Back in the Saddle

 Now that I’ve completed my New Owner classes for my new sewing machine “Nina”, a Bernina 570QE (Quilters Edition), I feel as though the machine and I are working well together and I’m back up to speed. I was frustrated because I didn’t have a walking foot that came with this machine. About mid-week I finally remembered that when I traded in my old machine, they had me keep my walking foot and all its accessories. Hmmmm…. Where did I put that????

After a little straightening of the messy sewing area behind my sewing seat, I found my walking foot! But that was already after I had sewn the binding on my second Zipper quilt (pictures coming below) with the quarter-inch foot using dual feed and sewn the binding on the second quilt with a zipper foot. Hey, that actually worked great!

But now I’ve got my beloved walking foot back, and everything is right as rain!

First up this week is the Zipper Quilt. This is my second one of these (can’t get enough of these blocks). It’s Lynn Dykstra’s Zip Block, and all credit goes to her. It finished at 52.5x61.5, a good-sized personal lap quilt. It’s going into my personal giveaway pile. 

Zipper Quilt #3 is all cut out and will be started later this spring.  I just love the riot of color, and find the Zip Block to be a great use of 2” scraps. 

The next finish was this 9-block quilt made of donated quilt blocks. Well, I made one (the Dutchman’s Puzzle block in the top center) to round out the number needed for this quilt. Next week I’ll show the 12-block quilt made with the rest of these blocks.

This little number measures 38.5 x42.5”.

Here’s a shot of the background fabric I used from my stash. It was also used in the Dutchman’s Puzzle block. While it isn’t a Fig Tree fabric, I believe it plays very nicely with the rest. 

The majority of this week’s sewing time was spent planning and executing the following quilt top from my dark and bright blue scraps. That’s the January color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. There was obviously some assistance from the dark green scrap bin as well as 10 blocks from the block orphanage.

Out of my various scraps I made 9-patch blocks from the 3.5” squares (some light blue sneaked in there for contrast) - six of those in the center column. That was flanked by a 1.5” dark blue strip on either side. Then from 4.5” and 2.5” squares I made four-in-four blocks, adding in an 8” orphan block on each side. Again, two vertical sashings (3.5” this time) were added. Finally, I finished out with a 6” column of blocks on each side: rail fence blocks, two Twin Sisters blocks, strings, and more. The finished top measures 44.5” x 60.5”.  I’m calling this another “Creature Quilt”, because it’s like Frankenstein’s monster - miscellaneous parts stitched together. What shall we call it? Creature From the Blue Lagoon or Creature from the Blue Scrap Bin? LOL

I’m still working away at Weight Watchers (WW) and have lost all my Covid weight gains and more. I’m now down approximately 33 pounds (lowest weight since summer 2018), and have arrived at what I consider my true starting point. 32 more pounds to goal, and then I’d like to go 10-20 under that. One day at a time. In the meantime, I’ve given away or worn out some of my “fat” clothes - just in time! I’ve also been shopping over the last month at brick-and-mortar stores and online to buy new makeup, new earrings, and finally some new tops. I even got two new sundresses for summer that look fine now, but will be even better if I can drop another 8-10 pounds before summer. I still need to add new pants and shoes, but I’m going to wait for spring before tackling that.

My friend Ruby gets back from Egypt and Jordan today, but she’ll most likely spend Sunday sleeping instead of sewing with us. I don’t expect to see her until Tuesday at WW. 

That’s about it from my corner of the world. See you next week!