What I’m Working On: February 23, 2026

I was a busy girl in the sewing room again.

Monday, I didn’t do a lot…but Tuesday I was at it. I was up early and was working on my Train Track Leftovers.

This is what I’m going for…I planned for white sashing…but then seeing it on the floor with making it look like brown sashing, I’m wondering if brown might be better. Hmm. Any thoughts??

I love this so much!! I love it better than the original Train Tracks quilt.

I also worked on cutting out a tumbler quilt that is Iowa Hawkeyes themed.

I’ll tell you more about that in tonight’s post.

Over naptime, when Anders was sleeping, I loaded my Lady of the Lake quilt on the longarm.

Happily, I had the perfectly sized piece of leftover batting.

Then I worked on borders for two quilts…This is for train tracks…

This pieced border is for Ila’s UFO.

These were all ready for putting on another day…my hope was for Wednesday when Anders doesn’t come to my house.

I thought I wouldn’t get much sewing time on Wednesday, but GLORY BEE!! Kalissa said if I put in a pick-up order for Thursday, she would pick up my groceries. YES PLEASE!! I didn’t have to go to town. Living rural as we do, shopping (just simple grocery shopping takes a minimum of 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back. That allows for no time except driving, and I always have an extra errand, plus the thrift store. I try really hard to be gone for only 2 hours, but it can end up being a little longer.

With the extra time I was able to finish the longarming on Lady of the Lake.

I just need to bind it and write the final blog post about it and this quilt is done. I am still so tempted to make a large version of it. Maybe I’ll do that when I have more of my UFOs finished.

Next, I was going to work on this quilt. It’s a quilt top that was sent to me to finish and use for the benefit of the animal rescue that I work with. This has hung out in my sewing room WAY too long, so long I’m embarrassed. It’s so cute!! I was just stuck on how to longarm it. The cats are embroidered. I don’t want to quilt over them. Then there are white spaces and black spaces. The backing is black.

I ended up messaging Ila. She’s so good at knowing stuff like this. She suggested this…

The variegated is going on top and the gray on the back. Great idea.

In between our chatting, I loaded a different set of quilts that have been here for an embarrassing long time. There are two quilt…both very similar. Only the colors are slightly varied. Backings were sent with these.

I wanted to save some time so I sewed the two backing pieces together and loaded them on the longarm. Then I loaded the batting and the top that matched the backing.

These are cute…Anders saw them and thinks the cats and dogs are so funny.

When I finished the first top, I cut just the batting.

Then I moved the batting down to the part where the second backing started and loaded the top.

On some of these small lap-sized quilts, it takes almost as long to load them as it does to do the longarming. Doing them this way was a real time saver.

Here is the second one coming off the longarm.

Next up, get the binding prepped and bind away on these two. I’m so thankful in times like these, when I’m playing catch-up that I bind my quilt by machine. It is so much faster.

I ended up binding one that day, and then Thursday morning, I was up early and bound the other one.

Friday, I didn’t get as much sewing done. There was excitement after our big snowfall.

I ended up putting the borders on my Train Tracks quilt.

I need to make a backing and then put it on the longarm. It’s a big one. I hope I can do a big one.

After that, I put a binding on my Lady of the Lakes quilt. I really like this quilt. So fun to have a small one mostly made from pieces I already had!!

I spent the rest of the day tidying up in the sewing room. It’s a mess and needs help. I think it’s been a year since I vacuumed it…I mean a really good vacuum under and around everything. It was this time last year when I started not feeling the best physically. I doubt I moved everything and did a good vacuum. It needs to be done.

Over the weekend, I had some sewing room time. I was really tempted to sew, but I stopped sewing…I ended up cleaning instead. I vacuumed and tidied up. I put away things that needed to be put away. I even dusted some. I need to do more, but for now, the sewing room looks better than it has in a year. WHEW. That sure was nice.

I’m pleased with what I finished. I’m thinking this next week will be a slow week in the sewing room. We have birthdays, and I am expecting company over the course of a few days…It promises to be a fun week!