Toward the Finish Line

I’m still in the midst of cleaning up and organizing my sewing area. I have a stack of quilts I’ve made that I want to keep, but finding a place to store them has been an issue. I got the brilliant idea to stack them, opened, on the spare bed, in the manner of a bed turning. Once the top quilt is on, the quilts underneath are (mostly) hidden. It works, and it keeps the quilts from getting damaged by fold lines.

Because I need to get backing fabric for the Correspondence quilt, I decided to figure out what other projects need backings. I might as well buy everything at once. That English paper piecing hexie wallhanging needs one. I also unearthed a jelly roll quilt with a chunk of yardage intended for borders, so I went ahead and put the borders on it yesterday:

I think this is a fabric line from Laundry Basket Quilts. I remember buying the jelly roll to take with me to Alaska a couple of years ago. When I visit DD#1, I usually take a project to work on while I am there. I left a Janome Hello Kitty sewing machine at her house on my first visit.

I’ll see what backings I can find at the quilt store today. I also need to get lining fabric for the blue quilted Hobby Lobby fabric. I love that fabric and want to get it made into a jacket, but I am beginning to wish I hadn’t bought it. For some reason, I didn’t notice that the reverse side of the fabric is a scrim-type batting, so the jacket will need to be lined no matter which pattern I use. Or—I’ve been kicking this around as an idea—I could cut lining pieces to match each pattern piece, then baste the lining fabric to the fashion fabric and treat them as a single piece. If I did that, I’d probably want to bind the inside seams, even if I finish the edges on the serger.

It will be a minor miracle if I ever get this Hobby Lobby fabric made into a jacket.

Class handouts are almost complete. One class still needs a handout, and for that one, I need to knit some samples so I can take photos.

I’m teaching a beginning sewing class (pillowcases) for the homestead foundation this weekend. That’s always a lot of fun. We’re supposed to get more snow, too, followed by another deep freeze. It’s February in Montana.