Not my good china plates

Another weekend has come and gone and I did nothing with the Dresden Plate blocks. Can you see me? I am hanging my head in shame. I am seriously thinking about cutting off the blanket stitching that I started and doing machine appliqué instead. Because I haven't committed to that, I have done nothing. Perhaps next weekend I will get back to it.

We've been super busy. Last weekend we went to Kansas and played music at a renaissance faire.

That's my son on the left, the Mister in the middle, and me!

We took our RV out for the second time since we bought it back in May:

We had a good time and played well.

I finished the flip flop block for the My Favorite Things August block:

I also finished block six in the Folk Art BOM quilt:

I haven't done much else. The summer is going out with a bang and I've been just a hopping to keep up with things.

I hope you are finding some sewing time too! Till next time, Happy Sewing y'all!

FINALLY UN-STUCK!!!

Silly me...I can't believe how RELIEVED I am, to be moving forward on this quilt! I was inspired by the blogger who is doing 365 days of free-motion quilting. I decided to try my hand at doing different designs on my quilt too! Many are my own ideas and of course I am inspired to adapt several of Leah Day's ideas too!

I must admit, I am having FUN with this!

Remember the trouble I reported about the thread breaking so much? I re-read Sarah Ann Smith's book "Thread Work - Unraveled" to see if she had some hints about the problems I was having. She DID! I was using a good quality metallic thread on top. I already did have the correct needle (thanks CJ for suggesting that too). So what was the culprit? The bobbin thread! It was too thick!!!

I tried monofillement and that cut the metallic thread right away. What has worked for me is a thin Gutermann cotton thread in the bobbin. I think a polyester might have worked even better, but I didn't have any in the right color. The Gutermann I had was the thinnest thread, in the correct color. So far, so good too!

Related to this specific quilt is something I recently heard about. Did you know that if you share your quilt photos online in ANY way, that SOME places will not accept your entry in their contests or shows? I did not know that. You cannot show progress reports nor the finished quilt without risking being disqualified. We will find out if that is the case with this project. I am not going back and pulling out all my photos from my blog!

I am close to halfway done with the quilting today. I did some yesterday too. I took a break to make supper. Here are the helpful males in my house, doing what they love to do...gaming!

(Moqui, the Child, and the Dad)