Frustrated

My sewing machine (Bernina 570) has been giving me a few problems lately. I get it serviced every year at the end of the year - usually taking it in during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. But I’ll be taking it in early this year. For the past several months, the automatic thread cutter has been only cutting the top thread and leaving the bobbin thread uncut. When I start to sew again, it tangles. So, I’ve been using a leader or ender (more precisely, a “thread rabbit”) whenever I can to avoid cutting the thread. Ok, a pain-in-the-butt workaround, but not really a big deal. But every once in a while, the machine stops and the message states the bobbin is empty. I got suckered into checking it the first couple times, but I learned that if it does that when I know darn well the bobbin is full, I just press the ‘X’ to close out the screen and can continue sewing. It rarely happened, so I forgot about it until yesterday.

The Fan of the Library quilt top was finished, and I pin basted it on Thursday in order to quilt it myself so I could practice quilting feathers. On Friday, I got the first block done and was pleased enough with the feathers for a first effort.

With a little more practice, it would be easy to make those feathers fluffier and get the two sides to meet in the top of the fan arc, eliminating the need to sew a curl there. OK. I can do this. On to the second fan. That’s when my machine decided that the bobbin thread was empty. I cleared the message, continued trying to stitch the second fan, got another three seconds of stitching in and Stop! Bobbin empty message again. After a few (like a dozen) more of these stops and error messages, I gave up. I switched from my free-motion foot to my walking foot and the same thing happened.  In order to preserve my sanity, to say nothing of my machine and the nearby window, I turned it off and walked away. 

Today I will try to sew something - anything with my regular machine quarter inch foot. Once again I’ll clean and re-thread the machine as I’d done before starting the quilting. Depending on how the machine behaves, it will either go in today for servicing (if it’s not sewing at all) or next Saturday after our Quilts for Kids workshop, which will be at the same store where I get my machine serviced. In the meantime, Ruby said she can finish the quilting (not feathers, but at least something) on her longarm. She’ll take it with her when she comes to “Church of Bernina” on Sunday and return it on Wednesday. I have a backup machine to use whenever I need to, and when the Bernina returns from servicing, I can try again with feathers on another quilt top. And I will definitely try again.

But, everything was fine for the earlier part of the week through Thursday, and I got lots sewn. 

Here are three Rolling Stone blocks that I sewed in purple, my mistaken Color of the Month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The block on the top right is magenta, not wine-colored as it appears. Purples  are problematic for my iPhone. 

They will finish at 12”. Next I sewed some Hollow Nine blocks with 2.5” squares (6” finished):

And I webbed the Unicorn quilt. That white print in the top has tossed unicorn heads in blue-purple and red-purple, so I took that as license to mix all the matching purple shades and tints in the pieced blocks. 

It’s not exactly “cute”, although it is nicer and brighter in person. The top measures about 40x50”. The best part is that it ate up a lot of older purple scraps on the front and the pieced back. My purple scrap bin is smaller than my other colors, and now the remaining scraps all fit into it. Yesssss! 

And I had another little incident on Thursday. I was walking up to the clubhouse, along a tree-lined street, when a tree branch broke and fell down about 12’ in front of me. It wasn’t a huge branch, and even if I’d been hit, I don’t think it would’ve done much except scare the bejeebers out of me and possibly knock off my sunglasses. But still. I backed up a bit and took a picture - the branch is in the road by the bench and tree in the middle of the photo. 

I dragged the branch out of the street and onto the grass and called one of our groundskeepers. And then I finished walking to the clubhouse (the building in shadow behind the trees) and played cards all afternoon with my friends. 

All in all, it was a good week. One of the highlights was taking a 3.5-mile walk with a friend (probably a bit much for my first serious post-surgical walk), but nothing hurts except the ol’ back! And my hips. And ….  linking up to Scrappy Saturday. Life is good!

Drive-By Post!

There’s not much to report here this week in the way of any news, creative or otherwise. It’s just been crazy and busy - and I developed “pink eye” (conjunctivitis) and an infected tear duct that is finally clearing up with meds. So, minimal sewing and reading for me. But still - housework, yardwork, meetings and appointments. But I do have two pictures to share.

We were invited over to Bruce’s ex-wife’s place for a small family gathering to say goodbye to grandson Deacon (tallest guy in back row), who was leaving on a 2-year mission the next day for his church. He will be in the Kansas City mission.

Back row: Abbie, Gunner (the redhead!) and Deacon - daughter Emily’s kids
Front row (daughter Stacy’s kids): Remi, Oakley, Bear, Evie and Hunter

I sewed another batch of 15 string blocks in purple, but I don’t have a picture. Strings is strings, eh? It’s comfort sewing for me, and I just turn on some music and float away to a happy place. 

The Fan of the Library quilt is now a completed top measuring something like 55x66. Don’t quote me on that. Once it’s quilted, I’ll have the official numbers. I also pieced a backing. 

Now, since I want to quilt this one myself, I have to pin baste it and make some quilting design decisions. I’d like to practice some feathers on it after watching Angela Walter’s feather quilting series on her YouTube channel. Wish me luck.

Today I’m off to work awhile in the courtyard. I've got weeds to hoe, roses to deadhead and fertilizing to do. I may even repot some of my houseplants that need it. And then - sewing all afternoon. At least, that’s the plan. There may also be a Barnes & Noble coffee date in the afternoon. life is good!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Continuing With Purple

Well, I jumped the gun in starting my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for August with purple, because Angela selected yellow instead. But she also said if we’d started with purple, we could continue with it and just do yellow next month. So that’s what I’m doing!

Let’s start with the 6.5” string blocks. This first batch was these dark purple strings. They’re not so exciting, so I didn’t unpin this set of 15 that will go to our local chapter of Quilts for Kids. 

Then I wanted to do a set of 15 light lavender blocks, and I had enough of the center strips with the plusses on them to do that, and managed to eke out the whole set. I did lay these out on one of my sewing room tables, but the lighting sure affects the color. Obviously, the window is to the right, so those blocks on the right are getting the most natural light. The truest colored blocks are in the second column from the right. 

I have more purple strings, and I’ll get to those later in the month.

Next I finished sewing the blocks for my friend Joan who moved back to Massachusetts. It looks very similar to the one I finished last spring for our grandson’s wedding, but this one is just 12 blocks (instead of 20) and measures 48x64”. It’s pinned sideways (wonkily) because my design board is too high for me, yet not long enough. 

I had two quilt finishes this week because my friend Ruby brought them back after quilting them. These will go to Quilts for Kids (QFK), and both are larger than the small ones that we make with a single width of fabric for the backing. I got them squared up (which is going to be hard to believe when you see the second quilt), bound and labeled. 

This first one is the light and dark potato chip quilt made exclusively with pieces that were cut 2.5x4.5”. I am absolutely having a great time working with this shape lately! I photographed this quilt sideways, then flipped it vertically. It measures 48x60”.

Here’s a close-up of the quilting.

The backing is this sturdy red plaid that Ruby bought at an estate sale for us to use for our QFK quilts. There were  about 10-12 pieces, with probably 30 yards or more total. Expect to see a lot of this fabric used as backings! 

This next quilt was difficult for me to photograph, so I laid it out on the kitchen island. The quilt measures 48x61”. 

And I decided to do what quilter Bonnie Hunter does and piece the back with matching scraps. Gotta use up as much as I can of the “Dang, that’s ugly!” scraps and small yardage pieces. I also used the leftover blocks to get them gone!

This is a close-up of the curly quilting. 

The Library Quilt, as I’m calling it (but “Fan of the Library will be its official name) saw a lot of good progress. In the next picture, the side borders are just pinned up and the top and bottom borders aren’t shown. Also, some of the lower horizontal seams aren’t stitched.

Those 12 fan blocks were given to me by our QFK chapter leaders. We get a lot of donated blocks and fabric, so they passed these on to me to “do something with.” I had 2 yards of this lovely fabric depicting children’s books with vintage, colorful covers and they were perfect together.  I’m absolutely loving the warm, rich colors! 

Oh, the layout came about as an accident. I had originally intended to have all the fan blocks facing one direction. But when I finished piecing the first row of three, I realized I’d already messed up. I hate ripping blocks apart, so I made an executive decision (design choice) to alternate double and single fans. And I rather like it! I think the double fans look like a book lying open with its pages fanned out. 

All is well here, but the heat is really plucking my last nerve. My garden is half crispy, despite daily watering - and deep soaking the tree. I hope this type of heat doesn’t become the norm. I may have to start planting cacti! Cousin Kim and her daughter Sarah came over on Wednesday and the three of us went swimming at the clubhouse. Bruce didn’t have any interest in joining us. He jokes that with only one arm, he just swims in circles! My granddaughter London got her learner's permit this week. Her mom sent me a video of London driving in a church parking lot. I can remember doing the same thing with London’s dad! It seems like just last month! 

I hope you have a great week and stay cool (or warm, depending on where you are) and safe! Sharing this post also with OH SCRAP! 

Life is good.