In My Quilting & Sewing Studio: March 2022

Monday, March 21, 2022

Today my fabrics arrived for my next project. A Baby Girl Quilt in Pinks

This morning I was quilting the top for my UFO #5 and did not notice that a package arrived at my front door. It was fabric I had ordered for a Baby Quilt for a Baby Girl for a client. Oh my! all the pretty soft pinks and lavenders. Now the fun begins. I chose a lovely center panel and some soft pinks and lavenders to complement it. Now on to the planning of this lovely quilt.

my fabric selections for this quilt

Saturday, March 19, 2022

Working on an Un-Finished Object #5 today!

My Quilting and Sewing Arts Studio

My Fabric Closet

Here I am in my quilting and sewing arts studio today working on my UFO #5 today. It's a child's quilt for our Bright Star Quilts for kid's project for my quilt guild. I had started this quilt top a few years ago when I lived in Tennessee, it was packed away with other unfinished quilts when I moved here to Virginia 2 1/2 yrs. ago. I just opened the box 2 weeks ago and boy what a delight to find. I looked in my Fabric Closet and found material that matched some of the blocks, so I pieced them together for the backing and used batting given to me by the guild. Oh my, I am so glad to be finishing this quilt and to have it go to kids in need is perfect.

Perfect, because it was started for my quilting group in Tennessee called Bags of Love. We made quilts for children separated from their parents, so they had something of their own during a stressful time for them.

pinning the quilt

The Backing

Here I'm sewing a decorative
stitch over the seam line of the backing to give it strength. I then pinned a "quilt sandwich" together consisting of the sewn quilt top, batting and the backing. this is getting it ready to be quilted on my Sit down longarm. Then I outlined each block with stitching before the final Quilting. I use my ruler to help do the straight stitching around my blocks.

Quilting Wavy lines to finish the Quilt.

Using a ruler while quilting the straight seams is helpful to get better lines. I'm finishing the quilting with free motion quilting of wavy lines to give it dimension. After completing this part of the quilt, I will square it and then apply the binding and a label.

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

2022 My Year of being "Purposeful" my "Quilting and Sewing Studio" is taking shape.

I am beginning this Year of 2022 being purposeful about my Quilting and Sewing Arts Studio and my Projects Old and New that I will start and finish this year. In January I continued to open more moving boxes that remained unopen from my move here to the lovely foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Nellysford Virginia in Oct 2019. In December I found a lot of UFO baby quilts, pinned and ready to be quilted in one unopened box. In January I found a lot of my sewing notions and fabric, fabric, fabric. I folded and wrapped my fabric on magazine cardboards and now I have a lot of fabric on a shelf in my FABRIC CLOSET. I found great backing fabrics 108" wide and from 3 - 5 yds, plus I discovered, "Batting", lots of it. It took up the whole bottom section of my Fabric closet. I still have 2 more shelves to organize. I also restocked my fat quarters' area with all the fabric I found in the boxes I opened.

My Quantum Embroidery Machine

My Fat Quater Stash

In February I purchased a metal shelving unit to house my Cricut machine and cutting stuff and wound up with 2 shelving units because I had some damaged plastic drawers and Michaels store replaced them by sending me a whole other damaged unit to replace them. The damage was to the metal frame, not the drawers. I managed to put it together ok and now I have 2 units. the second one I used for an ironing table with supplies for my sewing notions. I still have a way to go before I'm all organized but I'm well on my way.

my Cricut station

My Ironing station

UFO #3 Completed and Sent!

Well, last week I completed my UFO # 3, A Baby Quilt for a Baby Boy!

This Baby Quilt was a recent ufo from December, one of 2 I had made for one of my grandsons, but didn't complete it because I had found a ufo in dec that was a larger child's quilt and more suited for a 1-year-old. I did do a similar quilt for my newest grandson who was just born in late November using similar fabrics and the same farm panel. I enjoyed picking out the thread colors and quilted a lot of texture into this one. I used a soft flannel for the backing. last week it arrived at my client's home and she loved it.

Today I have finished at least 4 UFO's in my Quilting and Sewing Studio.

Today I have finished at least 4 UFOs in my Quilting and Sewing Studio.

My word for 2022 is "Purposeful" and I believe I have been living up to the word. Today I finished my 4th UFO since the beginning of the year. I started in Dec of 2022 with the Baby Quilt I found and finished for my grandson Walter. a Cat in The Hat quilt I had pieced back in 2016 when I found a "Cat in the Hat" panel at the quaint quilt shop in Shakopee MN. It was one of 4 baby quilts I found in a box, one of my unopened moving boxes from 2019. January of 2022 I started opening more of the remaining boxes and found so many unfinished projects. That set the stage for my Word of the Year. I wanted to be purposeful in finishing more of these projects.

my 2012 UFO completed March 13th 2022

Yesterday I went to my CAQG Crozet Guild meeting and was able to bring a table topper I had just finished the day before. My #4 UFO that I completed this year. I had found it in one of the boxes in a baggie. It was a stack of 4" blocks and pieced 2 1/2 inch blocks from a Moda Jelly Roll along with a printed sheet with a pattern designed by Christa Watson of Christaquilts.com dated 2012. Oh my! I followed the pattern adding some fabric I found from my stash of Downton Abbey fabric and completed the table topper. I quilted it on my Bernina Q20 and added the binding and pretty machine stitching with my Singer Quantum. I love the Moda Fabrics I used from thier 2011 - 2012 line.