Sunflower Delight!

      Finally, after years, I quilted the One block wonder sunflowers quilt. It was a lot of fun to do. This was before the tension woes. Thank you to everyone who left helpful comments including ones that were anonymous ones.

The back, kind of fun.

Tension woes

      I don't mean global or economic tensions, but longarm tension issues. For the past month I have been plagued by tension issues on my longarm. I have tried everthing I could think of, but the thread keeps shredding making progress slow and painful. I have had Pixel Chain on the machine for over a month and it is not done. The tension seems inconsistent and wandering. I have tried new needles, pre wound bobbins, self wound bobbins, Glide, Masterquilter top threads, PremoSoft, Glide 60, Decobob in the bobbin. Clean, polish and clean some more. I may have to ante up and have my dealer come in from a distance to give some assistance. I love to quilt, but it is not going well. It is very wearying.
     I have gone back and forth with emails from my dealer and the last suggestions from her greatly minimized the shredding (using the same thread top and bottom and changing the tension setting on the bobbin case to 225- Towa Gauge), but I got the quilt off the longarm. I loaded another on and will start over again hoping that it is resolved.

Fabrics and Finish

      I did finish the 3 Dudes quilt with a border. Rosie is inspecting and wrecking the design wall, multi tasking. I think it came out great, thanks Julie for curating and cutting all that fabric.

      Also, I made sure I visited Fox's Sew and Vac in Meadville, PA when visiting my daughter the Saturday after Thanksgiving as their email showed great sales. I got 20 fat quarters for $20, I chose. I got 5 yards of fabric for $5 each. And I bought some funky Benartex fabrics 20% off- 10 fat quarters and three- 1 yard pieces. Now to what quilt to make with it. Something star like maybe. Hmm.

Star of the Season

      I adore Christmas cactus plants especially the blooms. This year, I got an extra special plant from a man in my cardiac rehab who moved from our area to Madison, Wisconsin. He had to give away all his plants as he moved in this weather. I got two of the plants, but I am showing the prize one in this post. Oh my, it is a star show.

The start

Presto Change O, different quilt

      One of the quilts I worked on the retreat was one from QuiltDiva Julie. She gave me two that used the same rail fence type pattern. I did make the first one according to plan, but when I started sewing the second one, I got fidgety. I looked and thought and rembered the 3 Dudes quilt from MSQC I made long ago. It would lend itself perfectly with no waste.
     I started with the same rail fence blocks, Light Dark Light Dark Light and Dark Light Dark Light Dark, but then I placed them right sides together and sewed all around them. Then I cut them diagonally from corner to corner twice.

      Pretty dynamic for some brown and neutral stips, huh? It excited me.

Sewn quilt, it did get a border to make it wider (shown another day)- no fabric wasted from what Julie sent me!

Trying to catch up

      I have no idea why I cannot keep up here. Why is it so hard to post on a regular basis? I take the photos and get them off the camera into folders and then I cannot sit and write the posts. It is frustrating. I read everyone else's everyday, but not write my own. I lost a whole month.
     At the beginning of November, my quilt guild had its fall retreat. It was bigger than the six it had dwindled down due to covid fears. We were up to 14! It was a great time of sharing and working with others, seeing how others do things and asking each other for suggestions/critiques. Just wonderful. As we work, we put the done work on the railing into the room down the ramp. It gets exciting seeing the work build up. We have the retreat at Stella Niagara, which is a facility that used to be headquarters for a certain group of nuns and a school. There still is a little school there. It sits on a perch above the Niagara River just north of Lewiston, NY (Artpark) and south of Youngstown, NY (Fort Niagara and Lake Ontario). Gorgeous walks when you need a break.

     At the end of the retreat (Sunday morning), we do a show and tell of all our work before we take it all down and leave. We can be there from Thursday to Sunday. The next one is at the end of February. Just a sample of what was done there.

Made from old tie pieces left over from a larger quilt

Finished from a UFO left at the guild sharing table

     Plus, we always work on a small project. I always try to find something we can do together. I found this great folding box on She Can Sew.

Building the Stash

      I am reporting proudly that I am building my stash as an ongoing process. I never know what fabric I will need to use and I build most of my quilts shopping in my own studio. There is only 1 local quilt shop left in the Buffalo area and they concentrate on novelty fabrics. I know it is not the popular thing to do, but I enjoy building the collection for quilt usage and I use fabric every week . People do give me quality scraps and send me fabric that I am grateful for also.
     Autumn fabric was almost half off and I needed to replenish what I used.

     After working on those Kindred Pinwheels, I fell in love with Tilda fabrics, and after seeing the Hibernation series on Maureen's blog, I bought a fat quarter bundle and another small one of the blenders which I did not photo.

     To keep me going in making comfort quilts, Vicki augmented my stash by gifting me some awesome hand dyes. Yes!!

     I forgot to photo some lovely blenders that I picked up at Hobby Lobby to go with the Hibernation fabrics. All of these just get my creative juices on high alert which is good because it gets dark so early now and we are entering grey sky season here.
     Let the cutting begin!