Mid-November Monday

With that big roll of insulating shade fabric out of the way, other projects are moving ahead. I worked on the custom apron order on Saturday, although I still have to make and attach the pocket. I serged the edges, then sewed and topstitched the pieces together on the Janome. This will be a sturdy apron that won’t ravel or come apart in the wash.

I also set up the Studio cutter to deal with scraps. I don’t like it when the scraps start to pile up. I’d much rather have a neat pile of ready-to-sew units than bags full of oddly-shaped leftovers. Our church sewing group isn’t meeting right now, so we haven’t been making tied comforters, but I plan to continue sewing tops together anyway. Maybe some of us can get together and tie a few. We had that comforter-tying party last January and that was so much fun. How long ago—and a world away—that seems now.

Speaking of scraps, I dumped all of my white/cream strings out on the bed to start sorting and sewing them into Yet Another Candy Coated quilt (probably #6 or #7 by now).

This was yesterday afternoon’s project, mostly because my brain needed a break. Sewing strips together doesn’t require a lot of mental energy. I didn’t think I had enough white/cream scraps for an entire quilt, but I was able to make all but four of the rows I need. And two scrap bags are now empty. Yay.

I’m not sure who will get this one when it’s done—white quilts are terribly impractical—but someone may want a quilt for a spare bed that doesn’t get a lot of use.

[I was sewing strips on Vittorio, my beloved Necchi BF, when all of a sudden, the belt broke and flew past my head. I am not a purist; I use stretch rubber belts on that machine because they are far easier to find than precise lengths of cogged or V-belts. Unfortunately, in a place where the humidity averages around 22%, they also dry out and crack. I get about 4-5 months of use out of each belt, so I keep several of the stretch Singer ones on hand. I scrounged one up and put it on the machine and I was back in business.]

This week’s priority sewing project will be finishing the Noon and Night quilt top. The rows are done; I just need to cut the sashing strips, sew the rows together, and put on the border.

Also on my to-do list this week is cleaning out and defrosting the big pork freezer in the old garage. I have to move what’s left in there to the small chest freezer before I can do that. The small chest freezer had a huge bag of beef bones in it. Those were roasted and cooked down into stock over the weekend (it smells heavenly), to be canned today.

My Kratky supplies should arrive this week, too. I'd like to have that set up by next weekend.

Those are my plans for the week. We’ll see what the universe thinks.