Twelve hours in September...

      Today, I’m sharing the second installment of my new monthly "Twelve Hours" feature. Have you ever wanted to sew for an entire day? I’m fortunate to be in a situation to do it occasionally... so lets see what we can accomplish! Mr. SFO is in "Giza"  for the week, so the opportunity is ripe.

 

     The LIST is long and some of them are ashamedly holdovers from last month's list...

1. Eight Summer Memories Blocks
2. Neighbor #5
3. Shabby Fabrics Hot Pad
4. Binding on Sweet Acres, Corn Projects, and Mod Flower Box
5. Resilient Quilt Assembly
6. Prep Prairie Meadow Block 11
7. June Tailor Bag
8. Pillows I want to make-- Flower Basket, Summer ABCs, Autumn Love, Love You More

     This is obviously way more than I could possibly do in a day. Last month, I concentrated on sewing large backings sewn together, a bit of a chore. This time, I’d like to have a little more fun and so I’m even YIKES! starting a few new things.  Here we go!

9:00am  One thing I’ve learned is that assembly lining stuff-- one task at a time, is a tremendous time saver. So instead of taking one project at a time, I’m starting with cutting this morning. Going to starch, iron, and cut for the Shabby Fabrics pot holder, eight more Summer Memories baskets, and the Neighborhood House #5 all at once. I started by putting a new blade in my rotary cutter-- should it take three cuts to get through one layer of fabric? I’ll now be done in 1/3 of the time!

     The pot holder involves cutting about thirty squares, then folding and ironing them into triangles. It occurs to me that there’s not a lot of sewing in this project! I get all my pieces prepped in about half an hour.

     Next up, the summer memories baskets--I’m making them from jolly bar (5x10) size pieces, cutting them in half and making four HSTs at a time method. I spend the next half hour cutting mostly background fabric. I have the measurements memorized by now! The jolly bars just get cut in half.

     Then it’s Neighbor #5-- the pieces in this are teeny tiny and there are plenty of them! I remind myself that’s why I picked this house out of 9. 

     I cut everything needed for the block, but it does take an hour. Now, I purchased this from Fat Quarter Shop-- they are famous for giving twice as much as is needed, so I have to confess when I see how much left over there is, I’m tempted to cut two! I’ll hold off until I see if the bigger “house” pieces have enough before I commit, although I do have other Lori Holt fabric laying around if needed. I am going to make a cute Christmas present out of the this, just by adding the word WELCOME or a last name to the bottom. (Mental note: I have a ton of gifting pieces this year thanks to the Sew Sampler boxes, but it’s time to start nailing down what goes where.)

11:00am Whew all that cutting did take a chunk of time! Time to assemble some things. The next step for the pot holder looks like an easy one-- just glue all the triangles down to a printed interfacing following the directions. Again if you’re looking for a no-sew easy project, this is it. It goes really well-- everything lines up beautifully, thanks to the template. I weight it down with a big history book to dry.

11:30am Next up-- HSTs, four at a time. I’m stitching eight baskets at a time to save time, so I match eight sets of charm square size pieces with backgrounds and sew the edges. The problem with the four-at-a-time HST method is that all the edges of your HSTs end up on the bias-- it’s the only way I can make the baskets from the jolly bar (5”x10”), but it's actually going well. The blocks are stretchy, but they do settle down to the correct size. I quickly stitch all the edges, then the more intensive part of cutting and trimming 64 HSTs begin. This is the most time consuming part of this quilt. I’m about and hour and a half in by the time this is done. Next, it’s sewing together units, but it’s time for a little lunch break.

1:00pm Lunch is cheese and crackers for twenty minutes- I’m not that hungry. I’m a little tired of baskets, so I start assembly on the Neighbor block. Everything is coming along nicely. 1/2 hour spent getting basic units assembled, and then I spend an hour getting back to Summer Memories units.

2:30pm Getting a little bored! It is pouring outside today. I grab an umbrella and walk up to the mailbox to stretch my legs. I was supposed to get a package from Fat Quarter Shop with some additional yardage needed for Resilient but it hasn’t arrived. I’m pretty much “over” that quilt-- the blocks are together, so my favorite part of quilting is done! I decide not to touch it today. When I get back down to the house, I go to the internet to try the tracking number, but USPS says “This service is not available at this time. Try again later." I try again, two seconds later. Same thing. Can you believe it! I for one am not worried about AI taking over the world.

3:00pm It is now 3--I’m halfway through my twelve hours of sewing! What next? What next? I’m losing a grip on my focus. I press all the sewing I’ve accomplished so far, and I’m ready to make some tiny units into rows.

     I lay out my eight new basket blocks and start piecing. This is the most time consuming part of the process. Oops! I said that already about trimming HSTs, didn't I? Fact is, this is a time intensive quilt. It takes me about an hour to get those together. I’m feeling pretty smug--eight blocks in one day are in my clutching little hands! But I really want to get further on my list today, and need a morning hand stitch project. So I decide to get some hand stitching prepped... putting the binding on my corn table topper.

4:00pm one of my biggest time wasters is “segue” time-- what happens between tasks. A little scroll on Instagram? A snack? Visit the chickens? 

     This time I switched gears so fast my neck could have broken. Within another hour, the binding strip is on "Let's Pop Some Corn" and sitting by my couch ready for tomorrow morning. It’s dinner time and I’m ready for it... I need a better chair at my makeshift sewing table... it’s hard to sit for long spells, but we’re not supposed to do that anyway, right? (Here's my totally finished table topper which I handstitched the next morning.)

5:00pm Lasagna soup from a can for dinner! This is one of life’s guilty pleasures when Mr. SFO is away, even though I have to get down on my hands and knees to dig it out of the lowest shelf of my favorite Hannaford. No prep time involved... just a minute in the microwave. Gobble, gobble, but I end up sitting around for quite a bit because my enthusiasm is flagging.

6:00pm I rally myself and decide the hot pad deserves a few more stitches. All it needs is to be tacked down, trimmed, and a little binding attached. This one was a kit I bought for my first “try”-- the strip included for the binding is not on the bias. It says it doesn’t have to be. But it really does. So I don’t hold it against Shabby Fabrics, because I hate cutting strips on the bias, too. I stitch it right on and just make a mental note when I make my own kits, to cut it on the bias. There’s also a little hanging loop-- takes me a little over an hour to fully finish this cute thing-- and I love it!

7:15pm Now that the taste of FFO'ing is on my tongue, I get back to Neighbor 5. Now that the intricate block is sewn, the rest looks fairly easy. I do love this little block and I do love Lori’s 1930’s fabrics-- wouldn’t that block alone make a fantastic quilt!! Yes, I do love to dream up new projects, and I hope this one stays in my head.

    Voila-- I guess this is finished enough-- I’m cutting the green grass strip on the bottom larger to embroider WELCOME on it-- that will wait till another day. And I’m still thinking I will whip up a second--thank you Fat Quarter Shop.

8:30pm Back to my eight summer memory blocks. I’m eleven and a half hours in-- wow, I’d love to just get these done, too, but I’m really in bad shape-- the chair-- my back is killing me.

    I’m tough, though-- if you ever ask me to do some fool thing at 5am in the morning-- take a sunrise walk, go on a shop hop, or even paint a room in your house-- I will be there at 4:45! I sew on, determined, musing on my wonderful friends and all the cockamamie adventures we’ve had... then THIS happens!

     Bobbin’s out! That’s the deal killer right there-- fortunately I discovered it right away, but for me to wind up thread and insert a new one is just a bridge too far!

     I’m going out a winner... I spent the day with two fun new things, another eight baskets almost there, and even threw in a binding. And plenty of sewing ideas dancing in my head, for tomorrow.

    Thanks for sharing my day with me-- It’s 9:23pm and I think I’m going to bed early tonight!

xox

Carol

Lots of progress...

    This is the blog of San Francisco Stitch Co., where each week, we first complain about the weather, then lament starting the Summer Memories quilt-- let’s go!

    So after the blistering heat ended last week, it then started to rain. And rain. And rain. And rain. Maybe my biggest problem with the weather is that it doesn’t change frequently enough? I love a variety. And what we got certainly warrants complaining-- the final day of this cycle ended with Hurricane Lee and a power outage! If some of the colors in my photos this week look a sickly yellow, it's totally reflective of the sky conditions on that day. 

     Dare I say it? The following day was one of the ten best of the year. Can we please have four or five of those in a row now!

     Rain begets sewing-- I did finish eight more summer memory baskets and that makes me halfway 32 out of 64 done. (Each basket in the above photo is in a stack of 4.) That’s an accomplishment! I was really shooting for 12 finished last week-- hoping I can get 16 done this week? 

     Once the basket are done, you arrange them facing in a larger unit of four-- I was going to mix up the baskets, but now I think I will keep like baskets together. So if I need a break from basket making, I can start making some of the bigger units. There's four sashing pieces and a colored cornerstone in the middle.

    I'll have more time for Summer Memories, because the Resilient Quilt is all but wrapped up-- just waiting for border fabric which arrives today. I’m gifting it as a baby quilt.

    This was very enjoyable to make, and also makes efficient use of fat quarters with very little waste and no extra background fabric required. The pattern is "Resilient" by Eudaimonia Studio, and unfortunately I don't see that it is currently on their website for some reason.

    I am learning quite a bit from this Sew Sampler box challenge-- I guess on this one, I found out the modern aesthetic is not my favorite, although it was fun to try something different. I also continue to question "wasting time" on fabrics that you're not absolutely in love with-- though, with the price of fabric these days, I may be turning more and more to my stuffy, outdated stash.

   In the meantime, my three long arm projects arrived back-- I love them! I am up to my "ears" in binding jobs now. (Pun intended, sorry if it's corny.) 

     Hoping to get the binding strips made and attached this week-- I do have fabric for all of this. It’s slightly intimidating to cut the panel I stitched together for the pillows apart. But I need the fall vibes in my living room now! I do have a spot selected for the mod berry box in my bedroom--this house does not have a ton of wall space, so I'm looking at a hanging system that allows for easy changing out.

    To those of us who think the hardest part of a project is just getting started-- I laugh! It’s finishing that is the problem here. Nonetheless, in spite of the growing pile of stuff that needs to be FFO’d, a few new projects are on my radar.

    First, I do love Shabby Fabrics, an online quilt shop, and they are always advertising these cute folded star hot pads-- they must be a good seller for them. I finally succumbed. You buy the fabric kit, but then the pattern is a required additional purchase-- you also need these paper foundations to sew on-- one is included with the pattern. The total spend is $35 for just one pad. But I have a feeling these would make great Christmas gifts from my expansive collection Christmas fabric, so I also purchased a set of 12 additional papers. That definitely brings my dollar cost average down! 

     There’s a bunch of folding for the folded star obviously, but other than that it look pretty easy-- I’m hoping to whip my first one up this week, The kit I purchased has Deb Strain harvest fabrics-- Deb Strain is killing it lately with her collections, in my opinion. Just look at this. Now, to just get some made, lol.

    Second new project-- I really want to stitch up the little Lori Holt house I showed you a week or so ago. It’s just one block after all! I bought one, my favorite house #5, which is also little on the pricey side if you want the entire collection of 9. (Do we see a theme here with fabric shopping lately...) 

     But I’d love to make more than one out of this pattern, again for Christmas gifts-- I thought I could embroider the word HOME or maybe a town name on the bottom of it for a nice customization and make little wall hangings. I did buy the entire set of Lori Holt Prairie Fat Quarters and would have plenty to make more. So that’s the plan. I will be crushing it with beautiful gifts this holiday season if I say focused!

     In the meantime, the Sew Sampler box for September is shipping, and I also ordered the Spooky box. Hoping to continue along with my challenge to finish them all this year-- I’ve kept up through August which is amazing. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately though. Did you see I made a set of machine embroidered labels to encourage myself to finish fall projects?

    Here's a couple things that have definitely progressed, to end on a positive note. The Prairie Meadow quilt has ten blocks... (I may or may not have bought more background fabric to make it king size...) All handstitched!

And my Pressed Flowers BOM is completely up to date. I am really moving along this year, because I stopped THINKING about projects and started DOING projects!

    Mr. SFO is in Vegas all week--- I could have gone with him, but I’m really looking forward to some extra sewing time this week, and hope to cross a few things off the master list. I’m going to do my monthly “12 hours of sewing” feature this week-- here a link to last month's day of sewing, if you want to read about sewing for an entire day!

TWELVE HOURS IN AUGUST

Have a wonderful week, whatever the weather!!

57°F Partly Cloudy

xox
Carol

Back to School!

     It seems like I always start off the blog with a weather update-- so I just finished describing the lovely temperatures we were having, when the jet stream got knocked out of place. It has been near 90 for the past week with blazing sun and 200% humidity. I know you people from Texas will mock me-- not even in the hundreds-- but I signed up for Maine, not Death Valley!

     There's no A/C in this house, but Mr. SFO the architect, knows exactly which windows should be down and which blinds up, so we're surviving. I did use all the indoor time to push my sewing along, as I'd hoped.

    I whipped a new fall cross stitch set! These were inspired by the Fat Quarter Shop's little tart tin finishing ornaments-- I ordered a set, and they are extremely well made-- in my mind, I thought they were silver with sharp edges like a real tart tin, but they are a beautiful pristine white. I may do a couple of sets for Christmas-- I need more cross stitch on my tree!

    I also got the Christmas tree applique done for the center of the Tree Farm Mug Rug-- hoping to get it stitched together today, and then all I have left is the embroidery of the corners. If you are afraid of re-hooping-- don't be-- I digitize this with guidelines and all you have to do is hoop stabilizer and lay your fabric on top of it, matching the lines.

   A lot of blocks got put together last week! In keeping with the idea that it's "back to school" week, every day in my spare moments, I would prep a bit of sewing-- either cutting new parts or pressing, and then that would be my sewing "assignment" for the night. I did this for Summer Memories, the Resilient quilt, the Tree Farm Table Runner, and then I even added the Pressed Flowers BOM. Juggling four projects, you can guess the "assignment" got to be a bit much at that point. If I was my kid's teacher, I would have been extremely annoyed!  

   One night, Mr. SFO asked when I was going to stop for our little bit of TV-- I said, "I have to finish my assignment." So he did look askance a bit, but didn't question it-- I instantly regretted the choice of words, in case he decides to give me a few more "assignments" around the house this week.

     I'm really feeling under the gun because of Summer Memories-- a thousand times I have lamented starting this! I did crush it with finishing up eight more baskets this week and I really have the system going now. Don't get me wrong, I do love this quilt, and I'm really doing a great job on points and pressing.

 

    I almost got even more baskets done, but I had to order more background fabric-- it is White Grunge. It's so subtle it's been a bit of chore to see which is the right side, but that also means if I make a mistake, no one will notice. I sorted all my Berry Basket jolly bar fabrics into matching basket and flower sets, so I'm sure I now have enough to make the whole quilt. I've been on the lookout for potential sashing fabrics-- nothing from Berry Basket is grabbing me, so we'll see what happens. 24 of 64 baskets done. Hoping to knock off another twelve next week?

     Five Resilient quilt blocks got done-- these just involve making some big HSTs and sewing them together. It's quite the puzzle, though, getting them arranged-- harder than one of those Sudokus! Jack made an appearance more than once. Do you think we are all offsetting the onset of dementia with all this puzzle making in fabric? I do know, if you ever want to make sure a block is correct, just post it on social media-- you will instantly get feedback on more mistakes than you would ever want to correct!

      

   So you can start to get the "look" of the quilt. Still not a fan of the fabric, so get over it already... I'm learning the "modern" aesthetic is really not for me, either... I guess I'm a traditionalist. But it does look cool and it's fun to try something different.

     Here's my Pressed Flower Block 5-- it's a very unusual one. I had a chuckle,  because Fat Quarter Shop is usually so precise about giving directions. On this one, they kind of ran out of space on an
8-1/2" x 11" sheet. So once you had about twenty separate units made, the last instruction was ASSEMBLE BLOCK. Heehee. As someone who writes directions, I'm keeping that in my pocket for future use!

   Block Heads 5 has started-- the first block is supposed to be your label. I'm wondering if that's the simple secret to getting us all to finish-- make a label first. (This week was just full of humor for me.) So I'm still super tempted, although it would be totally ridiculous for me to start this. 

     I noticed someone posted a picture of their block sideways-- I instantly recognized the Appalachian Trail marker. I'm sure Gypsy and Fern would have been proud of me, in that moment-- if you don't know, my daughter and son-in-law hiked the entire trail last year and uploaded a video on YouTube every night of their progress. So wouldn't that be a super fun quilt for them, if I made all the blocks and inserted that marker? They'd love it. So, maybe I'll do a few blocks in my spare time, and see what happens. I could always just abandon ship and make a couple of pillows for their cozy cabin.

    Click here if you dare get sucked in,

for the first FREE block from Moda!

    Speaking of Gypsy and Fern, the honeymooners are back from their hike in the Alps. Over there, it's not hiking, it's "walking holiday." Look at the the beautiful gifts they brought me-- a bread basket with a really nice embroidery design on it (you need one for your morning croissants)-- the cutest cow ever, (he's already grazing on my desk) and a real Swiss Army knife from Switzerland, of all places! If you ever now need a screwdriver when you're out and about, I have you covered. The lovely box of chocolates I received is gone. :-)

    If you need something really wholesome to watch on YouTube, they are uploading a video of each day of their hike from Mount Blanc to the Matterhorn every Saturday night. for the next few weeks. The first one is up, it's just ten minutes, You can view it here.

Hiking Homesteaders

    Sew that's the goings on the past week-- hope you had a productive, but a bit cooler week than me! 

xox

Carol

    

Welcome Fall!

     Wow, where did the summer go? But, it's not over yet-- we are having gorgeous sunny days in the high 70s and beautifully cool evenings-- enough to make up for the rainy summer. Hope you all had a similar Labor Day Weekend. <3

    I always loved "Back to School," as a girl, with my new pencils and notebooks. September should be the first month of the year, in my opinion. In that spirit, let's pull our sewing machines out and get re-started!

     I've been spending some time banking Christmas sets for this year-- I probably won't release them until after Halloween, but here's a few sneak peeks! We have the Tree Farm Mug Rug:

     Like the Acorn and Carrot ones, the design is getting it's own table runner. Here are the border pieces, and then I'm making a large, plain tree applique to showcase your favorite Christmas fabric collections in the center. (I'm working from the outside in on this piece--lol.)

    I also have a fabulous, detailed reindeer in the works! Only question-- how should I use him? I can imagine eight of them circling a tree skirt, but I'm not sure I have the time and/or patience for that, so I wouldn't expect my customers to, either!

   

    I'm also working on fall, my favorite season. Every year, I try to add some more sets. Here are cross stitch decorations I'm designing-- you'll be able to stitch all five at once in a 5x7 hoop, and use either small hoops or tart tins to display them individually or as one piece in a frame.

   

    But, wait! There's more, much more machine embroidery coming, only I don't want to show too much in case I don't get to finishing it! I have SEW much going on right now-- anyone who reads this blog knows how I love every part of sewing, and my prime objective right now is to thin out and focus a bit more on fewer things.

   I've been on a bit of a buying spree this summer-- it has to stop, frankly. I couldn't resist Kitty Loves Candy, Moonbeams, (thankfully that does not start until next year) or even this little Lori Holt Quilt Seeds house. (My neighborhood is only going to have ONE house, thank God-- heehee.)

     But the biggest time suck right now is that I started the Summer Memories quilt, and I'd like to follow through on it. I have 16 baskets done, 48 to go. The HST work is a lot in this-- I hope I survive. At least I like the way these are coming out, as opposed to my next topic of discussion! 

     The next Sew Sampler box piled in right on top of Summer Memories. I'm not fond of the fabric this month, but I made a commitment to do all 12 boxes this year and don't want to give up now. We received nine fat quarters of "Day in the Life" by Echo Park-- very generous, but looks a tad like April's offering, wouldn't you say? Everybody on the Sew Sampler Facebook group loved this fabric. What am I missing?

    To get through this as quickly as possible, I considered just cutting charm squares out of it and sewing them together. But then it seemed silly to me to make a smaller precut out of nice, big pieces!

   

      I found this great pattern made for fat quarters-- it requires no extra fabric and however many fat quarters you have is how many blocks you get. It's from "Eudaimonia Studio" and the name of the pattern is Resilient, intended to look like a lotus. It's pure genius in cutting-- all fat quarters are cut the same, and then mixed-- each fabric is used in a different place in each block. A handy dandy sheet is provided to organize you.

     Here's my first block-- not thrilled with it, but it's totally a fabric thing. I do need a baby quilt in the next couple of months, so I'll see how it comes out. I think the light blues and peaches give it a baby look.  I like that it's modern looking.

    The peach fabric with the flowers I do not object to. In for a penny, in for a pound-- I might buy it for a border and backing, when I get more of a sense of how this is going to look.

     Instead of the hour I usually spend at night, I now need about two hours to work on Summer Memories and this-- it's also a lot of up and down to the ironing board. I'm considering making a little schedule for myself to try to get these things to move along better. I'm also really considering the future of my sew sampler subscription next year-- here I am again, spending time on a project I do not love. I'm really trying to think about the time that goes into all of these projects, especially when I see the latest piece of eye candy in front of me online. Blockheads Five is starting this week-- I'd love to do one, but I have SO many unstarted projects I'd rather be working on, SO many UFOs I would like to get to. Before we hit the order button, we need to think about how many hours of our life we are giving away with each new project. But let's keep it positive-- the Sew Sampler Challenge really forced me to finish up quite a few smaller things, and I've already gifted quite a few things-- that means a lot to me.

     In the hand stitch department, I got all the green sewn down on Block 10 of Prairie Meadow. There's only two more to go, unless I cave in once again and go with the king size version I have in my head-- I'd need four more blocks and sixteen half block border pieces...  for crying out loud, NOOOOOO!

     So here I am, poised for fall, and feeling very energized-- but also facing a mountain of ideas. Hope you are once again planning a little sewing with me-- let's see what we can accomplish, now that the days are shortening.

xox

Carol