Sewing with Stitchers

On Wednesday afternoon Jen1 and Marilyn came over to make project rolls. They're very useful for storing stitched pieces awaiting fully finishing. 

Basically, it's a small diameter mailing tube with some quilted fabric wrapped around it and ribbon to tie it up.

I was initially inspired by Vonna Pfeiffer's tutorial and then made several for my own use and as gifts.

Jen1 arrived with the quilting done, ready to attach the piece to the mailing tube. Marilyn got her fabric and batting cut, sewn, turned right side out, topstitched around the edges, and completed the quilting.  She only has to sew on the ends of the tube and stitch the ribbon on.

Considering Marilyn doesn't have a lot of sewing experience, she did so well! 

It was a really fun afternoon. 

That evening was our guild meeting. I won't go over all the details here but here's a link to the guild's post featuring this month's Show and Share, and our introduction to a stitching Round Robin.

Skip and I had a very nice week with visitors - Scooter last Saturday, Skip's brother and sister-in-law, Andy and Nancy on Sunday, and Norm and Lena - newly returned from living in Sweden for 6 years - yesterday. It was so nice to see them and we really appreciated the effort they made to come for a visit.

I continue to search for fun surface embroidery projects. I have the refund from one of the retreats I bailed on burning a hole in my PayPal pocket. Whenever I go to buy something I just click 'PayPal credit' and voilà - it's mine. Paid for by money I already consider spent.

I've also been making a bit of progress on my sunflower pouch. 

I need to take more progress photos and the lighting varies depending on the time of day, but I made a little movie.

I'm really excited to get the stitching done and fully finishing it and definitely want it done by next month's guild meeting.

Jen1 and I are planning to spend the day at Elim next Thursday. The rest of the Elim gang will be there from Thursday to Sunday. It's always a lovely time of the year for the drive there with all the fall colours. Hopefully then next day I'll accompany Jen1 to the greater Bowmanville area to pick up a sewing machine accessory and pop over to Annie's outside of Newcastle to check out their wares.

It's so nice to have things to look forward to and fun people with whom to spend time.