Bye, bye, April!

Well, where did this month go? I'm not sure, but it has been a busy month. Here's what has been going on in my world: Sewed costumes for two small plays, one started April 13, one started April 20th. Got my Featherweight sewing machine serviced Bought a longarm quilting machine, still in the box, looking for a place in my house to set it up Attended an all day seminar featuring quilt making and long arm quilting Went to Paducah, KY,for a whirlwind one day blitzkreig style tour of the American Quilter's Society quilt show Made 5 baby quilts for Cardinal Glennon Hospital for Children's PICU, joining up with another quilter from Missouri o do this Sent off my Patternista Star quilt to be professionally quilted, still don't have it back yet, anxiously awaiting its arrival this week Bought way too much fabric Celebrated with family Easter, 2 baptisms, one First Communion, one birthday. Missed two other birthdays, bad me! I'll make it up later! This is the last week of school, lots of grading, meetings, to get it done. Can't wait to be done with it! Well, goodbye April. You are one of my favorite months, now you are gone! You are always a busy month in my life!

It's here, my baby is here!

In its little box from the mailman, left on my porch this afternoon!
Oh no! Packing peanuts! My least favorite thing to deal with!
Here it is in its little case, ready for me to unwrap and see what is inside
Oh my gosh, it actually works! The light lights, and the motor runs, and the needle goes up and down! Hopefully when I figure out how to thread it, it will actually sew! Can't wait to play!

It is a small dream come true (that lottery thing didn't exactly work out for me, although I did win $2!) But for a long time, I've wanted a Featherweight, made by Singer in the '20-'50s. They must have been prolific because they aren't rare, but are sought after because they are small, light and sew great. My aunt had one and swore by it, over and over, and over, and over! We tuned her out once she got on that roll, because she wasn't about to give it up to any of us, so it was a moot point, she loved it and we had to be jealous of it!

So, lately, I've been thinking about somehow acquiring one. I've toyed with the idea off and one lately, more for the sake of saying "I have a Featherweight and it sews so wonderfully!" I hope this lives up to the hype!

About a year and a half ago, I was taking a sewing lesson at my shop where I have bought my Janome machines. An older couple came in, carrying a little sewing machine in a small case. They said something to the effect that they didn't know if this was worth anything, maybe they would like to trade it for something newer, but only if it couldn't be fixed. The sewing teacher and I were like vultures hovering over it, wanting to say--""No, don't waste your money having it fixed, you would like a nice new shiny machine wouldn't you? And then we would try to snag the Featherweight from the dealer! Alas, the couple decided to have it repaired, and didn't trade it. That got my Featherweight juices flowing even more rapidly!

For those who are in the know, this has serial # AE082451. I know you can find out when they were made by the serial number, and one of my forum friends said she would do that for me. So, Bubby, let me know. I'm curious, but it isn't vital for me to know, just know that it works and sews nice, and it is sooooo cute, isn't it?

Vintage Sewing Machine

Here it is. Something I've been wanting for a long time! A Singer Featherweight vintage sewing machine. All the quilting divas have at least one! I found this on eBay. It's on its way to my house. I hope it works. But if not, they are infinitely repairable, so many of them are still around. Why some people even pimp them up by painting them wild colors!

Plenty of time to spare!

Last summer on the parking lot of Hancock Fabrics, I was approached by a friend who directs shows. She asked me to costume "Exit the King". I sort of forgot about that discussion until a couple of months ago, when she approached me in earnest, and pinned me down to costume her show. She had cast the show, and two of my friends were in it. It is a small show, with a cast of 6, so it wouldn't be a huge job. I reluctantly agreed, because I told another friend I would costume her show, and they are at the same time.

So, I was gathering materials, knowing that this show didn't open until April 13. I had a couple of costumes to build, but was taking my sweet time getting rolling on making them.

Then she told me last Wednesday that they needed as many as they could muster up for a publicity photo shoot tonight! That lit a fire under me, but my built in "timing thing" for just how long I'll need to finish it kicked in. I got a black skirt for the maid done, and we had the other maid accouterments, apron, cap, and she had the blouse that would work.

I didn't really get much accomplished this weekend, but started in earnest on the queens outfit on Sunday evening. Finished it and the blouse on Monday morning, then the skirt Monday evening. That left the king's silk pajamas that needed to be done for the photo shoot. We had back-up pajamas, but I did want to get them done if possible. The only time left to work on them was this afternoon.

When I came home from work, I was very tired, as usual. I thought, I'll just take a little cat nap then start on the pajamas. My cat nap lasted until 3, when I bounced up, figured I'd better start on those pajamas if I had any prayer of getting them done by 7 p.m. Lady luck was with me,, because I started at 3 and finished at 6:05.

As I was starting this last project, looked at my measurement book, and all it said for the king was L. So I made some L pajamas, which are really too big for him. But, if I am going to alter things, I'd rather make them smaller than try to make them bigger! I can take them in and make them fit him better.

Here they are:




My one friend in the grey coat did her own costume. She is a costumer extraordinaire, I learn so much from what she does. The maid forgot to bring her black blouse, the young queen forgot her corset, all because the director forgot to tell them that tonight they were going to be in pictures! Grrrrr!

Anyway, with all my procrastination and lack of motivation to do this, I got it done with time to spare! I even got to eat dinner (drive through McDonalds)! I got to the theatre at 6:49, photo shoot didn't start til 7! Plenty of time to spare!

Daddy Dogwood

I've been a stalker during the past week. I've been driving by my old house and stalking the dogwood tree growing in the yard. You see, my late husband Ed, planted this tree in 1968 when we moved into this house. It was a little pencil sized stem when he planted it. Now, 44 years later, it still blooms in glorious white every spring!
This is how it looked earlier this week, not quite as white. The dogwood blossoms are actually bracts, they surround the flower, which is in the center. As the sun bleaches the bracts, they turn from green to white. I was trying to catch the tree in its whitest glory, I think I hit it today.


I have related the story about Ed and the dogwood trees in an earlier post (Down the Dogwood Trail). As it nears the anniversary of his birth, March 27, we think of him more. There is no better way to remember him than to look at this tree, that still survives after all these years, as a testament to his love for this type of tree, and as a testament of our love for him.

When we designed his headstone, we put dogwood flowers on it, instead of other flowers. I know he would love that.

P.S. in the second picture, you can see a huge bush that covers the entire corner of the house. This was a $.50 half dead Rhodedendron that Ed bought and planted. It will be flowering in glorious purple in a couple of weeks. I'm so glad the current owners haven't chopped these two trees down.

Pillow-pallooza

One of the newest YouTube tutorials is done by Jenny Doan and Vanessa of V and Co. Vanessa loves the new look of pleats, or in the fashion world, they are called shutters. So many dresses today are made of fabrics with the "shutter" overlay on the skirts and bodices, they are very slimming and quite popular. I have a dress made this way, and I love it.

Vanessa showed a tutorial about a month ago of a reverse applique pillow which she created by overlaying folded strips of cloth and sewing them to an underlayment, then appliquing a heart shape over the pleats to made a darling heart pillow. If this doesn't make sense, you will have to look for her tutorial, because it is very hard to explain.

For this tutorial, she just did the pleats without the applique to make a very chic pillow. Choice of fabric can make it look sleek and modern (Vanessa did hers in shades of light to dark grey to black--a very contemporary look), and on the Moda Bake Shop website, they show the same type of pillow using prints. The choice of fabic makes the style of the pillow change dramatically.


You know me, I like color, so I had to try this newest tutorial myself. I had pretty many jelly roll strips (2-1/2" wide) left from several of my recent projects. I started out with the Dogwood Trail jelly roll strips, since they were on top of the scrap heap. Then I dug further and made two more pillows! I guess this is why I named this post PILLOW-PALLOOZA! Because now I have three new and very pretty pillows for my home.

This one is using Patternista--I posted my Patternista star quilt top a week or so ago, so when that is finished, this will go on the bed with that quilt.

This one is Dogwood Trails, the quilt I just finished last weekend. Looks oh so pretty on the bed with the other things from the same line.
I happened to find a small collection of precut fabrics at our Tuesday Morning stores here in St. Louis. I hit several different locations, and each had a small amount of the same coordinates. I happened to luck out and get a jelly roll, a charm pack, a fat quarter bundle and 2 packages of 1 yard pieces of different prints in this set of coordinates. They were very inexpensive. I'm being forewarned by forum members that some of these cheap precuts (from Wal-Mart, I think) aren't worth the powder to blow them up with, so I'm not going to spend hundreds of hours making a quilt from this fabric, with the knowledge that it might not be something that will hold up to long and hard wear. So far, I have an hour invested in the combination, because that is how long it took me to make the pillow. I think I'll do an easy large block quilt to go with this. In the meantime, I really do love this coordinate, it reminds me of Easter Egg colors--very springy.

Hope you get a chance to try to make one of these pillows. They are fun and fast and handsome, I think. I just stuffed the first one as the tutorial suggested, but put a zipper in the next two, so I can take out the inner pillow to wash the cover. Hope this will work out, and you might try doing it this way if you make one and think it will get a lot of loving, and need to be washed. I used the trimmings of poly batting from some of my quilts, now I am very glad I didn't throw this away, because I filled three pillows for free! Whooppee! Let's go have a pillow fight!

How many Tutes does it take to make a bed?

For those of us who log in to the Missouri Star Quilt Company forum on a daily (or hourly) basis, we know the value of tutorials that Jenny has presented to teach us quilting skills and simple projects that can turn out really great. I finished my Dogwood Trails bedding set and started counting up the tutorials or "tutes" that I used to complete this project--there are plenty of them.

Can you spot them?

In the quilt pattern and throw pillow--disappearing 9 patch blocks form the border around the large motif in the center of the quilt. The center heart is from a pattern in a book called "Super Simple Jelly Roll Quilts" by Alex Anderson and Liz Aneloski, published by C & T Publishing.


Latest tute--pleated pillow. Found a use for all those batting trimmings from my quilts that I didn't know what to do with, I stuffed the pillow with them. NOW I DO KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM! Also in the pillows, heart block, tube pillowcases with borders, the borders are hard to see in this picture.

Binding by machine only, binding tool tutorial. I guess I did a good job with the binding tool (first time I had good luck!), because I can't even find where I joined the binding ends.

I do hate to hand stitch so in the entire bedding set, there is only 5" of hand stitching, that is to close the opening in the pleated pillow. Now, this is my kind of quilt making!

MSQC saved my project by having a small amount of the fabric line Dogwood Trail left in their stock. The most desired piece was the white background with white and pink dogwood flowers on it. This one was all sold out at the local quilt store where I got the rest of the fabric. MSQC also had a beautiful small multicolor flower fabric that I never saw at the LQS.

All this, plus encouragement from other forum members, FB friends, and some great books, and I think the Dogwood trail bedding is officially finished. Oh, I forgot, that last pillowcase in the back needs one more seam, then it is officially ready for my April bed!