I snapped this pic last night before turning everything off and heading back downstairs. As you can see I have a creative mess. LOL! I need to take a few minutes to pick up before it gets out of hand.
I still have my Courthouse Steps on the longarm. I think I mentioned that I broke a needle and now the stitches are horrible. :( So I'm still trying to get that figured out. Do you see my little step stool in front of the longarm? LOL! I'm only 5ft tall so when I work from the front of the longarm I have to get on the stool. LOL! This longarm is huge and very tall. The height does not adjust. When I work from the back of the longarm to do pantos, I am fine and don't have to have a stool. LOL!
My design wall has a few different things on there. You can see the biggest thing on there is my postage stamp blocks. Then just odds and ends of other blocks. Some of them are just trial blocks to see if they are something that I want to turn into a quilt.
I didn't manage to accomplish much yesterday. I adjusted a little on the longarm, pressed some binding that needs done, and ended up piecing 4 more windmill blocks. This brings my total to 324. I still have a ways to go on these.
Hunter didn't have school yesterday or today due to area flooding. In the past weeks he has been out of school a lot due to snow and ice and now it is flooding. We got several inches of rain a few days ago. This is the reason that they start back to school here around the first of August. They usually miss so much during the winter. We have a ton of hills and back roads so it makes it hard for the buses to travel when they are snow covered. This also makes it hard when trying to learn. It's hard for him to learn and remember things when he only has school a day or two a week. On some of the days that they miss they have to do what is called, Google Classroom. There assignments are online.
Hopefully I can get some binding or something done today. I really need to. LOL!
I'm so excited!!! I finally loaded my Courthouse Steps on the longarm!!!
I snapped this quick pic of it as I was loading it on the longarm. She's a big one. I'll have to check again but I think it measures something like 92x100...maybe even larger. LOL! It is made with 6" blocks and each strip finishes at 3/4" wide. There are 224 blocks in this quilt.
Now here's the bad news...LOL! I am quilting it using a panto called, "Lot's of Leaves" This panto is very dense and measures 15" wide so there is a lot of quilting in this. So much so that I run out of bobbin before I even get to the other end of the quilt. Anyway...I got one pass with the longarm quilted and then I broke a needle at the very end of that first row. Now everything is all out of whack! :( Skipping and bad stitches. :( So now I will have to probably reset the timing on it. Oh well, I will probably do that today after Church.
Before I loaded my Courthouse Steps on the longarm yesterday morning, I finished up this customer quilt. The pic is a little dark but it was before daylight and the lighting was not that good. You know me...I don't sleep a lot, just a little here and there.
This quilt was hand pieced by a childhood friend of my brother's. Actually he lived about a mile away from us when we were growing up. I've quilted several of his quilts. I don't think you can go wrong with a bow tie. It is one of my favorite traditional blocks.
I need to get the binding sewn on this bow tie quilt and also the purple I-spy quilt that I did the other day. Don't know if I mentioned it or not but the purple one is sold as soon as I get the binding done.
Coming up this week...Hunter has an orthodontist appointment on Monday. Thursday is payday so I will run errands and grocery shop that day. Also I need to get my Courthouse Steps off the longarm and load on some customer quilts. I have two more that will be dropped off sometime this week but I also have several here that I need to do as well. I have 5 king size tops from one lady that need quilted. I also have 2 t-shirt quilts that need pieced and quilted for customers. I need to make 2 Cross Memory quilts for a couple of people. Of course, all of that is not going to get done this week but at least over the next few months. Oh and my SIL has 4 or 5 quilt tops that need quilted. Not sure when she will be ready for me to quilt them but I already have them on the list to do. Hmmm...it seems like I am forgetting a few. LOL!
Guys! I am on a ROLL!!!!
Two more of my quilts are quilted and off the list!!! My goal for 2018 is to quilt 15 of my own tops. I have now quilted 6!!!!! So I'm off to a good start.
This is the purple strippy quilt that I pieced not too long ago. After I quilted it, I posted a pic of it on my FB page and it SOLD!!! I had a friend ask if it was for sale, I priced it and she wants it!!! YAY! Now I just need to get the binding sewn on over the next few days. It measures 54x74.
Next I quilted this Scrappy Snowball top of mine. I pieced this top 18-20 years ago. It felt great to finally get it quilted. I was going to quilt a panto on it but honestly it wasn't pieced the best in the world and I wasn't sure if I would have some issues when quilting it. I ended up just quilting it with a stipple.
I'm thinking that a lot of these older tops of mine will end up being quilted with a stipple just to get them done quickly. This one measures 72x72.
I love this scrappy pattern so I think that I will piece another one of them soon.
So today after Church I will probably work on some binding. Maybe do the binding on the purple one. I would also love to load another one of mine on before Monday comes as I need to get started on a customer quilt. I'm pretty pleased with my progress on my own quilts so far. I hope to get my goal of 15 done before Fall because around that time I will start getting my Christmas rush of customer quilts and then I will not have time to do my own.
Around the farm....we don't have city water here, we have a drilled well. We also live near a fault line and that messes with our well. A few years ago we had to have it redrilled because it caved in. That was redone and cased all the way down. As things shift we sometimes have less water than usual. So Richard has been working this weekend on a cistern type thing for a back up water source. He fixed a set up that has water from our gutters going into a water tank that has a pump and we can switch over and use if when needed. Of course, this water is treated and filtered so it's good water. Actually, I used it a lot last night. I think this is going to work out well for us. Right now we just have it going into a 325 gallon water tank but we hope to be able to do a more permanent tank when we can. We are hoping to get a 1000-1500 gallon tank. I'm so grateful that Richard is so handy.
It's been a busy few days. Let me start by showing you my quilting progress! I pieced 20 more of my Windmill blocks while Richard was doing some adjusting on my longarm. These 20 bring my total to 320...only 208 more to go!!!! LOL!
I did get this customer quilt finished. This is the one that I posted in the last post. It was hand pieced out of t-shirts and polyester. Soooo stretchy to quilt.
After he did some adjusting, I loaded this little quilt of mine. Not really pieced just a piece of airplane fabric with a border sewn around it. A nice sized baby quilt. This makes me 5 of my own for the year. If you remember I have a goal to quilt 15 of my own this year. So I'm off to a pretty good start.
The tension was almost perfect but still a hair off. You can't really tell it on this quilt because I redid any issues that I had on it.
I also loaded another one of mine on the longarm but did get a pic of it. It's not finished so I will get a pic of it then. It will make number 6 quilted for the year!
Now just a few various pics... in this laundry basket I have a few of the quilts that are coming up to either be pieced or quilted. You can see a bunch of t-shirts in there. Those will be used for a t-shirt quilt that I will be making for a childhood friend of mine. She contacted me a few weeks ago asking if I could do it. The blue and white is a hand pieced bow tie quilt that belongs to a customer. It needs to be quilted and the binding done. Underneath that is my Courthouse Steps that also needs to be quilted. I have the backing and batting ready and the binding is already cut. I'm very anxious to get it quilted.
Then over on my cutting table I have a few more projects. First you see my Jacob's Ladder that needs the borders sewn on then quilted. The Churn Dash needs the binding done.
It is a cold weekend so I made a big pot of chili for us to eat. We got a little snow Thursday night so Hunter didn't have school on Friday. A long weekend for him. Richard is also off this weekend but Andrew has to work all weekend.
In other news...my momma went back to work. It's a long story that I will not completely get into. She wasn't able to have her surgery if you remember because of her blood pressure and blood sugar being too high. So that was put off until it was under control. She had to go back due to some insurance reasons. I talked to her today and she was having some pain and had ice on the shoulder. Not good at all. So we will just have to wait to see how this all goes for her. She is planning on retiring later this year as well.
This morning we will be making a trip to Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight to pick up some things to fix a few issues that we are having here on the farm. It's always something no matter where you live, right? LOL! It's 10 degrees this morning so I really dread getting out. :( So we'd better get going....
I still have my Courthouse Steps on the longarm. I think I mentioned that I broke a needle and now the stitches are horrible. :( So I'm still trying to get that figured out. Do you see my little step stool in front of the longarm? LOL! I'm only 5ft tall so when I work from the front of the longarm I have to get on the stool. LOL! This longarm is huge and very tall. The height does not adjust. When I work from the back of the longarm to do pantos, I am fine and don't have to have a stool. LOL!
Hunter didn't have school yesterday or today due to area flooding. In the past weeks he has been out of school a lot due to snow and ice and now it is flooding. We got several inches of rain a few days ago. This is the reason that they start back to school here around the first of August. They usually miss so much during the winter. We have a ton of hills and back roads so it makes it hard for the buses to travel when they are snow covered. This also makes it hard when trying to learn. It's hard for him to learn and remember things when he only has school a day or two a week. On some of the days that they miss they have to do what is called, Google Classroom. There assignments are online. 
