April was Busy!

Last time I posted was March 24th.  It's been a whirlwind since then.  

First, I traveled to Texarkana, Arkansas for the first ever Texarkana TOGA (Treadle On Gathering & Academy).  Lots of people that I knew from other TOGA's past, and some new friends. There were lots of classes taught at the TOGA.

Missy teaching how to use the ruffler

Gina teaching Missy how to tat

Gina teaching tatting

some of Gina's tatted items

some of Gina's tatted items

Sue teaching something

Margaret teaching chicken pin cushions

Lisa teaching how to make straps for hauling machine cases

straps for hauling machine cases

Me teaching paper piecing

teaching how to make tea bag and food packet wallets

tea bag & food packet wallet

 The world is a small place.  I was chatting with someone at the TOGA, and was asked where in Texas I used to live.  I mentioned my hometown, and a lady who had just walked up said that she knew people who lived there, her niece's inlaws, then mentioned her nieces husbands name... which was my brother-in-laws name.  My sister-in-law's aunt and uncle were at the TOGA.  

Phyllis, Mac and me

Between classes at the TOGA, there is a 'hospital' for machines that need help (I had 3 machines that visited the hospital during the TOGA), and lots of visiting and other things going on, including the raffle table at the very end of the TOGA.

Teaching someone how to make quilt blocks for next year's raffle quilt (yes, I have permission to show her)

on of the hospital tables with Dr. Margaret

Dr. Floyd working on my new Wizard machine

raffle table

some of the machines that were for sale

Maria and me

Two raffle quilts (due to postponed TOGA's)

I went to the TOGA with 7 machines in my car (5 of the machines were heading to other people and were NOT mine, I was just helping with Pony Express rides) and I left the TOGA with a new (to me) machine.  On Thursday, a lady brought an aqua and cream Wizard sewing machine.  Well, I've been wanting a Wizard machine, since my family is really big into Harry Potter.  Meet Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore (Dumbledore for short).  This is a straight stitch machine made by Brother in Japan, back in the 1950's.

Dumbledore, my new Wizard sewing machine

Dumbledore's new spool pin doily

I did get to help with another Pony Express ride on the way home.  I got to haul this pretty Willcox & Gibbs in a parlor cabinet.  

Willcox & Gibbs straight stitch machine

After the TOGA, I got to give the baby quilt to the new baby.  I loved getting to snuggle with him, too.  This is my cousin's newest grandbaby.

He really likes his new quilt

getting lots of snuggles

I didn't take many photos for the rest of the trip, but I did get to visit with some family and friends.  My in-laws live a few blocks from my mother, and they are friends.  

my in-laws

my mother and my father-in-law

On the trip back home, I stopped in the St. Louis area to see a friend, and to pick up a sewing machine that she had picked up for me.  No photos of Dar (she doesn't like having her photo taken) but I do have photos of the little Singer 20 Sew Handy machine that she found for me (most likely made in the 1970's in Turkey, but still working on info on this little chain stitcher).

I only had a few days after I got back before my in-laws arrived for Hubby's 60th Birthday.  They stayed for over a week.  My in-laws are great.  

Being gone for 2 weeks, then having guests for over a week, with little time in between is why I haven't gotten much sewing done.  I did take some hand work on my trip, but only got to work on it a few times at the TOGA.  I finished 4 sewing caddies at the TOGA, but someone saw them and wanted to buy one of them.

sewing caddies

I finished the last one at home this week.  I'm keeping this one for myself.

These sewing caddies were on Elephantz blog back in 2015.  I made another one with the embroidery, but gave it away years ago. 

I've been working on several other sewing kits for the Missouri TOGA in June.  I also needed one for a gift, and finished all the pieces this week.

I got the idea for this sewing kit from one that was given to me last September.  A lady from my little quilt guild made everyone a sewing kit for our Annual Tea.  I found all the parts online (saved to my Pinterest page).

When I got home from my trip, this cute little key chain was waiting for me from Darlene and Sally.

Bunny key chain

Hopefully I'll be blogging more frequently.  I've been behind on blog reading, but I'm going to start fresh and get back to reading blogs again.  I miss reading blogs, but I'll never get caught up, so starting fresh is a better idea.

Another Finish

I forgot to include another finish.  Last week I made a baby quilt for my cousin's new grandson.  I'll be meeting the new baby on my trip.

I had a kit, and it stitched up quickly.  I followed the pattern except for the binding.  I decided to do faux piping binding instead of regular binding.

I put purple minkee on the back.  The blocks are from a book panel.  The pattern gave instructions to turn it into a quilt instead of a book.  The panel is The Monster Book of Jokes.  The quilting is just simple straight line quilting.

The quilt is signed (last block), washed and ready for the new baby.

More Finishes

I've been sewing and sewing.  I have photos of the finishes, but not of all of my sewing.  

The King size quilt was finished in 3 weeks, from start to finishing the binding.  Of course it helped that the Half Square Triangles and 4 Patchs were already made from the Treadle On Block Exchanges (TOBE) that I've participated in for over 10 years.  Ann did a great (and fast) job quilting it for me.  This was my February UFO Challenge project.

the perfect backing fabric

on my bed

Westley wanted to be in the photo

I made 4 sets of TOBE blocks for the Spring Basic exchange (Rail Fence), but forgot to take any photos before I mailed them off.  Oh well.

Last fall, I made some ruffled pants for my granddaughter.  My best friend saw them and wanted some for her granddaughter who loves frilly, girly things.  I stitched up 2 pair in the same fabrics I used for my granddaughters pants. 

I'll get to give these to my best friends granddaughter in person in 2 weeks.  

I also finished a jacket for my best friend.  Years ago, I was supposed to add the strips of fabric to her jacket, but, the jacket got put in the back of my sewing closet.  Well, that closet has been jam packed with stuff and I only found the jacket when I cleaned it out earlier this year.  Today was the day to get this done.

Michele's decorated jacket

I don't have photos of the 'secret' projects that I've been working on.  The Missouri TOGA (Treadle On Gathering and Academy) that I attend every June, is having a sewing kit exchange this year.  I'm not making just one sewing kit (as usual), I'm making 6 sewing kits (some will be gifts in the future).  They are all in different sewing themed fabrics from my stash.  Parts of them are finished, and parts of them I'm still working on.  There is lots of hand work in these sewing kits.

I won't get much sewing done in the next few weeks, since I'll be traveling to the Texarkana TOGA (Treadle On Gathering and Academy).  It will be sew much fun getting together with sewing friends from all over and playing with sewing machines.  I'll be teaching how to paper piece, and there will be lots of other classes and demo's at the TOGA.  This will be my first solo trip since before the pandemic started.  

I'll miss my 'sewing supervisor' while I'm gone.  He works sew hard that he tires himself out.

Westley napping under a sewing machine cabinet

A BIG Finish!

I've been sewing TOBE (Treadle On Block Exchange) blocks into a king size quilt.  I'd designed a quilt top (previous post), but found out that I didn't need to add the Rail Fence blocks as borders.  This was a quick finish, since others had made the initial 4 patch and Half Square Triangle blocks for the many TOBE exchanges over the past 12 years.  

piecing the blocks on my 1927 Singer 15 hand crank

I did have help sewing this quilt top.  Westley felt he needed to supervise every step.

Westley checking my 1/4" seams

the supervisor napping on the job

checking out my cutting table

What we ended up with is this king sized quilt top.  It is 109" x 109".

on my bed

The blocks made a great secondary pattern when they are sewn together.  These are the two blocks I used to make the quilt.

4  4 patch blocks to make a 16 patch block

4 HST's to make pinwheel blocks

Last month I bought a bolt of fabric on sale.  This fabric spoke to me (I think you can figure out why).  Unfortunately, the designer used pink as the background, but, all the vintage sewing machines made this fabric worth putting up with pink.  

fun vintage sewing machines

This quilt top took quite a few people to make, and lots of machines. 

For the 4 patch blocks, there were 164 blocks made by 37 different people from 23 US states and 2 foreign countries.  The blocks were made on 70 different treadles or hand cranks dating from 1870's to 1964.

For the HST blocks, there were 166 blocks made by 40 different people from 20 US states and 2 foreign countries.  The blocks were made on 83 different treadles or hand cranks dating from 1862 to 1964.

Now to get the backing pieced and get everything to the long arm quilter.

PS:  This is my project for the 2022 UFO Challenge with my little quilt guild.  Woohoo!  I'm getting these UFO's done.  Not sure if I'll get to the Bonus UFO or not this month.  We'll see......

Are you getting any UFO's done this year???

Organizing UFO's, etc.

I've gotten very little sewing done the past 2 weeks.  I was preparing a lecture for my little quilt guild about 'My Quilting Journey'.  The meeting was February 7th.  I prepared a trunk show with more than 20 quilty things to show.  Problem was, when I went to pull everything out, I couldn't find 3 of the quilts.  They were supposed to be on the guest bedroom bed, but we'd done a bed swap early in January, and the quilts got moved.  Usually, they would be stored in the sewing room closet (where they belong) but I knew they hadn't gotten there yet.  After looking all over for the quilts, I finally decided I had to check the sewing room closet for them.

Let me explain about my sewing room closet.  It is the largest closet in the house, but, it is also where everything is dumped whenever someone comes for a visit, or when I need to get stuff out of my sewing room, etc.  When my grandkids were here last time, you couldn't even get in the door of the closet, it was piled so full of stuff (had to make room for 5 extra people in multiple rooms).  Very Scary!  Well, I started pulling everything out of that closet until it finally looked like this.

almost empty closet

The closet looks much better than that photo now, thank goodness.  By the way, I finally found the missing quilts in hubby's office, hidden in an IKEA bag.

Well, since everything from the closet (at least the middle of the floor) was out, I could finally get in there to see if I could find missing UFO's for my little quilt guild's UFO challenge this year.  I decided to catalog all the UFO's I have.  Oh My!  I found so many UFO's that I had totally forgotten about, along with some of the ones that I had listed already.

For the UFO Challenge, we are supposed to list 12 UFO's.  Since I knew I had so many UFO's, I listed the original 12, and added a Bonus UFO to each month.  Some of those UFO's were in the closet, some I still haven't found (yet).  I listed what was in the closet, and re-organized it, then started in my sewing room.  This is a very s-l-o-w project so far, since I'm listing the UFO, what's been done so far, and where it is located (ex: 2015 Modern TOBE (Kona Ash) – 30 blocks (10.5”) and ‘extra’ parts to make more blocks (no pattern, maybe saved on computer somewhere???) and extra Kona Ash material, in 2 plastic drawers in corner of closet)

Several of the UFO's on my list are from block exchanges.  I pulled all of those out, and figured out that I had almost enough exchange blocks to make a quilt for my new king sized bed.  I'd found a quilt I liked, using Half Square Triangles and 4 Patch blocks (two of the most common exchange blocks) and drafted a quilt to fit.

Inspiration quilt (too small)

draft idea, but can't use those borders (too much math)

what I drafted

As soon as I drafted that pattern, I found more TOBE blocks.  I have more than enough to make the full quilt and have lots left over.  Woohoo!  (I found even more blocks yesterday, too).

I'm still cataloging UFO's, but I'm up to 66 UFO's so far. As I go along, I'm pulling out things to put on the raffle table for the two different TOGA's (Treadle On Gathering & Academy's) I'll be attending in the next few months. 

Westley, the puppy, is growing like a weed!  He is such a good puppy.  He loves to play with Ziva, our Alaskan Malamute.  Here is a short video of them playing with each other (and my son).

My birthday was earlier this month.  Hubby got me an Ultrasonic Cleaner that I had been wanting, to help clean the removable parts of sewing machines.  I also got a book, The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff.  This book will be great for the Attachment TOBE later this year.

I've also found more attachments and added them to my list I'm working on. I had to ask Mary (from Treadle On) what these were.  Mary is a wealth of information on attachments.  She even knew what machine these attachments go to.

White Hemstitcher

White quilting foot.

For my UFO Challenge from January, I got a late start on the Bonus UFO's.  I was late since I spent my time preparing the 'My Quilting Journey' lecture instead of working on these.  Way back, about 15 years ago, I got an idea for a table runner at a quilt shop that doesn't even exist anymore (Tammy Tadd Design's Quilt Shop).  I'd made 8 placemats and 3 different table runners using this idea (no pattern).  One table runner I finished years ago, quilting spiderwebs by hand.  One table runner was thread basted, but I hadn't started quilting it.  The rest were waiting to be basted and quilted.  Well, I decided that I was NOT going to quilt more spiderwebs on these (too much work) and decided to spray baste them and straight line quilt these.  The quilting is very simple, and I spray basted them and quilted them February 1st (only a day late).  Since I want these out of my sewing room (I already have enough UFO's in there), I made binding for them yesterday and stitched it onto one side of the placemats and last 2 table runners.  I'll glue baste the bindings down and stitch the last part by machine, too, just so that I can get them done.  We don't have to finish our UFO's each month (thank goodness), we just have to work on them.

As soon as I finish this post, I plan on starting on that king sized quilt I drafted.  Hopefully all those exchange blocks are sized correctly, so that I can spend my time sewing, not trimming blocks.  

How many UFO's do YOU have????