Quilt 2024 – virtual quilt camp this week

July 18, 2024

If you have some free time this week, head over to the Quilt2024 site and register for a free, 5 day virtual summer camp for quilters that starts Wednesday, July 17th. There are six sessions that go live every day at 11 AM EST and remain available for 24 hours. Should you need more time to watch the replays or want to view everything on the first day, you can sign up for a paid registration. Free is fine for me!

I watched a little bit from each of today’s sessions, then went back and watched the replays that interested me. Yes, there’s a bit of a sales pitch involved, but the two sessions that I went back and watched were well worth my time. I made sure to download any free patterns and tutorials that were available. I was very pleased to discover that my local library system actually has multiple copies of Carolina Moore’s bag making book. I quickly placed a hold on that one!

Five additional sessions are on my watch list for Thursday and Friday. Hopefully, they’ll be as informative as the two sessions today were. Some of the instructors participating in this event also teach similar, more in-depth classes at regional and national quilting events. Watching them in action here helps me decide if I want to take a F2F class with them in the future.

As much as I like in-person classes, I find myself attending “YouTube University” more often these days. It’s convenient. Replays allow me to pause and review the instruction as needed. It’s also more cost effective. Unless the class is local, I have to factor in travel costs. I usually opt to stay home and make certain projects along with the corresponding YouTube video(s). I’ll sew along with a friend or join a group sponsored by a local quilt shop. Lately, all of the classes I’ve wanted to take are in Utah and Idaho. Can’t justify the cost of the retreat nor the travel costs in this instance.

Improving my FMQ skills

July 15, 2024
Quilt sample showing spiral meander pattern
Improving my spiral meander FMQ with each section I quilt

This is my second quilt using the spiral meander FMQ design. (My first attempt actually turned out fine – especially after the quilt was laundered.) The stitches here are more consistent, as are the size and spacing of the spirals. I also switched back to using Glide thread – which my machine really seems to prefer.

While sewing down the binding, I experienced a mishap with my machine, which I thought was going to require a visit to see Mr. Marc. I managed to get the machine to sew again, but a series of broken needles had already wreaked havoc on the bobbin case (my own fault for not remembering to change the needle plate). See the white “knots” in the picture? A new bobbin case and switching to purple tip needles took care of those.

Sadie and I had a therapy dog visit on Saturday at Gigi’s Playhouse in Roswell. Afterwards, Sadie & I paid a visit to the new Sew Sew Studio Duluth location. These folks are also a Janome dealer and I spent my birthday money on the specialty ruler work foot (offers greater visibility), a replacement FMQ bobbin case plus some accessories for my Elnita EC that my local dealer said weren’t available.

I have been happily stitching away this hot, steamy Sunday afternoon. I can’t wait to share the finished trio of quilts in a few days!

A picture of a sewing machine set up for machine quilting.
My set-up for free motion quilting

Excited for what’s next

July 10, 2024

Last night hubs and I celebrated my birthday at The Blue Ridge Grille in Buckhead. It’s one of our favorite places to celebrate extra special events. The food and service were superb, as usual. I think the last time we were there was to celebrate hubs retiring from Home Depot. That’s been well over two years ago.

Anyhow, this particular birthday meant I finally achieved the “magic age” for my teacher retirement benefits to kick in. (No more mortgage level health insurance premiums either!) We celebrated what’s ahead as we finally exit the holding pattern we’ve been in the past two years. Retirement officially begins August 1st.

We don’t expect much to change when it comes to our day-to-day activities. We’re just excited to have the funds previously earmarked to pay exorbitant health insurance premiums now available to tackle some minor home improvement projects and put toward a couple more bucket list trips. Sadie is also slated to get a new dogmobile (my SUV) by year end.

We’ve also started thinking seriously about where we’d like to live in retirement. That’s a tough one. We love our location and neighborhood, but are not happy about future plans for our area. I’ll be attending a DOT open house today about the future express lanes coming to the top end of I-285. I’m curious to see how they plan to add toll lanes in each direction with all the multimillion dollar homes along the proposed path between Vinings and Sandy Springs. I’m more interested in how the planned entrance/exit ramp less than 1 mile from our home will impact the surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Dining table decorated for birthday celebration
Cute table decorations that greeted us when celebrating my birthday!