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