In My Sewing Room / 5.18.26

Time for a round up of what I’ve been working on lately! Because it’s good to have an occasional record of my in-work projects and thoughts that lives outside of social media… 😉

We went to Hawaii for spring break this year, and I made stops at two different quilt shops on the Big Island. I’ve wanted to try Hawaiian-style applique quilting for a while, so I picked up a pillow kit at Kilauea Kreations in Hilo and have been slowly working on it since we got back. I’ve tried needle turn applique in the past, but I was definitely out of practice so this project has been a great way to re-learn those skills.

There have been several steps, and these short videos from Poakalani have been helpful along the way. First I loosely pin basted the flower motif on top of the white background, then carefully thread basted 1/4″ from the edge. Then I hand appliqued all of the edges with red thread. It was slow going at first, but both my speed and stitch quality improved as I went. I’m now in the quilting phase — I’ve done the stitch-in-the-ditch portion and will be moving on to quilting the flowers this week.

I’ve also continued to play with the laser cutter at my local library, after trying it for the first time back in December. Appointment availability is a bit limited, but I think I’ve gone over there 3-4 times now? Most recently, I took a bunch of shiny, sparkly acrylic and cut a batch of ~50 binding spools. This may be a one-time experiment, but for the moment they are listed in my shop if you’d like one! I’ve also made myself some cutting templates, a few non-quilting things like earrings and keychains, and I even tried cutting fabric — which might be helpful in the future.

A few weeks ago I also enjoyed taking a workshop with Karen Stone through the local Lakeview Quilters Guild. The topic was improv curves, and while I’ve done that before, I still picked up a few new tips and enjoyed spending the day in a workshop! I like the 3 panels that I made, but with many other projects on my to-do list I think they are probably destined to become postcards rather than turn into something larger.

The following weekend, Charlotte and I stopped by the biannual Lakeview quilt show. It’s a small show of more traditional quilts, but there were still several that caught my eye. My Hawaiian applique pillow certainly has put applique in my brain again, and this quilt called Reel Deel was beautiful! It was made by Jenny Garman, Jerrianne Evans, Georgann Wrinkle, Marsha Fuller, Cynthia Clark, and Becky Stephenson using a pattern by Jenny’s mom, Sue Garman, who is well known in this area for both her quilting and her many years at NASA. (Sadly I never met her, but making one of her patterns has been on my quilty bucket list for many years.)

And finally, I was a guest recently on Not Your Granny’s Quilt Show and had a really fun time talking with host Amanda about both quilting and aerospace! I hope you’ll enjoy listening to our conversation.