Stitching in the Barn

  Finished stitching in July 2020. A Dimensions kit. Still needs finished, most likely as a wall quilt. Started when my husband was in the hospital for an extended stay. Finished 2 years later.

I want to participate in Sew Scrappy September just started by the Fat Quarter Shop but don't know if I can. Some of the scraps I have in my modest stash. There's still plenty. I want to do a pillow with Moda Blockheads #33 here . Lets see if I can with my full schedule.

 Made from the information from The Fabric Patch found on their You Tube channel here . I love this pattern it makes the perfect fitted mask. It is supposed to contain 30 sizes.        Applique added to the black one above for my son. Just a font from MSWord enlarged, fused then later stitched.

       Well 2020 has been an eventful year hasn't it? Or maybe since many of us are at home it isn't. My life has been complicated long before the virus. In my retirement from being a full time parent, I decided to go to school and get a degree in Electrical Engineering. I feel like it is a calling. I've loved going back to school and it's very rewarding. At first it wasn't so bad when I was taking community college classes to get up to speed and re-learn all the math I was going to need. Then I started university in the fall of 2019. Wow did the course load increase dramatically! Fortunately, even though I didn't think so at the time, I had burned out from the job I was doing and quit right before I started Uni. If that hadn't have happened I would have failed many classes. All my free time was spent studying and preparing my brain to think like an engineer. Sewing was a dream reserved for those who had time, which wasn't me. I actually managed to get m...

It was February 2016, wow!  I wrote several posts and left them in the draft folder at the end of 2017 but never published them. Life has totally crippled my quilting game for a long time but quilting makes me happy. I'm getting back into quilting and realizing how much joy it brings to my life that I am totally convinced I have to quilt more. I'm going to start with a picture of some fabrics I pulled from my stash for a toddler quilt. I'm going to use these in a quilt inspired by Waves by Missouri Star Quilt Company, info on this page https://quiltingtutorials.com/tutorial/make-a-waves-quilt-with-jenny It's going to have a black background and the multicolored batik as a border. Finished size will be about 50 inches square. If you want a bit of life story you can read it below. I mostly wrote it for self documentation. I've got one baby quilt finished at the end of last year and I'm working on another baby quilt with a QAYG method that I think...

Happy New Year!!!! It seems like every year I start off wanting to sew and blog more. I get new quilting stuff for Christmas that I'm excited about and work slows down for me in January. Then, I get sick/depressed/busy again, forget all about blogging and last year I actually didn't get a lot of sewing in. It was a crazy year. I have 6 drafts saved up from January of last year that I didn't get to post because I didn't have the pictures ready and never got around to them. I think this will be my year to change all that. At the end of 2015, I finally got to sew something other than mending! It finally got cold here in DFW after Christmas so my daughter and I had to make our dogs sweaters. We used Simplicity 3939. I bought it on sale for under $2 a few years back. It's for smaller dogs.

I shouldn't have started this project on a day I wasn't feeling the best but I thought it would help spur me on to get something done. I started with the X-men symbol block because it was the simplest. I thought I knew what colors went where without looking at my notes and sewed on the wrong color. There were only supposed to be the medium blue and yellow up to this point, not the dark blue. I jumped the gun on the last color. I reprinted my block out & started over because I just didn't want to rip out what I had done and it wasn't much anyway. Then I set it aside until I felt better.

I do more than just stitching in my barn. Last weekend I made soap. I never thought about making soap before last year. I never felt like I could live like "Little House on the Prairie", being raised a city girl, but I've got chickens, make my own bread (by machine) and make my own soap. The reasons I do these things is because of my health. Living with homemade products lets me see exactly what goes into it and I make sure there' are as few chemicals in it as I can afford. I use organic flour for my bread because the chemicals they use now on commercial bread are way beyond any that our bodies can handle long term. I've had great results so far cutting out a lot of everyday stuff for natural equivalents that work and cost less, even organic. Making my own soap is one of my favorite ways.

I'm forcing myself to make this blog post. It's been a tough week and I don't want to do this but blogging does make me happy so I hope this helps me get back on track. I've finished my quilt, mostly. It could use more quilting but this is as done as it's going to get for now. This was the hardest one to weave and I'm really proud of it. Sorry the picture is a bit blurry, I just couldn't seem to get them all to look sharp today. I stitched around all the red sections with a continuous line when I attached the applique'. Then, after pin basting the quilt together, I stitched through all three layers around the heart on the edge and then a second time using the edge of my presser foot as a guide. I also stitched inside the border.

Wow! I knew last year had been a doozy of one but I hadn't realized I hadn't updated at all! I've had medical problems, lost faith in doctors, and solved my own issues through eating better and natural health alternatives. I'm feeling better than I have in years and I'm allowing myself to get everything back on track. This includes some serious Spring cleaning and allowing myself time to sew. It's not that I haven't sewn at all since my last post but it's come close. The quilts I wanted to finish are still waiting, fortunately they're patient, and I've bought new fabrics to work with, but haven't used it. My MIL has a project me & my daughter sew with her and it was finished last year. I would have posted pictures but blogging hasn't been on my radar. I'll post that soon. I'm so grateful for her starting these projects with us. It allows both of us the time to do something we love together and normally inspires me to sew mor...

I've had a year filled with health challenges but I should be back in the game again. I did finish the last quilt I posted about but I don't know if I have any pictures of it. Since then, I haven't really done much because I haven't had the energy for it. That all changed at the end of May and I've been working on a fast and easy quilt. I hope to finish it today and post later after its been washed. It was just something to use up what I had and get back into the groove of quilting/sewing. Actually in February I made a new skirt for myself for V-day and now I plan to sew some clothes after this quilt. Also I may change to my other gmail account to post but its still me and only me. Thanks for still following me!

I had a fun and busy weekend. Saturday, me and the husband went to the Dallas Quilt Show . There were many amazing quilts. The artistry and craftsmanship was a big step up from the last one I went to . Unfortunately, I can't post photos but there are a couple at the link. I came away with a lot of inspiration and motivation. We also saw a quilt my husband would like me to make for the bed. It was a lovely french braid quilt with Poppy fabric and black and white prints. So I'm scrapping all my other ideas and I'm going to focus on that one. We were both completely quilted out by the end.  I did find and buy this Our Lady of Guadalupe fabric panel. It's folded in half, the other half is the same. Sorry for the blurry picture. I'm sure I'll post clearer ones some other time. I'm not sure if I want to make one quilt or 8 individual wall quilts for my friends and family. I had a pattern for a rose that would go great with it but I couldn't find it....

My new washing machine came in yesterday morning.  (picture from Google) It's pretty freaking amazing to watch but I had stuff to do for the first part of the day so I couldn't really get cozy with it until the afternoon. I did the trial load with exactly 6 lbs. of laundry like the manual suggested. It was just a rinse and spin so after it finished I loaded it with more towels and set it to go. It was amazing to watch it work. It is a modern marvel of robotic engineering. It weighed the load, checked the balance and redistributed it before it began. I accidentally set it to heavy soil and it beat the snot out of it! OK, not really, but it did agitate better than any washer I had seen before and I thought my old one did a really good job of agitating the laundry. It spun it fairly dry also. The downside was that it first estimated it would take 72 minutes but actually took more like 80 minutes. The long load times will take a bit to get used to. My husband thinks...

I went to my mailbox and found my prize waiting for me, to my surprise. I never got an email or anything but I'm not complaining. Connecting Threads sent me the Fauna collection of thread. This collection and several spools from it were on my wishlist. How can you pass up thread with names like Milk Chocolate and Latte. They are scrumptious in person and I'm thinking up coffee or cocoa ideas for a mini quilt to try them out. The light colored ones are needed for piecing. They're the perfect shade to blend in to many colors. I do have a small wallhanging that I wanted to put more quilting on that these colors would go perfectly with so that's probably going to be the first thing I do with these threads. I also need to go pick up a new tackle box to keep them in since the last one I bought was filled immediately from my last order of thread from Connecting Threads . I've also joined their site and Perfect Points Quilt a Long.   The first official Q...

I started sewing about 11 years ago before the birth of my son in 2000. I don't remember why except that I wanted to make him clothes. One of the first things I made was this mouse for my then 7 year old daughter. I don't even know where I got the pattern from. Very likely, it was from a book in the library. It's so funny now looking back at it. She still had it in her closet among all her other stuffed animals that I suggested we finally clear out. It looks more like a rat than a mouse and it always gives us a chuckle to see it. It's amazing to consider a few years later I made this dog for my son when he was in his "Clifford the Big Red Dog" phase. He took me like 21 total hours to make. I was curious so I kept track of the time. After that one, I never made another and I've rarely made a stuffed animal since then. I reorganized my sewing space last weekend. I didn't really clean it, there was nothing to throw out. I tried to ma...

I went onto my Facebook today and saw a BBC news breaking news article that Davy Jones of the Monkees passed away .  I'm shocked and my heart aches. I'm not so old that I saw the shows when they were originally on.That was before I was even a possibility in my parent's thoughts!  I watched them when they had a comeback in the late 80's and I was a teenager. I was instantly in love with Davy and his sweet British accent. I even went with my best friend to see him, Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork on tour and we were screaming "WE LOVE YOU!" right next to the older women! It's like a part of some of the best times of my life is now gone. I don't even know why it's hit me so hard. Maybe it's because it's been a long week and I'm tired.  Rest in Peace Davy. You'll always be a white knight in my daydreams.

Sorry for whining but I've been hemming jeans. It's a necessary bother. I've hemmed one pair for myself that I've had for literally years. They were a pair I bought on clearance for $4 about 4 years ago. They were regular and I'm a petite and they were very flared at the bottom. I totally messed up the hem on them when I took out most of the flare so they sat for a long time. Then last year I finally pinned up a hem, last  month I basted it in, and yesterday I let out the one side that looked too high and finally hemmed them. So $4 and 4 years later I've got a nice pair of jeans. Sometimes I don't know if it's worth saving the money if you have to do so much work on them or they sit around forever, unable to be worn. I've got another pair of pants for myself I have to hem. Regular pants are always about 4 inches too long on me. At least they are pants and not jeans so it should be easier (knock on wood). And I've got a pair of jorts (jean sh...

I've been sick since Tuesday! I have gotten some sewing stuff done but I don't feel like sharing yet. Getting the pictures ready seems like too much work. My kids have also finished projects I want to share. I'm so proud of what they've done but I'm tired. Even though I feel sick and don't feel like fixing pictures, I did design a quilt for my bed today.  Oops, I forgot to get rid of those lines! But that's the way I feel, a bit absent minded. I want to make a quilt for my king size bed but the size is daunting. It seems like such a large blank canvas. On top of that, I've seen sizes ranging from 96" x 96" to 120" x 120".  After looking at endless pictures on Google, I finally decided to see what I could find in big blocks at one of my favorite sites . I used the Drunkard's Chain pattern from Quilter's Cache . This is one of the variations she suggested. I'm still not sure of it because it looks like an awful lo...

Lately I've been wanting to sew but I haven't been able to decide what I want to sew. I keep seeing so many awesome projects online and not able to choose one. I did eventually manage to get off the computer and sew up a couple of things, so far, this week. While at the Dallas Quilt Guild Show, me, my MIL & my daughter saw Cynthia England demonstrating her Picture Piecing technique. Her booth was filled with amazing examples of quilts made from patterns designed by her using this technique. Her process looked easy so we chose that as our next group project. It was very hard for the three of us to decide but we finally chose this kitty quilt pattern & kit. I also bought a pattern for a rose block that was 1/2 off. After we got home, we took out our patterns and looked them over. Woah, there were a lot of tiny lines all over it! It looked so hard! We went to the computer to check out her website. She has a great video tutorial, and a print one, with plent...

My mother-in-law came to visit last week during Spring Break. It was fun. We had a quilt project me, her and my daughter were in the middle of before she visited. It was great for National Quilting Day. It was like we celebrated all week. We completed them, well mostly. I still need to attach the binding on my daughter's quilt. It was a kit we picked up a while ago called Misty Pines by Jeri Kelly. It finishes at 7.75 inches by 21.25 inches. It came with a paper pieced center and all the fabrics to finish it except batting. We bought three to work on them together. It was my daughter and MIL's first quilt. It was a great idea to buy a complete kit for their first project because we didn't have to spend the extra time debating over choosing fabric and some of the pieces were already cut to size so we could get right to working on them. They came out great. Here's mine: And my daughter's: The kit didn't include a binding so we went out to buy...