Another one quilted..........

I ironed the backing fabric and sewed it together yesterday morning.  Then I loaded the 3 layers on my midarm machine  right after lunch.  At 4 p.m. I decided it was time to start quilting.  I took a break to eat at 6 and finished the quilting at 8:30.

No fancy quilting for me, just meandering with a variegated thread, red, coral, and lavender.  This type of quilting goes fast, no pattern to follow just curving around.  I did cross over a couple times but nobody showed up with an orange jumpsuit for me.  The Quilt Police don't come to my house.

Here it is all trimmed ready for binding. You can see in this photo that I used the same fabric for the back of the quilt that is on the border.  That is one of my favorite Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  I got 13 yards of it at a really good price when one store was clearing out the old season fabric.  I used almost 9 yards of it on the back and another 2.75 yards for the borders.  I didn't trim the end border like I mentioned yesterday.  I wanted to see how much it shrunk with the quilting first.  It shrunk 1.5" in width and 4.5" in length, so it is only 113" long now.

Visitor #500,000 is from the US, but sitemeter doesn't give me a location, they visited my blog at 1:13 a.m. their time, 11:13 p.m. CST my time,  they use Verizon wireless (Cellco Partnership), have a Linux operating system,  with Safari for a browser.  This should narrow down the field with Linux since most people have Mac or Windows.  If you care to identify yourself, I might send you some fabric.

Another productive day............

I sewed the binding all by machine on this quilt.  I figured it will either be a baby quilt or lap quilt for someone and therefore will be washed often and get a lot of wear and tear.

On the zig zag I am doing a hand finished binding.  I decided it is going to be a wallhanging for my main level studio (yes, I have 2 studios).  I got one side hand stitched and about 10" on a second side.

Next on my agenda was sewing the borders onto this queen sized Trip Around the World quilt made with all Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  Here is another post on this quilt, Nov. 2007.  I cut the borders in April this year and now they are on the quilt top.  When I measured it last night to figure out the backing I decided it is too long.  I may trim 4" off one of the end borders which will be the top border when it is on a bed.  The top measures 96" x 117" right now.  I know a lot of sources say a queen size quilt is about 83" x 93" but that wouldn't even cover the sheets and blankets with the thick mattresses today.

I like mine to be somewhere between a coverlet and a bedspread.  I don't like dust ruffles so I make my quilts with a 17-18" drop so they end below the bed frame.  I hope to get the backing fabric cut and pieced today and loaded on my midarm quilting machine, and maybe even get it quilted.  I know that sounds ambitious but the QOV group meets next Tuesday and I have to start working on preparations for that by Sunday afternoon.

My 500,000th visitor may be here late today or early tomorrow morning.  I'll see if I can identify where they are from on sitemeter.

Quilting finished?

I just did randomly placed, kind of parallel lines with the biggest spaces about 1".  I think it is all quilted, but I might go back in and add one more line in each zig zag.

I decided to go ahead and trim it anyway because it won't get distorted even if I go back and add more lines of quilting.  I'll take a good look at it this morning and decide.  Then I can cut the binding for the 2 quilts and finish them. 

Time to finish something...........

I am the queen of procrastination.  I can think of a million reasons why I don't need to prepare a backing and quilt a quilt.  Last night I finally ran out of excuses.  I quilted this one very simply on my mid arm quilting machine, 50 minutes.

I even got it trimmed ready for binding.

So as long as I was on a roll, I hand basted this small quilt so I could quilt it on my regular sewing machine.

I got the quilting all done on the dark zig zags but haven't decided on the thread for the light ones.

All of this was done in a little over 2 hours, so why does it take me months to decide it is the right day to quilt?

Windy day.............

This is what the trees looked like all day yesterday.  The prediction is for one more day of high wind.  There were gusts over 50 mph and even higher in some areas near us.  We missed the tornado and heavy rain part though.

Tuesday is Winding Ways day and I got 6 more blocks sewn.  I may have to take out the centers of 2 of them but for now they are just going up on the design wall.

Here are the 18 blocks that I have sewn so far.  They are going faster now that I know what I am doing.  I think I'll work on them 2 evenings a week and see if I can get them all sewn before the end of the year. 

I have another batch of hand dyed fabric pieces that were cut for me too.  That will be a separate quilt.

Pillowcase day

Yesterday was sewing circle at church so I spent the morning washing, pressing, and cutting fabric for our pillowcase project.

Here are 14 finished pillowcases.  We have another 10 at different stages of construction.  We will meet again in 2 weeks to finish them and a few more for our donation to a domestic abuse shelter.

Here are 9 of the little log cabin blocks.  They are 6.5" blocks.

Here are the other 8 blocks.  They are 7" square.  I have a couple more that would be best cut at 7.5" so that the outside strips would be at least 1/4" wide.  I think I will put these away until I have some more scraps of the right size to work with.

Here is the group of too small to sew scraps.  How can I throw away these little jewels?  I bagged them and put them in the container with the rest of the scraps.  I just know there will be a use for them some day.

Colors in nature

I hear so many quilters say they don't ever work with yellow fabric.  I think I fell in love with yellow the first time I saw a tree changing colors.

When I was about 8 years old I colored leaves, shading from green to yellow, to gold, to orange, and then to brown.  I cut them out and my mother and I pinned them to the curtains in the little room that had the piano in it.  I went to a one room school through 4th grade and whatever the older classes were learning, we learned too.  I learned the order/blend of colors in the rainbow, which is the same as the color wheel that was taught in the 1940's.  I wonder if any kids are being taught that today.

I was not very energetic yesterday after the migraine the day before so I made a few more log cabin blocks and then played with groups of fabric.  This one is a combination of Brandon Mabley, Kaffe Fassett, Martha Negley and Philip Jacobs, all designers for Westminster fabrics.

Mighty Migraine........

Our weather changed yesterday.  After a long dry spell we got some rain.........and I got a migraine.  I laid low most of the day and finally by evening the pain was gone so I got out the little bags with scraps and made some more log cabin squares.
  My TV screen had a message on it for 24 hours saying programming would resume shortly.  I decided after 10 hours it was time to call.  They gave me a choice of returning the box at my closest office (25 miles away) or having a tech come out to see what was wrong.  I couldn't see wasting an hour and half of time and driving 50 miles round trip.  Of course it meant a little clean up time...............but I needed to do that any way. Yesterday morning the cable guy came and swapped out a bad digital box for a good one.

Ready for borders

I finished sewing the three sections of the top and now I am ready to cut the border pieces.  This is 54" x 87" right now so it is too small for a twin bed.  I have thought about doing a border of the smaller squares instead of the middle size ones.  I think I will think about this for a few days before I make a decision.  Another option would be to add another panel to the side because it is so long and skinny as it is now.

A little more sewing, a closer look at the fabrics

I used a lot of fabrics that are different than the ones in the book.  I thought you might like to see some of them closer.  A lot of them are Philip Jacobs and a few Martha Negley in addition to all of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

Here is a another section.  I used a lot of different fabrics.

I took this shot from a different angle than yesterday, hoping to capture the essence of the fabrics a little better.  I have just one seam that needs sewing in the left section.  The middle section is about 3/4 sewn.  The 6 squares on the bottom of the center row are sewn together so there is just that section above them to finish.
Yesterday was errand day and I went to computer club at night so there was only about an hour and a half to sew.  More time today I hope.

Some yellow sewing...........

I finished the designing and started sewing sections together.  The left panel is still in 3 pieces and I have started the middle panel.  I need to cut some more 6.5" squares for the border, 48 of them to be exact.  Then there are 4 pieces that are rectangular to make it all fit after adding a narrow border.  I gave the link 2 days ago for the directions for this quilt if you are interested.  I will get a better photo of this in natural light after I get the center sewn together.

2 busy days, one tired body.............

After standing most of the day at work yesterday I decided to sit and sew last night instead of working on the yellow quilt.  I made 8 more Winding Ways blocks.  I think I need to make it my Tuesday night project every week because I watch 3 hours of TV that night.  If I get into a routine I may actually have a quilt some day.

Fun, fun, fun......

My art quilter's group, the best therapy I could have.  We had so much fun. 

While I watched Castle last night I started designing the yellow quilt on a double design wall.  After I had about a third of it up on the wall, I realized I had the layout sheet upside down, LOL.

This is a layout from one of Kaffe's books.  It is also a free download on the internet here.  I need better light at the bottom of the quilt.  Maybe I need to take the pictures during the daytime instead of at 10:30 at night.
I have to work today, so no sewing until evening.

Cookies and vacuum cleaner.......

The art quilters' group is coming today so I vacuumed and baked cookies yesterday.  No sewing although I did cut some more 9" squares of Kaffe fabric.  Have a cookie everyone............

Clean up fun

As I was bagging all of the little scraps to put them away I couldn't help myself and had to make a few wonky log cabin blocks.  They are 7" square.  Some of the strips finish at a quarter inch wide.

The centers are all different sizes too, whatever size they were in the scrap pile.  I really did put the scraps away now, for awhile anyway.

 

I had a lot of my Kaffe fabrics cut in 9" strips so I cut a bunch of 9" squares last night.  This is one possibility for using them.  It is in a Karla Alexander book and you stack, cut and shuffle the fabrics.  I think there is another one in the book that takes 9" squares too so I'll just keep cutting for now.

It was a little cooler today but still beautiful weather.  It could stay like this for a couple months as far as I'm concerned.

Computer update villains.............

I always do the Windows updates as soon as they are available and I've never had a problem before.  This time though, my Canon software won't work and I can't load any pictures into the computer.  I'll just have to share the pictures I already had loaded until I can solve the problem.  My burning bush is just starting to change color.

One lonely robin came into the yard Thursday.  He looks like he is staring me down.

Then he started looking around for his friends but they left days ago. 

I did some more cutting last night.  I am cutting for another quilt...........yes I know I just cut one and I haven't started it yet.  My art quilters' group is coming Monday and I have to have everything picked up so I figured I might as well cut some more while the fabrics are out.  I have to work today so I hope I can figure out the software problem tonight. 

Cutting, more moving day

Even though a lot of wires were taken down so the church building could move up Main Street, I was lucky and didn't have any interuption in electricity or phone.  I cut out this quilt last night so I could finally put away the collection of yellow fabrics.

I cut through my backyard and my neighbor's yard to get to the scene of the action.

It finally reached the block even with my house at about 1:45 p.m.  They started the move around 9 a.m.

and finally it passed by.  What a spectacular sight this was. 

Here you can see some of the support for the building.

These 2 guys were under the church cranking the wheels a little to the left or a little to the right per orders from someone up ahead of them.

This was the back corner of the church where  you can see the steel beams and jack.

You could hear a chain saw every so often as the church made its way up the street.  This guy had to trim branches in several places.  It was a beautiful sunny day around 70 degrees.  They couldn't have asked for more perfect weather to make this trip.

Moving day..........

Today the Catholic church is moving from the center of town up to the north west corner next to their parish center.  It needs to travel one block west, then about 9 blocks north and then west a few blocks.   It looks small with the front porch removed and the room that was attached at the back missing.

Here is the basement hole that is left on the corner across from the post office.  It will be strange to see that corner empty and with the economy the way it is, I wonder how soon anything will go on that land.  I got an automated call from ComEd 2 nights ago telling me that my area may experience some electicity outages because of work in the area from 9-3 today.  I guess I will do some rotary cutting, or maybe I should go out and clean up my flower beds.  I may not be affected because I'm on a different line than the street one block over but just in case I'll have the sewing machines unplugged in case of a power surge.