back to hsts

 the winter light has been sparse for a few days as we've had the rare deliciously overcast weather. what little light makes it into my sewing space isn't enough to illuminate anything. so i've taken few pictures of what i've done in here, but i have been here doing.

i've been studying scrap storage ideas and decluttering strategies for my sewing space more than i've been sewing so far this year, but they are ideas i've needed to gather to improve my sewing time by improving the space. 

there are several projects on my design wall at the back of the sewing studio that i would love to complete, but because of the state of the space, i can't even reach them anymore. so after a few days listening to other quilters' ideas for decluttering, i walked into the room and cleared a space to my design wall. now i can actually reach "gypsy child hsts."

i've had the hst squares laid out in groups on the far end of my cutting table for a couple of years now, but i no longer remember what system i was using to place them in the quilt. i'm assembling the blocks for the quilt in 16 patches, each block includes 2 of the red hsts and 14 more from the available squares.

since i couldn't remember how i was working through the squares, i decided to check my maths for the project and see if they gave me a clue. i did have those recorded in my quilting sketch book. what they told me was i had planned for a long, skinny quilt and i no longer liked those dimensions. so i reconfigured the dimensions to be more pleasing and calculated how many of each of the squares i would be needing for the new block count. 

then i put each unique type of hst pair in a pile with the number of that square to be used for each row of blocks in its own grouping within the pile. now i can build out one row at a time, which will make placing the squares easier. i previously completed 3 rows; there are 4 left to go.

changing the dimensions of the quilt and culling the extra pieces left me with a whole lot of extras. i'll decide what to do with them at some future point.

many of the hsts are still untrimmed, so i'm having to do that as i move through placement, too.

this is row 4 nearly built out. because i'm trying to place the squares in alignment with the already sewn squares, it's a little hard to know where my row or column is. the seam allowance eats up some of the already sewn squares, so i need to overlap the squares i'm placing to keep everything aligned. as these are small squares - 3' cut, 2.5" finished - things get off quickly if i don't overlap properly.

my workaround on this has been to place pins in a grid format to approximate where each square is. when i place a square, i move the pin to a new grid on the left which will be used for the next row. i also have a scrap strip of fabric marking the outer edge of the row. i've even placed pins in that to mark where each new block starts. there are 2 pins at the place where row 2 starts, 3 where row 3 is, etc. 

this system has been working well so far and i almost have the 4th row completely built out. i'm excited to get this wip off the wall and finally finished. it's not where i anticipated starting my year, but i'm happy it's where i am.

the rest of my sewing room still needs a major overhaul, but that'll come. i'm happy for any progress on the decluttering and the sewing.

one stitch, one step at a time.

i need an update

liberty, liberty, liberty! from sewing room birmingham

those of you who come here to read but don't comment, that's totally fine by me! you're welcome in this space. i'm past the point of needing feedback here, although i still really enjoy it when it happens. those that do comment, i'm having some difficulties with replies these days. read on. i'll throw in some gratuitous photos of what i stashed in 2024 as eye candy, but mostly i have some questions for you today.

blog friends, i am sorely out of date when it comes to blogging tech. gone are the days when i knew what was what and kept up on the latest happenings in the blogger world. it's not my platform anymore and my know-how has disappeared. i just pop in here to make my posts like i always have, but i am completely out of touch with other bloggers. i do all my (limited) quilt socializing on instagram and know a bit about the ebbs and flows there. true confessions - jolene at blue elephant stitches and rachel at stitched in color are the only blogs i occasionally read anymore. but i am having a renewed interest in blogs lately and it seems hard to find them or connect.

heather ross and low-volumes from nova quilts

there are still about 100 people subscribed to this blog (whatever that means or how it works anymore, i don't know). my posts' stats tell me posts get anywhere from 60-100 visits, on average. i have one regular commenter (hi, julierose!) and a few other random ones. this is a big change from my early blogging days, pre-instagram. i'm saying all this because although my purposes for blogging have changed, i do recognize there is a very small audience here and that is meaningful to me. if you do me the honor of a comment, i sincerely appreciate it and want to reply. 

i'm having problems with the reply these days and since i'm so out of touch, i no longer know how to fix it. here's the deal - all the comments i've received lately (which still get delivered to me via email) have come listed as no-reply blogger comments, meaning i can't send them an email reply. once apon a time, i knew how to fix this for them, but i'm starting to think it's now a problem on my end and i have no clue what to do! the fixes i know are outdated by more than a decade.

find me cosmo japanese fabrics from cottage couture fabrics

then earlier today i went to the profile of a commenter (kathy s) and connected to her blog, but when i left a comment, it published me as anonymous even though i logged in to my google account. i'm so confused! and i don't know how to fix any of this so that i can reconnect to readers or other bloggers.

heather bailey's new collection "wild abandon"

i'm also really curious how people are getting here. i know bloglovin' isn't a thing anymore, so how are people subscribed here? i put the widget up myself, but i no longer remember what that's all about! so how are the rest of you that are still active in the blog world still finding and staying updated with blogs? 

you other bloggers, what's your experience like - are your readers your same old circles or are new people getting involved? do you interact much with readers? i'm so curious. once apon a time, when blogging was the main format for connecting, things were so interactive and different for me. now that i have a renewed interest in blogging as my instagram experience is loosing favor, i wonder what's going on here anymore. please share!

old quilter, new trick

 

i'm trying to get one thread-length a day stitched into "wiltshire rows." a few days ago, as i was nearing the outer edges of the quilt, i thought about how when machine quilting i occasionally catch the excess quilt back in the stitching, sewing it to the back of the quilt, but that it never happens when i handquilt.

sure enough, as i was working on the farthest row to the edge, i did just that! well, i thought, that's a first. i'm 13 years a quilter and i just managed to make a new mistake. how fun is that?

 

there's nothing i hate unpicking more than handquilting. fortunately for me, this happened on my second set of stitches for the row, so i didn't lose much. i hadnt' even pulled the needle through when i noticed what i'd done. all i had to do was fish out the knot at the end, snip it, pull through, retie, and get stitching again. now i'm right back at it.

progress on the handquitling - one third complete. 

there are 15 rows of chambray i will be quilting on both sides, and one thread length currently reaches approximately halfway across the width of the row. so that means i have 60 thread lengths to complete the quilting. so far, i've done 21 of those, putting me at just over one third done.

getting there one stitch, one thread at a time.

something else curious i've been musing on as i stitch is the way i still don't have my preferred stitch style figured out. i don't have a consistent stitch length or distance between the stitches. even when i'm using the same needle every time, these factors vary. i am definitely leaning toward small stitches, but it's the distance between that varies the most. and i honestly can't even tell which i like best. there is appeal in both larger and smaller distances between.

the above photo is pretty consistent on both sides of the small block.

this is a good example of not being the same or consistent.

i wonder if this will work out over time, or if it will always vary? this is my 12th handquilted piece, so it's not like i'm completely new to it. i definitely have learned to make smaller stitches than when i started. but they are still noticeably inconsistent, even across one quilt. it's a mystery to me!

goodness, these two close-ups are not showing my seam-matching skills at their best. that's okay. all of it is a-ok because i make quilts that are good enough, often pretty darn nice, and get loved a lot. living with all the imperfections and embracing them.

now, back to the needle and thread because i have some downtime!

little moments

i was scrolling my quilt photos from 2024 and found a lot of small quilting moments i didn't record, so i'm collecting them in a post of their own. it's the small quilting chores (and moments) that add up to big quilting finished, after all.

i want to celebrate, or at least recognize, all the parts that make up the whole.

the opening photo (above) is two projects intermingled on my sewing table: bits of liberty betsy and green crossweave i cut for "star hollow" blocks before i changed my mind about the project sitting on top of pieces for flying geese blocks to finish off "grellow garden geese." both of these projects need some rethinking before they move forward.

although i completed "beach brellies" in advance of my grandson's 2nd birthday, i was out of town for his actual birthday (not granna's choice!). i fully intended to have a small brithday party for him at my house, complete with a little cake and the presents i'd collected for him. however, it just didn't happen.

when his sister's first birthday arrived in december, i knew there was no more procrastinating the gifting. so i wrapped his quilt and birdies together to give to him when i brought her gifts to her.

he does use his quilt and the heather ross sea horses on the back are his favorite part.

this was a handquilting moment in the fall. a little laptop movie watching while i stitched away at "liberty holly hobbie." can you name the flick?

a gathering of most of my "stella grande" quilts - because i want to make a book of them. i did some photo books of a couple of them for my kids they belonged to, but i was very inspired by jolene klassen's self-published quilt book to make my own quilt book just for me.

jolene made her own book with blurb, a self-publishing site i have used to slurp my private family blog into a book before. it's beautiful! she just made what she wanted the way she wanted and offered it up for publishing-on-demand from the blurb site. i was smitten with the idea as a way to make a scrapbook of two major quilt projects of my own - my stella grandes and my liberty lap quilts. 

but i got stumped on a few technical issues. i don't know what program she used to compose her pages that aren't photos. if i ever get it figured out, i'll do the project and share how i did it/what i use.

side note about the above photo - the quilt in the photo was also made by jolene and i spied several of the fabrics in it through out the book in other quilts. so fun.

i don't just make quilts, they actually get used around here! this is fluffy on my "valoe" quilt.

d4 and i did eventually figure out what we wanted to do with her 8th birthday/sweet 16 quilt, and we involved the whole family. everyone stitched together at least one block for her quilt, adding the family to the quilt's story. i love this so much.

she says she doesn't like sewing, but you could fool me half the time.

did i mention the time i made one of my cute betsy hearts backwards? so frustrating when i only had a few minutes to work on the project and wasted it with a series of mistakes. ah, well. somehow i still make quilts!.

snuggling under jolene's quilt, contemplating d4's quilt.

uh, hello, selfie with low-volume crossroads quilt.

i have no explanation.

 layout of my longterm scrap project, "bonnie lass" by jen kingwell (resized), to see how it's looking. have i even talked about this one at all on this blog? i'll go look. 

report - it got a very brief mention twice. i'll save the explanation for another post.

so there's the little lost moments of my quilt life in 2024, the forgotten photos.

2024 was a very big finish year for me. i had several quilts almost completed that i pushed over the finish line into "finished and in use' status. that was quite satisfying, for sure. but moments that add up to a finish are mostly where my quilt life exists.

2024 stats

finishes - 9

starts - 6

start to finish - 1 (kind of)

tops completed - 2

quilting completed - 1

handquilting - 3; 1 completed, 2 in progress