Monday Musings

It's been a little hard to step down off of Cloud Nine today, but we're getting back to normal again...as normal as it ever gets around here. Actually, I have another friend from high school who is visiting from Texas this week. Her mother lives in Salem, about 45 minutes south, and we're trying to hatch a plan to meet up on Wednesday. She's working her way around family obligations and time constraints, and so we'll work it out, but we're not sure where or when just yet. She is a quilter, and so quilt shops will be in the mix.

Today I ran a few errands. I started out this morning with my usual embroidery time, and I finished up the Birds in the Tree stitchery for the Gardener's Journal quilt:

I still have one more stitchery to do on this, and I'll get a start on that one tomorrow. Then, I'll be ready to piece the whole quilt top together. Kind of excited to get it all sewn together.

My plan was to go to Curves this morning (which I did), and then pick up the new bobbin case for Big Bertha. I was hoping that would get the old girl working again. Just in case, I started pulling fabrics for the Let's Book It challenge. Recall that I'm making a project from this book by Jean Wells:

this Aspen Tree wall hanging:

The template needed to be increased in size by 275%, and so I made a copy of the page from the book and took that along with me when I drove into town so that I could have it enlarged...thus:

and I pulled the fabrics I want to use.

I needed a black background and an off white for the tree. Also, some kind of green fabric for the border. I'll use that fabric in the upper right corner for that. It has a little stop border that I'll address when I get that far. Also, yellow, orange, green, and rust scraps for the leaves. I have some nice hand-died fabrics from Vicki Welsh that I won a while back that will be perfect to this. Just now I went to her Etsy shop so that I could link to her and I started looking at her pretty fabrics. Then I totally changed my mind about the border fabric. I just ordered a yard of this pretty greenish yellow she had in her shop, and I'll use that. 

If you look at the image of the quilt above, you can see that the quilting extends from the fabric tree branches out into the border. I've been afraid the leafy print I chose originally might be too busy. This one from Vicki Welsh will probably be a better choice. I can still use the leafy print for the quilt back.

Also, I picked up the bobbin case for Big Bertha, and she seems to be working properly now. I'm still a little suspicious that something else might be amiss. It just seems as if it's a little tricky getting the whole bobbin mechanism to click together securely. Nevertheless, the bobbin itself sits nicely flush in the bobbin case now, and it was a little wobbly in the old case. I took the whole bobbin area apart and made sure everything was seated the way it is supposed to. All I can do is start sewing and hope all goes well.

Big Bertha's feathers were a little ruffled about Pfelicity sitting in her spot for so long, but I think we're all ready to resume quilting now.

So with that done, I'm ready to get back to work quilting We are the World, and I'm really hoping I can get it finished now. I still have four blocks (as well as borders and sashings) to go, which will take me a couple of days. Surely, I'll have it finished by the end of this week if all goes as planned.

My guild meets tonight, and so I'm going to get ready for that. If I have some time this afternoon, I'll get started on the quilting.