Have a seat... and a tip to share

It has almost been a month since I picked up my new sewing machine... a Baby Lock Symphony.  I have been busy trying to find all the neat things this machine can do.  I first made a purse that turned out awesome... no picture at this time...  Camera battery is on the charger.  I have been doing some piecing and other quilting almost every day since I brought the machine home.  For right now I have this new toy set up on a table in the living room.  If I moved it into the sewing room, my husband would have to come looking for me too often.  Gotta have it out where I can play with it.  I will eventually move it to the sewing room, but for now I need to make a chair work for me in the living room.
My sewing room chair is really a good chair, but it doesn't do well on a carpet.  I decided to make a cushion set to make an ordinary chair actually be useful as a sewing chair. I used fabric I had in my stash, and I covered 20 buttons. I even had a pattern in my stash of patterns.  I thought the cushions dressed up the chair pretty nicely, and it really makes the chair quite comfortable.  I used alot of polyester fiberfill... no foam at all.

With my longarm and all the quilts that I do, I have lots of batting scraps.  If I have a small quilt and a batting scrap that is just a little short, I piece my batting.  Before I discovered I could do it on my sewing machine, I used to butt up the batting pieces and whip them together with a needle and thread.  
Even if you lengthen your zigzag stitch, a typical zigzag stitch just makes a bunched up line.  I discovered on my last sewing machine that I could piece my batting very successfully using a 3-step zigzag.  My new machine also has this really neat zigzag stitch.  Q-10 is the designation on my new machine for the proper zigzag. 

This stitch leaves the butted edges nice and flat.  I have separated the edges in the image to the right here to show how the batting is positioned.  Keeping the edges together as you guide the batting centered as it stitches.
It would have been easier to see if I had used a contrasting color thread in the image to the left, but this was a batting I was going to use.  You can see the joined seam of the batting if you know it is there, but once it is in the quilt, no one would know.  It doesn't get any easier than this.  If I had the time, I could piece alot more of my batting scraps and I could save alot more money.  I really like how this works on Warm 'n Natural, which is the first type of batting I tried this on, but I find it works just fine on other types of batting as well.

Last, but certainly not least....

My camera battery quit when I was in the middle of taking pictures of my Clothesline Quilt that I completed yesterday.
       Yeah... a quilt completed!!!
The backing on this quilt is really cool... a large 9-patch.  I had fun doing this quilt, but it was alot of work for a quilt that hasn't been designated for any particular purpose.  For now this quilt will join my finished quilt stack.

Clothesline update

This clothesline quilt is taking a fair amount of time.  It isn't hard to do, but it does require me to be pretty precise with stitching. and cutting if I want everything to go together nicely. 

This is the first row of the three needed to complete the piecing. Once the other two rows are done, adding the sashing and the outside borders will be a piece of cake.  The backing and binding have already been cut from the original nine 3/4 yard cuts, so no decision will have to be made regarding what to use for the backing.  The binding is pieced from the 9 fabrics also.

This quilt has an unknown origination.  At our church quilt group we have lots of people that bring in a box to donate to our stash, and in these boxes there are remnants from a mother's or grandmother's sewing room.  In the boxes we sometimes find pieces of  fabric, thread, notions, patterns, blocks and partially pieced blocks, or as in this case... a quilt top that was partially put together.  This quilt top had all the pieces, I just had to make some adjustments and finish the top.  The fabric I brought home to use for the backing wasn't enough, so I pieced the backing and I really like how it turned out. I  quite often intentionally piece the backing because I think it gives the quilt a little more character. This quilt will be a gift to a new baby at our church from the quilting ladies.

Vermont in June

It surely is a long drive to get to Vermont from here.  There really are no shortcuts, it is just a long long way away.  Our first day in Vermont was beautiful.  The weather was favorable and five of my grandchildren were able to join us on the island.  I think all five really enjoyed the boats and the water in general.  All, except for little Benj, took a turn at paddling around in the one man kayak.  Even I paddled around a bit.

Have you ever seen a sunset over Lake Champlain?  It is quite an experience to view.  This picture hardly does it justice.

Now on the homefront I needed to find a project that I could work on in the living room while we are watching TV in the evening.  I like to have something to keep my hands busy.  I found a pattern a while back for a quilt called a Clothes Line quilt that I found online after doing a search.

 What makes this quilt different than the average is how the pieces are organized.  There are 9 groups of 9 - 9 patches.  After cutting 9 strips from 9 fabrics, there are organizer cards that mix up the layout so that no two blocks are the same in each subset (large block).  Each stripset makes 9 identical blocks, and these smaller blocks are then mixed up for the big blocks.

This project is spread around in space available in the living room.  I have a table set in front of the window which gives me lots of light during the daytime, but my lighting is not so great in the evening.  I don't want to make my corner too bright to over power the TV.  Husband doesn't complain about the noise, so I don't want to infringe on his TV any more than necessary.

I have not been real good about posting lately.  It seems that alot has been going on.  I will make an effort to post my progress on this project so what I have described so far will make more sense.