Saturday I was digging out some fabric for my SIL that she had gave me years ago that had belonged to her grandmother. The fabric was not cottons but other things and Kellie is planning on making a Crazy Quilt so I offered her the fabric back since I figured it would have more meaning to her. Soooo....while I was digging for that I an on to some big flannel squares that I had. I had bought them years ago at a little place that sold remnants and cut offs. I had made a quilt out of some of them before and I cut them up in smaller squares. It wasn't really pretty but it is so warm and cozy. They are really good quality flannels and then I backed it was a soft muslin. So with the odd leftover big squares I'm just going to sew them together. It is not meant to be pretty but just useful. I guess more or less a utility quilt. Not sure if I will back it with soft muslin or flannel.
In the first quilt I used the beige print and the upper print that has small purple flowers. This one I will be using the beige print and the blue/green print. That is what I have the most of so if I need to I will also throw some of the other in. LOL!
I loaded this customer quilt on the longarm. She hand pieced it from clothing as a memory quilt. She always wants a large stipple done on her quilts. I started quilting it and I was having some tension issues. I think part of it was the fact that it is all pieced from t-shirt fabric and polyesters with no stabilizer. It is very stretchy too.
Then this happened...
Yep...I got my hopping foot hug in one of the seams. :( The stitches are pretty big so I really have to watch and missed this one. :( So after that....I just quit for the night. It was time to walk away for a while.
I need to get it done soon so that I can move on to something else. I have other customer quilts and also some of mine that I would like to quilt soon. I have dug up backings for 4 of my quilt tops so far. I mentioned a few posts back that my goal was to quilt at least 15 of my own tops this year. I've already quilted 3 of them so far. So I'm on a mission! LOL!
The lighting wasn't good when I snapped this pic but it's the best that I could do at the time. The quilt is much brighter.
This is the custoerm quilt that I quilted last week. It's a king size.
I quilted it with the "loopy hearts" panto. I thought it suited the bright fun colors.
I got a roll of Hobb's 80/20 batting in yesterday with plans to get started on some of my own quilt tops. Those will be coming up soon. I think the first one of mine that I quilt will be my "thousands of bow ties" It is one of my favorites and I have waited a very long time to quilt it. I have 35 more of my quilt tops to quilt but I don't have backings for all of them. I do have some backings just not 35 of them. LOL!
Richard had to work today and the boys and I will be heading to a funeral this morning. As I mentioned a few days ago that we lost our eldest deacon at Church, he was 96. I've known this man my whole life and he was such a great man. We will not be having a Church service this morning because we are having the funeral instead at our church.
After we get back from the funeral I am loading a customer quilt on the longarm. It is a hand pieced grandmother's flower garden that is pieced out of clothing. She made it as a memory quilt for someone. I believe it is a full and she just wants a large stipple done on it so that will not take very long at all.
I'm thinking that I will try to get my bow tie top loaded on the longarm Monday or Tuesday. It will probably be Tuesday because I have other things that I need to get done like clean the house. LOL! :)
Well, I really didn't mean to work on this but I have been. :)
I've been busy the past few days doing other things and the few minutes that I am getting in the sewing room I have been sewing these 2" squares together.
I now have 9 of these blocks. Each block has 64 squares in it. So far that is 576 of these 2" squares. I sure hope that I don't run out of scraps before I get all of these scrap quilts finished. LOL!
I've just been busy doing farm things and things in the house...you know....just being a housewife. :) Yesterday I also canned 7 quarts of chili for Andrew. He likes to take them to work and splits a quart for lunch and finishes it up for dinner. He works long hours.
Richard is off today so we are heading out this morning to buy him another pair of work shoes. He is a nurse and on his feet 12 hours a day, 6 days a week so his shoes breakdown pretty fast. So off we go to do that in a few minutes. Actually, we are having our coffee and I still need to finish getting ready. He is off today but works the rest of the weekend.
Sadly we lost our dear friend and eldest deacon of our church. We live in such a small rural area that everyone knows everyone and has for generations back. Uncle June as everyone called him had a stroke on his 96th birthday. :( The man still drove his car almost everyday and lived on his own. He was also a WWII vet, mason and a whole list of things. He was such a wonderful man. His visitation is Saturday evening and the funeral is on Sunday.
Sorry this post isn't that interesting but it's just my life. LOL! I do have lots of sewing goodness coming up. I have a couple of my quilts coming up that will be on the longarm, more customer quilts being quilted and also some custom customer quilts that I need to make.
I got some quilting done yesterday after church. I loaded this customer quilt on the frame.
This wonderful lady brought me 6 king size tops to quilt for her. I've quilted for her before and she does a wonderful job piecing so it makes my job much easier.
I am quilting it with the "loopy hearts" panto. It's a fun design to quilt.
I also got the binding sewn on the jean quilt this weekend. I did that while we watched a movie. I'm glad it is finished.
I will be taking the customer quilt off the longarm this morning so I will get a better pic of it. Not sure how much sewing that I will get done today as I have a lot of stuff to get done.
If you have read my blog for any length of time you know that I love and collect Jim Shore. My mom bought this Jim Shore Angel for me from one of our local thrift store auctions. I love it!!!
Look at the back of it!!!! Oh my! I would love to make a quilt like that. Maybe I will put it on my list to make someday...
Hunter finally went back to school today. :( I know he needs to go back but I love having my boys home with me. He's been off school because of all of the snow. If I counted correctly he has been to school 2 days since before Christmas. It's either been too cold or we've had snow. It's been crazy!!!
I guess that's all for this morning...I have a lot to do today!
Another one quilted!!! 3 down and 34 more to go!!! I loaded and quilted this one yesterday afternoon! This is the Churn Dash that I finished up a few days ago. It is not a huge quilt but still a nice size measuring 70x82.
I did a dense stipple on it. I'll be honest, I'm so tired of stippling! Nothing at all wrong with it, I'm just tired of doing it. LOL! I did it on this one because I just wanted it done and stippling is easy. LOL!
I really need to work on bindings this weekend. I have 3 now that needs to be finished.
I have a king size customer quilt coming up that I need to get quilted so I guess that will be next. I'm waiting for thread then I will get it done. I will probably load it on this evening so it will be ready to go when the thread gets here. I love doing this lady's quilts as she does such a wonderful job piecing them and that makes my job so much easier. I actually have 6 of hers here waiting to be quilted.
I love scraps! I enjoy working with scraps more than a controlled set of fabrics. I'm always afraid that I am going to mess up and not have enough of what I need. I don't think I could ever get enough scraps! For the couple of you that have sent me scraps, please know that I enjoy them more than anything. I get so excited when digging through them.
I did get a little bit of sewing done yesterday. Not a whole lot but a little. :) First, I straightened up my sewing room and then I hated to get a bunch of stuff out and make a mess so I just worked on what I had nearby.
I actually got 3 of these pieced. I had a couple of them on my design wall for a long time. These are made with 2" squares. If you notice most of my quilts are made with scraps! I just love them!
I now have 5 of these 12" blocks. To make a quilt that is 96x96, I will need 64 of them. It is very doable, it will just take me a little while. I have a basket of 2" squares sitting beside my machine so they are easy to grab.
I also pieced a few of these Windmills. These are fast and fun! It takes longer to cut them out than it does to sew them together. LOL! Again....more scraps! I just love them!
After pressing, I counted and added them to my pile. I now have exactly 300 of them!!!! I need 528 to make the size quilt that I want. Sooo...that's 228 more to go! I do think that this will be my constant leader and ender project until it is finished. I will need to cut more of them soon. These also stay in a little basket beside my machine.
Most of my quilts are made from scraps and I just love them. I began sewing with my mom's scraps and just fell in love with them. Then when I started buying my own fabrics I would buy something like a 1/4 yard to give me more of a selection because at the time I was a single mother and didn't have a lot of extra money to spend.
Anyway....enough about scraps, I guess. I still haven't left the house and Hunter has been out of school all week. Richard is the only one that is getting in and out of this holler. I'm just not brave enough to drive off the hill. Richard is off work this weekend so he is taking me to the grocery store this morning and running errands with me. :) I'm sure he is going to love that but he doesn't want me driving either. It is supposed to warm up this weekend so I'm hoping all of this will melt.
No sewing for me yesterday but I did do some inventory! I started digging to see how many tops that I had of my own that needed quilted. I wanted to get them all measured and written down on a list. I hope to work on these between customer quilts.
In the end, I found that I have 35 quilt tops in need of quilting. In my defense, 7 of those are small baby quilts. So my goal for the year is to quilt at least 15 of my own. If you remember I've already quilted 2 of mine so I only have 13 more to go. :)
I paired 2 of them with batting and now I need to dig around to see if I can find some backings for some of them.
I think my huge bow tie quilt is my favorite of the bunch. I can't wait to quilt that one.
I also found a Jacob's Ladder that was all wrinkled and still needed the borders sewn on. I left that one out to press and attach the border.
I actually thought that I had well over 35 quilt tops so this is good. I'm sure throughout the year that I will piece more tops and get some of these quilted. I'll be honest...most of these are older tops that I really don't like. LOL! Some are probably close to 20 years old. I also saw that some had some spots on them. I'll quilt and wash them. If the spots don't come out then I will just use them anyway for my everyday quilts. :)
Yesterday's sewing started early. If you look at the pic below you can see that it was barely turning daylight. Richard had just left for work and we had a snowstorm coming.
First off, I sewed the flannel binding on the jean quilt and now it is ready for the handwork.
Then I sewed the binding on to the Road to Jericho quilt. Now it is also read for the handwork. I love hand sewing on binding.
By this time it was daylight. Here is my view from my machine. If you look real close you can see one of the horses. They LOVE getting out and playing in the snow. They were in and out all day. It's funny how much they love playing in the snow.
By this time I was having some anxiety. If it was going to get as bad as they were saying then I knew what this would probably mean for Richard. So I just kept sewing...
I got 2 more stars sewn...
That takes me up to a total of 7 of those.
Anxiety and ADHD do not mix well. LOL! I bounced around all day worse than ever. I found some small string blocks that I had worked on a while back. These are 4" blocks so they are rather small.
I added those blocks to what I had and here they all are laid out.
Digging around some more I decided to cut out some applique cats with my Accuquilt GO! I already had a few orange polka dot cats cut but then I found these batik and other bright scraps in my scrap basket and decided to cut some of those.
This one is my favorite! I'm thinking that as I get batik scraps that I will cut out some cats until I have enough for a kid quilt.
Here are some that I already had cut so I think I will keep them and maybe do a small baby quilt with them. I didn't get a pic but I did sew a couple to a white background.
As the day progressed, the weather got worse. In the end we had several inches of snow, falling temps and they declared a Level 3 Emergency. Even our 24-hr Walmart closed for the evening.
When this happens and Richard is scheduled to work the next day he is supposed to stay at the hospital because it is their policy. That way the employees are already there. With a Level 3 Emergency it is emergency vehicles and people only that can travel the roads without a fine. Richard was allowed because he is a nurse but it was NOT recommended.
Now....in 18 years we have never spent 24 hours apart. I knew that at this point it would be smarter and safer for him to stay at the hospital. Several texts and calls later he still didn't know what he was going to do. I did a whole lot of praying because I knew that if he thought he could get home that he would be here. In the end, I thought he was going to be staying there. Then I saw him walking down the driveway!!!! Oh my! I lost it and got all emotional. :) He had to park at the end of our driveway. His normal 45 minute commute ended up being a 90 minute commute. I'm not saying that this was the smartest decision but I was sure happy to see him. Trust me, I also thanked the good Lord above for keeping him safe. Now as I type this he is on his way back to work. I am praying for safe travels this morning. I did notice that they had downgraded to a Level 2 Emergency.
Hunter had a friend come over on the 4-wheeler through the hills. They were out and about most of the day in the snow. Funny thing, when they came in I offered them something warm to drink and Wyatt said, "can I have a jar of pickles?" LOL! He loves my pickles! He always eats pickles when he is here. :) That boy cracks me up!
This morning I thought I would show you a few quilts that I pieced and quilted for a lady before Christmas.
Her husband had passed away and she asked me to make 3 of these Cross Memory Quilts from his shirts for her and their 2 sons for Christmas.
Here is a pic of the 2nd one. Somehow I didn't get a pic of the 3rd one but it looks just like these two.
Here is a photo of the back of them. All 3 of them were quilted with this same design. The panto is called, Spindle. I love the texture that it gives. I'll be honest when I quilted the first one I thought I might have been a mistake because all that I saw was spiderwebs. LOL! When she picked up the first quilt and unfolded it, she said, "oh it looks like Angel wings" Now I still don't see Angel wings but that is what she saw....so I quilted the other 2 the same way. :)
She also requested that I make 9 of these memory pillows for their grandchildren. She had picked out 9 shirts and attached a photo of him with each grandchild to each shirt. So I had to make sure that I kept these with each shirt so that I didn't get them mixed up. She said that she wanted me to see who I was making these for. So precious.
She was so very pleased with them all. This was very emotional for them all. I graduated with her oldest son so I did know of this family. In the end, she and I have become really good friends. Just a few days ago she sent me another message talking about how pleased she was with them all. That makes it all worth it for me when I see the emotions and somehow I think these quilts and pillow give them a little more comfort.
I didn't really have a photo to post this morning so I thought I would post these quilts. I didn't really have time to before Christmas.
I did get that HUGE t-shirt quilt quilted yesterday. I kept putting it off because I dreaded it so bad. I bit the bullet and got it finished!!!! I feels great to have that behind me now. I'll take some photos of it once I take it off the longarm. I finished it up yesterday evening and I still have it on the longarm.
No school for Hunter again today. Some of the backroads still have snow/ice on them. We are also supposed to get more snow today so he probably will not have school the rest of the week. It is a Google Classroom day so he will have assignments online.
It is supposed to get down near zero and windchills around -10 so I really dread that. :(
Yesterday was the most productive day that I've had in a very long time! I got oodles done!!! Do you remember the string strips that I pieced a few weeks ago? Well...they are now a completed quilt top.
I cut all of the purple and sewed it all together. This quilt measures 54x74 so it's not a bad size.
The binding is cut and ready to go on after quilting. I also found the perfect purple Glide thread to quilt her with. :)
This is actually the first quilt that I worked on for the day. I loaded this jean quilt top on the longarm at around 5:45am. :) This quilt is pieced with jean shirt fabric. Years ago I found some jean shirt sleeves at a thrift store that were from a shirt factory. I bought them, cut them up and sewed them together. I bet this quilt top has been laying around waiting to be quilted for 15 years. It measures 64x64.
I backed it with this blue plaid flannel that I've had for a very long time too. I quilted it with a blue Glide thread.
Last but not least...I got the borders sewn on to my Churn Dash.
Now that the borders are on this one, it measures 70x82.
So in the end....I got one quilted and two ready to be quilted!!!!
I am very pleased with all that I got done yesterday!!! It felt really good but in the back of my mind I kept thinking of the HUGE t-shirt quilt that I needed to load on the longarm. :( That did not get done. :(
I don't drive in the snow let alone ice and since Richard had to work and couldn't drive me, Hunter and I didn't go to Church yesterday. :( I so enjoy going but I decided to just hibernate. Our water froze so I didn't have water until late last night after Richard got home.
Richard is off today so I probably will not get as much done today. LOL! I love him to death but it seems like I don't accomplish anything when he is home. :)
This was totally unexpected! LOL! I quilted one of MY OWN quilt tops today! :)
I can't tell you how long it has been since I have quilted one of my own. It felt great!
This pattern is called, Road to Jericho. It is a nice size lap quilt measuring 62x76. Looking back on my blog I pieced it September 2012. I was digging around today and found it with the backing so I loaded it on the longarm.
I did a fairly dense stipple on it. I remember piecing this quilt and I was trying to clean out some of my scrap basket. I was using up some of the fabrics that I wanted to move out of my stash. I don't usually work with fabrics so bright but it was fun!
I quilted it with white Glide thread and used a white backing. I quilted this today when I should have loaded that HUGE t-shirt quilt on the frame instead. LOL! I am such a procrastinator. :)
Richard has to work today and Andrew stayed elsewhere due to the bad weather. Hunter and I will not be going to Church this morning because I will not drive off this big hill with the snow/ice. So we will be hanging out here at the house keeping the fire going.
Not sure what I will get done as far as quilting goes today but I need to load that t-shirt quilt on. Sadly I found another one of my quilt tops that I have a backing for that I would like to do. LOL!
***NOTICE!!!***
I have some comments that I would like to respond to but they are "no reply" so I can't email or message you back. :(
LOVE....thank you for all of your wonderful comments to my blog. You commented about my pineapple ruler. You must get one. They are wonderful!
SHELL...you asked about the sizes for the Now or Later quilt. The background squares are 2-1/2" and the colored rectangles are 2-1/2"x 4-1/2"
I guess that is all for this morning. I need to get my day started...
Then this happened...
Yep...I got my hopping foot hug in one of the seams. :( The stitches are pretty big so I really have to watch and missed this one. :( So after that....I just quit for the night. It was time to walk away for a while.
