Quequechan Quilter

 Happy Saturday!  I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday.  Ours was a bit quiet as most of the family either celebrates elsewhere these days or has passed away.  I always did all the holiday dinners for the family, but these days it's either just me and my husband or a very small group compared to the mob we used to have here. We've had three people we know hospitalized in the past week or so all of them as emergency admissions, and only one didn't need to have emergency surgery.  Two of the three are now at home, thank goodness.  The third might be home early next week.  One was my sister-in-law (my husband's sister) who needed emergency surgery to remove a bowel obstruction, the second was a very good friend who needed to have a softball-sized cyst removed Thanksgiving day.  The third was actually the first and she's a neighbor who fell down her cellar stairs and broke he knee cap in three places.  Her surgeon advised that the brea...

 Good day everyone! Well, I haven't finished quilting Home on the Range yet.  It's about half-way there; I've just been out and about alot again this week.  Between the upcoming holidays, housework, and family I've had almost no time to get into my sewing room. Quilting on Home on the Range I did decide to keep the quilting very simple.  The inegrated walking foot on my M8 is my choice for this one and I'm simply stitching down each side of the block seams on the quilt.  This is creating a grid and is more than close enough to keep the batting from shredding when the quilt is washed. For anyone who is in Bristol or Plymouth Counties in Massachusetts, Michelle at Homestead Quilting and Fabrics is updating her Website.  The online shop isn't up yet, but everything else is and she's having a sale from now until she closes for the holidays on December 21.  It's definitely worth stopping by for the sale. I don't think I'll get much done on the quilt ...

 I've been out of the house more than in it this week.  I had my final appointment with my orthopedic surgeon on Monday for my left knee replacement.  All is well and I've been released, but that took half my day.  All the errands I didn't get to do on Monday got moved to Tuesday, Wednesday I had a mid-day meeting that took longer than scheduled, Thursday I had more errands to run around my regular housework schedule, and Friday I ended up running out again.  Therefore, I never really got to much in my sewing room. Thread Options I've decided on the thread I'll be using for the quilting.  It's a shade of blue that matches the backing fabric very well.  As to how I'll be quilting it, I'm still not sure.  I want something fairly quick, but can't decide what I'd like best on the quilt.  Stippling it would be fairly quick, but not too good for my back.  Doing something with the walking foot would go quickly, but I'm not sure I want to use st...

Hello Everyone. I did get the Home on the Range quilt top sandwiched, but I'm still undecided about how to quilt it.  I've considered a basic stipple, loops and cirlces, even some straight line stitching, but nothing seems quite right yet.   It's a sandwich! You'll probably think I'm crazy, but I'm actually considering using my serger to quilt it.  That's right my serger.  It also does coverstitch and I've been toying with the idea of using it to quilt this quilt.  Using a serger for quilting isn't new.  It's been done for quite a few years.  You may even have seen Bernina's videos with Amanda Murphy where she sews and quilts an entire quilt on a Bernina serger .   So I was testing out whether I liked using the cover stitch to quilt on some scraps I have. Top of Coverstitch I actually rather like the triple row of stitching on the top of the quilt.  It would be a quick way of making a tattersall look crosshatch on it.  The back...

I received a question from a lovely lady who wanted to know if I had pre-washed the fabrics I used for the Poinsettias on Point quilt in American and Patchwork's Winter 2024 issue. Fabric Bleed Testing I actually couldn't remember if I pre-washed my fabrics. (Lunn Studios for Robert Kaufman's Joyful Holidays was the line of batik fabrics I used for the quilt.)  So, I found some of the scraps from the project and soaked them in what was initially very warm water for over an hour and they didn't bleed.  Way back when, I always pre-washed my fabrics.  I've found over the years, that most fabrics made now don't bleed or run the way they used to.  If you are concerned about it, you can always add a color catcher to your wash load to circumvent any bleed that may occur. When I made the quilt for the magazine, I received more fabric than I actually needed to make the project, so I made a second, smaller quilt top, that one I'll be custom quilting myself.  The magaz...