Doll Quilt Binding & Feathered Border

Sewed a double-fold blue binding to the doll quilt, which needed to be flipped to the back and hand sewn in place. I took this with me on the bus a couple of weeks ago when I went to see Oklahoma! at Portland Center Stage http://www.pcs.org/ --a must see!!! The next day I took the bus/max train to Beaverton to meet Martin and finished up this project while en route. Very nice to have some handwork to do instead of averting glances at strangers...

Also this week I'm finishing up another Yellow Brick Road quilt. I've made enough of these to wrap around the block of my house. This one highlights all the free motion designs I have learned or designed myself, so it is truly a canvas of many quilting classes taught. Still have a few open spaces to quilt, but I'm excited to put on the multi-colored binding and put it on the extra bed in the girls' room upstairs. A quilt to greet Sarah when she returns home, if Hannah doesn't steal it for herself!

For the border, I used stencil LD21 Feather Border w/Tendrils 5" (LD stands for designer Linda Mae Diny and the distributor is QCI, Inc.), and also King Tut Old Gold (#976) with a size 80/12 topstitch needle. I lowered the top tension to 1 and had to drop it even lower when the bobbin got near empty. I put King Tut Betty Cotton Cottage Colors (#949) in the bobbin which blended well with the backing fabric. I used a hand-dyed backing fabric which had some darker streaks running through the base burgundy.

In other news...Becca ran her personal best of 22:50 at the Concordia/Adidas XC classic last weekend, finishing 6th in the unscored JV race, out of 157 runners. Way to go Bec!

Sarah was home from Seattle to cheer her on as well as the usual suspects, including my brother, John, who said Becca ran her best race EVER!!! This is senior year, she's a captain and it looks promising for her to run at the varsity level for next week's district meet. Barring a natural disaster, the team will go to the state meet. Last year, Becca got to run as an alternate when someone got sick. This year she's ON FIRE to train hard for all the season ending glory she can enjoy. And she should :)

Sarah snapped this lovely photo of my dad's habanero peppers which we left to ripen on the windowsill. It didn't take long for all the green ones to turn from yellow to orange, then we popped them in the freezer.

Oh, and the domestic quilter celebrated another year of wonderful life with family, friends, and quilts! Blessed am I.

Copyright©2011, Sharon Baggs

Tomatoes & Quilt Discovery!

Spent yesterday canning 13 pints of tomatoes (+12 last week), something I haven't done for several years. It goes hand-in-hand with the domesticity of quilting to be a canning woman. At least once a decade. When winter sets in and I'm a quiltin' away, I'll really be thankful for those jars and the yummy meals they will provide.

Most of the tomatoes came from my dad's garden. He had 12 Early Girl variety tomato plants this year. I had two growing in my yard and the fruit was never as red and juicy as those grown on my childhood homestead. I still have some Siletz, Northern Delight, Roma, and Sunspot packed into one raised bed.

Was cleaning back behind the loveseat and found this little quilt I was working on during spring break. I did blog about how I was hand quilting it and then I obviously forgot all about it. Leather is slippery! Out of sight, out of mind. I think all it needs is another line or two of quilting, then on with the binding.

Copyright©2011, Sharon Baggs

Dance Skirt

Here's a yoga style dance skirt I made for my dancing queen from two remnants. The skirt is a poly/spandex fabric. I had a 20" x 54" piece, which I trimmed to 16" x 48". Normally you can use the entire length selvedge to selvedge but there was a flaw on the print which I cut off near one of the edges. I pinned the two 16" edges rights sides together and sewed a 1/2" seam down the back.

The waistband of unknown fiber--but a nice stretchy gray fabric-- is one piece cut on the fold 11" x 15", so it measures 22" x 15" (to fit a waist measurement of 25").  The 15" edges are sewn together with a 1/2" seam to form the waistband tube. The 15" is folded in half so it is 7.5". Edges are sewn together before attaching to the skirt, which is gathered. Sew with a zig zag stitch and then remove the basting stitches; otherwise they could pop when the skirt is pulled on. I didn't hem the bottom edge because this fabric doesn't fray and the length is perfect. Normally, I'd sew a 1/4" narrow hem.

The waistband can be folded down again to create a visible 3-4" band. Very comfortable for dancing and perfect for tonight's jazz and ballet classes. It took a couple of hours to make and only cost about $4 using remnants.

Copyright©2011, Sharon Baggs 

End of Summer...First day of School!

Just returned from a couple of road trips. One was to Montana to visit a college with Becca.

Another was an anniversary/birthday trip to Victoria B.C., with Martin.

Really beautiful sunsets in Victoria...

On the way back, we stopped in Seattle to pick up David from a weekend visit with Sarah.

We had dinner at the Elephant and Castle in downtown Seattle before heading home.

Couple days to recover before the First Day of School!  Hannah is an official 8th grader and Becca is a senior. (Becca, however, declined to be photographed).

Excited to get to work on my September projects, in and around the house and yard. Lots of quilting for the fall is planned, mostly projects in the works that have been waiting for my attention.

Copyright©2011, Sharon Baggs