Counting Down the Days

I've been working on a few different things as I am counting less than six days until I head to Phoenix for QuiltCon. Each day it gets closer, I'm more excited. 

In my sewing room... 

My restock of Painter's Palette "Sky" and "Daisy" arrived from Pineapple Fabrics (best price now, as cotton fabric prices continue to rise), so I've set to working on my architecture challenge quilt again. I've made myself a goal of having a finished quilt top before going to QuiltCon.

Still liking to switch to hand stitching in the evenings, I've been big stitch quilting. Two small linen fabric sandwiches have turned into zipper pouches. These are samples I'll use when giving my "Big Stitch Quilting and More" lecture/mini workshop several times over the coming months. 

Students will get a small kit to practice big stitches, and can turn it into a zipper pouch if they wish.

 

Keeping up with the Patchwork Pony Sew Along hosted by Jo Avery in the UK, this week's assignment was to use the long gusset strip to join the two sides of the pony. For this pony, I pieced several fabrics together and then quilted them on top of batting. 

For the denim pony, I cut a long gusset from a blue jeans leg. Obviously, I pinned a lot before sewing, to ensure that the two sides matched-up!

 

Turning the thick denim fabrics right side out, through the small slot in the pony's belly, was a little challenging. 

But I had so much fun rotary cutting small batting pieces into chopped bits! Can't explain why this was such a satisfying activity, but it felt so good to roll the cutter back and forth across the cutting mat to turn chunks into useable bits. From the top of my sewing room closet, I found and emptied two plastic bags of leftover pieces. Using-up is such an "ahhh" feeling! 

If you like what you're seeing, Jo's Patchwork Pony pattern is here (a percent of her profits are being donated). And be sure to look at a stable full of ponies on the Instagram hashtag patchworkponysustainablesewalong

Each pony is a nice size: 14"H X 13"W X 2½"D. Next week they're getting manes and tails. Oh, and eyes!

On Tuesday afternoon, I taught English Paper Piecing to 26 quilters in my Big Cypress Quilters chapter of Quilting Guild of The Villages.

I was asked to teach how to make a name tag - a little Grandmother's Flower Garden block. Seven hexagons on each side of the two-sided name tag, so everyone is piecing a total of 14 hexagons. 

Name is stitched on a Bernina

Name is hand embroidered

Our chapter has an Accuquilt, so one of our members helped everyone cut hexagons from their selected fabrics, and also cut out two hexagons from the fabrics onto which they'd stitched their names. 

I took along a couple of my finished EPP projects, and another WIP. I've made 58 of the 60 needed medallions in this Prudence Quilt. I've been EPPing this since winning an Instagram giveaway of the Prudence Quilt templates and papers from Lilabelle Lane Creations (a $105 value!), back in June, 2019!  Won't I have fun laying out all the medallions and crosses for the final design?

 

The afternoon was a great success, and reminds me how much fun it is to teach. I think several of these quilters are hooked on EPP!

Book Recommendation

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield takes place in England where a young woman, Margaret, lives in an attic room above a bookstore that she operates with her father. When a letter arrives from the famous Vida Winters, an authoress with dozens of titles to her name, Margaret, who has never read a Vida Winters book, is intrigued. Ms. Winters wants Margaret to come to her home and write her biography. A promise is made that Ms. Winters will tell the truth, and Margaret will write that truth. What is revealed is remarkable and unfathomable, and not quite adding-up. Intrigued, Margaret visits the ruins of Ms. Winter's childhood home, where she meets someone who adds a new twist to the truth. 

Linda's score: 4.0/5.0

Hubs and I have been enjoying watching Olympic curling on TV. We learned about the sport and become hooked during the 2018 Olympics when John Shuster and his team won gold. 

We've already watched all of mixed doubles play. Sadly the US didn't win a medal, but Italy, a team that played undefeated, deserved the gold. Now we're watching the four-person men and women's teams. In round-robin play, both teams have played and beat the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee). 

Women's play against the ROC, February 9

Did you know that the QuiltCon Awards Ceremony will be livestreamed? Anyone, anywhere can watch it, so add a note to your calendars:

Wednesday, February 16, 7 PM Mountain time (9 PM Eastern time)

LINK

Linda