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My friend and I decided to head out to McMinnville, Oregon, today to visit Boersma’s Sewing Center. They sell and service sewing machines and have a lovely quilt shop. I wish I had taken photos because they have a TON of quilts displayed in the store and in their windows that provide all kinds of ideas for upcoming projects. I love quilt stores that are pretty and give you all kinds of ideas and inspiration.

I only bought a few light gray batiks and a couple of Australian Aboriginal prints to replace some that I used recently. My friend bought a lot more fabric than I did! She’s been out-pacing me in the fabric buying frenzy this visit.

I did buy a pattern for a leaf quilt.

I had seen one very similar to this recently that was made from bright Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics on an indigo background and I just loved it. But that pattern requires a $30 special ruler to make the blocks. The pattern I bought today has paper piecing templates and doesn’t require a ruler. I will probably use the paper piecing method to make blocks but will arrange them in a looser manner than in this pattern. This feels a little tight and restricted. The other one feels more airy and has more movement. So if I ever actually do make this quilt I will mix it up and not follow the pattern exactly to get the look and feel that I like.

As we were leaving town to head back to Portland we stopped at a convenience store and bought some potato chips like we always do. Then we hit the back roads and wandered our way back home through beautiful rolling hills dotted with farms, wineries and small towns.

Once we got home we set a timer for 30 minutes to be lazy and then we forced ourselves to get our butts moving and took my boys out for a nice walk. They had been in the car during our trip to McMinnville so were very happy to stretch their legs and get some fresh air.

After a dinner of some home made chili verde we dug in and started sewing the rows of my friend’s quilt together.

The first thing we had to do was put the sashing onto the bottom row blocks. You can check out this blog post to see how we did that.

We sort of switched rolls this evening and I did all the pinning and most of the pressing and my friend sewed.

I tried to keep everything in the right order as I pinned.

Here’s Linda pressing two completed rows.

Once we got the sashing pieces sewn onto the bottom row this went really fast. And in no time we had four rows of blocks all sewn together and pressed.

Once this completed section was back up on the design wall we felt pretty good with finishing half the top and stopped there for the evening.

I just love the way blocks look when they’re sewn together. So orderly, so crisp, just lovely!

So that leaves just four rows for us to finish tomorrow. I’m thinking we might dig in and finish this quilt top first thing tomorrow. Then maybe we’ll find an adventure for the day.

Or…

We were just looking at the weather and the tides and think we might actually head to the coast tomorrow. We had decided to go later this week because of the weather, but now the weather tomorrow looks like it’s going to be good… so much indecision. We will decide tomorrow morning if we’re going to the coast or if we’ll go later this week.

Bender and Rico are going to be so excited to have a visit to the beach!!! Don’t tell them because they will be so hard to live with if. we end up not going!

Had a nice long night sleep last night followed by a leisurely breakfast. After that I dug in and did a little clean up of my sewing room, folding and putting away a bunch of fabrics that have been sitting around in piles for too long. And with that, the room was ready for us to get busy.

Around noon my friend, Linda, and I hit my sewing room and start working on her Australian Aboriginal quilt. We’re making her a version of this quilt that I gave to my brother and his wife a couple years ago.

Here’s a full view of the quilt.

It’s made from 9 inch squares sashed with 2 inch strips with cornerstones. It’s a pretty quick make and really lets the fabrics shine. It’s one of my favorite quilts that I’ve made.

Linda had cut her squares before she got here so we had a head start. She prepped and pressed the fabrics and I cut the sashing strips. Then Linda sat down at the sewing machine and started chain piecing the sashing strips onto the blocks.

It went really fast. And while she was sewing I was making the sashing pieces with the cornerstones attached that would go on the blocks next.

This old blog post explains how I make the sashing with cornerstones attached. It’s a really quick, efficient and easy way to do it.

We filled the roles we usually take, except Linda did more sewing than she usually does. But she did do almost all of the pressing.

I love having someone else to do the pressing! It really speeds up the process. Plus, I’m not a patient presser and am glad to pass that duty on to someone else.

I had told Linda that we should be able to get all those blocks done today, and we did! And they are all up on the design wall… taking a rest before we make the design final tomorrow and start putting the rows together.

The remaining sashing pieces we need for this quilt are sitting on the cutting table. We won’t add those to blocks on the bottom and right side until we decide this design is final.

Before dinner, while it was still light, we decided to get out and take my boys for a nice walk. When we got home we took my three recent quilt tops outside to get better photos of them.

Here’s last night’s finish with an obligatory Bender.

Rico was nowhere near this activity. He really hates any fabric flapping, like folding towels, making the bed, or shaking rugs. So when we stepped out with the quilt tops, he anticipated what was coming and hightailed in into the house to stay as far away as possible.

Bender, on the other hand, insists on being front and center in the photos.

This one looks so small up on the fence.

Last was this one.

Bender looks good in blue! And I like the way this top looks in natural light.

Tomorrow we’re going to head out to McMinnville, Oregon, to visit a lovely l little quilt store. Well, that is if they’re actually open tomorrow, since it’s a holiday. Then we’ll partake of our tradition of buying a big bag of potato chips to eat on a leisurely drive home on back roads.

It’s likely we’ll start sewing the Aboriginal quilt rows together some time tomorrow.

We’re thinking we might head to the coast on Tuesday. My dogs will be so happy to get a nice beach run.

I picked up my friend at the airport yesterday afternoon around 2:00. We took a little detour on the way home and god some Thai food takeout and had an early dinner when we got to my house. After dinner we went out to do some grocery shopping to keep ourselves energized and ready to go this week.

Today started off with Rico’s sheep herding lesson and he was so good! He was working so well taking my commands as he was driving sheep laterally in front of me about 50 yards. He listened, took the directions I asked him to take, and was so calm and cool and collected. I was so proud of him.

When we finished there we headed to a local fabric store that has a pretty impressive collection of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics and a ton of other fabrics. it’s in Battle Ground, Washington, and I’m sorry to say, she doesn’t have a website.

I had planned to buy a few pieces I needed and found a few pieces that I wanted! And when we finished there we decided to head to my favorite local fabrics store, Pioneer Quilts in Milwaukie Oregon (you can find the with a Google search.) They DO have a website.

I bought the Aboriginal in the center of that photo at Pioneer. Everyone else came from the store in Battle Ground.

See that sharks teeth on the bottom? I’ have an idea in mind for that. I just need to see if I have the other fabric to bring my idea to life.

The black and white stripe is for the green quilt I’m contemplating.

When we got home it was around 4:00 or so. We kind of diddled around a little, ate some food, and then nit my sewing room because we promised that we would finish my Aboriginal Libby quilt before we started on my friend’s new quilt.

The first thing we had to do was mark, sew a stabilizing row of stitches and trim all four corners.

When we did this on my friend’s Libby quilt last summer we were on our knees on the living room floor. Today we put my portable design wall on the guest bed and were able to do all he marking without being on our knees on the floor.

We had two corners sewn on and pressed in no time. I was anxious to see what it looked like.

this quilt is a twin size and is basically a VERY generous throw quilt. I had toyed with the idea of trimming off off eat length and width but I decided tonight I’m just going to live with this as it is to avoid the hassle and to keep the design integrity of the quilt. I’ll just live with a really big throw size quilt.

It was really helpful to have an extra set of hands to manage all this bulk. And there was a lot of bulk. Here’s my regular coiled up quilt pieces ready for sewing. This is s pretty wonky and messy pile!

I did sew a row of stabling stitches along all four corners we trimmed,. All those exposed edges are on the bias so I wanted to do what I could to keep it from getting all stretched out with handling.

Once it was all sewn my friend pressed it.

And now it’s up on my design wall.

I’m pretty happy with it. I love the way the back background fabric really makes the colors pop. It will be a great colorful addition to my living room once it’s done.

The dogs had a nice field run between fabric store visits and they are nice and tired tonight. The spent a good deal of time gated in to my dinette room because it’s not always helpful to have them underfoot.

Rico woke up last night before I went to bed and it took him soooo long to pull is tongue back in!

Blep.

We still haven’t decided what we’re doing tomorrow. I think I’m going to sleep in a little. I’m sure we’ll figure out some kind of adventure.

It’s entirely possible that we’ll start working on my friends Aboriginal quilt tomorrow.

I am officially on vacation. I will pick my friend up at the airport early tomorrow afternoon. I do have to do one phone call for work. I plan to drive to the airport and do my call as I sit at the end of the runway watching the planes land and take off as I wait for my friend to arrive.

I’m really looking forward to the next ten days! It’s going to be a luxury to step away from the stress of work. I need some time off. Some really good news is that we’re in for some spectacular weather while my friend is here.

Today was a bit of a hectic day. Lots of last minute touching in with my team, my boss, and others. So many things to wrap up when you’re going to be away from the office. So it felt extra special to step away from my desk tonight.

Unfortunately, it’s been another rainy day so we have all been stuck in the house again. Bender and Rico were not amused as I labored away in my sewing room tonight.

The time I spent in my sewing room was accompanied by the sounds of whining and barking.

I hope to get us all out for a walk before I head to the airport tomorrow.

I had a goal to finish the blue quilt top before my friend arrives and I got it done tonight! I only had four rows to finish and had them done in no time. Here they are on my cutting table after being assembled and pressed.

Before I sewed it to the previous six completed rows I sewed that line of stabilizing stitching all the way around the outside edges. And then I pinned and sewed the final seam.

It’s nice to have it all done, and just in the nick of time.

One last little piece of eye candy.

If the weather cooperates tomorrow I’d like to take this top outside and get some good photos of it. Then I need to write up the tutorial. It should be pretty quick to do.

My friend called me tonight just to check in before her arrival tomorrow. We agreed that the first thing we’re going to do when she’s here is finish my Australian Aboriginal quilt top that we started when she was here last summer. You can go back in time to see that quilt in progress in this blog post. Here’s all the pieces to this quilt top pinned to my portable design wall.

All we have to do is square up the four corner pieces, add a line of stabilizing stitching and then sew the corners onto the center panel. It’s probably not more than a couple hours of work. It is a bit cumbersome to finish it up so it will be good to have an extra pair of hands.

It’s really past time to finish this thing up. I’m planning on using it on my sofa. I think it will be a nice addition of color to my living room.

The last thing tonight… someone commented on my blog and asked about the yellow wall hanging that appeared in the photo of my SIL and her pile of fabric a couple nights ago.

It’s a free form, sort of improv quilt as you go wall hanging that I made many years ago. I made it with some Kaffe Fassett Collective scraps that my friend gave me. It was before I started collecting KFC fabrics myself. But I knew I loved the fabrics. I just had no idea how deep into the rabbit hole I would go.

It’s never actually been finished. You can see that it’s held to the wall with Scotch tape! Here’s a closer look.

It’s a fun little piece. I should probably take a few minutes and add a binding and a way to hang it more permanently.

Vacation! I already feel more relaxed!

It was a really rainy day today. There were no walks for me and my boys. None of us are happy about that.

The good news about that is that I had plenty of time to spend in my sewing room after dinner. So I headed down the hall with the plan to sew a couple rows of my blue quilt together. I did manage to sew two rows together.

Once that was pressed I pinned it to the already completed four rows and rolled it up to make it easier to sew.

I watched the David Attenborough show about the pliosaur skeleton that was found in England as I sewed. It was Philip Jacobs, one of the fabric designers in the Kaffe Fassett Collective, who discovered the snout that led to discovery of the entire skull.

Once this larger section of my quilt top was pressed I decided to run a line of stitching around it to stabilize it since all those corners are on the bias. I figured it would be easier to do this with a smaller portion of the quilt, rather than dragging all that bulk through my machine when it’s all sewn together.

Once that was done I got this back up on my design wall.

It’s going to be rainy again tomorrow night so I might push myself and get the four final rows done tomorrow. My friend will arrive on Friday afternoon. I’d really like to have this done before she gets here.

My sister in law sent me a photo today of her new quilt and pillow cases on the bed in her guest room. This quilt will eventually be on their bed but she has company coming this week and wanted to use it for them.

It looks pretty warm and inviting!

One more day and then my vacation starts! I do have one meeting I have to do on my drive to the airport on Friday morning. Then I’m free!

I really need a vacation.

It’s been a busy ten days. It’s hard to believe that after sewing and posting for so many days in a row, I haven’t done a bit of sewing or posted to my blog for over ten days!

Work has been crazy. And in the midst of that I was working on getting my house ready for company. Then my company arrived. They left this morning so I now have some time to breath and do not much of anything.

Our radio drive ended on Saturday afternoon and my brother and his wife arrived a few hours after that. We just hung out at my house on Saturday. My sister brought a really delicious tuna noodle casserole that we tossed in the oven for dinner.

One of the main purposes of this visit was for them to pick up the sunburst quarter log cabin quilt that I finished a few months ago. And they loved it!

This is a queen size quilt and will be for their bed.

(Are you surprised at the color of my kitchen walls?)

And my brother had made something special for me that he would deliver. He made this gorgeous maple frame for my beloved photo of Forrest.

That photo really needed a frame and I just love it! It looks great and I love that it was made by my brother! I still have to hang it in my bedroom.

On Sunday we had a few things we wanted to get done. First, we headed to a fabric store near me that has a lot of home decor fabrics. We wanted to find some fabric to make a table cloth for my sister in law. But the store was closed. So that took care of that.

So we headed out on our next stop to look at lamps at a huge lamp store near me. Nothing there scratched my SIL’s lamp itch, so we were on the road again.

Next up was a rug/carpet store. Amazingly, my bro and his wife purchased a very bold red hand made wool rug for their living room and a matching table runner. I was so happy to see them go bold with the red!

Then a quick stop at the grocery store and the hardware store.

When we got home we took my boys for a nice long walk.

We actually had a nice long walk every day that they were here visiting. It’s fun to have house guests who like to get out and move around. And it made my boys very happy.

We ordered take out for dinner on Sunday and it was a nice treat.

On Monday we had lunch with friends at my house so I spent the morning cooking. I made a really yummy beef stew and served it with a nice green salad and some delicious bread my bother and SIL brought. These are the friends I stayed with when my power was out last month. They brought their corgi puppy and she and my boys ran and played in my back yard the entire time we were having lunch. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

While the stew was cooking I took my SIL into my sewing room to dig through some of my fabrics and give her some pieces to take home.

I gave her some fun prints that I’ll never use as well as a few pieces of Aboriginal fabrics. I also dug into some of less bright batiks and gave her enough of those to make a quilt! She has been having an urge to sew but doesn’t have a stash. It actually feels really good to give away some fabric! I feel so much lighter!

After lunch my SIL and I headed back to the fabric store and it was closed on Monday! So we went to a local kitchen store to poke around and ended our outing with a quick trip to Macy’s to look at coffee makers.

Once we got home and had a dinner of lunch leftovers, my SIL and I hit my sewing room to whip up a pair of pillow cases to match their new quilt. Since there are so many fabrics in that quilt, it was pretty easy to select fabrics for the pillow cases. We tried a few options but ended up on Kaffe’s red Guinea flower for the body, with a teal spot accent strip and the band was made from left over backing fabric from this quilt.

I was going to send the fabric home with my SIL with the tutorial in hand, but since we had time last night we dug in and got them done. This is the pillow case tutorial I use.

I put my SIL to work at my Bernina.

I just love hand made pillow cases. Why don’t I have some to use?

I’m so glad I remembered that I had that left over backing fabric. And that red Guinea flower is one of my favorite Kaffe designs.

Here’s a look at one pillow case with the quilt top.

I love it!

While my brother was here he got a lot of small handy man tasks done for me. He got the portrait of Forrest secured in the new frame. He replaced the insides of my front door knob that had been catching and was difficult to open. He replaced the broken hooks on a coat rack in my guest room. He tightened the handles on my fridge and freezer. He replaced a piece of door trim that had come loose.

And he replaced a broken latch on my Featherweight carrying case.

it’s so nice to have all those little jobs done! And I think he was happy to have some small projects to do. If I have something bigger I need him to do I have to let him know ahead of time so he can bring the right tools. Everything he did for me this weekend was handled with my limited tools.

Here’s a picture that sort of sums up our weekend.

And on our solo walk at the end of the day today we saw some gorgeous primrose. It feels like spring is just around the corner.

And tonight my boys are exhausted and out cold!

Two more days of work and then vacation!!! Yeah baby!!!

I had thought I might put a little time into sewing my blue blocks together tonight but I was just too tired to dig into something that required a little focus. But I still felt like I wanted a little unwind time in my sewing room.

So I set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes and picked up the crumb pieces I sewed together a couple weeks ago and sewed them into larger crumb blocks. I think I’ll probably use these crumb blocks in a Frankenbag using blocks left over from my Fresh Start quilt.

I stopped with this size and shape because I don’t know yet what I’ll need for a future bag panel.

That combo should make a fun bag. And a Frankenbag is a great way to use up left over blocks.

You can find my tutorial for crumb piecing here.

For those of you who don’t know, a couple of years ago I made a tutorial for my Frankenbag. And if you go to my blog at http://www.agilejack1.com and search for Frankenbag you’ll get a ton of posts showing bags I’ve made and bags that others have made from my tutorial.

Then this…

I’ve had an idea rolling around in my head for a couple years. It involves a limited color story. It involves black and white. It will involve string piecing.

Surprise! It’s my favorite color!

I’ll have to pare down that pile of green fabrics to about ten. And I’ll have to pull out another bin of my low volume white/black fabrics and select the ones that are just right. And I’m not sure that little piece of jumble will do what I want it to do.

I went a little nuts a couple years ago and bought a ton of the low volume fabrics with gusto to include them into some quilts. I’ve had several ideas for using these fabrics but have never actually done it. It will be fun to see some of them come together in a project.

This is looking like I will charge forward with it soon. More as this idea develops.

I was looking for a quilt photo the other night and ran across this photo from 2018. This was my ENTIRE collection of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric in 2018. One drawer!

It clearly seemed like a LOT of fabric at that time of my life. My KFC collection has grown to fill that entire chest of drawers, plus there a couple drawers in a file cabinet in my sewing room that hold my larger pieces for backings. And I don’t want to think about all the piles of fabric in various places in my sewing room. I’m sure I had no idea back in 2018 how insane this would become!

I have to work tomorrow. I’ll be on the radio doing a little fundraising from 2-5 pm. So I get a good portion of the day to have a little recreation. I’m playing pickleball at 8:30 am and will head down to Molalla, Oregon, for a sheep herding lesson at my trainers property after that. Rico hasn’t had a lesson for a few weeks. He is going to be so excited!

I’m going to have a pickleball lesson with my teacher on Sunday morning. It’s been nearly two months since we’ve played together! I’m really looking forward to getting out there and working hard at pickleball.

I’m getting so close to my vacation I can almost taste it!

It was another early morning today as I was at my offices and ready to be on the radio raising money at 7 am.

When I finished at 9 am I talked to a few co-workers who happened to be in the building then headed for home and another 3-hour meeting… the last one of those for a while.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day in Portland today. I managed to get two lovely walks with my boys… both in sunshine and daylight.

It doesn’t take many days like this in the winter to get the grass to start growing. I’m going to need to have my lawn mowed in a couple weeks if this keeps up.

After our second walk in the sun and a little bit of dinner I headed back to my sewing room to start putting together my blue quilt top. I thought sewing four of the ten rows together would be a good goal. So I tagged all my rows to keep them in the right order as I sewed them.

I always note on the tag whether row #1 is on the top or bottom of the quilt.

I pulled the blocks off the design wall and made little stacks for each row.

Then I pinned all the seams in each row and sat down at my sewing machine. I sewed all four rows together before I got up and pressed them.

Once they were pressed I pinned row 1 to row 2, and pinned row 3 to row 4 and sat down at the machine again. Pressing was next. Here are those two sections on my cutting table, ready to be pinned together.

I confess, I am a pinner. I have a little trick I use when pinning these long rows together to keep the fabric nicely in place as I wrestle that bulk through the machine. I nest the seams and use a vertical pin along the seam to hold that secure. Then I add a couple of pins horizontally between the seams to keep the fabric from slipping. I had been seeing my lower fabric slip away from the upper fabric which meant that the seam allowance on the top was 1/4 inch, but on the bottom it was only 1/8 inch. This method of pinning prevents that lower fabric from slipping away and prevents me from having to pick out and re-sew blocks. .

I place all the pins far enough away from the edge of the fabric that I can just sew like the wind without having to remove pins.

I love looking at all these gorgeous fabrics as I do the final pressing.

I’m not being concerned about the matching of any seams other than the seam between blocks. It would be really difficult to match the seams on the sashing strips from block to block. Some of the turn out pretty well…

Others don’t turn out quite as well.

But I think the fabrics are busy enough that no one would ever notice it… at least no one who is going to see this quilt!

I’m pretty happy with how the squiggle sections came together.

And a bit of a close up…

That’s pretty close!

I tossed that finished section back up onto my design wall when I was done.

I just can’t stop looking at this quilt!

`I took a break from work today and stood in my sewing room just staring at this quilt. And I I remembered something. I had purchased a 5-yard piece of the blue feathers fabric about a year ago anticipating that I would need a backing for whatever I made from all those blue fabrics. And voila! I found it at the top of the drawer where I keep my larger cuts of KFC fabrics.

I bought that fabric because it was on a really good sale. I can’t remember where I bought it but I’m pretty sure I only paid $6 a yard for it. That’s a great time to buy fabric for b backings!

Maybe I’ll finish the remaining rows tomorrow night.

I had to be in a Zoom meeting this morning at 6 am. So I took some Advil PM last night at around 8:00 so I could get a good night sleep. But on my way down the hall to get ready for bed at 10 pm I took a detour into my sewing room. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

I picked up my blue blocks and started putting them on the design wall. I thought I’d do a few rows, but no. I put all 80 blocks up on the design wall. And then I called it quits.

Several times today I stepped into my sewing room and tweaked, moved, adjusted. And I think I now have this where I want it and am ready to start sewing blocks together.

I really do wish you could see this in person. It’s so much prettier… airier… a little watery… really light and lovely. Photos just don’t do it justice.

I’m so tired tonight that I just don’t have the oomph to start sewing blocks together. So I’ll share some eye candy instead.

One of my favorite things about this quilt is that morning glory fabric. It ads a really lovely bright spot… almost like little diamonds across the quilt. I’m so glad I had a piece of this in my stash.

Another thing I love about this quilt is the little pops of color here and there.

Pinks. Purples. Greens. Turquoise. Sparkle! Yum!

And, of course, the other thing I love about this is the swirls in the sharks teeth sections. I stood there tonight and looked at every one of those swirly sections to make sure they were all swirling correctly!

Check. All swirls are perfectly swirly.

Even Bender looks good with all this beautiful blue!

I’m so tired tonight. I spent six hours on two long zoom meetings today. I have to be in the studio at the office tomorrow before 7 am. So I’m gonna be brief tonight and be ready to go to bed early.

Maybe I’ll have enough oomph to sew at least a couple rows of this together tomorrow night.

It was another balmy day here in Portland with the highs just over 60 degrees. We even got some sunshine this afternoon and it was mighty glorious. It was a busy day at work but I did manage to get my boys out for a nice walk this afternoon. .

I’m happy that I was able to push myself and get my pace down close to 19 minutes per mile!

I might not be able to maintain that pace for three miles, but I was really happy to see that I could get it down if I focused and pushed myself. That meant no stopping for sniffing. Only quick stops to pee and the necessary stop to pick up poop. . . Bender’s and Rico’s, if you’re wondering.

I was the host for my club’s pickleball play today at 5:00 so I had to bug out of work a little early. And I had a BLAST! It was such a fun, energetic, competitive and enthusiastic group. I enjoyed every minute of it and played really well! I felt really ON! And in control, which is a nice feeling when things get hectic!

I’m so happy to say that I’m also hosting tomorrow morning’s outdoor play session and it looks like the weather will cooperate, which is such good news! Then I have to high tail it home to get in on a long meeting with large market public radio fundraising people from across the US. One of my favorite meetings of the year.

After pickleball tonight I grabbed some quick dinner, iced my foot and then hit my sewing room. My goal was to square up the 38 blocks that I finished last night.

I had them all done in about 30 minutes. Here’s all the blocks I squared up tonight.

That’s ten blocks in each pile.

I really like to square up blocks. It just makes them look so much better. And I love this impressive little pile of shards that results.

Once that was done I pulled all the completed blocks off the design wall and divided them into piles based on the fabric in the center strip.

Next I basically shuffled all of these blocks into one big pile.

That’s all 80 blocks. They will likely go up on my design wall tomorrow evening. It will be fun to see all of the various fabrics up on the wall.

These blocks look so lonely.

I will be happy to start sewing these blocks together!