Labeling

On days when I have a busier-than-usual schedule, I'm getting smarter about how I use my time. Usually, I try sewing in the afternoon. The last two days I've been doing my sewing in the morning. At least that way I know I get at least a little bit of sewing done. When I'm out and about running around during the day, I always want to sit with a glass of water and put my feet up in the afternoon...which means I don't usually sew when I get home.

This morning I wanted to finish making the label for Intel Underneath. I've been considering what I want to do. With the quilt back being black, I didn't want that black showing through the white label. I decided to put an iron-on stabilizer on the back, and then I sewed a "binding" on, very similar to the way I would do a regular quilt binding. In this case, I used a leftover strip of the green binding from the quilt.

I usually make my quilt bindings 2 1/4 inches wide, but I didn't want the edge of the label to be that wide, so I cut it down to 1-1/4 inch and then folded it in half. I sewed it to the edge of the right side of the label, and then ironed it back. This is where the hand-sewing would come in if I were binding a quilt, but I decided to just top-stitch around the edge to secure the back side. I was trying to achieve those nice mitered corners you get with a quilt binding. I sewed right along the edge...approximately 1/8 inch away...and when I came to the fold in the corner, I pivoted around and continued on my merry way.

How about a round of applause for Pfelicity and her beautiful straight stitch! Her straight stitch is better than Big Bertha's! 

And here's how my finished label looks:

I still need to hand-sew it to the quilt, but I'll do that in the morning.

Last week I cleared off my ping-pong table workspace in preparation for sandwiching We are the World and Joseph's Quilt. I figure if I'm going to drag everything off the table, I might as well make the most of the opportunity. I sandwiched We are the World, but then I didn't have enough backing fabric to do Joseph's Quilt. So I've been waiting ever since...a full ten days...for this backing fabric to come so that I could finish my sandwiching.

No dull colors for Joseph's Quilt...a quilt of many colors, for sure. It didn't matter that the sewing room has been a shambles for all that time because I spent several of those days quilting We are the World...until the sewing machine struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Of course, I've done some piecing since then, which didn't really require anything more than a cutting mat, a ruler, and a rotary cutter. But all of that to say that finally, finally, finally, I was able to sandwich Joseph's Quilt this morning. 

Of course, I won't quilt this until Big Bertha comes home, but it'll be good to get things reorganized and off the floor where it's all been living for the past ten days.

While I was in the sewing room this morning, this is where Smitty sat.

Usually our morning routine starts with a big kitty strrrrrrrrretch, then kitty treats, then launching the cat three feet over the threshold when the door is opened and he's set free to terrorize all the critters of the field. He usually stays out for about an hour and then toasts himself on his kitty pole in the morning sun.

This morning...no Smitty.

When Mike came downstairs he noted that Smitty was absent from his pole, and I said I hadn't seen him all morning. I knew he was in the house because he'd snuggled with me during the night. We went looking for him and found him in the sewing room...just like you see him in that image above. He's been there all day. I left for several hours to run some errands, and when I came back he was still there. Obviously, he's very interested in some intruder he discovered during the night. Who knows when the critter arrived on the scene, but I don't think I can blame Smitty for this one since he didn't even go outside this morning.

Or can I?