Quilting without my machine

One of the FMQ blocks

While free motion quilting (FMQ) my king size quilt, I realised that my sewing machine (my Jag) needed some TLC. I clean it on the first of each month but otherwise I haven’t done any maintenance on it since I got it two years ago. It was past due. I brought it in this morning and I will hopefully get it back next week. I’m sure that many of you understand my anxiety of being without it for long.

I do have 2 Kenmore machines that are old but fine, although they will require some maintenance also. As my pile of projects to FMQ is getting higher, I really need my Jenome to be in great working order.

What should I do in the meantime?

• I could bring one of my Kenmores upstairs and work on piecing projects. I have many to choose from.

Grandmother's Choice Blocks

These are a few of the blocks from Grandmother's Choice Block of the Week, It was created to recall the fight for women's rights. Since this year is the 100th anniversary of women obtaining the vote in many of Canada's provinces, it would be really nice to finish the quilt this year.

Street Art Quilt

This quilt is my interpretation of Street Art Quilt which appeared in the International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene magazine (2013\2014), My version is totally different that the original and I would like to make it bigger. I don't think it would take much work.

No Rules Scrappy Piecing

I have 22 very scrappy triangles that need to be set into a quilt. All I need to do is cut triangles of the same size and make the quilt!




All of the embroidery is done for my Frog Work quilt below. I just need to piece a few more blocks.

Frog embroidery

Frog Work blocks

• I can also forget the sewing machine for a week and work on hand projects. I have a couple of these and there’s a project that I’d love to start. Since I am going away on the weekend, it would be great to have some hand work to do.

• I also have some miscellaneous tasks like sandwiching quilts to get them ready for FMQ; frame my felting project or even clean my sewing space!

Needle Felted Feather

I've bought a frame - maybe it's time to see if it fits and would look good!

 What I learned:

• I started this post by going through my blog to see what projects I could work on. I do have a list of projects that I've completed and that I'm working on but going through the blog was much more visual and fun.
• As I was deciding on which projects to include, I had some pretty strong negative reactions to a couple of them. I guess it's not the time to go back to those yet!
• I've got three options but these's no reason that it has to be either/or. A combination of all three would be just fine (and more likely).
• As I look at these projects, it feels like when I'm getting ready to go on retreat and want to bring everything and will end up bringing too much! Whatever gets worked on is a bonus. There are no deadlines for any of these. 
• I wish I hadn't mentioned the "D" word (deadline) since I realize that I have a few of them coming up at the end of the summer. But this week, I am doing like an ostrich - my head is in the sand and I refuse to think about them! I am very, very good at that :-)

So, do you have projects to finish this summer, and are you diligent about getting your machine maintained? I'd love to hear from you.

Check out the other quilting bloggers out there! I'll be linking to the following Linky Parties: 

Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social, Fabric Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, Main Crush Monday, To-do Tuesday,