New life in my blog.

Spring Flowers, designs from Sweet Pea on batik

Is anybody out there? I have not posted an entry since last year in 2018. I get distracted by going in too many directions at once. There is Facebook and the blog and now Instagram.
It does seem like there are more connections outside my circle of friends by being on Instagram which includes a link to this blog. So I am coming back to blogging. I will be posting more of this journey into a new chapter of my life, it is not retirement. I love my Brother Dream Machine, Martelli Notions, Northcott Stonehenge and any line of batik fabric. I look forward to making connections with any or all of these companies. They say this is the way to get noticed and I love to talk about the thinks that I enjoy.

Sunflowers

I have fun with fabric and want to share my fun with others. Here are a few of my recent creations. Stop back for more of my humorous stories of how patient my wife has been on this journey. There are already some stories on the older blogs. She is the one who encouraged me to get many of my best sewing tools, so I wouldn't keep borrowing hers. Enjoy the journey....


Within these photos you can see what I do with in the hoop embroidery. These flowers and sailboats are designs from Sweet Pea Machine Embroidery. The red, white and blue runners are what I do creating free form blocks from layer cakes. I hope to do a video and have a class outline for this soon.

Free form from Layer Cakes

I can't leave the blog without saying that all of these are available in my shop. I am a member of a co-op shopping experience at The Shops on West Ridge in the town of Greece, New York. I am in shop #407, The Shops are open Thurs. through Sun. 10 am to 6 pm. You can add your email address at the right to get updates when my new blogs are posted. You can also like my Sewing Husband Facebook page.

Sailboats personalized for Lake Ontario

Welcome

Hi there and welcome to my blog. Please sign up on the right, if you want to be notified when there is a new posting to the blog. I will be the first to admit that I do not post here as often as I should. So, if you are on Facebook please like my page @sewinghusband this has many more pictures and posts. My goal for 2019 is to start the video series that my wife said I should do two years ago.

As I write this post, I am getting ready for a busy weekend. The photo on the right is all projects that need to be finished today! Some just need a hanger while others need borders and backings. You may have visited with me at "Fight Night," an event to fight breast cancer, at The SHOPS on West Ridge Road. You may have also seen me at the St. Rita School Craft Show in Webster.

If this is your first visit to my blog, you may wish to go the the earlier entries to read of my humorous start to sewing. Yes, my wife is still speaking to me but is much happier now that I have my own sewing room and sewing machines. She encouraged me to get my Brother Dream Machine and software to create my own designs. The snowmen and flowers you see above are purchased designs. The hearts are my own creation. I have also created the "Home" below and have crafted some little tea lights for some fun holiday decorating.

My permanent shop location is at The SHOPS on West Ridge Road in Greece, NY. The address is 3200 Ridge Road, Rochester, NY 14626 and the shops are open Thursday to Sunday from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. This is a coop and I am not always in my shop. You may purchase from the shop at anytime, all items go through the front registers. If you would like to talk to me in person my schedule is listed on the sewinghusband FaceBook page.

I really need Deadlines...

The only way I get anything done is with a deadline. My posts were much more frequent at the beginning of this year. That is thanks to the challenges were I applied myself to make a quilt or wall hanging and had to post about it in a limited time frame. Thanks to Kim and all involved in 2017 Project Quilting Season 8.

Well my wife told be about a donation request, but didn't commit me to anything. As usual it started things turning in my mind. I had seen some scraps of fabric with fire hydrants and hoses along with some baseball fabric. After a while, I couldn't get it out of my head. So I had to make a quilt. They wanted lap size and I usually stay with wall hangings, so another challenge. I started making blocks then had to improvise to make it bigger and here is the result.

As for quilting, I love my Brother Dream Machine. I have the walking foot on almost all the time and get straight lines with the aide of the built in laser. For those reasons I do mostly linear quilting. Out the door this morning, I hope this brings support for JACK Foundation. It was a labor of love. Find out more about Just Acts of Caring and Kindness at the JACK Foundation website.

Time Challenge - "Time to Know Your Neighbor"

Strips ready

Today was a snowy day in Webster, New York so I was able to finish the quilt challenge based on time. I started this last night planning on a small wall hanging this grew to a size of 27" by 41".   

Blocks Ready

Project Quilting #8 Challenge 6 is to be something inspired by time. So this was a great time to go back to some earlier inspirations. Last year I started a wall hanging called Tempus Fugit, which I haven't finished yet. But I did have some left over strips of clock and watch pattern fabric. My Dad used to fix watches and clocks so I got this fabric for a wall hanging to remember him by.

Assembled

From the strips of watch and clock fabrics I made some four patch blocks and found some fabric with buildings in a similar color range. I arranged these in three columns and added some extra spacers for a little improv.

Border added

I had a few different titles in mind for this project and settled on "Time to Know Your Neighbor." This actually will allow it to compliment another wall hanging I made with some of the building fabric that I called, "Who is my Neighbor?" (See companion piece below.) So after I decided on a title I got is ready to go back to the Brother machine. The really cool feature of the Brother Dream Machine is the built in camera to take a picture of the fabric in the hoop and audition the placement of the text on the quilt. I used a gold thread for the embroidery and then added a drop shadow on the lettering with a permanent marker.

 

Embroidery in process

 

Update: Note that I forgot to mention regarding the TIME theme. I worked on this wall hanging while watching "Time Tunnel" on Hulu. A TV show from my childhood, click on the title for more information. My final time expression in this wall hanging was to use an old flannel shirt from my kids as the batting. The good news about kids moving out... You get to use their old bedroom as a sewing room and their old flannel sheets for thin batting. In this one I used two layers of the flannel sheet for a little more thickness.

Who Is My Neighbor

Embroidery with drop shadow added

Eight Become Great

Hanging with my Brother

The year 2017 has begun and today as I entered the sewing room I noticed 8 pieces of fabric that seemed rather sad. “Why so blue?” I said, well besides the fact that you are blue in color. They explained that their life began as happy members of the Northcott family and went to live in a wonderful warehouse in Missouri that even had a star on it. They were shipped here to Webster, NY and felt like they were being born as they burst happily from the shipping bag. They enjoyed life on a shelf watching the comings and goings of projects throughout 2016. They got very hopeful when their stack of 40 went to the sewing room. They were to join the pictures that Prince Parker had made and become a lap quilt for his Oma. They watched as others were lifted off the pile and were sewn together with the beautiful crayon drawings. But all of the sudden the quilt was finished and they were left behind. They were not needed in this project. They got pushed to the back of the table as Christmas projects came and went. They heard that they may be taken to “the stash” and they did not know what or where this was. They had not seen it but were afraid that it may be a cult. They heard of many fabrics going there years ago that had never returned to see daylight.

Eight squares face to face

Cut corner to corner

As I saw these eight pieces of fabric, I had an idea. I had just read about a fabric challenge based on the number eight. I told the fabric squares that if they trusted me they may still have a chance to become something great. I told them they must go two by two to see the Brother, but must face each other and not look upon the Brother. Wait they said,  “are you the Brother’s keeper?” “Yes, I am my Brother’s keeper,” I said. This was an honor entrusted to me when I visited the great Jackie Lynn at the meeting of elders in Syracuse, NY this past year (the AQS show).

HST Half Square Triangles

Time to spin

The squares of fabric went to the Brother, two by two, right sides together and were sewn on all four sides. “Wait, how will we see the light of day this way?” said the squares. After a quick encounter with Ironman, the squares received two cuts from the Brother’s keeper, running corner to corner. They flopped open and suddenly realized they had become half square triangles. Again they were sad, because they were just half square triangles and looked much the same as each other. But the keeper told them to spin into different patterns and the Brother would make them into beautiful blocks. The blocks were afraid again since they were told they could not look upon the Brother. The keeper reassured them it was OK to look at the Brother, he was just joking before.

Auditioning Fabric

As the keeper auditioned beautiful fabrics to join the blocks, they were concerned that they should not be joined to other fabrics that did not come from the Northcott family. The keeper told them that many fabrics could live together in harmony if they were just given a chance. As the project came together, there was just one more request the blocks wanted to come together in the shape of an eight to remember where they came from. 

Throughout this journey with these pieces of fabric, the keeper was reminded of a lovely, local quilter named Zelpha. They had crossed paths many years earlier and she told the keeper of her story quilts. She had told stories, like Little Red Riding Hood, in quilts with textures for children to touch as she told the story. This is not to the extent of Zelpha’s quilts but it has become a fun story based on the making of a little quilt. The finished wall hanging is 15 1/2 inches wide by 20 inches tall. Eight blue squares turned into four blocks with eight triangles in each block surrounded by a big 8. This project started a 8 am this morning and I started writing the blog at 8 pm tonight.