Time Out

Another busy week here, and not so productive on the sewing front. While I did sew some on Saturday and Sunday, my machine was having a hissy fit on Wednesday. After rethreading it about 632 times due to thread breaks, I gave up in frustration. I’m not sure if it’s me or the machine that’s in time out, but last night I finally started at Square One with my machine: I thoroughly cleaned it, changed the needle (including the size), grabbed a fresh new spool of thread, and crossed my fingers (my four steps for solving machine problems, short of throwing it out the window). It’s now behaving, at least on the test scraps. Later today it meets my Halloween quilt once again, and they had better get along. 

And just to make sure that my machine knows it had better behave, I introduced it to a new machine companion: a Pfaff Grand Quilter 1200. It was given to me by my sweet friend Pat who lives in Ogden. 

I’ve known Pat for several years - we actually met through the online game Hayday, where we both play in an Utah group (that also has members from Texas and South Africa). We first met several years ago when we had a group luncheon together. We have talked on the phone regularly since then. Last year she and husband Eddie invited Bruce and me up to their beautiful 15-acre property in the hills above Ogden, about an hour’s drive north. That’s when she gifted me (and mostly Quilts for Kids) several large plastic tubs of wonderful fabric that had come from her twin sister in California. Last week Pat called and told me about this machine that her niece had found at a thrift shop for $12. Did I want it? (Ummm…. Is the Pope Catholic)? So she and Eddie actually drove down here on Thursday and brought the machine. It was so delightful to see these special friends again. It was a too-short visit.

Pat’s niece had printed out an owner’s manual from online because there wasn’t one with the machine. The machine even came with a rolling travel case that was a match to the one I’ve had for 20 years that has recently developed a hole. I’ve not yet used the machine because I’m still reading the manual and familiarizing myself with it. It’s straight stitch only, with a generous harp (throat) space. Thank you so much, Pat!!  Guess what I’ll be doing today?

I did get some sewing done this week between other obligations. First I sewed 15 string blocks, which brings my String Frenzy block total to 210. I started at the beginning of September and my goal is to stitch 600 string blocks (if I have that many strings!) by the end of the year. So even though I slacked off this week, I’m still on a good pace. 

Then I spent a fun morning going through all my Christmas fabrics, sorting the keepers from the give-aways. I unloaded pieces (most under 1/3 yard) that were not ever going to be used by moi. I’m just not into cutesy blue prints from the nineties, but Cousin Kim is. Win/win. Anyway, I want to make a string Christmas quilt, like my friend Julierose. I think it’s masterful the way she subtly added in non-traditional colors and non-Christmas fabrics. So I wanted to sew a few test Christmas string blocks to gauge how many blocks I think I can get out of my scraps (although I can supplement the fabrics as Julie did). 

Here are my first four blocks (6” finished size).

I think I like them! While sorting my fabrics, I also drew out a quilt plan for a quilt for my daughter and cut out all the pieces! But before I could change my mind, I bagged that would-be Christmas “squirrel” along with the sketch and put it back with my remaining Christmas fabrics on the shelf. And then I texted her that she was getting a new Christmas quilt in 2026! HA! That’s how you keep Christmas squirrels in check!! And then I had another squirrel showdown. I found a table runner I had stitched together last year from 2.5” Christmas squares. 

Anyway, that tiny squirrel wormed its way under the needle, and 8.27 minutes later it was quilted. I still need to add binding and I don’t know when I’ll do that. But anyway, I got a tidy fabric shelf out of the morning, as well as a nice pile of strings to sew into blocks, a table runner quilted, and a quilt kit cut out for next year. 

And then I switched to sewing on my Halloween quilt. I did not finish it this week as September turned to October, but I made progress. First I stitched the remaining portions of the center panel. The predominantly black color makes it hard to see much of the quilting. but hopefully this photo will give you an idea of the freeform quilting. It’s fun, but very time-consuming. 

After that, I moved on to a couple of the surrounding blocks. I got the corner bat blocks quilted before the thread started breaking. Sometimes it was the top thread, sometimes the bobbin. After fighting with it for about fifteen minutes, I just gave up and decided it was Timeout Time. I figured a couple days apart would do us all good. I cooled down, the machine got the spa treatment I mentioned above, and the quilt has been “hanging out” here. 

Today we will all try again, with the Pfaff standing by and looking eager for her chance in the spotlight. “Her”? I guess now that she has a gender, she should have a name. Something that starts with the F sound to alliterate with Pfaff. Fern? Fiona? Fannie? I think… Fannie! Pfannie Pfaff. 

The only thing I got done after that was some more sorting through sets of finished RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) blocks to decide what would be my next project after I finish the 3.5 quilts that are already sandwiched and ready to be quilted. I found a few cut bright fabric squares and fabrics to cut more. I quickly measured and counted up the cut blocks, figured a basic size and pattern for a kid quilt, and cut out the remaining needed blocks from some of the fabric. The rest of the fabric got put away and I had another empty project box. I threw the blocks up on the wall, and voila! This little squirrel project will be quickly webbed and sewn into a top, then put away with its backing until I get to it later in the month.

Oh! The RSC project I selected for the next project (after those 3.5 quilts are quilted) is the group of Paint Chip blocks. 

That’s all from here for now. I hope you all have a nice week.