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.