Sew Close!

Basically every single day I think about sewing and almost everyday I don’t quilt. But I want to!! I miss sewing when I’m not doing it. I’ve also been trying to incorporate more slow practices into my daily morning routine, and I really want to include sewing. So each day, I think about how I can get started on that.

I decided to pull out the quilt that I am sooo close to finishing! I’ve only been working on it since 2009, so it’s not like there is any rush. But I feel like having a finish will make me feel accomplished and be able to get started on a new work with a real drive to finish whatever I pick up next.

To inspire some action I laid the quilt out to see exactly how much I have left to finish before moving on to the binding. This little bit is the last bit to quilt! That’s it

Another reason I can’t wait to finish this quilt is that it has accumulated quite a few stains over the last 12 years. I can’t wait to wash this quilt!!

Are you close to a finish?

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts today and Slow Sunday Stitching.

WIP

It’s growing.

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts and Slow Sunday Stitching.

When in Doubt, Scrap It Out (or "Just Sew Scraps")

Is sewing block a thing? I’ve been experiencing it lot in recent years. sometimes it lasts for months or years, sometimes a few hours or days. I know how to loosen this block, but whether I actually do it, is up in the air.

The best cure for sewing block, for me, is to get out the scarp bins. Just Sew Scraps could be a mantra.

I have been stumped with the quilt I’m working on. I’ve been only a few lines of quilting away from being ready to bind for over a month now. And yet, somehow I never pick it up to finish. The folded quilt leers at me from it’s spot near my favorite chair, ready for me to pick it up. The thread sits patiently on my desk so I have to look at it every morning. And yet….

Rooting around in the scrap bins feels less weighty, easier to tackle, more like play.

So, a few days ago I did the thing that I know will help unblock my sewing block, and I started sewing some scraps. And I feel so much better!!

What helps you unblock when you are suffering from a sewing block?

Linking up today with Kathy’s Quilts Slow Sunday Stitching. Glad to be back, as always.

Picking Out My Next Quilt Finish

I’m getting close to a finish with this quilt I have been working on for a long time. It’s about now, I wanted to start looking at the next quilt I will start to quilt. I hope that this will help motivate me to make that final push on my current quilt, so I can go ahead and move to the next one.

There were a few choices but the one I landed on was small, and I’m hoping this will make a good easy, quick (fingers crossed) finish, for the end of the year.

Now that I have decided which quilt I want to work on, I have to decide how to quilt it! I have three choices of thread. I have some ideas for quilting. I’ll have to get through my current quilt to find out which I go with!

Martin is helping me with this quilt and I’m linking up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy’s Quilts.

Video | Hand Sewing no. 2 | Straight Line Hand Quilting | Realtime Quilting

Hi, I’m Mo.
Thanks for joining me today! I post videos on Mondays and Fridays.
I’ve been working on this quilt for a few months. Here I am working on the straight line quilting. Next I will move on to the binding. I do not use a hoop, just prop the quilt on my knees. I also don’t mark my quilting, just quilt by eye. You might hear a bit of my book on tape in the background here. But sewing might make a good asmr video one day!

Do you hand sew? What sewing projects would you be interested in seeing?

Cats in this video: you can hear Martin in the background a few times.

Original music by audionightlight. https://soundcloud.com/anlight/tracks

Blog: http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog
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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/120401161-ana-mo-shoshin

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Almost Finally Binding

I had such high hopes to get this quilt finished… in September.

That month, I got into a pretty bad sewing slump. Since I started sewing again recently, slumps are to be expected. But this one lasted a long time!

Although I was hoping to be finished with this quilt months ago, I haven’t even finished the quilting! I’m getting really close tho and I’m almost finally binding!

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts and her Slow Sunday Stitching. How has your slow stitching been going?

Comparing Stitches

Thankfully, I’ve moved from sewing fans to straight lines on my latest quilt. Which means I’m almost finished with the quilting! But it got me thinking about all the other quilts I’ve quilted with fans. Here is my latest fan stitches compared to ones I completed in 2014.

I thought there would be a big difference between the more recent (above) and the stitches from 6 years ago (below). but it wasn’t very noticeable to my eyes. It’s a little hard to see in photos as the scale is not perfect. I feel that I strive to make my stitches smaller and closer together but I also realize that my stitches will never very very fine.

I love quilting as a meditation, so I try not to think too hard on “perfecting” my stitches, but improving is okay! I know I’m done when I feel my stitches becoming too long or wobbly, signaling that my eyes or hands are tired. That’s a good time to stop.

Do you set some time aside to quilt each day and stop after that allotted time, or do you hand quilt until you just can hand quilt any more?

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy’s Quilts.

Slow Stitching Goal Sliding

It’s more than half way thru the month and it doesn’t look like I’m going to finish my goal of two quilt finishes in September. I may not even finish one! I will continue working on this quilt that I started way back in 2009, but I will see how far I get. Although, my September goal feels like it’s sliding away from me, I have high hopes that I can start fresh in October. For the rest of this month, I will try not to worry about my goals but simply enjoy the slow stitching.

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts and Slow Stitching Sunday.

Lines and Fans

For the quilt I’m working on right now, I’m quilting with freehand fans and lines. I’ve never used this pattern before, and I’m really enjoying it! This is an easy quilt to sew lines on bc a lot of the fabric has patterns that can be used as a guide. Lines are kind of quick to quilt but also feel quite slow at the same time. I want to get the quilting finished soon, so I can move on to binding!

New (Very Old) WIP

My plan for quilting for the rest of 2020 is to get at least two finishes per month. One of the things that I did upon returning to quilting was to see what quilts I have that are not finished. There are a lot of them.

My next WIP, the “new” quilt I’m working on, is very old! This quilt was started sometime in 2009, I believe. It’s ready for a finish! Irving is turning out to be quite a quilt cat and he is ready to help!

Linking up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching to get some inspiration and get moving on this very old WIP.

The End and the Return - A Finished Quilt

I started this quilt sometime in 2017. I had started this quilt with a destination for it in mind, but my unexpected hiatus made it never to be. I also had the intention with this quilt to do some stash busting. I grouped all the strip scraps of like sizes I had and sewed them into rows and then joined the long rows. I really like the way this combines all the different fabric, making it a treasure hunt of looking all all the varied patterns and colors. Many of the scraps are vintage, extremely old, or reclaimed fabrics.

For the backing I used a single piece of a vintage sheet. This is just the kind of sheet I like to keep and use on our beds, but it was only a twin size. I loved the pattern so much, and the vintage feeling of the fabric, I couldn’t pass it up at whatever thrift shop or rummage sale it was found. I like that such a busy fronted quilt has a single backing fabric.

I can’t remember what batting was used for this quilt, but the binding was made by folding over the backing. This is my favorite way to bind a quilt and what I most often use. This is a baby sized quilt and as with all my quilts is an irregular shape. It measures approximately 40 1/2” by 41 1/2”. The folded binding helps make this quilt have wobbly edges, which I always enjoy. I quilted this with intersecting freehand fans, which as also one of my go-tos.

I labeled this quilt with our newest acquired fabric, that was given to us by a friend. It’s a goal of mine not to buy new fabric before using a lot of what we already have. We have so much fabric and so much of it is amazing. Even when we aren’t seeking out new fabric, it finds us, somehow.

When I started playing with sewing again, piecing scraps here and there, I knew this was the quilt I wanted to finish first. Bc it had seen the end of my quilting, before several years off, I wanted it to be the return as well. There’s nothing so satisfying as a finish but when you are finishing an old quilt, sometimes you are not as in love with it was you once had been. This was not so for this little baby quilt. I might like this one more than I did as I was working on it over three years ago.

I’m so excited to get back to quilting and get back to linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy Quilts, one of my all time favorite quilt blogs.

What are your go to quilt patterns for stash or scrap busting?

Summertime Makes Me Want to Quilt

You would not think that the hottest month of the year would make one crave to be seated, inside, under layers of cotton and batting, squinting and repeatedly poking themself with a needle. No one wants to sit under a sturdy quilt in August Summer for a few minutes, let alone the hours and hours it takes to make one, right?

But every August, without fail, that’s what I get a craving for.

My early life of quilting was mostly concentrated on vacations, in August, in the balmy Vermont Summers. And I just can’t shake that muscle memory or the desire to return, year in and year out, to those simpler times. Mid August rolls around and I start to dream of lush green vistas, sitting by a lake, or out on a porch, with a freshly peiced quilt over my lap, myopically poking away and sweating.

What do you crave in the summertime?