PQ 10.2 Cozy of Last Resort

 As soon as I heard the challenge, I knew which stash of fabric was going to come out and play.  It was a set of red, white and blues I collected after finding a cute little dress in a thrift shop and deciding the colors were perfect for a quilt.  The reds were easy.  I passed up the white polka dots in my collection as being too transparent.  The blues were harder to match.  I have found that blue is actually a very hard color to match.   They are not perfect but they work.  I tried cutting the appropriate sized triangles and much to my surprise, made it all the way through the stack of fabrics.  Unfortunately, I realized I need twice as many little white ones as large colored ones.

 After much head scratching, internet perusing and seam ripping, I got the hang of using the triangle paper to make flying geese.  It was not entirely self explanatory.  It also required a degree of dexterity that I was missing.  I was making good progress once I got the hang of it all.  However, by Friday morning, I wasn't even half way through piecing.  Even with doing multiple rows at a time to cut down on trips to the ironing board, I just wasn't getting it done.  Another thing that actually made a great big difference was switching from my tiny and sturdy BL9 to my larger machine.  I had to (horror of horrors) change it from embroidery to sewing but that thread cutter and larger sewing surface really make a difference. 

 

Thus it became time for the cozy of last resort.  I call it that because once upon a time, the infamous Quilt Chicken made an air freshener cozy at the last minute just to say she had completed the challenge.  It is  a lovely cozy and a wonderful lesson in get 'er done.

I went to my stash and found the adorable snowpeople in trucks fabric along with the snowflake/star fabric.  I had to argue a bit to avoid getting started on another complicated design.  This was going to be your basic alternating blocks.  A quick table runner.  I did have a blue fabric similar to the red stars but I didn't want to think that hard.  So it is a just a basic checkerboard.

 

I should have started here in the first place.  My skills are very rusty.  There was joy in cutting and sewing simple blocks.  I managed to line up most of my corners and iron most of my seams in the right direction so they all laid flat.  I don't usually even take pictures of the back of my flimsies, let alone post them but I am pleased with how this worked out.

Here it is appropriated shot on a pile of melting snow.  It measures 16" x 24",  The batting turned out to be thicker than I thought, so the quilt is a little puffy for a table topper.  I did a simple cross hatching quilting.  I decided that because I found the walking foot before I found the FMQ foot.  It is the simple things, I know.  An important reminder to self.  Quilting causes the fabric to recede.  I should have quilted over the red squares leaving the snow people to pop out.  However, I knew the white thread would show my errors on the red.  Yes.  I could have gotten the red thread but I didn't think of that until I was already started.

Here you can see my only sort of wavy lines.  It turned out better than I hoped given my rusty quilting skills.  The walking foot is a wonderful invention!

 And an art shot just because I finished in time to try and take arty pictures rather than desperately snapping a blurry shot just to get it linked in time!

Maker Life: Selling All the Things

It can be a double edged sword... 

You go to a show, a small show.  You don't have anything better to do that day but sit and sew.  The sewing you have to do is portable.  You might as well sew at the show where you can talk to people and maybe make a few bucks rather than stay home to work.

But then something happens.  You start selling things.  Lots of things.  You are sewing things up to replace what is on your table.  You sell some more.  You barely have time to sew.  You scour the bottom of the work bag for the popular items.  You discover you don't have any more.  It is a great day for sales.  One of the best ever. 

BUT...  the reason you have a giant work bag full of plushies to sew is that you have several big shows all coming up in short order and you need all the stock you can get for them.  Instead of getting work done in a pleasant location with happy people you burn through your stock and all the work you get done, gets sold immediately. 

And the panic really sets in.  Although past performance doesn't guarantee future results, the fact the customers seemed to have broken the no sales log jam may mean that you need to really kick out the product! 

EEP...  As we say around the WaggonsWest workroom.