Now that my studio is put back together, I unearthed all of the bits to the Metamorphosis quilt (pattern from from Lo & Behold Stitchery) that I’d been working on struggling with. Essentially I’m making a butterfly themed memory quilt out of Hawaiian shirts. The end result will be a throw-size quilt and three coordinating 20″ pillows. The shirts range in size from XXL to 3X, so I have plenty of fabric to do a pieced back for the quilt and pillow covers. Thankfully, there’s also enough fabric left over to fix any screw-ups on matching/coordinating the butterfly wings.

The good news is I’m farther along in the process than I remembered. All I need to do is cut up the rest of the Hawaiian shirts and I can get sewing on the butterfly wings (half circles). I spent this afternoon doing just that. As is standard practice with t-shirt quilts, I bagged up all the leftover shirt materials and put them aside for safekeeping. I keep any leftover bits until the finished project is delivered to the recipient.

The goal is to finish remaining butterflies this week, so I can assemble the quilt top and start quilting. My plan is to echo quilt the semi-circles on the wings and do a small meander on the blue background with a wave/ribbon candy in the sashing.

The class I took at the Garden of Quilts with Fran Gulick of Cotton & Joy was a big help in overcoming my issues with curved piecing. Here’s that project below:

If I ever attempt a memory quilt project with curved piecing again, I’m going to treat the clothing like I do t-shirts in a t-shirt quilt – stabilize anything that moves. The slippery rayon shirts have been a bit of a challenge to maneuver under the needle. I am stitching on my Janome 8900 using the HP foot (looks like Singer FW original presser foot), straight stitch needle plate, stitch D4 with settings of SL= 2.0 and SW=.6, and a purple tip needle with Wonderfil DecoBob (80 wt) thread. I am extremely happy with the results.

Yesterday, two pieces of mail sparked a conversation: (1) the monthly COBRA insurance bill and (2) pre-approval letters from Anthem for the scans that hubs will have done after Thanksgiving. We both remarked how grateful we are for our current health insurance coverage. Hubs wisely observed that without it and COBRA continuation coverage provisions, we’d both still be working (or at least I would be). Very true.

Six months in, I can say that my personal money fears have eased considerably. Despite inflation and a tumultuous stock market, we’ve been able to do what we want to do and still keep (mostly) within budget. Giving myself permission to actually spend the money we’d specifically saved for retirement was harder than I anticipated. Thankfully, I’m over that, now!

Daily social interactions and problem solving/business challenges are two things we miss most about the workaday world. Volunteering provides many opportunities for social interaction and to utilize your specific skill set. You’ll definitely have to try some different volunteer stints before you find one that’s a good fit.

We do know a move away from the ATL is in our future. As much as we love our home, neighbors and our proximity to literally everything, we quickly realized we don’t need this much house nor do we need to be close to the ATL airport since hubby is no longer a road warrior. Our once suburban area is now definitely considered “desirable, urban & close-in” with the traffic, development, crowds, higher taxes and crime to go along with it. Time to cash in and move to somewhere a little more serene. The biggest question is where to move? That will be our mission in 2023.

Over the past six months, I’ve learned to be more present and worry less about the future. We’ve done everything we know to prepare – time to go experience what today brings and live life to the fullest. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

We had a new visitor to our Friday Sew Day. She brought in a Juki TL2010Q that she’d purchased at the Sewing Expo back in March. This machine had been sitting in her closet because she couldn’t get it to work. (There’s no Juki dealer in our area.) She’d tried videos and read through the manual, but none of it made sense to her. After about 5 minutes, I had her stitching. That Juki is one sweet machine!

Remember that vintage sewing machine class I attended with my SIL in late August?

Well…

Many vintage machines like the Singer 66, Singer 99, Singer 221, etc. are side loading. Most, if not all, of the modern semi-industrial straight stitch only machines from Juki, Janome, Brother and Baby Lock are side loading.

Check your needle.

Chances are, you either have the wrong size/type of needle, have inserted your needle incorrectly, or have the thread going in the wrong direction. A side loading bobbin means you need to thread the needle side-to-side instead of front-to-back. Yes, your needle is turned 90 degrees left or right, depending on how you are supposed to thread your needle. Check your sewing machine manual. Chances are, it’s threaded left to right. This means the round side of the needle is facing the bobbin assembly and you place the thread through the eye of the needle in a left to right motion. A Singer FW and Singer 301 thread the exact opposite way – right to left.

Tip: If that fancy needle threader on your modern semi-industrial machine gives you fits, thread the needle the old-fashioned way – flashlight, magnifying glass and/or a piece of white paper behind the needle.