Come Stitch With Me

And we’re off! All of our normal activities resumed this week, including therapy dog visits. Sadie (my dog) was read to by a reader with the same name. This little girl brought her two “lovies” so my Sadie could meet them. So sweet!

For 1st Qtr 2024, I joined a Featherweight Club hosted at a local quilt shop. Based on the description, I eagerly anticipated an enthusiast group getting together to sew projects and swap tips on maintaining our machines. Turns out, It’s a class for new FW owners. Oh well, I’ve already paid, so I’ll attend the remaining 3 sessions and see what transpires. One of my Friday sewing squad told me that I could probably teach a FW class. After yesterday, I agree 100%.

Thursday afternoon was the second half of our READ pillow project class with the girls at the SQTM. Loads of fun! The education chair and I decided this class would be best suited as a school break or summertime class split into two 3-hour sessions. This way, students can do ALL of the steps and not feel rushed.

I’m also planning adult classes to offer at the SQTM later in the year – spring bench pillow w/Lori Holt style applique, fall wall-hanging and a Christmas kitchen textile project.

Friday was sew day and a former library colleague came to visit. Sew much fun to see my friend again! She retired six months after I did and is into team cycling for charity. Hope she has time in her schedule to sew with us again. Friday projects included the January 2024 BOM from A Quilting Life and Vintage Delight (pictured right) from the Riley Blake Designs 2024 Designer Challenge. I also decided to practice a new way of sewing binding by hand. Four patriotic placemats I free motion quilted (as homework for my FMQA class) are now my binding practice pieces and will be donated for Meals on Wheels at my next guild meeting.

The end of the week brought some very welcome news – official notice that I fulfilled all the requirements to continue our existing health insurance under SEC provisions (basically post COBRA for former employees with a certain amount of service credit) until I’m officially retired. Less than six months remaining at COBRA rates! Woo-hoo!

Looks like winter will finally arrive next week. Stay warm and quilt, my friends!

FMQ class is in session! It’s been more than a hot minute since I last did any FMQ.

We had orientation on Wednesday morning to go over what to expect the next 12 weeks. During orientation, HollyAnne recommended a certain brand of quilting gloves along with specific needles and thread.

Intrigued by the gloves, Sadie & I took a field trip to String & Story so I could try on the gloves. Glad I did. I have short stubby fingers with a wide palm. I typically buy medium quilting gloves to fit my hand and the fingers are always too long. The Swan Amity gloves come in 4 sizes. Their size chart recommended I purchase the XSmall based on my finger length. The Small offered a more comfortable fit around my palm, with the fingertips still being a reasonable length. I purchased a size Small.

While in the shop, I met HollyAnne and asked about the recommended FMQ feet for the class. She encouraged me to experiment with all of my FMQ feet to see which one works best for me. The hopping foot gets the job done. However, I’ll stick with the Janome convertible free motion foot with the open toe or ruler foot. The Janome foot’s much smoother because there is no spring action involved as with the hopping foot (can you say bounce?). I set my speed control lever at the 2/3 mark and lowered my feed dogs. With the hopping foot, I achieved best results stitching at 1/2 speed with the feed dogs up. I can honestly say having quilting gloves that fit well makes a noticeable difference.

We were told that practice is what gives confidence and we’ll be doing a LOT of practice in this class.- 30 different motifs to be exact. I’ll definitely be busy!