September Cornucopia

September has come and gone, and here's how I kept myself entertained, interested, and maybe educated. A cornucopia of links to things I've enjoyed online this past month. The photo above is from our time in Shenzhen, China. It was a sign expressing the theme for the development of the free trade zone, a famous saying about why China needed to turn into a more capitalistic version of itself.

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 Hooray for bringing back the yearly dahlia show at Stonehenge. Beautiful pictures.

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If you like Phyrne Fisher's beautiful period outfits on Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries then go check out this post from Folkwear.

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Want to learn more about Gelli Plate Printing? There's a Gel Printers Summit happening in October.

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This is a really nice looking free tote bag design with a great tutorial to go with it.

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I love Lynda Barry, she's a great teacher, not just for learning to draw, but for life in general. `~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

I rather like this table runner design. I might print out the curved template and see if it matches up with the Wonder Curve ruler or not.

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Here's a video on how to clean your Machingers quilting gloves, Murphy's Oil Soap, genius!

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A really interesting podcast series from The Nocturnists, Post Roe America, on how the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision has affected medical providers. A lot of points of view you rarely get to hear.

First Metro Column

 

Two more Metro Twist blocks went together.

I’m glad I settled on just using the one weird blue solid for the background.

The four blocks of the column were ready to join together.

One whole column done,✅ progress! And look how much it shrunk up.

My studio assistant could hardly believe it!

Stitch Happens Finish

 

It's true, Stitch Happens is now finished. I stitched on the binding yesterday. 

I was so glad that I'd made the binding ahead of time, so that I could just get going when I was ready. It makes a lot sense, as long as you have all the fabric out when you're working on the quilt, just make the binding. Reminder to me: Just Make The Binding

I decided to continue with the orange thread I was using for quilting, I think it looks really against that purple.

Tah-dah! All done!

Here's some detail shots showing the binding.

I'm glad that I added that little border of squares around the outside.

My favorite part of the quilt I think.

Love that needle motion.

Twist Blocks

That was enough free motion quilting for me for now, so I switched over my machine to regular sewing mode. Time for some more work on the piece taking up most of the design wall: Metro Twist. That's the name of the pattern, so not my own title, that hasn't come to me quite yet.

I put that 1/4" foot back on and got down to business sewing together the Metro Twist blocks. First I had to make one BD unit (the curve is the left hand side of a half circle) that I was short. I'd made one extra AC unit as seen in the first picture. It was easy to do one block, as I've now had all this experience using the ruler and following this pattern.

There's one block done! Only fifteen more to go... 

Because this pattern is still messing with my brain as far as orientation, I'm taking it slow and piecing together one block at a time instead of chain piecing rows. This involves putting the units of one block on my pressing board, taking a picture like the one above and then piecing and pressing.

I think it's working out well so far, most of the piecing is going together very easily.

Two done so far, leaving fourteen to go. I should probably sew this together in a column as I go just to make it even more foolproof for myself.

Through With Gray

 

I was finishing up the grey quilting on the Village quilt when I ran out of bobbin for the last of the corner. 

Apparently this is now called "losing at Bobbin Chicken." I'm using this Aurifil as both the top and the bottom thread.

I folded the non-quilted part of the quilt over and pinned it up to get a look at how the quilting looks.

It's not too prominent or noticeable.

Here's how the corner turned out after I wound up a new bobbin.

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My new studio assistant spent some time napping on it, and said it was still soft enough for a bed.

I forgot just how big this quilt is! Now onto getting the blue sky done.

Fog Texture

 

I briefly pinned the Village quilt up on the design wall to see if the fog/clouds I was quilting worked or not. 

From a distance, it's just kind of texture-y, which is fine.

I went ahead and did a bunch more quilting.

I need to do better in between the houses, maybe something more swirly/ooser.

I tested to see if the light grey thread works on the light blue fabric too. And it does.

Quilt The Sky

 

As I'm all set up for free motion quilting, I decided to jump over to the Village quilt aka Japanese Houses. But first, I changed the needle, because I couldn't remember the last time I put a new one in! A Schmetz Chrome quilting needle specifically. I have one of those needle minders so at least I know which kind is in the machine, but it doesn't say when. Then I cleaned out the bobbin area. 

Not too bad of an amount this time, sometimes it's truly amazing how much is packed in that space. Free motion quilting means a huge number of stitches, so it's always worth checking. Clearing the way for everything to work well at top speed.

I'm trying to imply fog or clouds in the "sky" of the quilt. In this grey section especially. I may switch it to wind or something else in the blue sections.

I like the look of it so far, but need more practice.

It's a little harder in the spaces between the houses, so I have to figure that out.

Then my studio assistant reminded me it was time to take a break to play with his new piece of yarn.

He was a little put out when I let the Original Cat™ play with it as well. 

We're trying to all get along, but it's hard going sometimes. 

Stitch Happens Quilted

 

And finally it's all quilted! The stitching on Stitch Happens has happened. Here's the binding all ready to get sewn on and then this'll be a done-zo deal. 

I made a lot of thread color changes, but I think that it was worth it.

I had all the fun playing around with filling in the different shapes in this quilting.

Avoiding stitching over the eyes of course.

I'm particularly pleased with how the spool of thread turned out.