Drunkard's Path Quilt

This quilt has been years in the making, literally. The earliest picture I could find of the top is from 2015, but I know that at that point is was already two or three years old. I was doing all the piecing by hand and there were a couple road trips where I specifically remember working on putting blocks together. The fabrics are a combination of 40's prints, old feed sacks, new reproduction prints, and the odd scrap or two from unknown origins.

March 2015

December 2015

Hmmm, it doesn't look like much got done on this quilt during 2015. Am I done?  Should I baste it and quilt it and call it a day?

January 2016

Oh hey, look at that, I have decided to add a border to this quilt and it's going to be for our California king size bed instead of a lap quilt.

April 2016, the top is finished

This quilt top is fantastic, I love how it turned out.

 Seriously, I am so glad that I stuck with this project and just kept making blocks month after month, year after year.  The majority of the blocks are hand pieced, but as I got to the final color border on the outside, I did start piecing by machine.

Covering one wall of the dining room

July 2017-- Andrea Byerly, my sister-in-law's stepmother has agreed to use her new long arm quilting machine to quilt this for me.

Picking out a thread color

Trying out thread colors with the quilting pattern

Here's a corner finished

Andrea did run into a few surprises while quilting, but she was willing to take out stitches and revise until she got the pattern and stitching near perfect. I appreciate her attention to detail--it feels like she loves this quilt top as much as I do.

This row of quilting was starting to overlap and Andrea stopped to take out the stitches and adjust placement before continuing

Of course, there were plenty of things about a hand pieced quilt that were not perfect, but Andrea did such a remarkable job with the quilting that my errors in piecing will likely not be detected by most admirers.

It looks like I spilled tea on this block.  There was no tea, but the stain adds character.

A little steam action with the iron brought out some of the red dye.  How did we manage to confine that problem to only one block?

Hmm, looks like my piecing was sub par here. It's clearly fraying along one of the seams. It's a good thing that the quilting goes right through to help hold things in place and minimize further damage.

Andrea sent this picture of the finished quilt on Oct. 20. I will need to wash it, trim the border she added to help stabilize the quilt on its frame, and add a binding.  

The quilt will not come back to me until mid-November and it will take a while for me to do the binding, but I am thrilled with how things have gone so far.  Maybe this quilt will be finished by the end of the year or early into the start of 2018?

Bernina 900 Nova

She was on Craigslist for 3 hours before I found her. I figured I was too late in responding and when I inquired as to whether it was still available the seller said that they would let me know soon.  Of course, there were other interested parties. About a half hour later the seller confirmed that I was next in line and that the machine was mine if I wanted it. Of course I wanted it!
Mom and I took 3.5 hour road trip on Saturday morning to pick up the machine from its original home. It had lived there since it was purchased in 1978. The machine was dirty and the owner said that it may or may not work, but it came with many goodies. It had purchase papers, original warranty card, case, power cord, the round foot control, bed extension plate, 5 presser feet, Bernina manual and My Bernina guide, embroidery hoop, ruler, and ten bobbins.
The machine came home yesterday, but I didn't start cleaning it up until today.  Here are a few pictures I took during the process.

Before any cleaning, I want to get that sticker off

I started cleaning under the needle plate, around the feed dogs, and in the bobbin case.

There was still thread on the bobbin when I opened it up

Some lint and dried oil, but overall not too gummed up

Hook is dirty, but there are no scratches or nicks

Clean hook

Opened up

Everything got cleaned and lubricated, as needed, before getting closed up again.

Next, I look off the end panel to check the condition of the belts.

Hand wheel

End panel removed and belts are in very good condition.

After replacing the end panel, I moved on to the top of the machine.  I was so happy to find gears that were not cracked, minimal dirt and dried oil, and very little lint.  More cleaning and lubricating moving metal parts followed.

View from top

Bobbin winder had some thread stuck below the stop, but it came out with tweezers

Back of machine, cleaned up and new felt for the spool pins

Foot control got polished

All clean and ready to sew

The sticker came off the front and while there are a few scratches on the paint, there is only cosmetic damage and really, very little of that.

Cleaned case

The case is missing some presser feet and sewing tools, but I am very happy with what it does include. In the process of cleaning the case, I made sure to take old thread off of the bobbins.  I want them ready to go when I need them. There were 8 different colors of thread on 6 bobbins.

Original case got cleaned and shill has the sticker with serial number on it

I did a few test stitches with the machine and it works very well.  Tension is good and stitches are clean. Sews a bit fast though, so I may need to change out the foot control.  Off to find a project to give this machine a test run.

 

Blue and White Stripe Shirt

This was my second time working with the Vogue 1509 pattern.  I changed the front button panel and played with a different fabric for the collar lining, but that's it.  The fabric was from an estate sale.

Blue and white stripes, classic

Floral was quilt fabric that I decided to use for collar lining and the sleeve tabs

Buttons on tabs are smaller versions of buttons on front panel

 I kept the four button layout so that the collar could lay open a bit.

These buttons are made from shells and each one has it's own subtle color combination

Collar lined with quilt fabric

Front view

Side view

 I'm still liking that extra length in the back. It's nice to have a shirt that comes down over my waistband.

Back view