My sweet sewing setup

After 56 months of winter, summer (its awesome precursor, spring, doesn't exist in Montana) showed up.

I only sewed for a half-hour while I was waiting to meet Tim for lunch. Today was meant for flopping around in the grass with dogs.

But here's how I rolled when I did put together a few baby quilt blocks.

That construction site is the enemy of many a good night's sleep.

Note the '70s circular sheriff's office. I wonder if there's a separate style of architecture for such things -- law enforcement postmodernism geometric design?

Tom wants to know why we're not still rolling in the grass.

No tension at all today. Ha. Little sewing machine joke.

A baby quilt called Birthday Cake

Thanks to things like Facebook, I can show people what I quilt. So far my friends are tolerating the flood of images I'm posting their way, and nobody's been mean enough to point out my early and imprecise binding. The binding can now generously be called tolerable.

My little social media smatterings even sparked this sweet hookup:

The boyfriend's sister (who is awesome and rad and trusting!) needed a blanket to give some folks who are having a baby. And thanks to Facebook, she's seen photographic evidence I can create such things.

Contact was made, a deal hammered out: She buys fabric to make a quilt, and I get to make it.

Here's said fabric. A fat-quarter pack from Fabricworm. I've ordered from them a few times. Good selection. Good shipping.


Word.

This is exciting on a few levels, but the coolest is this: quilts can be downright expensive. I lucked out on my first -- it emerged out of two $8 scrap packs, $10 worth of border, backing and binding fabric, and a 45-inch square of 100-percent cotton batting that was half off.

But recent projects haven't been so light on the wallet.

So, someone else buying the goods + me getting to sew them together = ooOOoooOOOOo.

Speaking of low-cost options, I'm using the free (!) Birthday Cake pattern from Oh, Fransson. I used another one of her free (again, !) patterns to make a fun nine-patcher last month. Anywho, here's the link.

Her blog is amazing, her quilts are beautiful, her instructions are clear and it's all very approachable to a beginner. Plus she lives in Oregon, and everyone there is a winner in my book.

I'm also using the old Singer (passed down from the boyfriend's mom) on this little ditty.


I dropped $74 to get this machine tuned up and outfitted with a new bobbin case plate. Um, maybe that's not the right word, but I don't know what the correct name is and 'bobbin case plate' is close enough.

It sews strong and straight. Evidence:


It's not the first block sewn on this Singer, but it's MY first. And I love it.

This little fella doesn't represent my current point in the block-creation state, so I'll post more photos soon. Just as soon as I take them.