Catching up ...again!

I can't believe so much time has gone by since my last post! It's been busy yet not busy. I suppose I have been a little cocooned at home. I have also been back in the office and yesterday we opened back up to the public. What a day!  

I took my two sewing machines in for a cleaning and just got them back. I was without them for just over two weeks so I was busy doing handwork projects for a couple of weeks.

I finished another pair of socks for my dad. These will be a fathers day gift! I make him a couple pairs each year.

I have been wanting to learn to do back basting applique. This seemed like the perfect time. I am not sure I am completely sold on it but it is very accurate. I enjoyed appliqueing the long minimally curved lines but not so much the flower. I think I really preferred my usual method  using freezer paper. That may be a case of teaching an old dog! I will keep going though to finish this project. It will be about 35" square when finished so it is a good size to learn. 

Here is part of the front so far!

Another technique I wanted to try was hand piecing. It still surprises me that I have never tried it. I do all sorts of handwork and really enjoy it. 

This is as far as I got- hand piecing is NOT for me! I found the entire process tedious.  I'll stick with English paper piecing. 

I finished hand quilting and binding this little quilt. I love how it turned out. This is the second one. The first one was made for a quilt exchange. The colors of the strips and borders were different. 

I have also started a new long term project that I will work on when I feel like it. It is blue and white 2" sawtooth stars. They are so cute! I can't stop petting them. 

I am just using up small pieces of blue and white/cream from my stash. I can get quite a few stars from a small piece. I have no idea how many I will make or what the setting will be. I am just going to keep sewing them until I am tired of them.

Now that I have my machines back, I always like to give them a test run before declaring they are working OK after coming back home. My small machine ( my backup) was tested on this little project. The bottom pouch will be my coin purse. ( My old one finally was completely worn out after 20 years!)

I declared the backup machine was working really good! 

This week on my day off I will test my regular machine. 

I have noticed that many of the other bloggers I read on a regular basis are blogging a lot or not at all right now. I have been wondering about that...and many many blogs I have enjoyed are posting less and less or not at all in the past few years. I too am guilty of this. But I am still reading and enjoying what postings there are.  I suppose I just wanted to say...I miss all the bloggers whose lives have taken them in different directions!

Happy Stitching!