Sunday Afternoon!

Ah, Sunday!  No set plans.  My dad coming over for coffee.  Other than that, the day is mine!  Okay, who stole my day?  I was busy all day but didn't get a whole lot accomplished.  I need to order a new canopy for our gazebo and for my dad's.   I must have searched for about an hour for a good website then muddled through to figure out which size and style I needed.  Nothing was exact.  Then I called Joe and he said we still had the old ripped one at the storage unit.  He brought it home-dirty and disgusting.  I'll take it outside tomorrow to see if I can find the style number.  Hopefully that will help.  It did waste most of my afternoon.  I did get my feathered star quilt pinned.  Finally!  

Close up of one of the stars

Stars on my island

I'm so glad I have a large kitchen island!  The perfect place to pin my quilts.

Now I need to quilt it-hopefully by year end.  It's relatively small but I do want to quilt it heavily.  I'm going to try to hand quilt at least an hour every evening I'm home.  The key word is "try".  So I started tonight.

Hand quilting the central feathered wreath.  

It just occurred to me.  I've got a lot of "feathers" going on here!  Maybe I'll incorporate that in the name of the quilt!

Got to get back to my quilting!

Happy Stitching!

Oh, So Many Excuses...

I finally got myself an iPhone.  I have been SO distracted trying to get up to speed with it!  I've talked with teen-agers, twenty-somethings, computer geeks all over the phone.  Today I finally went over to the Apple Store and a delightful young woman got me all straightened out!  NOW I'm really happy with it!  I had a Blackberry, which was fine and wonderful, but I also had an iTouch for my calendar, shopping lists, music, pictures and games.  (I'm totally addicted to Bejeweled Blitz).  Now I have it all on one gadget!  In a hot pink protective Breast Cancer Awareness case!

I have been busy quilting Bryn's Tee-shirt Quilt and finished the binding today!  Yea!  It's much bigger than expected but that's a good thing!  She's coming home next week but she will not get it until graduation!

Add all this and my quilt guild Great Lakes Heritage Quilt Guild, had our Quilt Show this weekend.  I put in 3 quilts, Spikealicious, Tumbling Out of My Head and Selveged Diamonds.

Spike

Blocks

Diamonds

My quilting sure has come a long way!  Still working on it.  I'm 2 weeks behind on the Quilt Along but am planning to catch up tomorrow.  I did have a brain storm on how I'm going to quilt the next quilt for my UFO challenge.  I need to quilt and bind the Spinning Log Cabin for my March goal.  I need to finish it soon as I will be off for 2 weeks to attend 2 different quilt workshops-one outside Albany, New York and then in Pacific Grove, California!  WOO HOO!  I can hardly wait.

I received an incredible compliment today.  One of the board members of our guild has asked me if I'd be interested in presenting my quilts as the Member Presentation next year!  I'm very flattered but I really don't think I have enough to show!  I'd really have to get a lot done in the next year to fill a program!  I will still hold this as a tremendous compliment.  The only compliment I hold higher is when Jinny Beyer said if she were still holding her seminar she would like me to be one of her seminar leaders!  Over a year after she said that I'm still on cloud 9!

I'm going to put my feet up and enjoy my Saturday night!

Happy Stitching!

Distracted...

So it takes me a week!  I hope I'm getting back on track...but who knows!

Guapo's position pretty well sums up the mood around here the first week after Joe's surgery.

I just didn't sleep well and was exhausted most of the time.  DH really did bounce back faster than I thought but there were doctors' appointments which always took longer than expected.  I didn't get as much done as I had hoped but hope to be back on track soon.

I did do the next Stitch Along.  I drew my own star and stippled in it.

 I stippled in the star and used a stencil to follow for the interior design.

Then it was on to Bryn's tee-shirt quilt.  I had this fabric in my stash so I decided to use it.  Unfortunately, I was a bout a yard short....

so I inserted this pink in.

Friday afternoon I cleared off the island and pin basted the quilt.  I'm using a new batting.  It's a really thin poly bat from Hobbs and so far it seems good.  It's not supposed to beard.  We'll see.

Saturday I worked with my friend, Mary, doing the Craftsy Block of the Month.  We both cut out our pieces before getting together so we wouldn't take too long.  We still managed to spend 3-4 hours of work time.

The second block here is backward from the way it's supposed to be but it works.

Today I made some fish chowder for dinner.  My dad was coming over and I will say, it was delicious! It also means I have a "free dinner"-I don't have to cook one night because I have enough for another dinner.

After I made dinner I got a chance to quilt for about an hour.  I was hoping for more but I went to Costco with Joe as he still can not pick up anything more than 20 pounds.

Workout tomorrow morning then I hope to get a few hours of quilting in.  I do have to make my Dijon Chicken and Kale Stew tomorrow for my "Uptroden Stitch Group" get together Tuesday.

Happy Stitching!

Talk About Distracted...

Here's my excuse.... Joe had abdominal surgery on Wednesday.  He's fine now but will be a long recovery.  We were up at 5 as we had to be to downtown Detroit by 6:30am for and 8:30 surgery.  I was exhausted by the time I got home so all I did was eat and go to bed.  Up the next morning and out the door by 8.  We had a "class" scheduled for 10 for post-op care.  I thought we would be out by noon.  I should know better after the 2 years of Mom being in and out of the hospital.  Cut to the end-we walked out of the hospital at 4:15.

My whole world is out of whack.  I have to sleep on the opposite side of the bed as usual because of Joe's wound.  It's really thrown me off!   I've also had almost 200 more people asking to join the Facebook group in the past 3 days!  And Colleen came home for the weekend!

I did start back on the Quilt Along.  The first one I did was on scale and how to keep it consistent using a pencil width, your index finger or a spool of thread.

Week 3 Quilt Along  Scale  Medium and small scale.

Scale-top to bottom: Large, small, medium

My supervisor-Guapo

Week 4 Quilt along.  Quilting on lines.

Practicing doing straight-line quilting while free motion.  It does take practice.  It doesn't show up well on the pictures but the first few were ugly.  I got better with practice.  I then outlined round the instruments.

I did work on my hand-piecing while Joe was in surgery.  I got quite a bit done and hope to finish this block tonight.  I then need to figure out the direction I want to take with the entire quilt.

Getting ready to put all the pieces together.

Yesterday I finished piecing the top of Bryn's tee-shirt quilt.  One of the things I don't think I've mentioned is I like to use my walking foot when working with the tee shirts even though they have been stabilized.  I'm putting on the borders with the walking foot.

Pinned and ready to be stitched.

Walking foot with the needle in the center position

I then take my ruler and position the 1/4" mark with the edge of the walking foot.  I adjust the needle over so it will stitch 1/4" from the edge of the foot.

Fabric lined up with the edge of the walking foot

Off we go!

I did get the whole top done with borders and it's bigger than I anticipated!  The good news is that it will cover a queen sized bed with a good drop.  The bad news is I don't have a good place to photograph the whole thing!  I had to do it in sections while it was lying on Bryn's bed.  Then the last picture was flipped correctly in iPhoto but didn't flip when I transfered them over here.  Oh well.  Use your imagination!  

I'm going to try to get some more quilting done today.  I have to see if I have backing in my stash or if I have to go get some.

I think I'm going to get completely caught up with the Quilt Along before I start quilting the tee-shirt quilt so I won't have to unload and re-load the quilt even though I am doing it on my domestic machine.

Off to quilt!

Happy Stitching!

Not Getting As Much Done As I'd Like

Okay, this is where the whole distracted thing comes in.  I started a Face Book page early last week for people who grew up in my community.  I thought it would be amusing with a few people interested and fizzle after a few days.  Well, last time I checked, about a half hour ago, there were 412 members!  It's been a fun trip down memory lane!  I can't believe how much I'd forgotten!  But now I remember!  The 70's were rather foggy!

Anyway,  I got back to sewing yesterday.  Now that I have my "good" sewing machine back I can get back to my quilting project.  It will take me to the end of the week to get caught up with the weekly lessons.  I did get the Bobbin Washers that Leah Day recommends.  I'm going to give it a few times before I give it my opinion.  This is #2 in the weekly exercises.

Starting in the middle.

You start in the middle and work the stipple in 2" rows and intertwine the rows working toward one end so that you don't have to keep turning your quilt.  I did forget to leave myself a way to get back to the other end once I finished going the first way!  That's why we practice.

Working toward one end.

The whole sample done.

I should get my day started.  Lots to do.  Groceries.  Help Dad.  Ironing.  Quilt Project.  Phone Interview.  Tee Shirt Quilt.  Get Gory Details for Brother-In-Law's Upcoming Wedding!

Happy Stitching!

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I've been busy even though I haven't posted.  Wednesday I took my dad to lunch then went back to his house to help go through some of Mom's things.  He's doing amazing!  We weeded through old clothes she had hanging in the basement.  There was NO rhyme or reason to what was hanging in there!  Beautiful beaded satin next to tee shirt style nighties next to her wedding dress!  Even her mink coat!  (that came home with me-vintage!)  I want the girls to go through these when they come home.  Katie expressed wanting one of them for a possible wedding dress.  Some of the better things can be reworked.  There were some beautiful wool skirts with moth holes-lots of moth holes!  She would put them away without having them cleaned!  They will be worked into wool quilts.  Same thing with some of the stained silk pants.  I have been "collecting" silk for a future undetermined quilt!

I did continue working on getting the interfacing fused on more of the tee shirts.  Once you've seen one fused it's not real interesting so I didn't take more pictures-just kept fusing.

I got a call from Katie's friend, Eleni, for whom Katie did the fundraiser.  She and her mother came over with a BIG tray of spinach pie and rice pudding to thank Joe and I for helping Eleni.  OMG!!!  It was SO GOOD!  The bad news was that Joe was out of town for 3 days!  Eleni, her mom and I had some, I took some over to my dad, saved some for Joe to enjoy when he came home and froze the rest in individual portions.  The girls are looking forward to coming home to indulge!

Eleni's Spinach Pie and Rice Pudding

I did start sewing some of the smaller pieces of the quilt together.  As you can see from the picture below, I also use nylon jersey from Bryn's basketball shorts.  I also wanted to picture the importance of making sure you attach the pieces the correct direction!

Jack, the Ripper at work!

All the pieces fused and cut to size.  Then arranged on the floor-they won't fall off the floor!  I try to spread the colors around so any one color isn't clumped in one area.  I have been doing my tee-shirt quilts in columns lately instead of the traditional block size with sashing around each tee-shirt.  I think it makes it more interesting.  I was doing them "puzzle" style but it's a lot of thinking and figuring out units.  This is fast and easy.  I then throw down the leftovers in between to be used to make the blocks uniform widths for each column.  

Rough layout

I then measure to find the widest block in each column.  I then have to make the other blocks the same width.  I do that by adding stabilized leftover scraps to one or both sides of the blocks.

Fillers on both sides.

Filler on one side.

Pile of stabilized leftovers to use as fillers.

I'm going to a quilt shop sale today.  The funny thing is I had just gotten off the phone with Mary after discussing the fact that we had WAY too much fabric.  I was checking my e-mail and got the notice of the sale.  Of course, I forwarded it to Mary and we decided we had to check it out!  I'll look for border fabric for Bryn's quilt and fabric for the I Spy quilt.  Who knows what else will find it's way into my bag and come home with me!

Happy Stitching!