WIPs With Friends

Wow, crazy Michigan weather over here.  

It was almost 50 on the weekend and on Monday we got 3" of snow!  

What the heck, Michigan?

I had a super busy weekend (well really what weekend isn't when you work?)

I *finally* had time to take all the Christmas decorations down and put them away.  

I think that must be some kind of record for me, letting it go on so long.  

The health issues of my son took over the 2 free weekends I did have until now.  

Did laundry, grocery shopping, cooking (the usual).  

Took laundry over to my son's house and ended up spending the evening with him.  

Then made him some dinner so went back on Sunday to deliver that.  

Anyway, I did manage to sneak in a bit of sewing too.  

Not much mind you, just enough to keep me sane, LOL.  

I saw this big goofball when I was visiting my son too.  

She is starting to get a little bit gray around her muzzle.  

I had some Bee blocks that I needed to get made so I got right on that.  

The free pattern is a modern heart by Threaded Quilting Studio.  

It is paper pieced. 

If you have never done paper piecing this would be a great one to start with.  

It was super easy and she even tells you what size to cut everything 

(although I cut the strips slightly longer and that worked better for me).

We were supposed to make 2 that were dark gray background and the heart was to be low volume. 

 I made my 2 then made a "reverse" one.  

I did this in a previous bee and she used it in the quilt and it really made the quilt.  

We will see if our lead person decides to use it or not.  

If not, maybe as a label?

Then I had to decide what I wanted to work on next.  

I have a LOT of WIPs and thought I might work on the ones that are the closest to being finished, 

but I really just wanted some mindless sewing.  

I chose to work on some Ocean Waves blocks. 

 I managed to sew up 3 more and sewed and trimmed enough HST to make 2 more!

I am officially half way now!  I have 18 of these blocks made. 

 I am anxious to make some more. 

 Sewing HST really is quite mindless sewing and so is trimming

 (using my trusty Bloc-Loc ruler).

So, I will link up with Sew Fresh Quilts and I ask you to link up on this blog with your WIPs.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends

Hi dear friends!  

I have not had any time to work on a single project this past week!  

I took the Featherweight class on Saturday that took up most of my day.  

Then on Sunday I had to play catch up with all the stuff I should have done on Saturday. 

 I went to my son's and picked up his laundry, did my laundry, and some cleaning 

along with some meal prep for the week.  

Being on Weight Watchers requires some meal prep for me for my lunches for the week.  

So I thought I would share a quilt top that I recently sent to the quilter. 

 I made a baby quilt a couple of years ago for a friend.  

I loved the color combo, lavender and yellow.  

I had extra squares left over from her quilt so 

I decided to design another baby quilt to use up the squares.  

It was languishing in a corner but in my quest to finish up some past projects (WIPs), 

I pulled this one out and finished the top!

This is a close up of the center, showing the peacock.  

Isn't he handsome?

I did a straight stitch around all of the applique before I sent it to the quilter.  

This is what the whole top looks like.  

It is not a very big quilt and you can use a single width of fabric for the backing 

(read, you don't have to piece the back!)  

I made a new page of my free patterns.
I put this up as the first pattern!
Please download it and enjoy making your own.
Personal use only.

So now it is your turn.  What are you working on?  

Share some inspiration with us!

Link up using the linky button.

I'm also linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Featherweight Maintenance Class

On this past Saturday I took a class to learn how to maintain my little Featherweight sewing machine.

I learned SO much at this class.  

There were quite a few people in the class.  

Several, like me, had not even taken the machine out of the case! 

 We even had one lady that was an original owner.  

She has a white FW and her folks bought it for her for her high school graduation.  

(I'm looking for a white one if you know anyone selling one)

We had to take ours apart and the instructor, Jean Dalton, taught us how to clean, and oil/grease all the guts of the machine.  

We learned some history too.  

The first place we needed to get at was the top by the spool pin.  

Son and of gun, wouldn't you know that my screw wound NOT un-screw!  

What was that about??  

She never had one that she couldn't open. 

 HUH. 

 So we put some oil on it and waited while we proceeded. 

 Isn't Jean so adorable in her apron?  

You can find her on her blog over at jdquilts123 .  

She was an amazing instructor!

This is a photo of my Featherweight.  

She was born December 9, 1948 and her name is Ella.

Ella was my grandma's name.

She was a quilter too, but I never got to know her.

She died when I was only 2.

 Well, I ended up cleaning her up and getting her purring like a kitten. 

 I had to send her home with Jean and the screw did finally un-screw, so she cleaned up the top.  

I will be picking her up at the Featherweight club meeting in February.  I am so excited!

One lady had a thing to use with your foot pedal to make it work more like a modern pedal.  

The vintage machines have the weird knob off to one side 

so your foot has to kind of rock side to side.  

The modern pedals rock more heel to toe.  

Jean sells a similar one on her website that her son makes.

This is what it looks like opened up. 

 You then insert your foot pedal into the holes you see on the right side. 

Then you flip up the other part and when you depress that it presses the little knob down.

It functions by the heel to toe motion.

I thought it was pretty slick!

I am so thrilled to know what oil/grease to use and how to upkeep my little machine.  

It has emboldened me to try to oil and grease some of my other vintage machines 

and get them into top top shape.

Do any of you do maintenance on your vintage machines?  If so do you have any good tips?

~XOP~

You Have HOW Many Sewing Machines??

I am constantly looking at "for sale" pages of sewing machines. 

 I have a bucket list of vintage machines I would like to own. 

 I have no idea why other than that I like them.  

I have found more than I need at the thrift shop too.  

These are not necessarily ones I have on my list, but they have been in decent shape and

 I think they need to be in a good home.  

My husband is one patient man!

Recently I was checking out the FB market place when I found a Singer Rocketeer. 

 Not only was there a machine but there was a fold up table. 

 It was rectangular not square which is quite rare.  

There was also a cabinet that has sewing "stuff" in it. 

 It was not in very good shape but I thought it might have stuff pertaining to the machine in it. 

 I watched the ad for a bit and after about a week or so they dropped the price in half.  

I immediately messaged and ended up committing to purchase the machine and stuff.  

It took me a little over 2 weeks to get there due to my son's health issues but I picked it up last week.  This is a photo the seller took of the machine in the table.

We picked up the cabinet and it is a good thing too as the foot pedal was in here.  

It is just a cheap particle board cabinet so I won't be keeping this.

It sure was fun to sort through all of the drawers though.

 I did end up finding a few feet, but if I want to sew with it I will have to find some more.

This old needle card was a fun find.

It even had the original owners manual inside!

Now I need a name for him.  I'm sure this one is a boy, so handsome!

I know several people that have named theirs 

"Elton" (Rocketman) but I need something more original. 

 Maybe Buzz? 

 I will have to think on it.

I have had several people ask me how many machines I have.

How do you feel when someone asks you that?

I'm trying not to be offended but I feel they are being judgmental when they ask.

It's kind of a personal question for me.

I know, you will all say not to take it personally, but it reminds me of the questions, how many kids are you going to have, when you have a large family.

Suffice it to say I have a LOT.

If we decide to go RVing full time I will most likely sell off some of them.

I will not sell them all.

The rest will have to go into storage, along with LOTS of our household stuff.

I have some furniture that has been in my family for several generations and that also would need to go into storage.

I think this year I will need to get each and every one operational. 

 That way I can sell those that I am not in love with.  

I will keep the rest.

How many machines do YOU own?

~XOP~

Finish It Friday

I just realized that I have several finishes from Christmas that I did not share!  

I tried to make something handmade for my family. 

 I got most of them.  

I couldn't show them before they were gifted so I forgot about them!  

I will share now.

First up, I did some pattern testing for Unicornhearts of this snake block.  

I made this little wall hanging to mimic my daughter's snake named Clove that is brown and gold.  The border is my own idea and I love how it came out!  

I hand quilted using pearl cotton, around the snake and I have to say I love it.  

I put those little hanging triangles in the upper corners so they could hang it on a wall too.  

  

I think she liked it.  

Although I'm not so sure about my SIL.  

I don't think he likes snakes much.

VERY last minute I decided I wanted to make pillow covers (which I put over pillow inserts). 

I wanted to make one of my daughter's cat and her boyfriend's dog.  

Max is a Border Collie. 

 I like to look for coloring book pages and translate those into applique.  

Isn't this dog so cute?  

I added some fabric that says Made with love, and a couple of cat fabrics to Max's pillow. 

 I quilted the front in a cross hatch design.

Next up was Mitch, the cat. 

 I used the same Made with love fabric on one of the squares and used several fabrics that I had used in her sister's wedding quilt.  

I quilted this with wavy lines. 

 I used Essex Yarn Dyed Linen, steel I think, for the backgrounds.

This was when I gifted these at Christmas time.

Same daughter asked me if I would make golf club covers. 

 HUH??  

 I guess I can do that.  

Then the fun of trying to find a pattern began.

  I finally found something both her boyfriend liked and I thought I could manage, but it was written by a guy and his directions were awful!  

Then said boyfriend wanted very specific colored fabric, tweed to be exact. 

 I took many photos at JAF and we finally agreed on one.  

Here they are, and he was very pleased with them!

Front

Back

I used fleece as the lining.  

She had asked us for a splatter guard and he thought it was hilarious to use it with his golf club cover like a hot mitt.  

smh.

Next up was a fish quilt for my husband.  

I still need some better photos of this quilt, but I was so very pleased with how it came out.

I used a golden retriever flannel for the backing.

I had it quilted with fishing flies.

That just left my son. 

 He was feeling a little left out as there was no gift for him.  

Technically he was not the only one as I did not make anything for my SIL,

 but the snake wallhanging was for both of them. 

 Little did my son know that he would be receiving his quilt the day after Christmas, for his birthday.  He has been asking and asking for a Detroit Sports Quilt so that's what I made. 

 He LOVES it!

I put gray Minky on the back.

While I realize that I have shown some of these at Christmas 

I did not specifically list them as finishes. 

 I would like to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Friday and share all these finishes.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I am sorry I am so late today! 

 I had to take my son to the primary care doctor for his follow up.  

They took him off the injectable medication (yay) and now just on Coumadin. 

 I am happy to be finished with the Lovenox for sure.  

It is now up to his body to clear the clots and resolve the pain.  

I fear this will be a long term issue, but we need to be patient.

On to our quilty progress. 

 Last night as I was doing laundry for my son I started to panic 

that I had NOTHING to share with you all.  

I ran upstairs and managed to sew my basket top together.  

Thanks to you all, I now have a completed top!!! 

 I work well under pressure, LOL.

Here it is. I use my long hallway in my upstairs so the lighting is not the best.

A few close ups of the baskets

Of course Finny wanted to help.  He is getting so BIG!

Cole was more interested in watching the squirrels!

OK, so thanks again for pushing me to work on my WIP.  

Now I need to figure out a back and cut the batting. 

 What are you working on? 

 Please link up.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Where Did My Weekend Go?

I don't know if any of you work full time but I do.

I work as a research scientist at the University of Michigan.

This means that I cherish my weekends even more as my week days are spent at my job.

I try really hard to clean and do errands on Saturday so I can sew on Sunday.

This past weekend I wanted to get the Christmas things put away.

Then my son got really ill.

He has multiple blood clots in 4 of the veins in his right leg.

He also has multiple PEs in both lungs.

We ended up at the ER on Friday with an overnight stay in the observation unit.

That turned into his being admitted on Saturday because of the pain.

They put in a IVC filter to stop new blood clots from reaching his lungs.

This was my view from his room.

I slept in this couch thing on Saturday night in his room.  

He asked me to stay with him.  I think he was scared and did not want to be there alone.  

He was finally able to go off the Morphine and graduate to Norco so we could go home on Sunday.

This was certainly good news.  

Unfortunately, I am still having to give him his Lovenox shots 2x/day.

We brought him to our house on Sunday night to stay with us a few days.  

We will probably take him back to his house tonight.  

I did manage to get to the grocery store and to make some food for myself for the week for lunches.

I made this 2 ingredient flat bread and it was so good! 

 I used the 2 ingredient bagel recipe but made 10 balls that I rolled out.  

I sprayed the pan with some EVO and made them on the stove top. 

 These are only 1 SP per bread and they are amazing!

I also made this Chicken Taco Soup that is 0 SP!!!

Of course there were a few SP for the cheese.  

This was delicious!  

The recipe is by Slap Dash Mom.

I need 2 more days off work to catch up.  

Anyone have some to spare?  

I have looked longingly at my baskets that need to be put together, 

but that's about all I have had time to do.  

Maybe tonight.  

How was your weekend?

~XOP~