The Tumblers Are Tumbling

I am close to finishing the center of the tumbler quilt. The lines on either vertical side of the tumblers are all quilted.

I need to spend another hour quilting the horizontal lines on either side of each row, and then it’s on to the borders. I loved watching the look and feel of this quilt change as I worked on it yesterday. What a difference the batting makes. This batting is Warm and Natural. The quilt is going to be nice and cozy.

I listened to Amanda Murphy’s Facebook livestream yesterday while I worked. That was the perfect background for quilting. She talks a mile a minute because she has so much going on, and the livestream lasted for more than an hour. She talked about her business, about teaching, about rulerwork, and about dealing with disgruntled Facebook followers. I absorbed everything by osmosis. One comment she made really resonated with me. She was talking about when (and when not) to take out mistakes, and she said to remember that the goal of the quilting is to add texture to the overall design. I love texture. My knitting designs always focused on texture—cables—so for me to think of quilting as adding texture makes so much sense. I think that keeping her words in mind will help me to answer the question of “How much quilting is enough?”

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My friend Cristina of Bumbleroot Design just released a new pattern, the Big Rock Tote Bag!

Cristina is a former technical writer, and let me tell you—her patterns are thorough. This one is 30+ pages and comes with accompanying videos to help you get through the tricky spots. If you’ve ever wanted to try making bags, her patterns are great ones to help you get your feet wet. She has some really clever construction techniques. If you visit her website, be sure to check out her page of vintage sewing machines. She and I bonded over our Necchi BV industrials. I have enjoyed watching her business grow. And she is donating 10% of each Big Rock Tote pattern sale to The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.

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I’ve got a broody hen. I wonder if it’s the same Buff Orpington who hatched out a chick last year. This hen has been parked in the same nesting box for the past week, and she pitches a fit if I get too close. (I tried to sneak a few more eggs under her, but she wasn’t having it.) We’ll see if any babies show up in a couple of weeks. If she’s going to hatch out chicks, it would be nice if she had more than one this time.

Dave has a big job out there, keeping all those hens happy. Chickens don’t like to go out in the snow, so they spend a lot of time inside the coop and there is a fair bit of squabbling. I’ve know I’ve said this about most of my roosters, but Dave truly is the best rooster I’ve ever had. He’s not as friendly as some of them have been, but he’s not aggressive, either. He just does his job. We’ve had the heat lamps on this week because it’s been so cold. I said to the husband that it’s interesting to me that the hens that are always sitting under the heat lamps are those diva Leghorns that we got from the show chicken farm last year.

My first batch of lettuce is going to be ready to cut soon:

What a great system this is.

Retreat planning is underway. Finding a date that works for all of us will be the big challenge, but I think we can do it. And who knows?—maybe this will become an annual event.