Quilter’s have a language all their own, don’t you think? Writing the title for this post reminded me of a time my son was with me during a visit to his local quilt shop. The owner said the words ‘free motion quilting’ and we were off, talking this and that, and I didn’t think a thing about it. Until we left the store and Anthony said something about how we were speaking a foreign language to him. Made me laugh then, and still brings a smile to my face. He would shake his head if he saw this post title.
Anyway……welcome to Main Crush Monday! I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve got another {short} story for you. Saturday I was working at my local quilt shop, cutting fabric for a customer when she looked at me and asked “are you Beth of Main Crush Monday?” How cool was that? I was surprised and thrilled all at the same time. I mean, I know people are reading my blog (I talk to so many of you all the time), but I guess I never thought about anyone local reading it. It was so cool to meet a real life reader. I’m so glad you spoke up Jonelle (do I have the spelling of your name right?), and I hope you stay in touch. It was so good to meet you! Just goes to show – we never know who is following along on our quilting journey, so keep blogging bloggers!
Last week was a busy one for me. I finished several customer quilts, and now have a stack of quilts that need binding. I also finished writing the text for my next pattern and will hopefully have it available soon. I hope you guys like it!
As for my sewing room, I dug out a UFO that I started in June, 2015. Yep, three years old. It is Cheryl’s Midnight Mystery QAL. I don’t know why I’ve struggled with this one so much. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the design or instructions – they are so well written – but for some reason I just couldn’t make any progress. I’ve pulled it out a couple of times over the last couple years and made small bits of progress. The last time I touched it was January, 2017. I set it as my OMG goal. You can guess…I failed miserably at meeting that goal. 🙂
But now, I have one whole block put together. Ta-da! So now my UFO is officially a Work in Progress.
Seven more full blocks and two half blocks to go and this will be a finished flimsy. All the block rows are sewn together. They just need a good pressing and then I can assemble the blocks. To be honest, I haven’t wanted to turn on the iron because it’s been so crazy hot here the last week or so. The A/C keeps the house cool, but it’s struggling. When I got in my car on Saturday afternoon the temp read 104. Now that’s hot!
Hopefully I’ll get more blocks put together this week. I also want to finish the customer quilt I currently have on my frame. This is such a pretty quilt:
It’s been so fun to quilt this one. It lays so flat and square. I’ve been stitching a large cross hatch design in the floral blocks, straight lines in the chevrons, and really tight loops in all the cream areas. I’m using a dark thread in the brown & floral areas which makes it difficult to see where I’ve already stitched. You’d think I’d learn, but dang, the blending thread looks so good when it leaves all that yummy texture!
So now you know what I’ll be working on this week, and I would love for you to share your projects. What has you excited to be in your sewing space this week? You can link any blog post, Instagram or Flickr pic – here’s how:
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Hooray for you! Keep at it and before you know it, it will be on your quilting frames.
Your mystery block looks great! I had one single block from the mystery finished as a test block that had been sitting in my do-to pile forever. I simply added a large border and finished it as a charity baby quilt.
Your quilting is so pretty!
It was so fun to finally meet you on Saturday! Have enjoyed following your blog. There have been two “Oh, Wow!” moments while reading your posts. The first was when you posted the picture with the young girl and her grandmother who took the beginner class together. I had seen that same photo on the quilt shop’s newsletter shortly before your post. When my husband came home, I showed him the two photos and exclaimed that you were local! He thought that was cool and that maybe I would see you at the shop sometime. The second was your recent post on the WV Quilt Show. We had been to the show on it’s final day. While looking at the quilts, my husband marked his favorites in his program; he marked 4. I couldn’t wait for him to get home last Monday so I could show him that one of his favorites was yours! ( A Little Less Grunge). To actually meet you on Saturday was a lovely surprise. Naturally, the first thing I told my husband when I got home was that I had met you and that you had made a suggestion of something to try on the table runner that I was getting ready to quilt! He was quite happy for me. I hope it won’t take so long to run into you again. (I did try your suggestion, and it looked great; but didn’t show up very well in the picture. The quilt thread color blended very well.)
Love your block in progress, and the quilt on the frame – busy, busy!
But your one block looks really GOOD, at least!! I live in a glass house FULL of unfinished projects, so I’m not throwing sticks and stones at ANYONE’s UFO pile. And I shamelessly ignore those UFOs and start new projects instead of finishing older ones…
Two fun stories! Beautiful block WIP, and beautiful quilting!
It is weird when someone walks up to us and ask us i we are “so and so” from a certain blog – has happened to me and I was a hundreds of miles from home in a tourist area!
If I don’t like the blocks the quilt will not hold my interest, thus a UFO. Avoiding qal’s or mystery quilts that I cant see the entire top before hand is key for me. At present I have 3 completed tops that need quilted.
We quilters do have our own language. From time to time I still wonder what some of the acronyms are. Thanks for having the link up.
104 is very hot! I hope things cool off a bit for you soon. And what an awesome experience to have someone who reads your blog let you know. 🙂
I never thought about it, but quilters do have a language all their own! I often try to explain something to my husband and he’ll say ‘don’t know what that means, but okay’! I bet you were shocked when the customer said that! That is so cool!
We drove 12 hours to Dubuque Iowa last week for a cow convention and when we were registering, the girl at the desk said am I the Quilting at the Farm blogger because she reads my blog. We are now facebook friends also.
Enjoyed reading your post this morning. My partner in crime and all things nature is very proud of himself for being able to hold his own in a quilting conversation. Since I only speak quilts and birds, he didn’t have much choice! The next quilt under my needle is a UFO.
Looking forward to your finished WIP! Great job on the quilt on your machine, as well. I see you use OXO clips too! I love using them on my Avante!
Some UFOs fight hard to stay that way for some reason. Looking forward to checking out your Midnight Mystery quilt when you get the blocks all together.