Coming Along...Until

I've a bunch of tidbits to share with you today...

I've mentioned before, that my Mom encouraged me to buy my own sewing machine when I was a teenager.
She saw that sewing was an important part of my life, by how much I was using her Elna.
As a fan of Sears (Kenmore was good back then), she found me this great deal!
Looking at my manual yesterday, I found the receipt inside!
On June 18, 1977 I bought my Kenmore (model 1947) for $199.99 & the case for 19.99!

It's still the sewing machine I use to this day.

After 20 years of keeping my pins, my main pincushion is losing it's top!
I'm going to try to salvage it by adding a new cover - to match my Playing with Pincushions collection.

It's too useful - small with the magnet base, to give up on it.

New Online in the Schoolhouse Section of Victoriana Quilt Designs
~> Tips & Tricks for Pretty Patchwork with Open Seams 
This online tutorial is free to Members of Victoriana Quilters. 
The information and ideas will help you get a finer result when sewing patchwork quilt blocks with open seams. 
They'll give you pretty flat patchwork.
It is suitable for beginner to intermediate quilters.

Extra tips for my scrap Postage Stamp with a Twist pattern are also included.

Victorian Rose Garden ~ 1998
I made this quilt after I fell in love with that rose print.
I countered the roses with my love of plaids!
Many of them were shared with me from some special ladies of my quilt guild.
I finished the scalloped edge with cording, instead of of binding.


I was making good progress on my 'can't show you yet' quilt and even started to work on the border!!
I had a vivid memory, from way back when...remembering how I dreaded needing to thread my sewing machine - always so nervous I'd get it wrong, with all the different hooks and gadgets it needs to be wound around and through - and the order it goes in.
I referred to the diagram in my manual for a very long time.
Don't remember when it changed, but I like that it isn't a big deal anymore!

Bravely showing you the back of a block.

You can get an idea of how much progress I'm making on my quilt, by how many blocks I've completed for the quilt I stitch in between the units/blocks (my current anchor cloth project) - while chain piecing.
5 more! 
All progress is good... 

Talk about going down a rabbit hole!
I found one mistake on my Gallery page - and when I went to fix it, that lead me to more and more....
All fixed now, I think!
Coding my web pages is really not my strongest suit - if you ever find an error, please let me know!

I got the top half of quilt center sewn to bottom half.
More progress on the border.
Fun long weekend sewing!

The stitches on my machine were getting wonky and different sizes...and my sewing machine suddenly had a squeak.
But then I followed the squeak to the walking foot.
When I removed it I found that the 'teeth' had worn down.
It took a lot of stitching to get this far!
Who knew you could wear out a sewing machine foot...
I was so relieved that it wasn't a bigger problem with the machine itself!
Different foot - Happy Stitching again!
What a difference a foot makes. :)

Sigh....
I had to unstitch and resew some of my quilt.
It's completely my fault - I was too much in a hurry to get it done, to bother adding my row markers to the rows...and ended up sewing them in the wrong order.
And I didn't notice until I was working on the border.

I really thought I had kept proper track of where everything went.
Lesson learned - again!

I've now caught back up, with the center properly together...and am almost done one of the borders!

Can't wait to show you!