Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Orange Finish

I finished this baby quilt. 
A friend had gifted me with a bag of batik leftovers that included 19 finished blocks in orange/blue.  I made a few more and finished it with some of the orange strips. 
Simple quilting with the walking foot in the center and some feathers around the edges. 
My machine has been having tension issues, which on the feathers caused enough trouble for to break needles. 
The back has all kinds of random loops that I didn't discover until I was nearly done. 
Both of those problems are just going to become part of the story of the quilt. 
And the reason I have a new machine!

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Misc

 I have been doing lots of fabric based projects, but not finishing anything.  Here's the body of a bluebird I'm making for the winner of a custom pillow I donated for a fund raiser.
 I tried working on the Benjamin Biggs applique, but my cat had other ideas about what I should do with my hands on a lazy afternoon.
 I am working on a fairly complex applique border for a friend who knows what fabrics I'm using for a quilt for her, but wants it to be a surprise.  The pieced center is finished and about 30% of the 44 flowers.
 I was working on the orange applique when our travels took us to Sisters Oregon.  Where I fell in love with some cute fabric that begged to be dresses for my 2 year old granddaughter.  I made a major flub on the zipper insertion on the kitty dress, so I added a pink bow and a yoyo flower to match the print and cover the mistakes.

A friend bought and refurbished this industrial Juki that I got for a great price. 
  I am still a little afraid to use it.
 Making room for the Juki means that tons of things got moved.  In the process of re-homing things, I ran across a pile of batiks that a friend had donated to my cause.  It included 19 finished blocks.  So I decided to sew up a few more to finish up a center.  I even got most of the quilting done, when I realized how bad the tension was on my machine.  When I switched over from the walking foot to the free motion foot to do the borders, I realized that I needed to replace the walking foot (the plastic had been nicked by a needle and was catching thread.)
Lucky for me, they didn't have the replacement foot, but for the cost of a new foot and a tune up, I could get a new machine.  So I did.  The previous one lasted 6.5 years and I had bought it in an emergency situation to finish a project with a deadline when my Viking started acting up.

So maybe my next post will have some finished items.