Joined Geese

 

Sew Day was great yesterday, there was an excellent turnout, and many fun conversations. I also managed to get a lot of sewing done. 

I sewed together all of the many many Flying Geese units I had previously made for the Lupine Mystery. 

I also got to assist Kathy with sewing the embroidered labels that she makes for our guild to use for Community Giving quilts. I sewed these short seams in-between the block units.

I followed the great pressing instructions, half of the units pressed toward the pink goose, half towards the white goose.

And then I had quite a time (see the bottom row), trying to work out why the pressing didn't work out. Probably due to not reading the instructions well and also having conversations at the same time. Sigh. So, I got many of the sewn together pairs of geese sewn to another. These will make up the outer border of the quilt top, so. I have to join up the correct number of these units. Back to re-reading the instructions!

Community Quilt Binding

 

Just in time quilt binding for this Community Giving quilt (there on the right)  that I am turning in at Sew Day today.

First up stay stitching the quilt edge, then a trim of the excess batting and backing fabric.

Speaking of backing fabric, this selvedge made me go awwwww, Joann Fabrics RIP.. There was enough excess so that I was able to make most of the binding out of it along with some navy blue solid interspersed.

One of our members makes these amazing quilt labels on her embroidery machine to use on the Community Quilts.

There we go, ready to turn in.

October To-Do

 

Here's how my design wall is looking on the first day of October. Patchwork Palooza (still awaiting border decisions) and my finished Kawandii are still pinned up on the left. The finished Lupine Stars are arranged, the rest are next to my sewing machine ready to be sewn together. On the right is a Community Giving quilt that I'm working on getting a binding done so I can turn it in on Sew Day tomorrow.

 Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2026 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year (more on that list later). Note, this is not the same list as the UFO Challenge for BAMQ, that UFO will have this next to it on the list:🌀🌐  

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Pantone Project - work on an overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making blocks following the clue instructions, assemble into a top

BAMQ BOM - assemble finished blocks into a quilt top.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - Decide on borders, make backing & binding

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding, decide on whether to have it quilted

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023  Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

🌀🌐 David Owen Hastings class piece, assemble into quilt top, quilt, finish🥏👽 

                                      

Quilting

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife - Finish quilting it🌀🌐 

Final Steps 

🥏👽 Bending the Calendar - Cut up? Re-arrange? Embellish?🌀🌐 

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching -  🌀🌐

Body Pillow-knit cotton pillowcase - 🌀🌐 

Hey! This Is All Finished!

Quilted Dog Jacket for Meg - 🌀🌐  

Continuing on with the sixth month in a row with some actual finishing happening. 

Yes, this was a teeny tiny project, relative to the others, but that it actually got done is the main thing. 

Taking the finishing energy on into October.

Ornery October

I'm feeling sort of ornery, so I'm declaring this new month to be: Ornery October. To me, ornery is the sort of nagging displeasure with *gestures Very Broadly* all this. That is the kind of mood I need to be in for just getting on with it. Maybe it's the usual extremely Hot-tober week that's forecast ahead for us (in the 100's) or the unsettled pre-election prickles. All of that means I need to keep sewing as much as possible. Will I be ornery enough to decorate the house for The Month of Spooky? It's very likely, yes.

The monthly marker started with this picture of the first Lupine Star that I finished.

I put that through the app, Percolator and came up with this.

I overlaid this picture I took of a Dahlia at Filoli Gardens with my mom in the app, SnapSeed and added the October label.

The monthly 30 seconds of life, or the one second every day video, including one beautiful second of DH wearing a hotdog costume in Target. Youtube picks a random frame for the title card, it knew!

 Monthly I-Did List for September

1. I made two Sawtooth Star blocks for a quilt for a friend's Veteran step-father.
2. I got started on quilting the Bohemian Wife quilt.
3. I began making kitty ears for the Lupine Mystery quilt.
4. At Sew Day, I helped assemble the quilt top from #1.
5. I made two Birds In the Air blocks for the BAMQ BOM.
6. I started assembling the Lupine Stars for the Lupine Mystery quilt.
7. I cut out the cornerstones and sashing for the Lupine Stars.
8. I found the Dog Coat pattern, found fabric, cut it out, quilted it, and finished the coat.
9. I un-quilted some of the free-motion quilting on the Bohemian Wife quilt.
10. I finished making five Lupine Stars.

I'd say, that was a pretty good showing for September. I got a lot of small stuff done, a lot of process work, which added up to a lot of progress, and one whole entire UFO Challenge finish. Heading into October with my ornery energy, ready to write lots of postcards to voters, decorate for Spooky Month, and keep sewing.

September Cornucopia

 

September closes, the first month of Fall is now over, the heater is going on occasionally, socks are being worn again, etc. This is my monthly cornucopia post, a listing of links to things I've enjoyed, discovered, consumed, eyeballed, or listened to this past month.

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Latifah Saafir has a great video about making quarter rectangles with her very useful HURTY ruler.

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A big square of black light-absorbing fabric on the ultra-white Bonneville Salt Flats, land art installation by Gregory Orekhov. So fascinating!

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Melissa Joseph's large scale felted wool illustrations are really intriguing, there's an exhibit of them called Casserole Culture which looks like it would be very fun to see in person. 

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I've been thoroughly enjoying Tal Lavin's long-running series of sandwich essays, but this one about the famous Vegemite Sandwich is tip top.

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Just in time for Halloween sewing projects, a sweet little paper-pieced ghostie block from Quiet Play.

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Five Lupine Stars

 

I started putting together the Lupine stars for the Lupine Mystery quilt. So far so good.

I got five of them done, they went together very easily. As per usual the pressing directions in the pattern is very helpful for block construction. I like the look of them with the cornerstone and sashing splitting up the star.

Now that I know what I'm doing, twenty more to go doesn't seem quite as daunting.

A Halt to the Un-Quilting

 After a lot of stops and starts and frustrations, the un-sewing or un-quilting has been completed on the Bohemian Wife quilt. 

I made myself stop and not take out the parts that don't really show that are really not my best free-motion quilting ever when you look at them closely.

This Kaffe Fasset fabric is not very robust shall we say? I didn't want to "age" it too much with all the ripping out of the teeny tiny free-motion quilting stitches I had ended up doing in some sections I was honestly struggling with while quilting.

There, it's good enough, I'm not putting it in a competition and it's going to be displayed up on my wall, not really in a close-up situation. Perfectionism is a terrible trial to get through and let go of, isn't it? I really was pushing myself to get this quilted when I was still in recovery mode for the August BAMQ UFO Challenge deadline. If I had just stuck with the walking foot and not tried to do the free-motion with the same dark purple thread, it wouldn't have turned into such a work stoppage. Now that I'm feeling much better, more myself, whatever, and I'll make better thread color choices I'll go back in with free motion quilting again
Okay, back to quilting this again!