Of Piecing, Binding, Eastering, and College Visiting

It's been a busy week, but I still (barely) managed to squeeze in enough personal sewing time to stay on top of my goals -- in addition to my "extra duties" as Family Event Planner, Easter Chef, and Travel Agent/Tour Guide to Out-of-State College Towns.  My label is appliquéd to my bear paw quilt and I sewed the binding to the front of my quilt today.

Bear Paw Binding Began Today

Notes to Self: I'm still tweaking and improving my binding process.  This time, I cut my binding strips at 2 1/8" wide and sewed them to the front of my quilt with my walking foot and a 1/4" seam allowance.  I've given up on that Binding Tool that I thought was going to make it so much easier to join the two binding ends.  Fact is, the regular Binding Tool is designed to work with 2 1/2" cut width strips and the Mini Binding Tool is designed for 2" wide strips.  I've decided that the "old school" method works more reliably for me than the gadgets: just trimming the loose binding ends so they overlap by the exact width of my binding strips (2 1/8" in this instance), rotating the ends RST to form an "L" shape, and sewing across the diagonal from corner to corner as shown below:

Back to My "Old School Method" Binding Join

I've also been busy attaching corners to the kaleidoscope blocks for Anders' high school graduation quilt and joining those blocks into rows.  I even found some ombre lime green fabric in my stash that might work for the kaleidoscope backing, and I've been thinking ahead to quilting designs as well.

Adding Corners to Kaleidoscope Blocks

I tried a new roast leg of lamb recipe for Easter dinner that was okay but not a keeper, and I bribed my not-so-little boys into participating in an Easter egg hunt after church by putting dollar bills -- as well as a few fives, tens and even a twenty -- inside the plastic eggs along with the candy.  They were good sports and it was a fun spectator activity for me, my husband and my mom.   (Dance, little monkeys!  Dance!!)

Easter 2021 With My Sons: Lars (20), Mom and Anders (17)

Lars went back to college after the egg hunt because he had classes on Monday, but Anders was on Spring Break from high school all last week.  We took advantage of his time off school to visit some of the colleges that have offered him admission, since he needs to make a decision no later than May 1st.  I wrapped up the week by getting my second COVID-19 vaccination on Saturday, so I was really tired all day Saturday and Sunday and my left arm and shoulder are still sore and tender.  Considering all of the non-quilting things I had going on last week, I'm really pleased with how well I stayed on track with the sewing I'd hoped to get done.

Here's how I did with last week's goals:

• ✅ Appliqué the label to my bear paw quilt by hand
• Prep the label for the kaleidoscope quilt (remove all the stabilizer, trim to size, press edges under, and set aside)
• ✅ Machine stitch binding to my bear paw quilt
• ✅ Attach corners to kaleidoscope blocks in rows 2 and 3
• Begin hand stitching the bear paw binding

This week will be busy, too.  We're doing follow up visits to two schools in South Carolina next weekend so Anders can finalize his college decision, and I'm the scheduled soloist at church on Sunday morning, which means I'll have a midweek rehearsal and some music preparation to do earlier in the week (I hope they pick something I've sung in the past).  I'm looking forward to meeting a new client who is bringing me a quilt top on Tuesday and I am expecting a few other quilt tops from out of state clients to appear on my doorstep by the end of the week, which is great.  

Although my edge-to-edge quilting turnaround is still around 1-2 weeks, I'm keeping my work hours for customer quilting separate from my personal sewing time.  Think Oil & Water or Church & State!  I am really enjoying being able to do more of the fun part (for me!) of quilting customers' tops, especially since my own quilt top finishes are so few and far between.  It's fun to help another quilter reach their finish line with a project, and each time I transform a flimsy into a finished top, I feel energized to move forward with my own projects again.  It's a win-win!  (If you or any of your quilting friends have tops that need quilting, check out this page to learn more about my long arm quilting services.  I'd love to quilt for you!)

So, keeping all of those obligations in mind, here are my personal sewing goals for this week:

• Seam kaleidoscope backing & set aside
• Attach corners to kaleidoscope blocks & assemble rows 4-6
• Begin hand stitching the bear paw binding

I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

BOMs Away at What a Hoot Quilts

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at ChrisKnits