In Honor of National Sewing Machine Day

 As always a lot going on in the studio this week.  I was pleased to find out that today is National Sewing Machine Day.  

We quilters all appreciate how much the sewing machine contributes to our quilty crafting.  In my last post I had talked about wanting to switch over to my Juki machine but as of right now my Singer 401 is still in my sewing cabinet and the project it had been hard at work on was this one:

I had hoped to have finished these but I hit a snag.  I've put the project in time out for a while and then will try to take another stab at it.

In the meantime, a new project has been started:  

These are blocks for "Apple Crisp", a design that originally appeared in the October 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine and is now available free on their website.  

When I started quilting, "background fabrics" for me were almost always light to dark tans because I worked with a lot of shaded fabrics and Civil War reproductions.  However in recent years as I've embraced more fabrics in the brighter modern palette, I have expanded my use of backgrounds to include more whites and white-based "low volume" prints.  

In the process, the darker tans had been languishing but when I saw this lovely project on the APQ website a few years back, I loved its Fall vibe and thought it a perfect way to cull some of the darker tans from my background stash.  Although I had pulled together the group of tans for it a good while ago, the big push to start it now has to do with an upcoming event. 

 Angela Walters is getting ready to do another of her "Free Motion Quilting Challenge Alongs " this time with the theme of "How Do I Quilt It?".  She will be covering stitching designs on Chevron, Log Cabin, Curved and Snowball blocks.  I have a top ready for the Log Cabin session and realized that this was the perfect time to get "Crisp" started since half of the blocks for it are Snowball blocks.

According to the Challenge schedule, Angela will start showing designs for stitching Snowball blocks on July 16th.  If I can stick to a schedule of stitching "Daily Blocks",  I could have the top ready for quilting by then.  I really look forward to seeing what ideas she has that I might be able to use to quilt this one up quick!

However, having made a schedule for daily stitching I did have one issue:  we are going on vacation next week.  In order to stick to the schedule, that means I'll need to take my stitching with me.  Fortunately that's not a problem as I've already put my trusty Featherweight with the travel stuff:

When I took my Juki on my last two travel trips,  I realized something:  the "Catch-All Cutie" I had made a few years ago and love to bring as part of my "sewing machine travel kit" was colored perfectly to go with the Tutto bag I had purchased for toting my Juki machine.  

Rather than having to move that tote between the two travel bags, I thought about making another one that I can leave in my Featherweight tote bag.  I saw some cute "old-timey" fabric on Etsy and knew I still had a little of the "Singer" fabric leftover from making the Featherweight tote bag:

All of this would be perfect for a new "Cutie"!  Recently I also saw that Gaye at Sentimental Stiches had a pair of scissors that I thought went perfectly with my Featherweight so purchased those too (in the lower left) to go in the new "Cutie" bag.  When we get back, I plan to order one of the Lori Holt Red Olfa Splash rotary cutters to add to it as well.  

So as of right now I've cut all the parts out (although still debating between the handle choices on the lower left) and hope I  can get it made up before we leave on Sunday.      

Because it's that time of the year, the Red, White and Blue quilts have gone up for the "Patriotic Season" (May to September) so I also hope to get back to work on these in the coming weeks:

Two years ago, I got as far as quilting the front and back panels for a cover for a pillow for my living room chair so hopefully this year I can assemble and finally finish it.  I also pieced a Lone Star wall hanging that year but could not decide how to quilt it.  

Looking at a picture of it recently,  I suddenly realized exactly how I want to do that.  When we get back, I'm going to try layering it using a glue basting method from You Tube that my MIL has tried and says works great.  If it works for me too, I can get that quilted and hung up --- hopefully by month's end! 

One of the things that had attracted me to quilting was finding out that all of the construction of a quilt  can be done completely by machine.  Having grown up in the days of Home Ec training in school, I was excited to find a new use for a sewing machine.  Over twenty years on, it is still a thrill to put the "pedal to the metal" and get a quilt out of it, LOL!!  I hope you are having an enjoyable time working with your machine today and if not, pull it out and take it for a celebratory spin!