A New Year of Sewing

It feels as if it's been ages since I've simply spent a day of care free sewing.  It's not as if I have so much to worry over in my life, but the past couple of weeks have been busy.  Matthew was staying with us for a while, and then Mike was off work up until Wednesday.  I'm used to spending my days with Smitty and Gracie, and so there have been plenty of distractions.  I had a couple of appointments to keep on Wednesday and Thursday.  Today, I stayed home and sewed, and it was very luxurious.

My focus is on finishing up the Plain and Simple Amish Sampler, and I got a good start on it today.  This quilt was one of the first patterns I bought when I started quilting in 2008.  It was on my to-do list for a long time, and I started it as my January 2012 NewFO project.  My ancestry is Amish, and so this quilt has special significance to me.

Of course, I had a lot of help in the sewing room today.  Here, Gracie is checking out the new batch of catnip we have to replace the old batch that disappeared so mysteriously...with teeth marks on the packaging.  Somehow, I don't think Mike was the one who ripped it open and scattered it all over the floor.

Smitty's waiting for Gracie to give him the go-ahead.

But to get back to the quilt, all of the blocks are made, and I've been spending the last couple of days cutting the strips for the sashings, the borders, and the filler blocks.  The pieced blocks were all made from fat quarters out of a Bounty of Basics Dark box I purchased to use in this quilt some time ago.

I was really just looking for an excuse to purchase the box when I remembered this pattern.  I'm very clever at finding reasons to purchase fabric.  And to finish the quilt, I had to purchase some more yardage in order to make the larger-than-fat-quarter-sized filler blocks.  I ended up with some new colors in the quilt, but I think they're working out okay.  

The pieced blocks and filler blocks are sewn together in sections.  Here are the first three sections.

Then those were sewn together.

Someone was getting restless about now.

Despite significant interference, I sewed together the next two sections.

And then sewed all of the sections together. 

There are still four sections to go, but I decided to call it quits for today. 

The black fabric I'm using in this quilt is an Amish Black quilting fabric I purchased from Keepsake Quilting.  It was advertised in this way:

World famous black Amish fabric.  Amish quilts are often characterized by a deep black that frames and highlights. To achieve the effect, you'll need this hard-to-find rich black solid. 

It sounded good to me, but I hadn't been quilting very long when I purchased it, and so I didn't have a lot of experience looking at and comparing fabrics.  The black yardage has been packed away for a long time, and I only took it out a couple of days ago to start working with it.  I must say that it is truly a beautiful fabric.  The weave is much closer than most quilting fabric I'm accustomed to using...close like in a batik.  And the black is very dark with a sheen similar to sateen.  It really is lovely, and so I'm glad I invested in it.

Also, I wanted to follow-up on the carpet cutting blades I bought from Harbor Freight.

As I explained in my previous post, I was hopeful that these would prove a less expensive alternative to the Fiskars replacement blades I use ordinarily.  At $1.99 for a package of two, they were significantly cheaper. "Cheaper" is the operative word in that sentence.  Several of you wrote to express your dissatisfaction with these blades, and I am in agreement.  While the blades were not nicked, as some of you had complained, they also weren't very sharp, and they grew even more dull very quickly.  I've switched back to the Fiskars blades now, and unless something else catches my eye in the future, I'll stick with the brand name blades.  A bargain isn't a bargain if it won't work for its intended purpose.

So that's it from me today.  Did you do anything fun on your Friday?