I've been busy

Let's see - what have I been doing since Saturday's post? Still pressing fabrics. I had more than I thought because when I went to do laundry on Monday I found a big load of fabrics in the dryer - I thought I'd taken out the last load! So I ironed the rest of the afternoon and evening on Saturday.

Sunday I started my friend Kathi's quilt. I thought I could finish it in one day - wrong! I spent about 6-8 hours on it Sunday, then finished in three more hours on Monday afternoon. I'm so glad to have this done - Kathi is so glad to have it back - and I'm happy to say she liked what I did to it very much. I was very relieved - Asian just isn't my thing when it comes to quilting, so I really didn't know what to do. I was right - the quilt started talking to me as soon as I started doing the anchoring stitch-in-the-ditch.

Monday morning I watched Joseph while his dad took his mom to physical therapy and a doctor appointment. I needed to head north to Momma Made It in Longview to pick up 80 more "opportunity quilt" tickets for a guild fundraiser. I'd unexpectedly sold 140 tickets in about 10 minutes - a huge surprise! - and all I had was 60 tickets. Of course, I can never go to Momma Made It without spending money, and this was no exception. I'm making sure Joseph feels very comfortable in a quilt store LOL! I didn't take a picture of the new fabrics - rats!

We've had spectacular spring weather the last few days - it reached 80 yesterday and Monday! - and the flowers are so beautiful. I just had to take pictures to post - I'm practicing with the macro setting on my camera. Spring flowers are my favorites - I love the blues of grape hyacinths and windflowers, the yellows of daffodils, tulips, and forsythia, the reds of tulips and rhododendrons, and the purples and pinks of azaleas. And the trees are so beautiful - the crab apple in the front yard and the apple and cherry in the back yard. I ran all over taking pictures. The beauty of the macro setting is that most of the time the weeds don't creep into the pictures! I can't get down on my knees right now to weed, so we are having a neighbor boy clean out all the beds and move some plants for us. Then I'll have him put down new bark dust and plant other flowers for me. I can hardly wait for it to be finished!

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Gratitudes:

1. Rebecca's recovery is progressing well

2. Breakfast with a friend

3. Continuing discovery of new joys while cooking

4. Weight loss going in the right direction

No quilting going on here

I've done next to no quilting since my last post - just a bit of appliqué on Tuesday night during our weekly Tangled Threads get together. So what have I been up to?

First of all - I've been wandering regularly into the quilting room, where my friend Kathi's quilt has been pinned to Gandalf for several weeks. This is a beautiful quilt - but not my style at all. I'm having a really terrible time figuring out what to do, and for once the quilt isn't really talking to me. It must be done by Tuesday, so it better start talking soon! Tomorrow I'll stabilize it by stitching in the ditch around all the blocks and outlining the appliqué. I've got my fingers crossed that it'll start talking a blue streak once I start working on it.

Secondly - I reached the point where I had to stop long enough to prewash my fabric purchases. I tend to toss fabrics in baskets when they arrive in the mail or from the store. When there are just too many - the baskets are overflowing, the lid doesn't fit on the big one, and there are fabrics stacked on top of the lid too - I decide I need to take care of them. This happens about twice a year. Foolish, because I can't use any of them until they are prewashed, but that's just the way I operate. So Thursday morning I started washing and pressing. Seems to take forever when I wait this long. I have only two stacks left to press - fat eights and fat quarters on the ironing board and bigger pieces on the recliner. On the table is what I've finished. Doesn't look like much for two days of work, does it? I've been catching up on recorded TV shows while working, so I guess that's a plus.

Finally - now that I'm feeling back to normal I'm back to planning meals and really tracking my weight (I'll save that for the next post.) My Thread friend Kim - who is an excellent, knowledgeable cook in addition to a great quilter - is always amazing me with the things she knows about food preparation. I asked her where she learned so much - I should have known. She watches a lot of the Food Network, and told me the two best shows for learning things are The Barefoot Contessa (who's on a total of 12 times a week!) and America's Test Kitchens on OPB. So I set myself up with a "season pass" to both shows on our DVR, and started watching the recordings on Thursday. I've already learned a great deal - I hope it sticks! I tried a few new things for dinner yesterday, and was happy with the results. When I saw that our tax refund had been deposited I took a trip to Barnes and Noble to choose myself some new cookbooks. And I've started doing research in p[reparation to buying a new grill - what we have now is an old, cheap grill that doesn't do anything well except for hot dogs and hamburgers. My goal is to do at least 90% of the cooking outside this summer!

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Gratitudes:
1. A beautiful sunny weekend
2. A great start to the Mariners season!
3. New Mariners management who can actually put together a decent team
4. The return of Ken Griffey Jr.
5. Renewed energy and determination - finally!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Yesterday I morning I headed to the credit union to deliver the monster Oriental quilt to my customer. She is a good friend, a former coworker and our financial planner. It was so odd to be back in the building where I spent so many working years! She loved the way it turned out - said she had goose bumps all over looking at it. It was the most amazing response I've ever had from a customer when they saw their quilted top. Seeing her joy with my work made all those hours worthwhile. I'm so very glad she liked it! This is a very special quilt to her. In all the years she's been quilting this is the first time she's picked a pattern and special fabrics to make something special for herself. It's going to look fabulous on her bed.

Murphy's Law was definitely at work here this week - it just made me laugh out loud to see it in operation. After I mailed away all those scraps a couple weeks ago here came one of my Tangled Threads friends with a box of plaids. She has been cleaning out her sewing room and is getting rid of things she knows she won't use. Since I love plaids she brought all she had to me! Many of them are repeats of pieces I have in my stash already - plaids from at least 15 or more years ago. So, did I turn them down? Of course not! One can never have too many plaids LOL!

Oriental quilt

Thought I'd show you the customer quilt I'm currently working on. It's really a beauty. Oriental fabrics and batiks make up these simple, stunning blocks. I'm happy to report that the quilt has started talking to me and my quilters block is done. I did six blocks quickly this afternoon, and went through four bobbins! I wound 20 - that's not going to be nearly enough. It's a big quilt - 113" x 125". It's going to be fabulous when it is finished.

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Gratitudes:
1. A new digital camera
2. Quilt shows - both virtual and live
3. Signs of spring everywhere
4. Yellow forsythias in bloom

Out of chaos . . . a little less chaos!

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted! I've spent the last few days on the computer in a valiant effort to catch up with my blog reading. Hasn't happened, but at least I'm not as far behind as I was.

The little sewing I've gotten done involved stitching my chaos of block parts into larger pieces - working toward my goal of having everything fit together into large 12" blocks. I matched things according to their sizes, not paying any attention to whether or not fabrics "went" with each other. I subscribe to Sharon Craig's believe that everything goes with everything, so the only rule I used is that the two pieces couldn't be exactly the same color. What fun I had playing with all these pieces! I'm still not ready to start designing with them - they are still too varied in size - but I'm getting closer. I threw lots of them up on the design wall again for a new picture - I really love what I'm seeing! I'm going to allow myself only a couple hours today to play with these, as I have other things I need to finish first.

My friend Kim loved the way I quilted the African quilt I'm happy to say. She disagreed with my believe that I'm not ready to do elaborate feather wreaths on her quilt, but accepted my decision. She gave it back to me so I could baste it for her - she's decided she will hand quilt it instead. I have it on the machine and it shouldn't take me more than an hour or so to put in the basting stitches. I can do that during the ball game today.

I also have a quilt repair job that I need to do. I totally forgot about this one when I happily stated that I had nothing left here that wasn't my own. I've had this one for a year or two - it's time I finished it and returned it to the owner. I belongs to our son-in-law's sister, and was made by her grandmother. It's warn very thin over some of the back, and some of the patches on the front have worn partially away. I need to applique new pieces over the front patches and then do what I can for the back. It may need to have an entirely new back - I've not yet decided. The backing is turned to the front for the binding so putting a new backing over the old one won't be that much trouble. I don't have any fluffy pink yarn to tie a new backing, which is how it finished now, so I'll have to figure out something else for the ties. I've committed to finishing it by the end of the month, so I need to get started today.

Thursday we celebrated our 38th anniversary in a very quiet way - dinner at Applebees and then an evening at home watching Felix pitch a great game in a Mariners defeat of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Felix, our staff ace, hasn't been himself since he came off the disabled list so it was great to see him pitch well again.

Yesterday we had all the kids here to celebrate our daughter's 33rd birthday - which is today. I woke up with the realization that I'd forgotten to order the ice cream cake - horrors! Luckily I've been getting our "cakes" from the same Baskin Robbins for years, and the owner is a fellow quilter and guild member, so she did a rush order for me and I was able to pick it up when we returned home after dinner. It was a very nice visit - even though Sophie has now reached the age where she doesn't want to be held by anyone other than Mama or Daddy. By the end of the day she warmed up a little so I was able to get a quick snuggle with a happy girl instead of a protesting one. I'll be happy when this stage ends!

OK - that's enough rambling from me. As I have lots of plans for the day I guess I'd better get in the shower so I can start being productive!

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Gratitudes:

1. Jelly rolls, jolly packs, and charm packs

2. Ten pounds lost!

3. Warm rain for the garden

4. Summer vacation for DH

5. Hot tea with milk

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Monday musings

Here are better pictures of the two quilts I quilted this weekend. The sampler is for Hotel Hope and the African quilt belongs to my friend Kim. Kim gave me another one to do also, but I'm going to return it to her. At least for now. It has huge expanses of plain white space in between simple blue and yellow star blocks, and I feel totally inadequate to do something like this yet. She wants fancy designs in the white empty spaces, which means I'll have to sew over prior stitching many, many times. I'm just not very good at that yet. If the print is busy it hides it a bit - also, on my own quilts I figure I'm practicing. I know every stitch will stand out on that white background, so I'm going to be honest and tell her I just can't do something like that. Not until I have put in much more practice time than I have up until now.

Which means after Tangled Threads tomorrow night there will be no flimsies in the house to quilt except mine - hooray! I'm hoping to get both Joseph's quilt and my first string top quilted this next weekend so I can cross two more off my list. Time will tell.

In the meantime tonight I stitched and trimmed and stitched some more, fitting together oddball parts and blocks for my "Orphan Train" quilt. I decided to stitch some of the smaller bits to strips that I pulled sight unseen from my strip drawer so it felt like I was making mile-a-minute blocks at least part of the time. I watched the first Harry Potter movie while I worked. My goal is to watch the first four movies again before the next one comes out in July, as well as listen to the first six books before the last one comes out. They are good things to stitch and quilt by - I've seen and heard them so many times that I don't have to pay really close attention.

This is going to be a busy week at work - a good thing as the time should go quickly. I can hardly wait until the weekend so I can put one of MY quilt tops on the machine!

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Gratitudes:

1. Healthy Chinese take-out for dinner

2. A good medical prognosis for my new supervisor

3. Sophie "passing" her four month check-up with flying colors

4. Perfect June weather - not too hot

5. The successful conclusion of Fred's 38th year of teaching

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Saturday ramblings

So far it's been a busy weekend. I put the last Hotel Hope quilt top on the machine yesterday afternoon - at least the last one I have that was made by someone besides me - and started quilting it. I didn't think I'd get it done until today, but I kept plugging away. I quilted until the Mariners lost to the Astros. Then I resumed listing to "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". I noticed it was starting to get dark, so I figured Fred would be up to say good night soon, and then I'd head to bed. I kept quilting, Fred didn't turn up, and it got later and later. By the time I finally Fred must have fallen asleep - he had - I was almost done. I reached the end of the quilt about the same time I reached the end of the book. I used a panto I've not used before - Popcorn by Jodi Beamish - and I really liked how it turned out. By the time I was done it was 10:30, so I headed to bed.

The last couple days I have hit the jackpot as far as mail and UPS deliveries go. I ordered new pantographs from three different sources - two packages arrived yesterday and one today. My second Vogart transfer arrived today. A small order from Z&S Fabrics - I know, I know, but dieting doesn't mean starving! - arrived today. Two Aunt Martha's transfers for baby quilts arrived yesterday. A back order from Checkers containing a couple new quilt books and some Mary Engelbright tins for decorating my sewing room. Packages arriving is the best thing about shopping online!

I'm always striving to be more organized, and my pantograph storage was driving me nuts. I had to pull out almost every roll every time I wanted a particular design - even though I thought I'd organized them in a logical manner. So last Monday was my evening to solve this problem. I put them all on an alphabetized spreadsheet and assigned each one a shelf location. My shelf is a very inexpensive one that we used to use at work, but it had sat unused for several years so our facilities manager said I could buy it for $5. Worked for me! I labeled the shelves to match the chart. Then I put a lot of spare ribbon to use by tying one around each design - the "rubber" bands I'd put around them kept disintegrating. This morning I added all the new ones. I didn't realize I had so many - almost 50! There are a bunch I've never used yet, so I'm hoping many are suitable for either the quilt tops I have waiting already or all the scrappy tops I've been putting together these days.

Once I finished my organization I put another quilt on the longarm. This is one made by my friend Kim - the friend whose son is in Iraq and is part of the tank platoon we did the quilts for. In August Kim is moving to Finland for a year as her husband will be working there. She's clearing out almost everything as they have put their house on the market. She brought over the roll of batting left over from the Iraq quilts - probably about 22 yards - so I'm quilting a quilt for her. It's from African fabrics, and I'm having lots of fun with the custom quilting. Unlike most longarmers I like doing stitch in the ditch, and this quilt has lots of it. Plus applique to embellish and quilt around.

My back has given out for tonight so this won't be finished until tomorrow. I'll get a better picture of it then. Fred's going to work out so I'll have a bit of quilting time. I want to fix him a nice breakfast when he gets home, and then the kids are coming over for a Father's Day celebration in the afternoon.

All weekends should be this productive!

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Gratitudes:
1. Fred cleaning up the kitchen after dinner
2. Receiving an organizational gene
3. A comfortable relationship with my longarm - I'm not so much a newbie any longer
4. Healthy Choice fudge ice cream bars
5. Rain showers for our garden

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That was quick!

I finished the last customer quilt tonight - a red and white baby quilt that needed an easy panto. I like doing these - I actually feel I make a good wage per hour when I do easy pantos. Our financial planner, who also happens to be a colleague at work and a quilter, made this for her niece who is having a baby. I love the red and white combination. So very bright and cheery! I quilted a design called "Shooting Stars" by Jodi Beamish. (I think!) I like this design a lot - I've used it on at least 10 or 12 quilts. Update - the design is by Bonnie Borseth.

I hope to get the charity quilt finished tomorrow. We'll see how that goes - my feet and back may hurt from all the time I spent at the machine today.

All in all this was a great weekend, but it wasn't completely without injury. While quilting the baby quilt I ran the longarm needle through the side of my finger. Hurt a lot at first, but a tight bandaid to stop the blood took care of things and now it's just a nuisance when I quilt. Time spend by quickly these past two days - nevertheless, I'm very satisfied at the number of quilting goals I accomplished. All weekends should be so productive!

Finished!

I am VERY happy to report that I've finished quilting my friend's convergence quilt. It is far from perfect, but it will do just fine. I finally gave up with the water design I wanted to do. It's a freehand right to left design, and no matter how much I practiced on my Magnadoodle I couldn't do it. I finally decided it's because going left to right is so firmly entrenched in my brain that no matter how hard I try I reverse direction without thinking. I know the same pattern can be done left to right, but since my book shows it being done in the opposite direction I'll need to take a reverse photocopy in order to picture it.

I am happy with how it turned out, and I know my friend will be also. I've now received another customer quilt plus a charity quilt plus two quilts from a friend I'm quilting in trade for batting. So doing another of my own - plus Joseph's - will need to be delayed a bit longer.

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Gratitudes:

1. Perfect weather for fertilizing the lawn

2. A husband who enjoys grocery shopping

3. King Tut variegated thread

4. Sleeping in this morning

5. Another come from behind Mariners victory

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Finished is a very good thing!

Apparently this is the weekend for finishes. I don't keep a list for crossing things off except in my mind - it feels really good to cross these off my mental "list".

I finished quilting two flannel samplers for a customer that needed to be done by mid-June. I've not quilted a sampler before so I had lots and lots of fun figuring out how to quilt each block. I'm lucky - quilts "talk" to me and tell me how they want to be quilted. These two were no exception - their message was coming through loud and clear. I liked the results so much that I took a picture of each block - I've never done that before. The owner of these quilts is in my little guild, so I'll deliver them to her at the meeting on Thursday. I sure hope she likes them as much as I do. I've never done two custom quilts one after the other in one day - by the time I was done with the second one last night my legs and back were aching as were my hands from gripping the handles of the machine. I know some ladies have put new cushioned grip bicycle hand grips on their machine - I think I need to look into something like that.

In between quilts yesterday I helped my husband spread another yard of bark. It was HOT outside, and my body just doesn't like the heat. The thermometer said it was in the mid to upper '80's, and standing in the sun was more than I could do. We were doing the beds to the east of our driveway, so I sat under the crab apple tree watching him shovel a load into the wheelbarrow and then dump it on the beds. My job was coming out of the shade long enough to spread the bark in a nice layer all around the plants while he went back to the truck for another load. We couldn't believe it - this load was supposed to be the last - but it wasn't enough to do everything. With the little that was left Fred did the neighbor's side of our west bed that borders the property line while I swept all the stray bark off the driveway. Our yard recycle containers are empty so I could have moved on to trimming shrubs but it was too darn hot. There was no bark left for the bed on the west side of the house either. We decided to call it quits until next weekend - hopefully it will be a bit cooler then. I came in and jumped into the shower while Fred went to the club to shower, then to the grocery store for milk, and finally to Subway to get our dinner. I was starting the second flannel quilt by the time he got back with the sandwiches. At least everything visible from the front of the house now looks great - as long a one doesn't pay that much attention to the shrubs that need trimming!


Today I'm doing the very last customer quilt in my possession. I've had this one almost since I first got my machine. It's a good thing my friend Sue is in no hurry for this one. I told her it had to wait until I felt my skills were good enough - and that's taken over 2 1/2 years. She got the idea for this convergence quilt from one she saw at a quilt show. She and her husband love to sail, have a sail boat, and decorate their large house with lots of sailing related things. The quilting is to be all freehand, with a vibrant sunshine in the sky and waves all over the water. I have a photo that shows the quilting pretty well so I know what she wants. This afternoon is going to be the day I tackle it. Wish me luck! I'll be so glad to have this one finished and off my conscience. I bet she'll be so surprised when I give it back to her on Tuesday.

Update: the photo showing finished quilting is the "idea" picture I'm to use to quilt this quilt. The quilt is on the machine but so far I've not had the courage to start quilting it. She may or may not get it on Tuesday. I keep telling myself it's not going to get any easier by putting off starting. So am I quilting? No, I'm watching baseball and reading email and blogs on the laptop.

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Gratitudes:
1. Subway turkey sandwich
2. A pretty front yard
3. Big trays of flowers from Costco
4. Creme Brulee Coffeemate
5. Cooler weather today - oops! Not true after all. Hopefully tomorrow!

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One down, two to go

I finished a customer quilt tonight that's a graduation gift so it had a deadline. My Tangled Thread friend Kathi made this as a gift for her next door neighbor who is graduating with honors next weekend. This was a fun easy one to do. As soon as I saw it I knew what would be perfect - swirls to go along with the block fabric. Each quilt I do freehand gets easier. I'm still far from perfect on the border but it is acceptable. I think I try to rush too much - I need to keep telling myself to "slow down!" I used a variegated thread that was absolutely perfect - I think every color in the quilt was also in the thread. I have no idea what that funny pale spot in the right border is - something the camera created when I took the picture as it's certainly not on the quilt.

I have two customer quilts left with deadlines - but these two don't have to be done until mid-month. There for a friend in my little guild, however, so I'd love to have them done by the meeting on June 7th to save her an extra trip. Then I sure hope I don't get any more for awhile. I know that's a funny thing for a "business woman" to say, but I'm selfish - I want to get back to quilting my own quilts - both for charity and for family. Especially Joseph's quilt - I'd love to have that finished by the end of June. That way I can be 100% sure it will be done by the time he arrives.

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Gratitudes:

1. A paid vacation day and paid holiday

2. Pretty quilting thread

3. Lunch with my daughter

4. Grilled shrimp kabobs

5. Beautiful weather for gardening

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Hot Apple Pie

Tonight Kim picked up the quilt I did for her, and gave me permission to share pictures of the quilt. I love this little quilt, and had so much fun quilting it. She calls it "Hot Apple Pie" because she can just picture it as a table topper with a hot apple pie straight from the oven sitting on it to cool. She received a little gift from Moda with 2 1/2" squares of four different fabric lines, so this is what she made from it. I love the sunflowers - they are different from any I've seen in a pattern before.

Super quilting Sunday

I know many people in blogland are tied to their televisions watching the Super Bowl. It's never been a big thing around our house. Even when the Seahawks went last year and I watched the game we didn't do anything party-like. My husband is watching but doing Soduku at the same time as he doesn't really care about the outcome.

All in all, a perfect day to spend quilting. I slept in, then caught up on my email and blog reading. Then I headed upstairs where I loaded a customer quilt onto the machine. She just wanted a big meander so the quilting took half as long as it took to load the quilt. I don't think I've ever finished quilting something so quickly! Then I loaded the other customer quilt I have to do. It's a small one designed by a friend of mine - Kim of Water Pail Designs. This is one of her new patterns so it's very exciting to me - to be asked to quilt a piece that will be photographed for the front of the pattern. It's a primitive design - right up my alley - so I'm having lots of fun quilting it. I have all the piecing quilted, as well as the appliqué on the border. All I have left is the border itself. I need to check out some of my primitive books for border ideas before I go on, and hope that the border begins to talk to me. Update - I got some border ideas from a couple of Ginger Cookie Company books. I finished it tonight. That's two customer quilts for me today - plus one of my own this weekend. This is a longarming record for me! My machine and I become better friends each day!

I need to fix dinner now - low fat oven fries and marinated flank steak and vegetables. Then I'll get back to my quilting. It feels so good to be so caught up on customer quilts. I should be able to load another one of my UFOs tomorrow. I have one with bunny rabbits on it - I think it should be next because it will be perfect for Easter decor.

Just a nice day

I had a nice productive Saturday quilt-wise, even though I didn't do any sewing.

Meet Gandalf, my Proto Stitch Wizard.

After getting my hair cut I drove about 80 miles north on I-5 to the SW Washington longarm group meeting in Centralia. Due to my schedule I'd not been to a meeting since early August. I spent part of August, all of September and most of October quilting a king size customer quilt that was giving me fits. I was tired of quilting when I finally got that monster done, as I spent more time ripping out my errors than actually quilting (I'm still new at this and constantly learning). I did a couple charity quilts but hadn't touched the machine since early December. It needed some maintenance done, and I'm still not at all comfortable with the mechanical demands of a longarm. I needed something to get me excited about quilting again, and hoped the meeting would do that. I'm happy to say "mission accomplished". I came back with renewed enthusiasm. The maintenance that needed doing turned out to be very easy to do. Now I'm all ready to tackle the customer quilt that's been half pinned on the machine since early December (thank goodness my friend Sue is in no hurry at all to get that quilt back).

After dinner I went back to pressing more of the fabrics I pretreated Friday night. This is always a very sobering experience - it makes it VERY easy to swear off shopping for awhile - especially when I'm trying to find room on the shelves for the new additions. Unfortunately the feeling never lasts nearly long enough! I told my husband the next time I tell him I'm ordering fabrics for him to give me for my birthday or Christmas he needs to tell me "No!"

I'm trying to keep some of them separate this time, with the new Jo Morton fabrics in one stack and the Jane Austen fabrics in another. I'll share why in another post.
I shook out all the fabrics still waiting for washing - they were still in neat piles (more or less) from the shops - and separated them by color. When spread over the floor of the hall it looks like they've been multiplying when we were asleep. I couldn't possibly have this many new fabrics, could I? While I was pressing them my husband said "someone has made a nest here". I turned around and there was Shadow, nestled in the middle of the stack. It's impossible to be mad at him when he's so darn cute!