SNOWMEN DONE

 I made the binding and sewed it onto the Snowmen quilt today.  It's done.

This is finish number 17 for the year!

FINISHED QUILTING SNOWMEN

 I was a bit hesitant to start up the longarm; was it going to work after crashing?  I had to give it a try eventually and find out!  But, I was happy to see that everything seemed to be okay.  I changed the needle and finished the last little bit of the program to finish the Snowmen quilt.  It quilted out just beautifully.  The Snowmen quilt is quilted.

This quilting design is perfect for this quilt.

SNOWMEN QUILT QUILTING

 I loaded the Snowmen quilt onto the longarm this morning and set up a pantograph that has swirls and snowflakes.  Everything was going just great.  The panto was stitching out beautifully until we got to the last row when things started to go awry.

First, there was two thread breaks for no apparent reason.  Then *crash*  the machine made a horrible noise and stopped with a alarming icon saying the machine was jammed.  The needle had come down onto the plastic cup of the #74 foot and was jammed there.  Using the hand wheel I was able to lift the needle up, but the foot's cup was broken (of course it was, it's a poorly designed plastic cup and this is actually the second one I've had that has broke- at $150 each). I gave up for the day and shut it down.

I don't understand what happened.  How could the needle move enough to not go down in the stitch hole, but move over and strike the cup?

Hopefully, the needle bar isn't bent or something.  

BIRD LEGS

 I've been working on the Fine Feathered Friends wool embroidery project.  I've appliqued all of the pieces down and today I embroidered the legs onto the birds.

DARRELL AND THE TREE

 In 2005 we planted a tree in front of our house in Renton on Darrell's birthday.  And I've been taking a picture on this day ever since.

2025

2020

2015

Planting day 2005

SCORPION

 I made a Scorpion from beads for my Scorpio husband's birthday.

CORAL STITCH WITH BEADS

 Continuing on with my attempts to learn beaded embroidery, the next page uses the Coral Stitch.

BEADS WITH CHEVRON STITCH

 Back to work on the bead book pages.  Today it was the Chevron Stitch.

STAR BOOK

 I watched the replay of a live video from Tuesday that I couldn't attend.  It was with e bond, she showed us how to make a Star Book.  I followed along and got it done during the video.  It is a simple and fun little project.

It involves folding the papers and gluing them all together somewhat like an accordian.  Then when you open it up the pages for a star.

MORE BIRDS

 I worked on the Fine Feathered Friends again today.  I got them all cut out and fused down, then began appliqueing them to the background.

Fusible attached to wool, ready to be cut out.

I thought some of the fabric choices that were included with the kit were not quite right.  I dug into my wool stash and found some better colors and used those instead.

I was using Sue Spargo wool thread to applique the pieces down and a spiral eye needle.  Unfortuntely the thread would occassionally get caught on the eye and start to shred and tangle.  

FINE FEATHERED FRIENDS

 I bought this wool embroidery kit called Fine Feathered Friends a month or so ago.  Today I had the urge to start it.  So I did.  I should have been working on my bead project.

I cut out and fused two birds today.  There are five birds.  They will all be fused onto this black wool background, then appliqued and embroidered.  Another black wool piece will be fused to the back to cover up the threads and then the birds will be cut out.

BEADS WITH CHAIN STITCH

Another kind of stitch, the Chain Stitch with beads.

 

OFF TO PORT TOWNSEND

 Darrell, Jelly and I left early headed to Port Townsend.  Darrell is going to Edensaw to pick some lumber for our front gate project.

We caught the ferry from Fauntleroy to Southworth.  The sun was coming up behind us while we were on the ferry.

Very few folks making this early trip on the ferry.

Arriving at Southworth

Crossing the Hood Canal floating bridge

Seen in the Womens Room at a gas station in Chimacum.

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I dropped Darrell off at Edensaw.  Then Jelly and I headed to Fort Worden for a walk.  It was a beautiful morning.

Then we went back to retrieve Darrell and we headed to Water Street in Port Townsend.  We had a few minutes to kill before anything opened at 10am.  We walked up the street and back enjoying the old buildings and window displays.

I wanted to make a quick stop in the Art Toolkit Store.  I have a couple of their watercolor palettes and needed a few tiny pans.   I forgot to take pictures of the store though.

Then we went back to Bazaar Girls yarn and wool store that I had spotted on our walk.  I bought some felted wools and a pin kit and spotted a few things for inspiration.

BEADS WITH BLANKET STITCH

The next pages in my Exquisite Bead Book are using Blanket Stitches and adding beads to them.

 

All of the pages will need edgings added to them.

BEADS WITH BACKSTITCH

I'm finally working on the pages for my Exquisite Bead Book.  I'm starting out easy and working my way to the more elaborate embroidery stitches.

This first one is using the Backstitch and adding beads.

 

COLOR STAR COMPLETED

 The Color Star quilt got it's binding finished today.  So, it's done, it's a finished quilt.

It began with a preprinted panel to which I added some more black to the top and bottom to make it rectangular instead of squarish.  Then it was simply a matter of adding a bunch of borders - trying not to make them ruffle.  I added those first five borders a while ago using fabrics that were 'go-withs' to the panel. At that time it measured 58" x 74". Then I set the top aside not sure how to quilt it.  When I got it out recently I decided to add another border to make it big enough for a twin sized bed and added that last black border.

It now measures 62" x 78"

This is finish #16 of the year.

COLOR STAR QUILTED

 I've been busy doing other stuff the last few days and getting the business B&O Taxes filed and paid by the end of the month. 

But, today I was back to quilt Color Star on the longarm.

And now it is officially quilted and off the machine.

NEXT UFO TO DO

 November's UFO Challenge is my Color Star quilt top.  I made a backing using greys and black and white prints from my stash.  I didn't put a label on it.  The center of this quilt was a printed panel of the color star.  I had added some black fabric to the top and bottom of it to make it rectangular.  Then I added the four borders using coordinating fabrics and put it away.  It was not yet big enough for a twin sized quilt, so I added another plain black border to make it 66" by 80" when I pulled it out to finish.

I loaded the backing onto the longarm yesterday.  Today I added the batting and the top and got busy setting up a pantograph and starting the quilting on it .  I only got one pass made before it was time to go in for the day.

CUTTING PANTS

 Darrell was getting rid of a pile of pants he didn't want anymore.  I grabbed them.

I spent the morning cutting them up into just fabric.  That means getting rid of all of the heavy seams.

I felt a little bad because most of the pants were still wearable.  But, I want to make a quilt.

BINDING SPIDER LEGS

 I enlisted help from my quilty friends from Brave Patch in deciding on which fabric to use for the binding on Spider Legs.  We settled on this black and white strip.  I like to use bias binding, which means the strip will be diagonal.  

I made the binding and got it sewed on today.

Then I put it up on the wall and took the photos I need if I want to submit it to a show.

This quilt is done!  It's 63" by 81" 

WITCH HAT

As if I didn't have other things to do I decided instead to make a Witch's Hat.  I had a chunk of old Alexander Henry fabric with magical symbols, bats, cats and other stuff on it that would be perfect for this project.

It was a battle getting the cone sewn onto the brim and it isn't pretty, but it looks okay on the outside and that's all that matters.

I quilted it on the longarm first.

Then cut out the parts with a pattern from Prairie Misfit.  And sewed them together after I watched her short video on YouTube and read the directions on the pattern.  

And it turned out all right!