{Post 1,766} Piecing Just Recently

Many of you are long-time readers of my blog. I am going to purpose to post at least once a week. My husband and I are empty nesters after a whirlwind of years raising our 8 children. I don’t think I have sat around and rested much, and I don’t even know what it means to be bored. Our lives are filled with vastly different activities. We have changed much in some areas of life and none at all in others.

I have been quilting for 30 years. My tastes have changed so much. I love every part of quilting. At the beginning of the year, I started following Susan Smith (Stitched by Susan on all social media, including podcasts). My love of and skill for machine quilting has forever been changed. In the past few years, I have started machine quilting for customers. I am so grateful to have sold many quilts I have pieced and quilted in the past few years as well. Not making a huge profit (because if you quilt you know the cost of materials and the number of hours of labor), but making my hobby worth it to me.

Here are a few quilts I have pieced recently. I love getting comments and questions, so fire away! If you want to know fabrics or pattern names, email me. I am also on Instagram as shelby_stitcher. Shelby, NC is my hometown.

Today I had one of our cars at the mechanic’s, and I cut another of the Twist N Shout Rectangles quilts (that’s the one above with the black border, 3 quilts up). I got the pattern at a quilt shop in WV a couple weeks ago. The one above was sold before I even had the center finished. I had mailed a finished quilt to a customer. She texted that she received it (it was the one right above this with the blue border). Then she asked if I had any new quilts in the works. So I showed her the TNSR, and she bought that one, too. I have a friend I’d like to make one for, so I will start on that soon.

Bye for now! Drop me am email and say hello!

{Post 1,765} More Kids, Cooking, and Quilting

 ***I had started this post back in July. I don’t even remember what was going on with the kids and cooking part. I finished the few paragraphs I have started. I miss blogging. I will try to post at least once a week from here on out.***

My life is not anything extraordinary or even varied much. Lately I have started doing a few new things though. I am branching out socially. I have started taking out ladies from my church one at a time for a snack or a meal to get better acquainted again. I used to do that regularly but stopped recently. I also have started sewing with two different groups of ladies…one on Monday and a different group on Wednesdays.

I made lots more grocery bags. These are lined. The pattern is by michellepatterns.com. I made some to give away. We have two birthdays for ladies in our family this month. I think I’ll mail them two bags each.

 

One of my customers brought a quilt top over yesterday. She said she cleaned up her sewing room, and did I want to look through her scraps (her words)?? I said sure. To me a scrap is a 2” square. She brought a super nice tote bag that had over 16 POUNDS of fabric in it. Not JUST fabric…a finished quilt top, 3 sets of 12” blocks already pieced. A ginger shot cotton collection, 8 charm packs (four sets of two different collections), a Bali Pops stack, two large FQ collections from FQ shop, a layer cake, over 50 six-inch squares, and a few small pieces of yardage. I could sew on just the contents of that bag for years. The above grocery bag was made from one of the blocks in the bag she gave me along with fabric my sister gave me. I gave the bag to my friend when I finished her quilt top as a thank-you for the “scraps”.