So that’s what I’ve been doing with a lot of my time during the second half of this vacation. Sewing!
I spent most of New Year’s Day down in the Dungeon (basement/sewing room), taking the second set of Bali Pop strips and turning them into squares for one great big quilt.
"Original" set of Bali Pop blocks on the left. Noro Scarf II in the middle, "New" set of Bali Pop blocks on the right.It’s not that I’m planning to stop knitting. Not at all! In between those two stacks of quilt blocks is the Noro Striped Scarf, The Sequel. I finished that yesterday and it’ll get it’s official FO shoot once it has been blocked and we have a decent day (so I can play with my new camera in the sun again!)
Last night, I cast on my second Postwar Mitten and am about to join the cuff, but today I went into Oakland to have lunch with the Hubster (well, and one of the assistant coaches at a local college won a softball bat at convention and it was about 9” too long to fit into his bag to bring home. It fit in my bag, so I brought it home. So I also met with Jim to give him his bat), then came home to watch the Cotton Bowl (go Rebs!) and sew.
First, I put binding on a quilt that’s been giving me the evil eye for almost three months now. Binding isn’t difficult, it’s just annoying. I got my strips cut, joined and pressed them, then did my binding trick to finish Step One.
In the past, I’ve always hand-sewn bindings down, but a few years ago, I bought a thing of Roxanne’s Glue Baste-It to use to glue down binding so I can machine sew it instead of hand sewing it. It worked just fine! A little fiddly, but I’ll do this again for baby quilts or dog quilts or something I know is going to get thrashed.
Then I moved on and did some machine quilting for the first time in at least a year and a half! One of our Thursday night Stitch & Bitch regulars at Bloomin had pieced and sandwiched a wall hanging but had decided not to quilt it. She brought it in to see if I had any ideas of where she could get it quilted and I figured it was easier for me to just do it. Less than three hours later, it’s done! It’s far from perfect, but I feel like I have my machine quilting wheels back underneath me. Maybe now I can get quilting on some of the too-large stack of sandwiches sitting on the futon in the Dungeon!
Bound quilt on top, behind the Glue Baste-It. Bent-tip scissors, quilting gloves and quilt-for-cash project also featured.So that’s what I’ve been up to the last few days! I’m working at Bloomin’ tomorrow, Sunday is free and clear, then it’s back to work (ugh) on Monday. I hope all of you have enjoyable weekends doing exactly what YOU want to do!
3 comments:
Quilting gloves?? Odd.
Can't wait to see the finished pops!
(You know, I thought odd -- then I thought, But she is Gadget Girl...).
I have a baby quilt in my head... and I am wondering if you can give me some pointers on getting a pattern for a SHEEP :) from a magazine to a lovely quilt... and...what was the name again of your handy internet radio streaming device? Have you tried it yet? How does it work for you? Inquiring minds want to know!!
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