Straws

I reached the last one with the leather nonsense that was supposed to be FuzzyHusband's part of the project. It just wasn't turning out the way it needed to look. This is what's left of one section after I cannibalized it for parts. Patent leather doesn't like to be made into piping. And it certainly doesn't like to be stretched around tight curves. And no fabric that I could find looked good as a piping option.

It's on himself now and we figured out what direction he needed to take.

I've reclaimed the dining room table to do pattern layout and will be getting back to the fabric portion of things in the morning. I hope to have things done by mid week. Tonight is for Netflix, junk food, and kitty snuggles.

Sewing Leather

I've been stuck learning to sew with leather on the fly for several weeks. When FuzzyHusband and I agreed to take this project on, the original plan was for the items to be made in vegetable tanned leather. However our client had other ideas and thus it became my problem. I really do need to teach Himself how to sew so next time I'm not doing the lion's share of the work.

Said commission consists of many leather straps, some hardware, and three larger chunks of leather. It's rather mature in nature, so I shan't be showing the final product here. Let's just say it's for a burlesque show in an extremely specialized venue and leave it at that.

What I can show are pictures of the unassembled straps that are waiting for me to finish the larger chunks.

The lighter leather is chromium tanned. Quite lovely and soft. Someday I'll make myself a gorgeous purse out of scraps in different colors. The darker gray is patent leather. Patent leather has become a pain in my backside and Himself owes me big time for having to pull off the miracles I'm making with it.

I shall be spending the rest of my Sunday trying to finish those chunks so I can wash my hands of the mess and get back to finishing the fabric portions of the project. I don't mind learning by trial and error, but when I'm working with expensive material that someone else has paid for and have a timeline, I'm less fine with it. Once I'm done with the fabric portion, FH and I will start his sewing lessons.

I shall leave you with adorable distractions. They're so much fun to watch together. Victor adores Ellie. Ellie is intrigued by Victor, but beyond that she's still figuring things out.

Hewwos!

Mama's doin' fings an' Daddy's doin' fings so I's in chawge today!

I'm helper! So good at helpin'! I hold down the shiny soft for Mama!

Mama sez she sees you next time!

Snow Daze

Report from the doc's office says I need an ultrasound to rule out an abdominal tear that would get bigger by doing things like: laundry, walking a 100 pound dog, and carrying bins of holiday decorations up and down the stairs. So until this coming Thursday I have lifting restrictions on top of the "ice/heat/take it easy" orders. Ordinarily that would be frustrating as heck, but a random act of viral infection, complete with a fever of over 100F made it easier to not care. Kitten cuddles made it bearable.

Before the fever set in I got started in heavily planning a costume for one of our dancers. It's rather... hmmm.... we shall say "geared for a specific audience" and "very adult themed." My portion of the costume work will be styled around the riding gowns worn during the Victorian period. FuzzyHusband, our resident leather worker, will be constructing the portion of the costume that gets revealed once the Victorian gown bits are stripped away. It's a tag team effort to say the least.

Speaking of costume pieces being flung around, I was supposed to be in a car driving home from a burlesque festival in Kentucky this weekend. But between the fever that wouldn't die and this yesterday:

... the trip was cancelled. The other ladies were still panning to go until this storm actually hit with the forces predicted. If you look closely in that photo you'll see two white tailed deer slowly making their way up the ravine.

This storm wasn't a total bummer though. Himself and two of his bestest friends took advantage of the chance to practice with their snowshoes and sleds before their trip north next weekend.

There used to be a large golf course about 3 miles from our home. It's been turned into a park and the pro shop building is now a restaurant, bar, and bakery. So they spent yesterday playing in the snow and then got to warm up with grown up treats. FH did bring me some cookies when he finally got home. Obviously I didn't go with.

The snow stopped falling sometime in the middle of the night. There's about a foot to remove from the driveway. Someone's going to regret forgetting to have the snow thrower serviced this summer.... but it won't be me!

My fever has officially broken now, but I've still got the lifting restrictions to work around. We're tag-teaming the laundry and some other chores today. I'd like to get the house tidied up before he's gone for a week. Especially if the ultrasound shows a muscle tear.

I'm off to oversee the sorting of laundry and whatnot. See you next weekend!

I Didn't Forget!

It's just been a busy week. There've been some pretty flowers to brighten an early Saturday.

Lots of glitter and glitz.

And a bit of quilting too.

I need to go try and catch up on some laundry now that most of the glitter is off me, and then get back to quilting. See you next weekend!

Birds, Bejeweled, A Bunny, and Various Beans

I finally finished up the binding on the birds Friday evening. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

The quilting on the Bejeweled topper is almost finished. As of this morning, only 4 more diamond blocks need quilted. However I was apparently really lazy and neglected to get photos. Let's blame sleep deprivation due to sinus cavity rebellion.

Ellie Bean does make it difficult to work when she wants to. Apparently quilting WIPs are the BEST place to have a bath.

No, not Victor. He hates the camera with a grumpy passion. This bunny, that I dug out and started piecing last November during Festival season and forgot to blog about or finish it. I found the border blocks and the green-bordered panel under my sewing table and decided to piece it before I lost important bits. The camera angle is kinda funky, but the top is roughly 37 inches square. 

And what would a summer holiday be without baked beans? (No Ellie Beans were harmed in the baking of these beans, but she was irritated about me not sharing the bacon.)

That's all for this week. I've got laundry taunting me in the other room and quilts to finish. And an Ellie Bean to fight for my sewing chair. See you next weekend!

Teaser Revealed and Cuteness

Remember this teaser from last weekend?

Well here's what I've done so far with it.

Originally this was supposed to be a single Dresden plate on a wall hanging, but the teacher in our class gave us the bright idea to turn it into a more utilitarian quilt with four Dresdens. Whoops.

My difficulty was the fabric I'd picked for the sunburst rays for the original singleton. It's an older fabric and I snagged the last fat quarter in the shop when I kitted things up for the class. So I improvised and made each sunburst different. Two have blue backgrounds and the other two have green backgrounds.

As of this extremely lazy moment, all four are appliqued onto their background squares and I've cleaned up all the threads. However I don't have a picture because they're downstairs and it's actually after 1:00 in the morning here. I figured I'd type up the blog now so I can get right to sewing in the morning.

I'm trying to get several smaller projects finished to the point of hand binding, slip stitching, etc before Tuesday afternoon. I'm sending my sewing machine off for cleaning and the pickup is first thing Wednesday morning. I'm hoping I'll have plenty of hand finishing to keep me busy, but if I get desperate I can always piece something on my old machine. It still works just fine, it just lacks all the bells and whistles the new one has. And the rule of thumb with piecing is to start and finish a project on the same machine because they're all a bit different.

I'm actually finished with my friend's quilt, but want to wait until I've delivered it before I post pictures anywhere. So I'll be sharing that next weekend. Until then, have some cuteness to tide you over.

See you next weekend!

Dodging An Expensive Bullet, Completing A Class, A U.F.O., and Another Class

When I left off last week, I was playing with the homework from my quilting class. I was also finishing up reorganizing many of the unfinished projects and fabrics I'd purchased with projects in mind. I had a stack of gorgeous fat quarters that needed put away in my generic quilting stash, so I went to do that. That's when I remembered my stash bin was over full and that I could pull out some of the kitted projects from there and give them the same organizational treatment as the others.

It seemed like a fantastic idea and I started pulling out fabrics destined to be things. That's when I heard an odd noise. Like little rattling things hitting hard surfaces. I started digging. That when I found: seeds.

It seems a mouse decided my stash bin would be the best place to have a larder for winter. After uttering some phrases that would make a sailor stop, think, and turn crimson, I started digging some more... and sniffing as I went. The universe was apparently trying to create some balance for all the recent frustrations I've had because there were no rodent corpses, no feces, no urine, and no chewed up fabric. Just lots and lots of seeds.

FuzzyHusband helped me move the giant bin out of storage and I started sorting by color family. Thankfully I'd also just purchased a box of color catchers by Shout. Those things saved my stash because they caught all the loose dye as I washed every scrap of fabric to remove any mouse taint. Because... ick.

While I was at it, I finally got around to reorganizing the stash into manageable 16 QT bins that are clear and labeled them. Small price to pay to save a few hundred dollars (or more) worth of fabric. Seventeen bins in all and that doesn't count: where the batiks are stored, some fabric I set aside for a mystery quilt, and another 3 fabrics that I have multiple yards of to make some luggage accessories. The last one is tied up in a clean pillow case because I ran out of bins. Once I finish some more small quilted things, I'll free up a bin. No sense in buying more.

Once all the laundry was done and the holiday was over, I was able to go get more fabric to bind my little basket mini quilt. It's finished now and I"m quite pleased with it!

In all of the cleaning I did in the previous week, many old projects rolled back out into the light of day. Remember this one? I just needed to make a label and finish a single corner of the binding... 3 years ago. Its finished now too!

That brings me to today. I took another quilting class and have quite a bit of work ahead of me. I"m only going to tease you with the "before" photo because I want to get back to sewing.

Now I'm going to go finish the quilting on my friend's quilt and then start back on my quilting class homework. See you next weekend! Oh and Ellie says, "zzzzzzzzzz."

Busy Week

The past week was really busy with appointments, phone calls, and errands. Lots of hurrying up and waiting. And then there was a high school graduation and celebration out of town on Friday.

FuzzyHusband has been encouraging me to get out more and meet new friends in the area. With that in mind, I let myself get talked into a quilting class yesterday. I'd been meaning to try paper piecing for the longest time anyway and the concept was interesting.

Getting some practice with my new machine's free motion foot was nice too. It's not the best quilting job, but I can't get better without practice. I haven't bound it because I didn't figure out until I was already home (and the shop was closed) that the fabrics for the dark border and binding were mislabeled in the kit. So I need a new strip of fabric for my binding. Whoops. That's what I get for being excited to play and not checking the widths against the directions.

After assembling and quilting comes embellishing. I just tossed the flowers, leaves, and bag of beads on the quilt for this photo. It was late and I wanted to get some sleep. I'll be arranging and attaching the pretty bits later today.

All in all it was a fun little class and a great way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday. I'll likely be doing more of these. Every month there's a different mini quilt pattern and they all feature different piecing and embellishment technique, so each one is a skill builder. Plus the other ladies were lots of fun.

And if I'm being totally honest, I needed a mental and emotional break from my friend's quilt. It's been harder to do for me than I realized and I was really fighting with the quilting last weekend. So I promised myself that I'd only work on fun little things for this holiday weekend to give myself a break. Plus I could totally have seen my friend taking this class too. Like me, her favorite color was purple and she loved flowers. And I could hear her in my head telling me to have a bit of a rest. So I listened.

Speaking of resting, two of my ladies were competing for table space and attention the other day. I couldn't resist getting some photos. This one is my favorite.

Stay safe over the holiday and I'll see you next weekend!

Happy Mother's Day from Ellie Bean

She's such a helper.

Back to Sewing

I started the sad business of taking apart my friend's quilt top this week. As I worked, I could see her husband and I made the correct choice. Many of the seams were close to falling apart already. 

As you can see below, I've made a labeled reference photo and labeled each block individually. The blocks will be put back in the arrangement she chose.

This is where I am now. The replacement fabric needs preshrinking and to do that I must get the current loads of laundry out of the way.

While waiting on laundry, I started this fellow. I found the pattern for him and the fabrics at a new quilt shop in the area while on the hunt for the replacement sashing fabric. I'd originally planned on using a fabric from her stash, but when I did a burn test on the scrap, it melted. It's polyester.

The name of the pattern company is in the "before" photo. I have to say he was lots of fun to make. I may find excuses to made one or two more. I may also find excuses to purchase another pattern or two... or three. I was particularly enamored with the octopus and wombat patterns, but they were out of stock. Happily, there's a website!

The creatures left me alone the entire time I was working. But Ellie appeared in time to "help" me with the photos.

She was quite pleased with herself.

That's all for this week. I'm hoping to get caught back up with laundry and get the quilt reassembled this week. Bonus will be one or both borders.