A Little Stitching...

I took a Laura Heine class with my larger quilt guild (Pride of the Prairie) last Saturday.  We worked on the Tomato pin cushion collage.  The teacher was GREAT!  Her name is Linda Lambert, and she has been teaching these classes for several years now.  I learned more in this class than any other quilting class I've ever taken.  I have a LONG way to go before my collage quilt is finished, but here is what I got done during the class.

where I stopped at the end of the class 

me, working on my tomato

teacher Linda, in a blouse she made using the collage technique she was teaching

I have lots more things I want to add to my collage, including 'threading' the needle, a doily, etc.  Not sure when I'll get a chance to work on this again, since I have several things that need to get done before I can finish this.

Another thing I worked on this week was butterfly blocks for next year's Missouri TOGA raffle quilt. We're supposed to bring our finished blocks to this years TOGA.  I made 3 - 12.5 inch blocks for the raffle quilt.  I also made 3 smaller blocks for myself. These are paper pieced.  You can find the patterns here. (I enlarged the pattern to get the 12.5 inch blocks).

Pepper block

Cricket block

Gidget block

3 - 5.5" blocks blocks for me

Remember the oversized sewing notions I've been making (previous 2 blog posts) for my little quilt guild's Annual Tea?  Well, hubby finished the 2 wooden needles I asked him to make, and I got them painted.  All my oversized sewing notions are finished now.

pack of hand needles shown for size

I'll be using all of these oversized sewing notions for the Tea, then (hopefully) for this year's Lyon's Farm Fall Festival (waiting for the vendor forms to be mailed out, they are really slow).  I'll also be using them in my booth at my large quilt guild's quilt show March 14-15, 2026.  Put this show on your calendar.  It is ALWAYS a GREAT quilt show!  I attended this quilt show before I ever joined this guild.  The quilt show was why I joined this guild.

I still have a few demo's to prepare for the Missouri TOGA (Treadle On Gathering & Academy) in June.  If you love vintage sewing machines, and want to travel to Missouri, come join us.  The link above will take you to our MOTOGA page (easy to join).  We will be meeting in Ava, MO June 19-21, 2025.  If you search my blog, you can find out more about TOGA's.

2nd Bonnie Hunter quilt top finished!

I finished the 2nd quilt top from the Bonnie Hunter workshops.  Woohoo!  I took this Tulip Fields class on Wed, May 18th.  I did do prep work before the class.  I redrafted the pattern to make the blocks 'supersized'.  Bonnie's blocks finish at 7.5" (4 flower blocks with sashing) while mine finishes at 15".

my redrafted pattern

The Tulip Fields pattern is found in this book.

String Fling by Bonnie Hunter

Bonnie's version has LOTS more tiny blocks

Here is the center of my quilt (no borders yet).

76" square center of quilt

I made 70 string blocks for the border and also, for another project,  The border took 42 string blocks.

70  8.5" string blocks

string border strips, ready to be stitched onto the center of the quilt

Here is my finished Tulip Fields quilt top.

Tulip Fields quilt top

my son holding the Tulip Fields quilt top

I'm going to stitch the extra string blocks together to make a long, narrow quilt, to cover our pillows.  Hubby doesn't like pillow shams, so, this will make the pillow area of our bed look nicer.  I haven't decided if I want to make a few more Tulip blocks or not.  I have enough material.

All the fabric in this quilt, except the rust colored sashing, is from my stash.  It didn't make a dent.  I've used up most of the background fabric, but, I have yards and yards of the red left (and all the other colors, too). 

up close so you can see the background fabric better

 This quilt top was stitched on my purple Featherweight, Betty Sue.

Betty Sue, stitching on borders

It was fun using an electric machine, since I usually use hand cranks.  I gave Betty Sue a good cleaning and oiling before I started stitching the borders on.  This quilt will be for ME!  Other than some small wall quilts, or quilts from block exchanges, I don't have any of my quilts.  I always give my quilts away.  Not this time! 

Both quilt tops, from both Bonnie Hunter classes, finished, in a month!  That may be record breaking for me;)

Here is the other quilt I finished last week.

Happily Scrappily Irish

I have a mammogram in the morning.  I may take the day off from sewing.  I do have some things I need to get ready for the Michigan TOGA (Treadle On Gathering & Academy) June 10th-12th.  If you want to know more about the TOGA, here is a link to last years post.  

Arkansas TOGA!

On the way home from Texas, I went to the first ever Arkansas TOGA (Treadle On Gathering and Academy), in Mena, Arkansas.  After the crazy car week I'd just had, I needed some time with vintage sewing machines.

Several of us rented a cabin outside of Mena.  While searching for some cookie sheets (never found any of those), I found 3 tiaras.  Well, we had to have some pictures, of course.

me, Margaret and Lisa

 On Friday and Saturday, we played with lots of lovely vintage sewing machines.
First up, is the sewing machine my SIL found for me in New Mexico, earlier this summer.  It was waiting for me at my inlaws house.  Since the bentwood cover said 'Singer' on the outside, we all thought it was a Singer machine.  Nope!  When I got to the TOGA, Lisa put her Gritzner next to my new (to me) machine, and, we found out that it was a Gritzner hand crank.  This is my first original hand crank.  All my other hand cranks have been converted from electric machines or treadles.  Woohoo!

Lisa's Gritzner (you can see the edge of mine on the right)

my Gritzner hand crank

There were several demo's over the weekend. Missy of Missy's Homemaking Adventures showed us how to use a ruffler.

ruffler attachment

people gathered around Missy for the demo

Missy, showing how to use the ruffler attachment

ruffling a skirt

Missy has two posts about the TOGA on her blog, here and here.

Lisa made everyone a cute nametag.

nametags

Lisa did a demo on re-wiring an electric sewing machine, using one of my vintage blue machines.

Lisa, re-wiring my machine

Lisa also re-wired another of my machines.  Now I have 2 more working machines.  Thanks Lisa!  It was fun watching and helping her.  I hope I can do it myself next time.

re-wired blue machine

Lisa working on the 2nd machine

Margaret offered to teach everyone about tension on machines.  Well, guess what, I had the perfect machine for this demo.  The Gritzner needed work on the top tension (put together incorrectly) and also on the bobbin (no replacements for this machine, we had to take it apart, and 're-shape' the spring.

Margaret, working on the shuttle spring

using a folded dollar bill to clean between the tension disks

taking apart the tension assembly

lay out the pieces, in the order you took them off, so you can get it back together, correctly, again

you can see that the #4 piece should NOT be between the tension disks (#3 & #5)  This was corrected.

The Gritzner now makes a nice stitch.  Thanks Margaret!

Stephanie, the lady who organized this TOGA, also did a demo.  She showed us a different way to make Crazy Quilt blocks. The tension wasn't working yet on my machines, so, I didn't get a block made.

Stephanie, with a stack of Crazy Quilt blocks, doing her demo

front of a crazy quilt block

back of a crazy quilt block

front of that same crazy quilt block

muslin fabric drawing, showing how to cut, and put together the block (you can draw each block differently)  The bias lines are stitched over, to prevent distortion.  After stitching those lines, cut apart, and start piecing on the muslin, then put it back together again.  

On Saturday, we had even more fun.  I did a demo on the Hexie tape measure, that I showed a few weeks ago here.

Hexie tape measure

We checked out everyone's machines.

Kay's hand crank

Sue's Wilcox & Gibbs chain stitch hand crank (I covet this machine!!!!)

Margaret's pink (bad picture, sorry) Atlas hand crank

Pfaff 130 I gave to Lisa, to give to her friend (Lisa wired it up and added a motor and foot control that I brought from another Treadle On member.  Thanks Katie F)

Missy sold a Singer 15 to Dannie

Dannie

machines for sale

Missy's hand crank

Missy found a new pincushion in one of the local shops.  Isn't the mouse cute!

Missy's mouse pincushion

Another demo was how to cut an apron from a man's shirt.  Lisa showed us how, and, Kay modeled it.

front of apron (still needs fabric decorations added)

back of apron (still needs strings for tying)

Now that you have seen the back of our TOGA t-shirts, here is the front.

Missy and me, in our TOGA t-shirts.

There are always raffles at TOGA's.  Here are some pictures of the raffle items.

I won the quilt in the bottom of the picture

raffle items

more raffle items

even more raffle items

raffle items

last of the raffle items (box was full of scraps of fabric)

It was a fun TOGA!