Crazy (Quilt) Serging

My cutting table is a mess at the moment. I have about eight different projects underway.

I drove the BMW up to the equipment consignor yesterday. I had two routes to choose from to get there, and a little voice inside my head said I should take the lesser-used one. I always listen to that little voice because good things happen when I do. That route just happens to go near Tera’s house, and as I drove down the road, I passed a young couple walking a baby in a stroller and a dog on a leash. I recognized the dog, so I stopped the car and asked if they were Tera’s son and daughter-in-law. They were! Tera and her husband are on their mission trip. Their son and his wife just moved back here from overseas and are living in Tera’s house.

[Welcome to Montana. Random people will stop you on the road to have a conversation.]

Tera’s DIL wants to learn how to quilt, so I am sure I will get to see her again. And their baby is adorable. 🥰

The husband picked me up from the consignor’s and brought me home. I had lunch, then went to Thursday sewing because we also had a craft co-op meeting at 1 pm. Sarah and Beth H and I had a fun conversation about painting.

When I got home (again), I started working on a pattern I bought in Spokane last week. This is a crazy-quilt style pillow made on the serger using the flatlock stitch:

The fabrics are five fat quarters, some Kaffe, one Marcia Derse, and something else. I am making a pillow, although the same technique could be used for a tote bag or other item.

But, oh my!—this pattern needs to make the acquaintance of a proofreader or technical editor. There are formatting errors, the supply list doesn’t match what is actually used, steps are out of order, etc. I thought this might make a good class at the store, but I would be hesitant to ask students to pay $15 for the pattern. I was scratching my head to make sense of it. Thankfully, the technique is not difficult.

I got close to making the entire 16" pillow front last night.

The only problem with techniques like this is that there is a lot of trimming and more fabric waste than I like. The process is rather like eating potato chips, though.

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We are supposed to get some rain tomorrow but then it looks like we’ll finally have summer. the rest of August is supposed to be hot and dry. I made six loaves of zucchini bread to freeze the other day. I really need to pay more attention to the garden because I slacked off this year. I will have to find a better balance next summer. And I never could get more lettuce to grow after the ground squirrel invaded the herb garden. Lettuce should be easy. No doubt, a bunch of it will pop up just before we get the first snow. 🫤