Splendiferous September

 

September has arrived, and so far, so splendiferous. extraordinarily or showily impressive, magnificent or extremely beautiful. I keep telling my studio assistants that if they sleep so deeply in the studio they are at risk of being decorated, as in the above monthly marker photo.

I started with this picture of the Mosaic table runner.

Then I ran it through the app Percolator.

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And then in SnapSeed I overlaid this picture of curled up sleeping studio assistant #2.

Here is the 1SE video for August.

 Monthly I-Did List for August

1. I worked and worked on sewing the 200 HRTs needed for the Lupine Mystery quilt.
2. I finished up my efforts for the 2026 ICAD.
3. I pin basted the Bohemian Wife quilt.
4. I started sewing together the first blocks for the Lupine Mystery quilt and finished them.
5. I made a pair of pillowcases for an exchange.
6. I made two big Bow Tie blocks for the BAMQ BOM.
7. I quilted and finished the Mosaic table runner.
8. I made a big Square in Square block for BAMQ BOM.
9. I dug out and actually worked on the David Owen Hastings class piece (on my UFO list.)

There were definitely some interruptions this month, some bad like the Meg foot injury and a four day fever I had with an additional few days recovery time. Then there were some good ones too like the local music festival, and the usual extensive summer gardening efforts. Mostly I think I was still in recovery mode from the unpleasantness from July, as they say "getting older is not for the faint of heart." Here's hoping that September will see some more sewing and finishing.

A Meg Situation

A little excitement this past week interrupted my plans to get back to going to the gym, etc. A surprise Monday morning injury, a partially torn out claw on Meg's front paw. She did something to herself out in the backyard, no idea what. We had to wait a day for a vet appointment, so this was my temporary attempt at a bandage. She was really unhappy and in a lot of pain if she stepped on her paw. Luckily we had some pet CBD oil to give her, so she could kind of zonk out for most of the day. 

I had to carry her up and down the stairs, etc. Kind of exhausting, like having a sick toddler to worry about all of a sudden. She's been a very cheap/non-injury prone dog for her whole life, so this was pretty unexpected.  The cats were both sticking around her, taking turns at keeping her company and looking quite worried when she would yelp in pain. She's usually the quiet one of the three of them.

Here she is back from her spa-surgery day at the vet. They made such a cute little bandage that successfully stayed on for two days. It was at least five layers of different materials. It was insanely hard to get offf of her, very sticky tape + very long fluffy foot/leg fur is not an ideal combo. I was surprised that she didn't even  try to lick or chew at it at all. So no cone of shame for her, thankfully. She's all bandage free now, but it's still a little icky as it heals up, so I'll spare you a picture. 

She's no longer limping around and is running up and down the stairs as per usual, so I think this crisis is over. Still no idea how she managed to get this injury though?!?! Back to situation normal around here I suppose. Off to the gym with DH I go this weekend, I'm hoping they'll have the A/C on as it's pretty hot today.

 

Helpful Quilt Basters

 

Time for some quilt basting, this time the Bohemian Wife quilt! This was last worked on when I finished making the backing in September 2025. I'm using a non-fusible Hobbs 80/20 batting. And one of the studio assistants was instantly on the job even though we were downstairs using our dining table.

She was very curious and helpful in initially holding things down.

She was soon replaced by her co-worker who just really wanted to have a nap in the layers of batting I was trying to separate. Honestly, not too helpful.

The derpiest of derp faces made up for the interruption.

Thankfully the somewhat more helpful studio assistant #1 came back on the job.

One last switcheroo occurred where studio assistant #2 checked the spacing on my safety pins.

I could tell he was satisfied with my work when he laid down. It was so nice to have help and company while I basted this kind of big one. I forgot how long this pin basting process takes, I haven't done one in a while. 

Okay, now onto the quilting. I'm not planning any exciting quilting as it will all get lost in the glorious mess of color and pattern. Probably just some walking foot straight lines.

X-Plus Block

 I was struggling with the X-+ block for the BAMQ BOM, and it turned out that the template I printed out wasn't at full size. Soooo, no wonder it didn't fit! Started over with these directions for a 12.5" block. I almost 

I had to interrupt my studio assistant's nap time. And clean off the felt pressing pad. Usually I cover it up, but he always takes advantage if I forget to.

All pressed, including the bonus HST's. They're not teeny tiny but they will probably make it into the final quilt somehow.

All together now. Hey, I actually like this one! After all the hassling around because of my mistake in printing it really wasn't a hard block to do.

Note to self: Always check the size of the printing - not fit to print, but 100%

I may still do the giant (24" square) version.

Here's how all the blocks are looking together. Some of the "mistakes" from making this block are on the upper left, they may or may not make it into the quilt.  It certainly would make a very strong border if I continued those!

6x6 Finished

 

Well, 6x6 is now officially finished and even more importantly: LeeLoo-Approved™.

I used self-threading needles to bury my thread ends. There weren't a lot of them as I went from edge to edge with the quilting lines.

There it is, all finished, but not yet washed. Consider this the before picture.

Here it is post-washing. So much more texture, but not too much due to pre-washing the fabrics used. 

There's a side-view of the quilt surface.

And that's my #6 done for the CQFA UFO Challenge, hooray!

Returning to Choices

 

Today I worked on finishing up the free motion quilting on May You Ever Return. Almost there, but I had to make some thread choices.

The different blues and greens in this fabric was hard to match.

As usual one of my Studio Assistants made sure I was "Making Good Choices."

Getting there.

This is my favorite X so far.

I was tired of free motion quilting, so switched over to get to some zig-zagging on the shapes who's edges hadn't been stitched down.

The words are supposed to be not really legible at a glance.

Almost done with the quilting and zig-zagging. (Just the lower left) and I'm really pleased with how it's looking so far.

Lots of Quilting Lines

 

A lot more free motion quilting got done on May You Ever Return yesterday. I'm very focused in on it, but I'll admit that I keep struggling to stop myself from switching over to work on other things like the Patchwork Palooza on my design wall or the Lupine Mystery.

After an initial alarmed response at all the noise near her napping spot, one of my studio assistants kept an eagle eye on my process.

The quilting is getting pretty dense in some spots. While I was quilting, I pinned back some of the un-anchored shapes in order to just have the lines go under where they'll end up being zig-zagged down. This will help with "floating" the shapes above the densely quilted surface in a consistent way across the whole surface.

No decision made on the number of X's, and I see some hand-embroidery/stitching in my future. Also, this quilt is getting the facing treatment as opposed to a binding. Countdown to the UFO Challenge due date of 2/7. That's just ten days, two of which will be traveling to Spokane and back again. Maybe if I get it to the finishing point of sewing the facings down it will come along with me, but I'm not counting on that.

Tool Tuesday- Steady Betty(s)

 

One of my most frequently used tools is finally failing on me. At first I was a little mad about it, but then I realized I'd been using the Steady Betty pressing board for almost 10 years now. Just about daily. But unfortunately there are big tears in the material that make the board so useful. 

There are tears on both sides of the board. I don't remember seeing these begin, all of a sudden they're just there. They don't affect the performance of the board as far as ironing goes. But I'm pretty sure I can't just glue these down as it would either not stick well enough, or melt the foam, or make a lump under the pressing surface that would translate to the fabrics I'm pressing. The tears are just going to get worse if they aren't repaired or secured.

Besides the two big tears, there's a lot of little pieces missing, especially on or near the edges. Maybe from using pins and/or scissors on and around the board?

Or...perhaps some of the holes were started by studio assistant claws (as pictured above in action)? That probably didn't help matters.

But I also noticed that the same thing is happening with my Betty Bands, which the studio assistants do not use. I think this grippy foam material is just not endlessly robust. It wears out with use (like most things), which is really not terribly surprising. 

So, Merry Christmas to me...I ended up replacing both the mat and the machine quilting bands. They arrived today with very cute Sharpie-art on the package.

 Hopefully I'll get ten more years out of these. It's so much lighter, and a bit bigger. The edges are a little strange, but it seems like very similar foam. Now to maybe make something out of the old mat. Perhaps I'll cover it with canvas and use it for a surface to have for pressing underneath the wool mat I have in my traveling kit.

 

And unfortunately I didn't notice the redesign of the Betty Bands on their website, they no longer have adjustable velcro, so they do not fit my hands very well at all. I will be doing some modifying to be able to use these!

Seat Repair

I have this great pillow from Cushion Lab that I use with my sewing room chair. Even though the chair is on the new side, the cushion wasn't cushy enough for me. The pillow cover has a great grippy surface on the underside so it stays put.

Unfortunately the studio assistants also enjoy it and poked some holes in the jersey cover which then tore quite badly along the seam. The pillow is still in great shape (especially for a memory foam pillow), and thankfully it's got a removable cover, so it's worth the time and effort to repair it. I got it wrestled off and set up for some repair stitching.

I chose to use a piece of this nice soft grey pomegranate print. It turned out to be pretty easy to sew it on, and I didn't stitch through all the layers, which was my real worry. It seems to be working out well so far, we shall see how long it lasts in its repaired state. Especially with the cotton quilting fabric vs. the stretchier jersey.

 

Completed Central Old Town

 

I'm feeling like this blog has turned into all Old Town all the time, but that's just how it goes on a project like this. 

The studio assistant is wondering when it's ever going to be over!

It's a lot of time to sew something like this together. I know, duh, of course we already know that. 

Even though I'm steadily getting closer and closer to finishing this project, I think I'm feeling the pull to pull focus and work on one of my remaining UFO 2025 challenge projects.  

Especially when I get interrupted by messages like this from my sewing machine. Thankfully that was just a turn the machine on and off again kind of message.

But that concentrated effort has led to this! The central part of the quilt is now put together. 💪👍👏🙌🎉🎊 Now moving on to getting the three borders attached for a truly completed quilt top.