Swiss Star Top

I have completed the Swiss Star QAL top. The pattern was provided free on the Bernina blog. The original quilt was made of three colors. My daughter decided to recolor it into a rainbow. Everything except the background was from my stash. Though the pattern was labeled as advanced beginner/intermediate, I found this pattern to be very challenging and I would have labeled it as advanced based on the cutting techniques and construction methods used. Anyway, I'm glad the top is done. I'm annoyed that it came out a bit wavy (again, due to construction and large amounts of bias on the edges). We're considering options for backing fabric and I think my daughter will be okay with an E2E design on it. 

Today I am taking a class with Kelly Young from My Quilt Infatuation! We are doing the Churn, Churn, Churn quilt from her Scrappy Improv book. She spoke at our guild last night. It was so much fun!  

I attended the h+h americas trade show in Chicago last week. If you are a longarm quilter, it's probably not the best use of your time and resources unless you were interested in taking some of the classes or listening to the speakers. I was, but the things I was interested in were above my current budget. Plus, I only had one day to spend due to driving time and needing to be home in time for my daughter's Friday morning graduation ceremony. I'll spare you our selfie and just show the backdrop. 😄

There were a lot of really gorgeous yarns and knitted or crocheted projects. Truly amazing! Here are a few pictures of the Mochi Mochi table that my husband took.

Many of the major fabric distributors were also there, along with some of the notions marketers. Hobbs had a booth, as did a batting company I wasn't familiar with--Air Lite. It was very much a time to see products in person and place your orders for your retail sites. 

While I was there, I met LORI HOLT! She's just as nice as you'd expect. I didn't do photos with her or anyone else I recognized because I'm an introvert and it feels like invading their personal space. She was crocheting and had lots of her chunky yarn and granny squares on display.

Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame was also there. We didn't speak to her. She's got a new line coming out with Riley Blake. 

After Quilt Con and h+h, I am totally realizing my shortcomings. I need to be more outgoing and speak to more people and take more photos. Same things, I feel like I'm invading people's personal space and also, several of the people I did introduce myself to at Quilt Con seemed as if I was a bother or it was just very awkward. Or they didn't remember me at all from previous interactions. I guess I'm pretty forgettable. Maybe I should join the FBI. LOL.

I did decide to circle back to talk the the Villa Rosa people, and I'm so glad I did. I talked to Pat Fryer herself and thanked her for the quilt I won in the recent blog hop. She handed me a baggie of all of the latest VR cards free of charge!! I told her that was the highlight of my day and she kinda gave me side-eye. Oh well. I was thrilled!

If I go again next year, I'd like to go for more than one day and be able to take my time and maybe push myself by doing some meet-ups. I found the crowds and the lights overwhelming and felt rushed and unprepared, so I probably didn't take advantage of what was available to me.  

While we were in Chicago, we were able to have dinner with my husband's aunt, uncle, and cousins, who we hadn't seen in close to 15 years! We stayed overnight with the cousins and that was very enjoyable. Meanwhile, I noticed I had a rash popping up on my arms and I wasn't feeling the greatest. At first I thought it was chiggers, but it wasn't reacting the same and I was really dragging.

After the graduation ceremony Friday morning, I took myself to the urgent care. It turns out I have poison ivy. I've never had it before. It took all afternoon to get through the appointment and actually get the prescriptions filled. In a weird turn of events, one of the meds was being filled by robot and had gotten stuck in there. They said there was nothing they could do besides wait until it came out. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I'm finally starting to feel more like myself again, but I'm scared to do more yard work now because I don't know where I encountered the poison ivy. I had been weeding the lower garden and there is not any growing there. We considered that maybe it was on the gloves or the bag we put weeds in. We'll probably never know. I do have some Farmer's Defense sleeves that I wasn't wearing but should have been as I am prone to contact dermatitis anyway. I also think I have it in one of my eyes. 😒

Our lilac is blooming right now and is very fragrant. It's raining a lot of petals into my sewing room window well. Our yard zucchinis are looking good. It's about time to transfer my tomato starts out to the garden and get beans planted. My four little pepper starts look okay. I'll probably let them go another week or so before transferring them so that I don't accidentally pull them out. Our strawberry patches got neglected, but we were able to harvest a couple strawberries this week. 

Thyme and one dill in the left unit, four peppers and two tomatoes in the right.

the raining lilac petals

Amazingly, I have managed to get a few more quilts done:

Pat's Wisconsin quilt, quilted with Diagonal Plaid Bias.

Pat's other Wisconsin quilt, quilted with Taffeta.

Jae's quilt, quilted with Malachite.

And Hannah's, quilted with Circle Worms.

Three of these need to be bound my me.

No progress yet on the dress form since I was really trying to get the Swiss Star finished in order to enter it in the contest.

I guess this is totally long enough for now. Take care, and I'll see you next week.

Linking with A Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, and Alycia Quilts.

Bias Tape

Over the weekend I made some bias binding tape. I haven't done that in years! I decided to cut strips at a 45 degree angle instead of trying to do a continuous strip. I tried to take photos to document the process. This one doesn't quite show what I thought it would. Oh well. I promise, it's a bias cut.

I sewed all the strips together like you would to create a quilt binding. Then I ran it through the bias tape maker I bought last week. 

I thought I'd just align it with the edges of the sweatshirt jacket and sew it on in one step, but then I couldn't figure out how to do the mitered corners. YouTube told me I need to open it all the way out and stitch it down the fold. 

Once that was done, I folded it over and stitched it down just like I would have on a quilt binding. It's probably not the most attractive thing ever, but the jacket is now done. It only took 13 - 14 years! 

Here is my daughter wearing the jacket. The bits sticking up at the collar are actually the neckline of the shirt she has on underneath.

In case you missed this project's origin story, this jacket was meant to be a gift for my mom back when I still lived in Maryland, somewhere between 12-14 years ago. Basically you buy a sweatshirt, remove the neckline and cuffs, deconstruct the seams, cut it up the front, and sew strips of fabric to it. Then you reconstruct the seams. What I didn't plan on was how much shrinkage there would be after sewing on the strips. So then it was too small. I set it aside for many, many years. My daughter tried it on one day and it fit, other than the sleeves being way too long. It's been sitting here for close to a year waiting for the bias binding. 

I shared my PHD report for April last week with a big zero for April completions, but this project was on my list and I did actually finish it in April! So here is my updated report as of the end of April.

Linking to the PHD report at Ms. P Designs

I also quilted my Log Cabin Stars quilt. I used the Perm design from Longarm League. It took forever! LOL  In hindsight, I would have increased the row size a bit more to use every available inch of my throat space. I think I had it set to a row height of 14.3" and I could probably have gone up an inch or so and still had room to align with each pass, plus account for any loss of space due to the finished quilt accumulating on the back roller.

My quilt was 63" x 73.5" prior to quilting and it ended up at 62.25" x 72.375" after quilting and trimming. I was surprised it lost that much length. I knew it was losing width because of where the stitching was ending up after I clipped each design row. Look at all that texture, though! I think it was worth it!

You'd never know that I used a Frankenbatting with three seams in this one. I'll be working on the binding in the evenings and hopefully another finish is imminent.

I've quilted only a few quilts this week in comparison to last. First up is Cheri's amazing little ticker tape quilt, quilted with Rich Girl. This was so fun to look at with all the little colors and patterns.

She came over on Saturday and I showed her how to trim and square her quilt. On Sunday, with the help of my son, I did a photo tutorial on how to trim and square quilts that I published on my quilting business website's blog yesterday.

I also quilted Charlene's quilts. She selected Ariana for this one.

And Champagne Bubbles for this one.

Briar Rose was the choice for the last one.

I've been making some effort to work on clearing dead stuff, weeds, and spearmint from the gardens by doing a little bit most evenings. We noticed that we had a bunch of emerging seeds sprouting where the chicken coop used to be. Our Picture This app told us it is zucchini. We don't remember feeding them any zucchini seeds, but we did throw a few yucky zucchini from the garden into the compost pile last year. We also found a plant coming up in the upper front flower garden, where the chickens most definitely have never been. It's looking quite healthy right now. We'll see how it does... All the little seedlings surrounding it are baby lamb's ear, which I've been trying to remove since it's practically invasive here.

So many things are already blooming. It seems early for some. We had our first hummingbirds (that we saw, at least) last week Friday. No orioles yet. I saw one rose-breasted grosbeak very briefly about two weeks ago, but haven't seen any others. 

Here are a few things blooming right now. This first picture shows allium (on time) and one of our clematis. Both the clems in the front are loaded with buds. The roses are also budded and starting to bloom.

Iris Immortality.

Iris Batik.

No sign of my favorite Crater Lake Blue iris yet. 

I remembered to grab a picture of my sewing room flamingo mascot that my friend Annie gave me. It's so ridiculously kitschy; I just love it!

One last thing before I go. I took Alderwood Studio's Pattern Writing Academy this spring, mostly because I wanted to learn some new software. I didn't finish writing a pattern, but seeing others' creations reinforced my preference for the editing rather than the designing. I have pattern tested for several quilters and many doll clothing designers in the past and I think what I was really doing all along was more technical editing that just straight pattern testing. {That probably explains some of the less-than-enthusiastic responses I'd get when I'd suggest more involved edits.} I then purchased and watched the Quilt Pattern Technical Editing 101 webinar hosted by Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl and Sarah from Saroy and I was convinced.

All this to say that I have added a new service to my Quilting by Anne-Marie LLC business. I am now offering quilt pattern technical editing services at a competitive introductory rate. If you know any pattern designers who are in need of technical editing, I would love the referral. 

Happy quilting, and I'll see you next Wednesday.

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, A Quiltery, and Alycia Quilts.