Bless My Stars It's Harry Potter

I recently went to another 3 day retreat in Mascoutah with my quilty friends.  It's always such a great time.  Super chill, funny people.  We just come and go as we please.  Work on whatever strikes our fancy.

On the first day, I did some hand work.  I embellished the Vintage Christmas quilt from my last post.

The second and third days, I spent working on The Project of Doom.  http://www.fandominstitches.com/2014/11/the-project-of-doom-2015.html

They do a block of the week follow along every now and then.  I can't ever manage to follow along because I keep getting really frustrated with paper piecing but I HAVE to have this Harry Potter Book Shelf!  Or die trying.

For example, the wand above is wonky.

Hedrig's feathers got put on with the wrong fabric sequence... both of his outer wings are supposed to be the darker swirled fabric.

 I'm certain these O.W.L books are wrong.  Upside down?  Backwards? Not sure what...

This one turned out!  I like my Snitch.

 This one, I put the wrong color on the wrong books.  Luckily Sharon N. came to my rescue with an extra purple fabric (with the green swirl).  She saved the day.

This one turned out great, too.  The hourglass that only moves when the conversation was interesting.  It was keeping time this weekend, that's for sure!

I really tried to get more done but you know how it goes.  Hopefully, I stick to it now that I'm making progress.  but, you couldn't have paid me to paper piece another block that weekend!

So, as I said last time, I got a new sewing machine!!  I still love it.  I took my old one to retreat and it was super hard to settle for the old machine.  The Pfaff was worth the $$, for sure.

Any who.  I chose to quilt my Quilt of Valor to test out the new machine.  My first Pfaff project.  The Pfaff has a built in Walking Foot.  And, boy does it ever do beautifully!  No loud clanking.  Love it, love it.  I used a variegated blue thread and a geometric meandering.   No skipped stitches, smooth sailing the whole way!

And, I used this cool wavy binding.  Now to wash it, and get it off to the Marine it belongs to.

So, because I've been an absolute wacko about quilting on my new machine.  And, stringing the buttons on my lamp shade for 10 hours.  I hurt my arm.  I'm getting a little carpal tunnel type of feeling.  Which is my worst nightmare.  Right up there with Arthritis.  They would ruin my life.  I decided to take a week off of hand work.   It's better already.  Someone also told me to try B6.  Getting right on that!  But, now I'm pretty far behind on my hand applique work.  This is my most recent Art Nouveau block.  I worked some on the Hearts and Tulips banner but I'll have to show you another time.  Not sure where I put it...

Happy Stitching!