Thursday, November 16, 2017

Quilts and Pineapples

This is the customer quilt that I quilted yesterday!  A childhood friend of my brother, hand pieced it.  I think he injured his back years ago and quilts occasionally to stay busy.  As I mentioned, he hand pieced this one.  I also will be doing the binding, which I will work on that today.  That is pretty much all that I have on my schedule for the day.  That will take up pretty much all of my day as I need to trim, square it up, cut and sew the binding by hand. 
As soon as I got that quilted, I whipped up this pineapple table runner.  I used the Pineapple Trim Tool to make this.  It worked out really well, I just had to take my time and it was pretty easy.  I do plan on making a pineapple quilt after my holiday rush is over so this was practice.  I am thinking that when I make the quilt, I will switch the color placement as this seems like a lot of blue.  LOL
In my last post I mentioned that I forgot to take photos of two t-shirt quilts.  Well...I did find a photo of one of them.  :)  
 So today I will be hand sewing binding most of the day.  I am taking off Thanksgiving Day, then the rest of the weekend.  We have dinner at mom's on Thanksgiving and dinner with my MIL on Saturday.  So the rest of the time I will be putting up my Christmas decor.  By the time Thanksgiving comes around I will have quilted for 38 DAYS STRAIGHT!!!!  So I could really use a couple of days of not quilting.  LOL!  Then I will get back at it...



Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Quilts, Horses, and Kids...

 Lot's of quilty goodness!  It's been a few days since I have posted but here ya go....

First off, somehow I miss taking pics of TWO t-shirt quilts!  No clue how I did that but I did.  :(  

Here is a cute tree quilt.  It turned out nice.  I did a small stipple on it with burgundy thread. 
 Another angle...
 A close up...
 This is a panel that I quilted for a lady. 
 Another view...
  I also did this binding by hand...
 Another customer memory quilt.  This was made by the same lady as the 2 t-shirt quilts that I forgot to take pics of. 
 This past weekend Hunter got Storm out for a little ride.  He hadn't been rode for a while so he was a little hard headed.  LOL!  Hunter handled him well.  Storm is my horse and I love him so. 
 This is little Addie having a meltdown.  LOL!  I was delivering a quilt while we were in town and she wanted to go to see my SIL, Kellie that worked in the office next to where I was.  LOL!  She's rotten.
 As you can see, by the time we got to Walmart, she was fine.  LOL!  Love this little one so much. 
 That's all for now....time to load another quilt on the longarm!



Wednesday, November 8, 2017

3 Quilts in 2 days!!!!

 I'm on a roll!  LOL!  I've quilted 3 quilts in 2 days!  Technically 2 of them were KING size and one was a baby quilt.  :)  So here we go...

I would have loved to have kept this one!  I love how the sunflowers just pop against that background.  Lot's of stippling on this baby and that makes those sunflowers puff up.  She did an awesome job piecing it.  
 So after quilting on that one most of the day, I then loaded this baby quilt on the longarm.  It only measured 35x45 so it was quick work.  The photo is not that good as the camera picked up on so many different textures that it looks very wrinkled but it's not.  This one is made from minky and flannel so both very stretchy.  Since it stretched so much we decided to do a very large stipple on it which will also make it not as stiff if over quilted.  I also need to do the binding on it as well but she didn't sent enough so I am now waiting on that.  Since it is so small it will not take too long to do that. 
 Then yesterday after everyone cleared out of the house for the day, I loaded this big baby on and got it quilted.  This t-shirt quilt was pieced just like the other one that I did a few days ago.  The t-shirt square is just zig-zag stitched to the background square.  I have at least one more of these to do for her...maybe more...I would have to look to be sure.  LOL!
 Funny thing....you know in my last post I mentioned that I am just covered up with quilts that I am VERY grateful for but all I could think about crocheting.  LOL!  That's how my ADHD mind works.  LOL!  Anyway....while quilting these 3 quilts, I still managed to crochet 3 dish cloths.  Not perfect but I'm just washing dishes with them.  :)
 I am getting ready to head back upstairs after I have one more coffee this morning and load on another one.  

My sister took mom yesterday for a MRI that the doctor scheduled for her shoulder.  She has a follow-up appointment Thursday with the orthopedic and will get her results then.  

I guess that is all for now...heading upstairs to the sweatshop to get some more quilting done!!!!


Monday, November 6, 2017

18 and counting....

 Yesterday I get the binding on that king size quilt finished.  It was hand sewn binding so it took me a while to finish.  So now this quilt is ready to be picked up today.  Shew....
 I got this loaded on the frame and the quilting started.   I will finish it up today.  I don't have to do the binding on this one, just the quilting.  She requested a stipple which is fine with me as I can do that faster than doing a pantograph.  :)  It is being quilting in burgundy thread to match the backing.  This one is a king too!  :)  I have it loaded sideways because it fit the backing better that way.  Just wanted to make sure I had plenty once I rolled the quilt to the end. 
 I am soooooo booked up and I have been turning them away because as it is I am going to be cutting it close.  I do this every time that I get stressed and have a ton of quilts.  I worked as hard and as fast as I can and then I just give out.  LOL!  Today I was hand sewing as fast as I could and all the time I was thinking, "I want to crochet something"  LOL!  That's how my mind works.  Part of me wanted to just stop and start crocheting, but I didn't.  I'm sure that once things slow down after the new year I will not be in the mood to crochet.  LOL!  

Just for the record....I keep telling you how covered up that I am...well....  I have 18 more tops to quilt and 3 of them I have to completely piece myself and also 9 memory pillows!  Some of these I have to do binding on and some I don't.  The 3 that I have to make from start to finish are the Cross memory quilts that I have made in the past from shirts. 

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Busy Times...

 Another customer quilt finished!  :)  This was the king size quilt that I had to piece the 10 yards of flannel backing for.  I love the fabrics used in this one. 
 A pic showing the quilting...
 Last night I did get the binding cut and sewn on by machine and today after Church I will jump in and get the hand sewing done so it can be picked up on Monday.  I haven't been having to do many bindings lately. 

 Friday evening when I went to pick Richard up from work, I stopped by Walmart and picked up a new cutting mat.  It was time.  LOL!  Mine had cuts that went all of the way through.  I have 3 quilts that I need to cut out and piece before Christmas so it was time to get a new one.  :)
 Here are a couple of photos that I took Friday evening on my way out of the holler to pick Richard up from work.  It was just starting to get dark so the photos are not that good.  Most of the leaves have fallen so I should have done this a couple of weeks ago. 
 This one is a little blurry...
I worked most of the day yesterday on customer quilt related stuff and I talked Hunter into helping me clean a little when I finished.  :)  That sure helped me a lot.  We got everything on the 1st floor except for the kitchen.  Maybe I will get to that today when I have to take breaks from the hand sewing.  :)  Upstairs...well...the gym is pretty clean, the bathroom is clean, Andrew's room is not too bad but my sewing room is horrid!!!!  I've just been too busy to deal with it and honestly it probably will not get cleaned until after Christmas.  My schedule is just crazy!!!!

I'm thinking that I will TRY to work in Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this year.  I'm not sure how well I can stay up with the steps with all of the customer quilts that I have to work on but I may try...then again...I may not.  LOL!  I really want to but I just don't know if it is feasible.  

Friday, November 3, 2017

Longarm Quilting and Life Updates

 Here are the latest customer quilts and then I will give you a life update.  :)  These first two quilts were pieced by the same lady.  The first one is a t-shirt quilt and she wanted a large stipple of both of them.  I've never had a t-shirt quilt pieced like this one.  No stabilizer instead she cut the t-shirt section out and did a zig-zag stitch to the background square. 
 This is the other quilt of hers.  This one was a bit of a bugger to quilt as it was hand pieced from flannel pajama pants so it was really stretchy. 
 After quilting those, I pieced the flannel backing that I was talking about in my previous post.  It was hard to wrestle with 10 yards of flannel.  I ended up clearing off my dining table and piecing it there so the table could hold the weight of the flannel.  I eventually got it loaded and got the quilting started on it.  See pic below...
 The lady wanted a Fleur De Lis design and I did not have that.  She asked me to order one for her and she would pay for the design.  So here it is...
 Now on to life updates...  so if you remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that the Jeep motor blew up, well...since then Richard had been driving my Envoy to work until we could fix the Jeep.  Yesterday the water pump and some kind of fan thing went out on the Envoy.  :(  Not at all what we need!  :(  Richard had traded some lumber a while back for a full-size Chevy Blazer nothing wrong with it except for the transmission is out.  He planned on eventually rebuilding the transmission and selling it.  With everything else, he hasn't had a chance.  So here we sit with 3 vehicles and NONE of them are running!!!!!  :(  I swear, I can't even make this stuff up!  I don't know if I need to laugh or cry.  LOL!  I do know that the Lord will not put more on you than you can stand but it is very stressful.  So in a few minutes we will be using mom's car.  Here is how that will play out.  She needs to be in town this morning so...  I will get up at my usual 4am, get Richard up first, then Hunter, and then Andrew.  Hunter will head to school and Andrew will head to work but before that, I will be riding to work with Richard in mom's car and then driving it back.  We will leave home around 5:40.  I will come back home which is about 75 miles round trip.  Then pick up mom around 9:30am and head to town, do what we have to do in town and then back home.  I will then try to get some much needed quilting done and then head back to get Richard as he gets off work at 7pm.  That will be another 75 miles round trip.  I will be trying to pick up the part for the Envoy while in town with mom and he will change the part out once he gets home.  He will be up late and will not get in bed when he needs to.  It's just going to be a L-O-N-G day.  Then again...it could always be worse.