Reclaiming Bobbins

I hear lots of people who say they only have three bobbins for a machine, or maybe five. My hats off to you, because I can't function like that. My vintage machines I use almost exclusively for piecing, and for piecing, I usually use one of one of five colors; white, cream, tan, light gray, dark gray. I always like to have at least one extra bobbin wound of each color, so if I have ten bobbins for each vintage machine, it is sufficient for the way I work. I prefer more than ten bobbins, but I can make it work.

Where things get interesting, is when I am talking about the machine I use for garments or quilting, then I need lots of colors, thus, lots of bobbins. It gets even more absurd when you start talking different thread fibers.

I used to have a Juki 98 I used for quilting, and I had 100 bobbins for it. It may sound like a lot, but I make a lot of queen/king quilts, and I start by winding at least ten bobbins when I'm quilting something that large. I sold the Juki, so now I both quilt and make garments on my Bernina 440. I only have about 50 Bernina bobbins, and those are divided between cotton and poly threads. I'm a big fan of bobbin savers, and I use the different colored ones to my advantage. I always put cotton threads in the purple bobbin savers, poly in the red. I use the blue ones for my vintage bobbins. I was getting to the point where I was thinking about buying more Bernina bobbins, but they are pricy, and I've been Christmas shopping, so it is lousy timing. I would really love more Bernina bobbins, maybe I'll put those on my Christmas list, but for now, I needed to reclaim some of the ones I had.

One of my Christmas projects is making placemats for the grandkids. Nothing fancy, just novelty fabrics cut 12x18 inches, with one layer of batting between. I made the twins some a few months ago, and them eating on placemats really helps contain the mess. I decided to use only bobbins when sewing these placemats, bobbins top and bottom, matching colors best I could, buy mixing poly and cotton threads, just to empty some bobbins.

I made 18 placemats in two LONG days. There are only 17 in this pic, because Miss S claimed the one made with Frozen fabrics. I quilted these with bobbins, put the binding on with bobbins, and guess what? I've got some empty bobbins now! Twenty empty bobbins to be exact.

 

My next Christmas project is pillowcases, and since I'm using the Magic Pillowcase Tutorial, the seams are all enclosed, and therefore I can empty more bobbins on those!

I finished my first pillowcase today. Here it is.

This one is for my son-in-law in South Africa. They know they are getting pillowcases, so it doesn't matter much if I post it. I was pretty happy with how it came out, and I'm looking forward to making more. 

I'm pretty much out of sewing time for a couple weeks. We are hosting a bridal shower this weekend at our house, and there is lots of cleaning, decorating, and cooking to do for that. Next week DH and I are running away for a few days, something I am completely looking forward to! I can get back to sewing when we get back, but I am really going to enjoy kicking back in the hotel hot tub and relaxing after the last crazy month. 

DD#1 took an awesome pic of her two oldest, playing in the superhero capes I made them. I'll leave you with that pic.

Shopping

I realized that a lot of what I'm working on these days, can't be shown for a while. The wedding quilt is over 3/4 quilted, and I plan on finishing it this week. If that happens, I will be gifting it at the bridal shower on the 24th, so I can show it after it's been given.

After I finish the wedding quilt, I have some things that need to be altered, and then it's onto making Christmas gifts, which of course can't be shown. Well, actually, I guess I can show the things going to South Africa, because I ran all those by DD#1. I don't want to mail things she doesn't want. International postage is expensive.

I always try to be an early Christmas shopper. I know that annoys some people, but there are 23 people on my Christmas list, and waiting until the last minute just isn't going to cut it. I wanted to spend less on Christmas this year, so I came up with one gift per person to purchase, then I will be making a few things. I am almost done with my shopping list, which really thrills me. I still have DH to buy for, and DS the Elder, but DH is in charge of him. Deciding what I wanted to get everyone first helped a lot, and with presents for five people being sent international, I have to mail in the next couple weeks if they have any chance of getting their Christmas presents on time, so for those five people, I'm not actually shopping early.

I did buy a few things for myself on my shopping spree. I ordered a new outfit for the upcoming wedding, and a couple other clothing items. I also picked up some fun stuff today. My year of no-buy is actually over, since I started mid-year last year. I'm still limiting my fabric purchases, but I decided if I find some fabric at a thrift store that's a great deal and I like it, I'm going to get it. So, today at Savers, here was my haul.

From left to right, there are about 2 yards of green, 2 yards of cream, 1 yard of striped fabric, 1 yard each of two flannels, 2 yards of checked fabric, and 1 yard of blue sunflower fabric. Ten yards of 100% cotton fabric, but that's not all!

I went to the section where they have bags of scraps, and I found one bag of Moda fat quarters. Sixteen fat quarters for $2.99. Altogether I got 14 yards of fabric for $17. Yeah, I am definitely not feeling any guilt about these purchases!

Thrift stores and antique stores are the only shopping I really enjoy doing. I am really excited, because at the end of this month, after the shower, DH and I are going away for a few days to Flagstaff, AZ. One of the reasons I like going to Flagstaff is because they have some great thrift stores and antique stores. I feel no compulsion to buy in any store I enter, but if I can find a few great deals, like 14 yards of fabric for $17, I'm all over that. Last time we went to Flagstaff I bought a vintage sewing machine for $10. I'm anxious to go treasure hunting, spend some quality time with DH, and shed some of the stress that's been piling up with so much going on.

DH and I have taken several trips where I take a sewing machine, and he takes his scooter. He decided it's already cooler in Flagstaff than he'd like to ride in, so I'm not bringing a sewing machine either. He's bringing his Zentangle stuff, and I'm bringing my kindle so I can read, and some squares to draw lines on for flip and sew corners. Our hotel has an indoor pool and hot tub, and we'll do some shopping, but mostly low key relaxing. I have 8 days to wait until we leave, but I'm sure looking forward to it!

Third Weekend of Madness

The scooter event on Sunday was a success. We had around 35 people for dinner. When there are people in front of the house looking at the scooters, in the house getting food, and in the backyard eating, it's really hard to get an accurate count. I think there were 23 scooters, but some people just came for dinner.

I cleaned up as best I could after people were eating, and when the last person left, DH and I decided to head up to Phoenix to spend the night. DS the Younger was inducting into the Army early Monday morning, and we'd have had to leave around 5 am and drive through Phoenix rush hour traffic to make it in time if we waited until Monday morning. We got a downtown hotel instead, only a mile from MEPS, so it was pretty easy.

My dad was in the Army, DH's dad was Air Force, DH was Army, my brother was Navy, and numerous uncles were in one branch or another, so we have a lot of military history in the family. DS the Younger's wife was there too, and I know how hard being a military wife is, so we'll be praying hard for both of them. (DH was in the Army for ten years, eight of which we were married.) DS the Younger has already arrived at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he'll be for basic training and AIT.

When we got home, I got to see that DD#3 had put the kitchen to rights, which was awesome! Today I'll be putting leftovers in the freezer, and catching up on laundry. It's a good time to catch my breath after all the activities of the past three weeks.

The next two weekends are easy, then I am hosting a bridal shower the third weekend. Hey, but after that, it's easy until Thanksgiving! Well, I'll be attending a wedding before Thanksgiving, and helping with that, but not hosting, so I'm counting that as easy too.

I might get back to sewing tomorrow, maybe not until Thursday. The wedding quilt is up next in the queue. I'd like to have it done before the shower, and use it for the shower gift, but if it's not done until the wedding, all is not lost. Barring something unforeseen happening, I should be able to get it done before the shower.

Afraid of Using Novelty Prints? Don't Be!

I've read a lot about quilters being afraid to use novelty prints in a quilt. A themed quilt with novelty prints? No problem. A kid's quilt with novelty prints? No problem. But what to do with all those novelty scraps? That's where I think a lot of people get bogged down, including myself at times.

Early this year, I spent almost 2 months cutting up my scraps. I've had a scrap user system going for a while, but what was languishing was my bags upon bags of scraps leftover from a scrub top business. I had some scraps from other quilts thrown in there as well, but the scraps were overwhelmingly novelties.

In January, I offered a Pay it Forward deal on facebook. I would make something for five people, if they then offered to do something for five more people. I decided to try to use my newly cut scraps for some of those things.

I had divided all my scraps by color. Novelties are harder to divide by color than most fabrics, because most novelties have so many colors in them. I was mostly going by background color, unless the main color was the pattern. some were just impossible to divide by color, so those went in a multiple colors stack. After a bunch of sorting, my multiple colors stack just wasn't that big. Most fabrics can be divided by predominant color.

I decided one of my Pay It Forward projects would be Christmas themed. Does that mean I only used Christmas fabrics? Far from it, but I did stick with reds and greens. I cut all the reds and greens from my newly cut scraps, but I did pull one background fabric from stash. I made yet another piano key border to make a bigger dent in the scraps. So, how did it come out? You tell me!

I used Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Blossom pattern, and I made 48 blocks set with sashing. With any distance, the blossoms are absolutely red and green, but what about close-up? Can you see those novelties coming out to play?

Let's check out this red blossom. I spy a baby carriage, Uhura from Star Trek, Kansas City Chiefs fabric, Santa Claus, a dragon, footballs, and soccer balls.

What about this green blossom? I see dogs, Green Bay Packers, a tractor, knights, and some actual Christmas fabric!

The Pineapple Blossom pattern uses flip and sew corners, which I LOVE! Why do I love them? Because flip and sew corners mean if I double sew, I get bonus HST's to play with. In this case, I used all the bonus HST's for another of my Pay It Forward projects.

Here is one of a set of four placemats I made for my last Pay It Forward project. Each of these placemats used 48 bonus HST's, which was perfect, since each Pineapple Blossom block yielded 4 bonus HST's,  and I had 48 blocks, so it worked exactly right, and I used every bit of fabric. One person gets the quilt, another gets the placemats, and yet I feel like I only did one project!

So now my Pay It Forward Projects are finished, I just have to give these last two away. I should be able to give the quilt away tomorrow, and I hope to get the placemats in the mail this week, I'm waiting on an address.

Tomorrow is the big scooter event, Monday we'll be going to Phoenix to see DS the Younger inducted into the Army, and then sometime this week, I'll have to start quilting the wedding quilt. 

Second Weekend of Madness

Wow! What a busy couple of weeks, with little signs of slowing.

We got the twins rooms finished, shelves in the closet, stars up on the ceiling.

I quilted like a mad woman, and got the pineapple quilt finished.

This quilt is for DD#2 and her DH, and since they were coming down this weekend, I wanted to have it on the guest bed finished for them as a surprise. It took some long quilting days, but it was done and they loved it. It was definitely one of those times I wished I wasn't cramming the quilt through a DSM. Someday, I'd really love a sit-down long arm.

Saturday was DS the Younger's going away party. It was abnormally hot, so we had some no-shows, but we still had 26 people show, which is respectable. He leaves for the Army next week, and I doubt I'll see him again before he leaves. He is spending as much time as possible with his wife, which is as it should be.

We had planned to do DD#2's birthday dinner on Sunday night, but that got changed to Monday night just to give me a break, since they had already decided to stay an extra day.

Tonight was the birthday dinner, and there were 11 for dinner, I think anyway. I'm pretty out of it right now, and I may have forgotten someone.

I kept thinking the scooter event was this next Saturday, but it's actually Sunday. There is still a lot to do for that, but it will all come together. DH is expecting around 40 I think.

I plan on starting to quilt on another quilt tomorrow. We'll see if that really happens or not. I'm doing a smaller one next, about twin sized, so I'm hoping to knock it out pretty quickly.