shop, they are awesome! But they only service Berninas. I have two different vintage guys I use and they are both great! They don't service the newer computerized machines though. Unless I want to drive at least two hours each way for drop off, and then again for pickup, I'm stuck using the dealer I don't like. I'm hoping this time they work out better than the last time I used them for servicing. They have a new technician so I'm hopeful. They said it would take at least three weeks before I get it back, but it might take until mid-JULY!!!!!

I had planned on getting all my machines serviced this year, before DH retires. I was hoping to wait until I had my deadline quilts finished. Looks like that's not going to work out. I have four quilts with firm deadlines so far this year. One is the Lego quilt I finished and the party is Saturday. One is the baby quilt and the baby shower is the 25th, and the other two are due in July. 

I just finished the baby quilt top. Now I've got to get it basted and I'll quilt it on the Bernina. I've got one of the July quilts ready to assemble, and I'll be starting to piece the other one next week. Depending on when I get the Janome back, I may have to quilt those quilts on the Bernina too. The July quilts are both twin sized, so although I'd appreciate the space the Janome gives me, I'm not worried about piecing them on the Bernina. I've quilted a king on the Bernina, so I know I can do twins, it's just a lot harder on my arm. 

The other "deadline" quilts don't have hard deadlines, they are just quilts I'd like to get within the next year or two. The thing is, those are all queen or king sized quilts, so it's a lot. Those are all gift quilts, I don't make quilts that large for donation, and I'm making them for specific people. Most of those big quilts are actually ready to assemble, just waiting for their turn on the design wall. I think two of those still have piecing left to do before assembly. 

A bit off-topic, but I'd like to talk about something that went very right. Most of you know, I have an Accuquilt Studio die cutter. I have a lot of dies for it, both Studio dies and Go dies, since you can use Go dies on the Studio cutter with an adapter plate. Every once in a while I consider selling off the Studio cutter and dies and switching to the Go electric, which wasn't out when I bought my Studio cutter. One of the things that has made me hold off on that, is that I can cut 10 layers of fabric at a time with a Studio die, but only six with a Go die. When I'm cutting hundreds or even thousands of pieces, that can make a big difference in time. Also, I've had to replace Go dies when they are used a lot, but I've never had to replace a Studio die, they are just a lot sturdier. The Studio cutter is MUCH easier to turn than a Go cutter is, but of course, the Go Electric would be easier still. This baby quilt was my first quilt where I really gave my Bullseye dies a workout. They don't make bullseye dies for the Go cutter, only for the Studio. 

The Bullseye dies have really affirmed my decision to buy the Studio cutter over the Go. I know there are equilateral triangle dies for the Go, and even some hexagon dies, but to have the versatility of the Bullseye dies, nothing for the Go compares. 

If you look at the baby quilt above, you can see I fussy cut the panel I used, to make the most of what was on the panel. I didn't take photos of that process, but I pulled out another panel to give you an idea of how that works. 

To make that baby quilt, I used 3 different Bullseye dies. The hexagon with 6" sides, the equilateral triangle with 6" sides, and the equilateral triangle with 3" sides. Since the hexagons were the largest, I chose those sections first. The hexagoon blade die is laying on the above panel. If I were cutting this panel for the same style quilt, I would center the Koalas as shown, then I would trace around the blade die with a marker. After I had chosen any hexagons I wanted, I'd move to the larger triangles, center the area I wanted, then trace around that blade die. Finally, I'd trace around the smaller triangle to get as much use of the panel as I could. Once I've used as much of the panel as I could, I simply used a pair of scissors and cut on the marker lines. When you go to cut with the Bullseye dies, you have to use foam spacers to make the die a flat surface, but since the fabric is cut in the correct shape but a little larger, it's pretty easy to line it up on the die and get perfectly fussy cut pieces. In fact, I found it easy to cut all my hexagons at once, and all the top pointing triangles at once, then all the down pointing triangles at once, and so on... The equilateral triangles all have specially shaped points that allow you to exactly line up the pieces, whether you are sewing them to another triangle or a hexagon. 

I think the trickiest thing about the Bullseye dies is storing them once they are unwrapped. You always want to store your dies vertically, like a book on a bookshelf, so the cutting blade doesn't get damaged. Since the bullseye dies fit inside each other, they don't always want to stay nice and neat when stored vertically. I solved that by using....pizza boxes! 

All of my Bullseye dies with the exception of the hexagon dies, fit in a 12" pizza box. For the odd equilateral triangles, I could fit both the foam spacers and the blade dies in the same box, but for everything else I needed one box for the foam spacers and one for the blades. I bought the 12" pizza boxes on Amazon. I need 18" pizza boxes for the hexagon dies, but since I only need two boxes, I'm going to ask around at some local pizza places and see if I can find someplace that will sell me two boxes. 

Now I'm really looking forward to making more quilt with my Bullseye dies. With the circle dies I can make rings for appliqueing onto a background, and that could really be fun! My brain is swimming with ideas, too bad I have so many other projects to finish up. If I ever won the lottery (which I never buy tickets for) I'd totally buy a computerized longarm so I could have it quilt my quilts while I make all the quilt tops! I enjoy FMQ, but not nearly as much as I enjoy piecing. Do they make a longarm that has automatic advancing? That's the dream right there, just load a quilt and have the machine quilt it until it's finished. It would need a bobbin that never ran out, and of course no tension issues ever...It's just a dream, but, man, would that be awesome! 

Too Many Projects = Too Little Finished

I'm not trying to start too many projects. I'm actually trying to finish projects already started. I've had a quilt jump the queue, so now I'm having to start a project I had slated to begin in July. 

I'm showing my age here, but having a baby shower 3 months before baby is due seems super early to me. I thought I'd be able to wait until after the two quilts due in July were finished before making this baby quilt, but now I need to have it done this month. It's just a baby quilt, and I know it can get it done on time, it's just throwing me off. 

I had been working on the pieced sashing and cornerstones for one of the July quilts. 

I had been using the hashtag blocks as leaders/enders while piecing the sashing for the deadline quilt. Those extra strips alongside the purple background hashtag blocks are for the border, I've got a similar stack with the gold blocks. I have the hashtag blocks done for two throws, but I've got three more quilts worth of blocks to sew up, then I need to cut sashing and borders for all the quilts. All the hashtag quilts are for donation, so no hurry on those. 

Now that the baby quilt has jumped the queue, I started cutting it out.

I've got three 6" side big hexies, along with a bunch of 6" side equilateral triangles. 

I also cut a bunch of 3" side equilateral triangles so I could piece some of the larger triangles. I'm using one panel and six solids to make the quilt top. These are the nursery colors, so please, no comments on my color choices. I'm trying to match the parents taste, and their opinions are the only ones that matter. From what I've counted up so far, I need a few more large triangles, and I think I can cut enough from one WOF strip. I don't want any more black or gold, so I can cut the extra triangles from sage green, olive green, tan, or rust. I haven't decided which color to cut more of, opinions on that are welcome ;-)

I cut out some burp rags to get sewn up as well. Neither the burp rags nor the baby quilt should take all that long, so barring a big disruption, I should be able to get them all done before the baby shower. 

I'll definitely need to put the baby quilt up on the design wall, but right now, my design wall looks like this...

I'll be adding sashing and cornerstones to all of these blocks, but for right now I'm thinking to just sew them into columns with sashing just to get them off the design wall. I'm thinking to keep using my projects as leaders/enders for each other until I get them all into quilt tops. As long as I label my columns, I can put those back on the design wall later so I can choose which cornerstones go where. I'm not going to want identical squares touching. The sashing will all be purple so making the columns is easy. I also have all the sashing cut, but not all the cornerstones. 

As you can see, I'm piecing a bunch of projects right now. How about FMQ? Well, I've finished quilting one quilt, but it needs binding. I decided to quilt the next one with the same color thread, so instead of binding that quilt I just switched to FMQ the next. If I have enough thread left, I actually could use the same thread to FMQ another quilt that's basted and ready to go. I am getting in that hour of FMQ almost every day, but I've not finished a quilt. If I quilt all three with the same thread, I might not have a finish for a couple more weeks, but then I'll have three rapid fire finishes once they are all bound. We'll see how it works out, because once the baby quilt top is done it gets quilting priority. All of the quilts I'm quilting right now will be donation quilts, so putting off binding isn't that big of a deal. I have three deadline quilts I need to finish in the next couple months, so working on those comes first, but I'll quilt what I can in between. 

In between sewing times, I've been getting lots of pics from DD#1 and DD#2. DD#1 is a homesteader that is a certified breeder of Meishan pigs which are endangered. Their first litters were born recently, so I've been getting all kinds of cute piglet pics.

I'm not sure if any homesteaders read my blog or not, but if having pigs that look kind of like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh interest you, you can contact my daughter through her website.

DD#2 just got a new dog, which I'll be dogsitting in a couple weeks. I keep getting anecdotes on how the new addition is fitting in with the older dog and two kids. 

The corgi is 8 years old, and the pound guessed the new dog was 11 months. The dogs sleeping this close together was a win! They were really unsure what to think of each other at first.

Overall, this week has felt like I'm running in place. I'm really busy,  but getting nothing finished. I have done a lot this week, so I know progress is being made. I'll take it! 

Finish #12

 Finish #12 of the year is also a deadline quilt, so it's a double win!

Well, I say it's a win, but the recipient grandson just asked me for a Minecraft quilt, and I just finished his Lego quilt, so we'll see how that goes. His birthday is in a couple weeks, so I guess I'll see then. I'm preparing myself for a less than enthusiastic reaction. I might have enough Minecraft fabric to make him and his brother Minecraft pillowcases, so maybe if I do that I'll be OK. 

I already started FMQ on another quilt, but even if I get that one done in April, I'll be a little behind in my goal of finishing 40 quilts this year. I'm not expecting any out of town company coming up, but grandkids for the weekend may come up soon. We'll see what happens later this year. The biggest interruptions I knew about have already happened, so maybe I'll pick up speed again. 

I finished April's Greek murder mystery blocks.

Come to think of it, I don't think I ever showed you March's blocks.

February and March's blocks were all in blues, January's had some of the same colors as April's block, with the addition of green. The Viking murder mystery was easier to figure out what most of the blocks were going to be in the quilt than this one has been so far. 

I already started another deadline quilt, but I have had a baby quilt that needs to jump the queue. The baby isn't due until September, so I was thinking I could finish the two quilts due in July before I worked on the baby quilt. Well, they are throwing the baby shower in May, which is insanely early in my book, so now I need to work on it first. My goal is to get the baby quilt cut out this weekend. (I did finish the other cutting I needed to do). I've got all the deadline quilts cut out except the baby quilt, so I can just keep using them as leaders/enders for each other until I have all the tops made. 

This afternoon we are going to the county fair with DD#2's family, so I should get some quilty eye candy! There is a quilting category for prizes at the fair. My kids keep telling me to enter, but that's absolutely not something that interests me. I quilt for fun, and my perfection quotient is not that high. I don't want the pressure of needing perfect points or having my binding be just so. That kind of pressure would take all of the fun out of it for me. I do enjoy seeing the quilts that have been entered, so for all of you that enjoy entering quilting contests, thank you! 

I Have Some Cutting to Do!

 I'm really trying to get all the projects I partially cut from 3.5" strips sewn into blocks. I never had a huge variety of 3.5" strips, so I ended up with a lot of duplicate blocks. I planned several projects with HST's made from 3.5" strips, and on those I have all the HST's made, and a few blocks made, but mostly those are stalled there. The thing is, all those HST's are in project boxes, not hanging around my sewing space. The pieces I'm sewing up now were just sitting on a shelf. I decided to sort these longer strips I'll be using for hashtag blocks. They will be big 15" blocks, so with sashing and borders, I only need 20 blocks for a twin and 12 will make a throw. I divided the sets up into three throws and two twins. The piles that are spread out will be the throws, and the piles that are stacked will be twins. I'm matching them up with background colors now. The pattern I'm altering has sashing in the same color as the background in the blocks, but I might not go that way on all of these. I think that mustard yellow may be a bit much in that big of a quantity, so I'll likely use contrasting sashing for that throw. You can see my instructions for April's murder mystery block peeking out in the lower left corner, and I need to cut that out too! 

I'll end up with five hashtag quilts after I cut the backgrounds and sashing/borders. They will be donation quilts, so duplicates are not a problem. They should be pretty quick to make once it's all cut out because the blocks are easy and big. 

I had some leftover strips cut for hashtag blocks but I'm sure I'll be sick of making those after doing five of them, so I cut the rest into the donut-ish blocks I showed last week. I think I have 70 blocks made with the gray background, and 90 or so with a white background, but I cut more white and now I have more to make with those. I'll definitely get multiple quilts from those blocks, but I'll get at least one quilt, if not two, from the bonus HST's I'm getting from making those blocks. 

I didn't finish any quilts this week, but I snapped a pic as was finishing up the quilting on Mr. T's birthday quilt.

I finished quilting this today, so once it's trimmed I can sew the binding on and it will be a finish! 

On the homefront, the ductwork is finished, and the holes in the walls repaired, but DH doesn't have time to repaint for at least a couple weeks. He's overbooked himself over the next couple weeks, so I will just wait for him to have time. I am terrible at painting, so I'm better off waiting than trying it myself. 

I had to switch out my seasonal clothes, and that makes me sad because I hate summer. Our highs have been in the 90's but the lows are still low enough that I've managed to keep the air conditioner off so far. It won't be that way for long, and I'm dreading the high electric bills, but really hoping that ductwork replacement pays off! 

I'm also in a reorganizing mood again. For now I'm trying to tackle the kitchen, pantry, and one of the bedroom closets. This afternoon I was rearranging the kitchen drawers. I emptied one drawer, but what I wanted to put there didn't fit. I do like some of the things I've rearranged, but some I'm still debating. I'm going to try using a knife block again, and I'm not sure how I feel about them being in sight again after they've been in a drawer. That said, I know from experience they are easier to access from the knife block. Just like I kept the knife block (which are crazy expensive now, so I'm glad I kept it) I'll keep the knife drawer organizer for a while until I decide which storage method I prefer. 

I want to move the most common cooking utensils to the drawer closest to the stove, but that drawer was the only one the knife organizer fit into. Now that I'm going back to the knife block I can go back to the the cooking utensils in the drawer by the stove. As I'm going through what's in my drawers and decluttering what I don't use often enough to warrant keeping it, I'm realizing I don't own a spatula I actually like. DH's favorite spatula is huge and takes up way too much space in the drawer, and I'd love to donate it but he'd definitely complain. I haven't been able to find a spatula I've liked for years, why are all the handles so huge??? My current ladle has a huge handle too, and I just don't get it. The handles take up too much space in drawer, they really don't work in a countertop utensil jar, so there are no good storage options for these giant handled utensils. I've been looking for a new spatula ever since DH melted my favorite one, and I cannot find one that same style anywhere. Our pots are stainless and can have stainless utensils, but I prefer non-stick frying pans so I normally buy non-stick safe utensils. If you have a spatula suggestion for me, send me a link, and I'll take a look. I've got too many spatulas, but until I find one I really like, I'm hesitant to declutter them. 

I hope any spring cleaning you are tackling right now is less frustrating!

Sewing Drought

 Our visit with DS the Elder and family was great! Easter went well and we all had a good time. During the time they were here we made it out to the Sonoran Desert Museum, and to DD#1's homestead where we held the baby goats and pet all the animals. We had quality time with family and nothing beats that!

They left last Friday,  so you'd think I'd dive right back into the quilting studio, and I have sewn some, but not as much as you'd think. The thing is, we've needed our ductwork replaced for a while now, but kept putting it off. Now that DH is seriously talking retirement, now is the time to tackle those jobs we've put off. Timing ductwork replacement is tricky because you can't use heating or cooling while it's being done. I'd much rather be cold than hot, so I really wanted it done in March, but March was really busy, and we didn't get estimates until late March. 

The first estimate was crazy high, and the company was unfamiliar with our style of house. We own a tri-level house, which is much more common in the Midwest than the desert Southwest. I had done some internet research on how much duct replacement should cost, so I knew they were way outside of normal pricing. The next estimate we got was very reasonable, and when the repairman walked in, we found out he was from the Midwest and had owned a house just like ours! Just the familiarity he had with this style of house made us feel much better about going with this company. 

So, days before DS the Elder arrived, we scheduled the duct replacement for the week after he left, which is this week. We knew it would take multiple days, and on at least some of those days I wouldn't be able to get to my sewing room at all. I had all of last weekend to sew, but I didn't want to get into anything that mattered, because being interrupted on a major project can be really frustrating for me. Rather than work on a deadline project, or be in the middle of FMQ a quilt, I opted to just work on a random project or two. 

A couple posts ago, I showed you a block that used partial seams. That project has been cut out for a year (or maybe two).

Here are a few of the finished blocks, but I've actually finished all the blocks!  Right now my colorway of Indigo Way is up on the design wall. so I laid out a few blocks on my bed to see how they'd look. This is one of the rare occasions that I only cut out as many blocks as I needed for ONE quilt, and I cut out the borders at the same time, so once the center is assembled I'll be adding borders immediately.

I also worked on some other blocks that, again, have been cut out for a long time.

This project is quite typical of me. I was cutting up 3.5" scrap strips, and I cut as many blocks as I could from the colorful scraps. No counting, no sorting, no plan. I took a length of white fabric and cut as many 3.5" squares from it as I could. I knew that wouldn't be enough, and some of my colored scraps were quite light in color. I had a piece of darker gray fabric lying around, so I cut as many squares from it as I could. Again, no counting, no sorting, just cutting what I could from the lengths of fabric I had. I knew that wouldn't be enough squares for the blocks either, but no worries, I can cut more fabric later. I started with the blocks with white squares, and sewed up blocks until I ran out. Now I'll be working on the blocks with gray squares, which I'll be matching up mostly lighter scraps. When I run out of gray squares, then I'll count and see where I'm at. I'm planning on using these for donation quilts, and 9" blocks add up pretty quickly. I'm sure I'll end up with multiple quilts, but how many I don't know. I might mix up the background colors, and go for a positive/negative thing, or keep the same colored backgrounds together. Will I end up going for a third background color when I run out of squares? All of that is yet to be determined. I have another gray fabric that is close to what I am using, and of course I have more white, but not the same white. Until I finish the blocks I can make with what I already have cut, I won't be making any decisions on that. 

My pile of bonus HST's is piling up as I finish these blocks too. I didn't draw lines on these squares to get my bonus HST's the exact size I want them, so I'll be trimming these before I press them open. That's an easy job to do in my living room while I can't get to the sewing room. I get four bonus HST's from each bigger block, so I should have enough for a bonus quilt when I'm done. Doing sew and flip corners is never wasteful for me, because I always use the "waste" in another quilt, or sometimes for borders in the same quilt. 

Wondering how the replacement is going?

That was some rusty ductwork! This house had been cooled with an evaporative cooling system for years, also called a swamp cooler. Systems like that force air through wet filters and use the evaporative process to create cooler air. They work well during the dry months, but just make things humid and miserable during monsoon season.  They also rust out your ductwork. We took the evaporative cooler off the house years ago, and only use an air conditioner for cooling. Replacing the ductwork with definitely help it be more energy efficient like it should be, and since we no longer use evaporative cooling at all, we shouldn't have rusty ductwork again. I am very happy we are getting this work done before summer hits again, but we cut it close. The forecast says it will be 90F today. 

This afternoon the drywall guy will be coming by to start repairing the holes they needed to cut in the walls and ceilings to replace the ductwork. I'll be glad to have this project behind us. Now to decide which house project to tackle next!