What I did at Sit n Sew.............

So I'm having a great day yesterday. I'm working on a weird quilt on the long arm which I'll share with you when it's done. It requires some serious babysitting and I happened to be standing right there when the long arm STOPPED. The computer didn't, but the long arm did. And of course, it always stops with the needle DOWN. The quilt wasn't damaged but it's still on the frame and I was going to deliver it this morning. I'm a wee bit ticked.

I walked away, not having the patience to deal with it. OK - that's not true - I did tinker with the wires in the back since the covers hadn't been screwed back on since the last episode. Nothing. The machine is totally dead. I have to laugh because I had just put all the tools back in the toolbox the morning before. Of course!!!

Later in the day, I got to thinking about the machine. Hm - what about those fuses???  I pulled out the fuse - BLACK. So I'm hoping it's the fuse. I have two others, but I have a feeling those are dead (from the last time) and did anyone think to buy NEW fuses when everything was working? The local hardware store doesn't have that kind of fuse so I'm off to the electrical supply store this morning. Let's just say that I'm buying LOTS of fuses. I wonder why the fuses are going now when I never had an issue before????

Let's just hope that it's only the fuse. I need to get quilts done!

Despite the fact that I was a wee bit cramped for space at the Sit n Sew, I did manage to get a lot done. I have a spare table beside my sewing machine and it's piled HIGH with projects. I need to get those off that table so that I would have room on a Sit n Sew day. I think there are two or three projects on the table that are on the UFO list and none of them would require a whole lot of work. Perhaps at tomorrow's Sit n Sew, I should get them done and out of the way.  That would be the logical thing to do. We're only six tomorrow so I might just do that. It would be good to clear that space.

Anyway - here's what happened. I have these two small wall hangings that I made for my Mom years ago. The date on the back of these pieces is 2001. I'm talking years. So she did hang the winter one up where it got full sun for part of the day and never took the darn thing down. That went on for a couple of years and then it got taken down and never seen the light of day again. Now she wants the summer and fall ones made so they can hang the wall hangings on the door of their apartment. I'm OK with that. I won't go into details but there appears to be an URGENCY for her to get these despite the fact that they languished in a box buried in stuff for years. But I digress.

I promised to make the fall and summer one and fix the sleeve on the existing two so they would all be the same and would be easy to hang.

For the winter one (which had a single sleeve the length of the piece), I unpicked the binding stitches across the top and halfway down both sides. Yep - you could see where the blue border/binding fabric had faded a lot from the binding inside. No worries, not going to change it even though I think I still have some of that fabric. The fabric is all through the piece.

Winter wall hanging

And here's the new hanging system on the back. I made two triangles by folding a 4" square. Sewed them to the top two corners of the quilt and then restitched up the binding (by hand) on the back.

A small dowel slips in those two triangles and yet the dowel won't easily come out. Does that make sense??  I even bought the little 3M hanger thing that they can use on their door.

The back of the winter wall hanging

These little wall hangings are about 14" square.


Then it was onto the spring wall hanging. I did the same thing, but when I really looked at it, I decided that the binding was way too big for the piece evident by the pointy corners!

Spring wall hanging

I didn't take a picture of the piece before I started, but needless to say, I ripped the entire binding off the wall hanging. Of course, I had a helper!

The binding is completely off the wall hanging

Then I made the hanging triangles on the back so the pieces are the same.

The back of the sping wall hanging

This is how much binding I removed from the original binding. It's not huge, but enough to make wonky corners. It probably didn't help that I literally RIPPED that binding off. I didn't use a seam ripper. But it looks much better now.

The piece of binding that was removed

 Here's the pattern for the winter and spring.

Patter for Winter and Spring

All I have to do is get those two in the mail so they arrive before December 21 (the official start of winter - I think) and then I'm off the hook until June 21 when summer starts. I spoke to my Mom yesterday and she says - "oh - you should get them done now so they're off your back!"  It's more like getting her off my back!  I've started the fall one so I'd better keep plugging away at it and get it done. It's in my Monday sewing bag.


I'm counting those two as ONE finished project for the year. Hey - it's my list and I can set my own rules as to what I put on it. This was something that had to be done and now it's done. I did resew the binding onto the spring wall hanging by hand so it would be the same as the other one. Besides, I was listening to my audiobook so I didn't mind. I did the hand stitching in the evening after the others had left.

Since I was on a roll, I had this small piece that also needed some hand stitching on the binding. It's now done. I have a similar small piece that I had attached the binding by machine. These two are going in my sample box for my binding demo/class.

Binding hand stitched in place

And it felt really good to get those little projects done. It's stuff like that that's almost finished and would require a minimal amount of time that clutter up the place. I need to keep on a roll with that. Never mind that chair that's still heaped with quilts to be bound. As soon as I get one bound, I quilt another! I'm not getting ahead!

Then I had another little "repair" job to do. I had made this little basket but was never happy with it. It was too high for the width and I just didn't like it. So I took the entire basket apart.

The disassembled pieces for a basket

I was going to add pieces to it to make it one square longer, but I decided that it would be better to make the basket shallower so I removed the top row of fabric squares. That was very easy to do. Now I just have to cut down the lining and resew it together. Originally, it had handles, but those handles are too big for this basket so I might make another one to use up the handles. Now, how silly is that????  But the best news is that the basket is apart and it won't take long to reassemble it and I can put it beside my sewing machine to hold junk. Not junk, but there are a few things I like to leave by the sewing machine and they can go in this basket. Getting that thing apart was another great task to accomplish.

I think that's all I did on the Sit n Sew day. It doesn't appear like much, it was all fiddly things that I tended to ignore. Since it didn't require any space to rip, I was good!!!


As promised, here is the black/white block for my ender/leader project.

Black/white block for ender/leader project

I think I calculated that I need 120 blocks. 60 of them will have white on the inside and 60 will have black on the inside. I believe there are 27 blocks in total that I'm working on. And now I need to find more red for the centers. And I have to cut a LOT more of the black on white and white on black. No worries, I've got tons of fabric. And I still have to look for strips. I'm sure I used them up, but I'm going to have a quick peek to see if I can find anything.

Here's the orphan block that I found as well. I'm going to rip this apart and cut up the scraps and use them in this quilt. Might as well.  I know it sounds crazy, but I absolutely find this "repair" process very satisfying. Seriously????  Yep - it's just great knowing that I found a purpose for stuff. That's the pioneer blood in me.

Orphan block to be incorporated into the ender/leader project

Thanks to Helen Anne who lent me some of the books that I was missing on my list.

A couple of books that I was looking for

I do NOT need to borrow another book from the library. I do not need to search out another book - I have a HUGE stack to read. At the end of the year, I like to take a picture of that bookcase to show that I'm reducing the number of novels that I own. Unless I read very fast, that isn't going to happen this year. That shelf is a wee bit full at the moment.

Helen Anne also guessed that my issue with the audiobook the other day was that it hadn't downloaded properly. You know - you're downloading, you think you got it all, but maybe a text came in or something and interrupted the download process. I think that makes sense.

On that note, I see that it's raining outside. I'm NOT going to the park in the rain. I guess we might have to go for a walk in the rain. ICK!! At least it's not too cold out.

I'm all packed for a busy day of classes. The studio is all tidied up and ready for the group tomorrow. I've got my machines out and ready for some machine embroidery and binding and finishing up tomorrow. While each person in the group gets ONE table, I'm taking four tomorrow. But I have some embroidery to do and that can stitch out while I sew on the other machine. And hopefully, those fuses will make my long arm work. I've got to get to that store at 8 AM.

I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!