Quilty Pleasures: Make-A-List Monday

Monday, September 2, 2013

Make-A-List Monday

This was a week of surprises.

A trip to Washington DC and Luray, VA turned into a trip to Trumbull, CT and NYC.

The outcome was very similar but the means to the end was quite different.

I will explain more later in this post.

My DH and I spent a lot of time this week going through 19 years of accumulated stuff in the attic and deciding what to keep, what to throw away and what to donate.

It was a lot of work but it feels good to have a cleaned out attic.

Now, let's see how I did with my list this week:

The Week of August 26, 2013

(in review)

1. Spend a day with my Ryder.

Ryder loves the swings. I think he would stay on them all day long if I let him.

Now I know where he gets the bruises on his shins.

2. Work on Lesson 10 for the Aiming for Accuracy Quilt-Along sponsored by The Quilting Gallery.

The blocks in this quilt are coming together quite nicely.

3. Quilt the "Kayden Quilt," add applique and binding.

I made a very simple little boy quilt for Kayden

4. Work on the following BRODY Projects:

Lazy Sunday

Blue Dresden Plate Quilt

Log Cabin Christmas Quilt

Six Little Charmer II Table Runners

Christmas Charm Tree Skirt

Crazy Eight

Four Baby Sampler Quilts

I made some progress on Lazy Sunday, Christmas Charm Tree Skirt,
Crazy Eight and the Four Baby Sampler Quilts. I did not complete any of these projects, though.

5. Work on hand piecing one block for Skill Builder Block of the Month

sponsored by Alyssa Lichner of Pile O' Fabric.

This is the second hand pieced block for this quilt. I made the background over-sized. I will trim it down later when I decide whether or not I am going to frame each block.

6. Work on quilting the PQW 2011 Saturday Sampler - Stella Colorway.

I did a little quilting on this top. It is approximately half done.

7. Add some more hexies to my Bonnie Hunter inspired

Christmas Hexie Quilt.

I've added a few hexies but I did not finish any section.

8. Try to organize all the pictures of the hexie quilt that I've taken so that I can attempt to recreate the "My Christmas Hexie Quilt Journey" page on the blog that I lost last week.

I was able to find the hexie pictures in my jumble of photographs. That is as far as I have gotten in reproducing the lost blog page.

9. Design a Dinosaur Cuddle Quilt from a panel I picked up last year at the Oaks quilt show.

Here are all the dinosaurs cut out. I am going to frame and sash each dino and then add borders. The tricky part is that each dinosaur is a different size. I will have to adjust the frames and sashing to get everything to fit.

10. Make a quick trip to Washington, DC to catch a few Mets/Nationals games and hunt for a Singer Red Eye treadle sewing machine.

I began the week planning a trip to Virginia to buy a treadle machine that I saw on eBay. The machine and cabinet had great potential but there was really no guarantee that it would be a functioning sewing machine. I use all of my vintage machines. They are not just pretty furniture to me so it is important that the machine has been professionally restored by someone who loves the machine as much as I will.

By chance I stumbled upon an ETSY shop called Black Swan Sewing located in Trumbull, CT.

They have beautiful vintage sewing machines, completely restored and in working order.

This is the gorgeous machine that came home with me.

I have named her Mary Theresa after my dear mom...Tess for short.

The decals are in great shape!

The cabinet is gorgeous as well!

I've been playing with her a lot and I am now able to treadle fairly well without thread. My next step will be to thread Tess and try to get her going without breaking the thread. I've been told that this can be a little tricky so we'll see how that goes.

On our way home to New Jersey from Connecticut we decided to stop at Yankee Stadium to catch the Yankee/Orioles game on Saturday afternoon.

Our wonderful son, Kyle, (a Yankee employee) was able to get us VERY good seats to the game. We were in section 123 under the overhang so we didn't have to worry about the sun.