Almost There

First, sometimes I am just exasperated at how difficult it is for me to leave comments on other blogs, to the point where I just give up. When I manage to have some success, they don't always show up on the person's blog. I don't know whether it's because they never got it, or if it's because it never got moderated and posted. 

I too have enabled moderation on my blog, but I have comments forwarded to my regular email address. I don't always get them, particularly if it's been a while since I blogged, and I don't always think to check the blog, which means I may not respond. My apologies if I failed to respond to a comment. 

Today I had to go into the blog and delete about 8 spam comments, all from the same source. So I fully understand those who also have comments moderated. Who needs all that? I also accidentally deleted a comment from Alycia, who hosts Finish or Not Friday. No idea how to get it back. :(

So today is Finished or Not Friday on Alycia's website. Linking up here. Or not! Can't get the LinkZ to work correctly. 

Finished or not? No! But almost there--on several fronts. I finished the quilting on Tango yesterday and got the binding machine stitched to the front ...

... and started hand sewing the binding to the back this morning. I machine stitch binding on a charity quilt but hand stitch the binding on quilts I plan to keep. It's the only hand work I really do anymore, and I enjoy it. Sometimes I think maybe I should start hand piecing again, but it never happens. 

For the quilting, I used a pantograph called Gussied Up by Urban Elementz. I hadn't used it before, but it was easy, quick, and fun to do. Not a very dense pantograph, which seemed fine to me given the finished size of these blocks. 

 

The little hourglass blocks are all sewn together now, and every single edge is on the bias, so that should be interesting when I get to binding. A little extra care may be required.

 I had three blocks left over that didn't fit in the quilt. I plan to incorporate them into the backing but in a little bit different way. I have a fairly plain light blue backing picked out, and that should work just fine. 

I have been hell bent on finishing all the scrap bin fold up baskets, and I now have 8 of the 11 baskets I had planned done. 

As you can see, I am using rainbow brights for the baskets, and each basket has a lining with a white background and a small motif the same color as the outer fabric. 

 

I was stumped however, when I got to the one for neutral scraps, until I found these two fat quarters in the stash. These so work for me, and this basket is done!

Same with the one for multicolor scraps. How perfect is this!

I'll be making the last three, orange, purple, and multicolor over the weekend. I don't often come across  black scraps, so I eliminated that color in my line up. Didn't have any more room across my countertop anyway, lol. 

I am a fan of Emily Dennis at Quilty Love. I like her aesthetic very much, and I look forward to her newsletters. She wrote one the other day about some string blocks she was making. It might have been just in her email newsletter because I'm not seeing it on her blog. 

Anyway, she was using scraps of batting to do her string piecing on instead of fabric of paper, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Who among us doesn't have batting scraps? I have bunches. Her only concern was the bulk in the seam allowances when she sewed the blocks together. 

It occurred to me to cut the batting square to the finished size and sew the strips on. I asked Emily about it, and it had occurred to her too, only she said the batting shifted when she tried it. 

Then it occurred to me to sew the strips on using a walking foot, and that worked pretty well! You can see in the photo, that the batting square still measures a pretty square 7", which is what I started with, with some minor pulling away at the edges. I haven't tried sewing two squares together yet, but I think I can work with this!

  
 
 

My chapter is having a Stay in Your Own Bed retreat in April. We did this last year and had a blast. The idea is that you go to the venue, sew like a maniac all day, then go home, sleep in your own bed, rinse and repeat next day. It's a three-day retreat and catered for lunch for a nominal fee. 

The coordinator for this event likes to have some little giftie bags for each participant, and this year she decided to do personal care items. I volunteered to make soap, so I am making spools, buttons (two to a bag because they're small), and flowers, all in spring colors. I only have one spool mold and two button molds, so I can only make a small batch at a time, and I can make about three batches a day to allow them time to set in the mold. 

I need about 25 all together, and I have 17 done now. Plenty of time for the rest--started early because I didn't want to be rushed. 

So many projects, so many things in my head, so little time. If you're bored in this life, you're doing it wrong.