Listen to Your Body

Apparently the rest on Tuesday was badly needed. I was nearly back to my normal self yesterday and completed two quilts.

The giant Dresden for Mickey.

This turned out beautifully

And the Lil Buck-a-roos was bound and completed.

Yee-Haw

I would like to long arm today, but the wind is just howling. Compromising DW's electrical system on account of power rolls is a decision I'll need to make. I'm going to get the new batting roll I received prior to our leaving put on the batting bar, and load another customer quilt. After lunch, I'll see what that winds are doing, but I'm not very hopeful.

Katie said I need to find some fabric to play with in here, and the Happy Camper blocks are STILL sitting on my design wall waiting for mom to come over to finish helping me design the thing. Maybe I'll try to tackle that myself, or, my Jacqueline DeJong blocks could be drug back out and worked on. Gotta see where my head leads me I guess.

Ever Have One of Those Days?

I'm thinking all the adrenaline from the weekend and then working the day after for seven hours, really zapped me yesterday. I did manage to get my Sugaridoo row done in the morning.

Sugaridoo Month #4; Row #9

And then, lunch. It was downhill from there. No energy. Content to just stay still and watch some bad TV. Content to snuggle with Hazel for the afternoon. I. Did. Nothing. Else.

Zero.

Zip.

Which is very uncharacteristic for me. I'm usually pretty high energy. But today seems a little better. I'm still a little fuzzy in the head despite not being sick or anything. And my energy level seems a little lower than normal. Maybe once I crank up DW things will change.

Speaking of which, and since I haven't in almost a week, that's mostly what I'll be doing today. Long arming. 

I remember when I used to do simple motifs to get warmed up and then delve into other more difficult motifs, such as feathers. Now, feathers are my warm up motif (I'm pretty comfortable with them) to get more in shape for the nearly perfect circles I'm free handing in the current top on the frame. You know, the giant Dresden I'm doing for Mickey. It's about half way there and hopefully today we can wrap things up on it. 

Back from the Weekend

If you're any type of country western fan, and you've never experienced a Garth Brooks concert, you should probably put it on your bucket list. I'm glad we did!

Thank you to my youngest son and daughter-in-law for giving us this truly amazing and wonderful gift for Christmas!

When you have 70,000 people singing together to songs like Friends in Low Places, or The Dance, or even Piano Man (originally by Billy Joel) during the encore, it's a feeling like no other. Simply, no words describe what goes through you during an experience like that. Let's just say, you had to be there.

As people were coming into the stadium two hours prior to the show

That's a lot of people

I didn't actually get any still pics of Garth himself on stage. I have a few movies with him and the crowd singing along. But even those can not explain the power of his music on so many.

And...now life returns back to normal. Work tomorrow for seven hours and then back into the studio the remainder of the week. It's sad the weekend has to end already but it'll be good to get back onto the machines to make my own art and "music" of sorts; all while listening to music from Garth and many others in my repertoire.

Dresden Beauty

I love the Dresden pattern. I love making them. I love quilting them. They're just so versatile. This is the latest on the long arm. 10 hours in and have just reached the half-way point. It's a big one for sure but I'm having so much fun quilting it for the lovely customer who brought it to me. 

Mickey's Dresdens

Meeting mom for an early lunch, then work, then home to pack for the concert this weekend. No quilting or long arming for a few days. Sad face. But Garth should be fun and maybe the break is needed since we've been going 100 miles an hour the past few weeks. You know, refresh and revive. 

Birds in the Air

I talked about friendship yesterday. The PQ challenge this week is based on the block Birds in the Air. I don't have much time this week to work on anything extremely difficult since I have work for three days and long arm the huge Dresden for my new customer.

And...we are leaving Friday morning for Detroit to attend the Garth Brooks concert on Saturday. We won't be returning home until Sunday afternoon.

I found this friendship flannel fabric in my stash and I need a new pillow to use when reading at night for our bed.

I put a wool batt in the first layer to give the pillow breathability. Hot flashes and all.

Doing some straight line quilting

This would have went much quicker on the long arm, but it's occupied.

Here's the finished pillow casing. I'm washing my old pillow to use the stuffing inside and once that gets done, I'll debone it and reuse what I can.

Birds in the Air Pillow

I feel like each of the PQ challenges come out on the cusp of a week where I'm so busy with outside obligations. Darn it all. I'd like to really dig in and do something more creative but at least I'm doing something, right?

Friendship

I am very fortunate to have about four or five close friends; those people you can tell just about anything to.

And I am blessed to have many other friends whom I can share quilting pitfalls and accomplishments with. Sarah McNary is one of the new AIQ friends. You can see her on the latest HQ live talking/teaching/inspiring about color theory. Which, until this week, was a yawner subject to me.

Sarah talked about the color wheel (don't yawn until you watch her video...seriously). She made one and although didn't out-and-out challenge us to make one, there was a challenge where I was concerned. Here's mine in the works yesterday.

A very fun, but very challenging project

This was probably one of the hardest things I've had to do in a while. I could go on for hours about what it took just to prep the underlayment.

Here's another project I've always wanted to tackle in my quilting world.

Double Wedding Ring Wall Hanging 

This was a class on Craftsy/Bluprint by Jackie Kunkle. I wanted to see if this was a direction I would head in with Lia and Caleb's wedding quilt. It. Is. Not. It took three days over the weekend to get a 30" wall hanging pieced and while it's beautiful, I'm just not going there for their quilt. Next option.

Work yesterday, work today and then tomorrow I hope to get some long arming started on the new Dresden a customer brought over last Wednesday.

Happy Valentines Day

A day for love. A day to tell those special someones how much you think of them. A day to do and be wherever it is you love to do or be.

I'm fortunate to be living the dream every day. And today will be spent in the studio overlooking our frozen lake, with the fresh snow on the ground and viewing the beauty surrounding three walls through the windows.

Here's one of the projects on todays list.

This is done so beautifully

This is the appliqué piece I mentioned yesterday. I only have the red feathers yet to do, but all those starts and stops.

I have to get the binding on the Little Buckaroo quilt and maybe the thread will be here for the giant top shown in yesterdays post.

I have the correct color of thread for the bobbin. But it's an Omni thread. Omni (by Superior Threads) is a 40 weight thread and I would be winding bobbins every 20 minutes. Who wants to do that?

The thread I did order is a 60 weight Glide thread (through Kingsmen Supply) and should be here later today. But in the meantime, I've got plenty to do until it arrives.

Kaffe Beauty

This was dropped off yesterday for me to quilt. It's gorgeous! Done with scraps and Kaffe Fassett fabric the quilt measures 99 x 117 1/2". Needless to say, it won't be done in a day. But today isn't the day I'll be working it. Work beckons, and the roads are crap, so I have to leave particularly early.

Mickey's Dresden Top

The customer above also left me a medium size appliqué piece to work for her under the DSM. I love doing appliqué and once it's finished I'll snap a pic and show you her wonderful work. She didn't feel comfortable doing the blanket/free motion stitching and I can respect her to identify when she's not quite up to doing it.

Commissions

I've often been asked about doing commissions for people, but when the price is worked up, they generally back out. Why do people think making a king-size quilt should be around $250? The supplies alone would run considerably more than $250. If your budget doesn't allow for a hand made heirloom quilt, go to the big box stores and purchase a piece made in China that 1,000,000 other people have access to and pay the $129 you were expecting.

But some folks appreciate the art and handwork that goes into a one of a kind piece and are willing to consider quilts as art. Because they are. I put just as much time into a quilt as my "real" artist mom does when doing one of her paintings. In fact, probably more time actually. 

This is a testament to some people believing. While I was unable to grab a full pic of this before delivering it yesterday, here is a snippet of what was created for an art lover.

Flying Cardinals from the Call of the Wild line

Today I have visitors coming; a new quilt client and I think mom is supposed to come over. She wasn't feeling well on Sunday and I'm not sure if she is still experiencing lingering effects of her yucks. 

I loaded the Little Buckaroos onto the frame yesterday before going to work and did some edge-to-edge quilting on it before leaving. I'm hoping to get it bound before the day ends. 

Quilt Batting

I've ranted about this subject in the past. A new customer brought me a batting to use in the latest quilt to come off the long arm. While loading and quilting her quilt, I found several of these throughout the batt piece.

I don't think these are supposed to be in here.

These, sometimes large pieces of what felt like glue and cotton mixed together, caused a few skipped stitches when working the customers quilt.

Do you want skipped stitches in your quilt? I know I don't and DW used to have an issue with all of that in the past. I'm hoping these didn't mess up his timing.

People. Use good batt. The cost between a discounted batt and a good batt might be $10. Seriously. And that's just your cost. What about what it would cost me to get my machine retimed?

Oh, which batt was this that all the ruckus is causing?

Hearts a Flutter

The PQ Challenge beginning last Sunday was something with hearts. Since making quilts is my passion (as is cake) I decided to show my love like this:

My Heart belong to a Machine

This was free motion quilted on my domestic sewing machine, not the long arm. I love to do sit down quilting. But only on these small pieces. And had DW not been otherwise occupied, I would have did it on him; but he had the Fair top on him at the time.

Working on the king-size giant top today for Carol P. Here is some of what's going in her very large border.

14" Trees

I'll be working on this most of today.

Yesterday, before heading off to work, I completed a top for a coworker who commissioned me to make a quilt for her. So, step one of four is now complete. You don't know the steps?
1. Make top
2. Quilt top
3. Trim and Square quilt
4. Bind quilt

Do you notice I refer to both "tops" and "quilts"? It's not a quilt until all three layers are together. Otherwise, in my little world, it's only a top until the quilting is accomplished.

Call of the Wild Cardinals

And, yes, those are my three (well, you can only see 2 1/2 of them) boys. They were hanging out at a Michigan State University football game a few years ago. Wait, I think that was actually five years ago. Maybe even longer now that I think about it. WOW!

The Fairest of Them All Complete!

And 34 thread colors, hundreds of thread changes, and a section noticed uncompleted until after unloading, its finally a quilt.

The threads put into the quilt...minus two that were already exhausted

The Fairest of Them All

This quilt is going to travel to multiple fairs this year (hopefully). I'm not entering it to win anything really. I just want people to enjoy the whimsy and absolute cuteness going on here. I think the kids will get a kick out of it as will fellow quilters.

Off to work today.

Wedding Stuff, Small Projects, and More

The taxes are done. Jim did them on Saturday while I was chipping away at The Fairest top on DW. It's coming out pretty cute. Hopefully today I'll be able to finish it and show it out here.

After long arming most of Saturday morning and afternoon, I decided I needed a change. This has been in my Pinterest file for a while and decided to free-piece to make this little project. Still needs binding, but what fun.

Caught in the Rain

Sunday started out on DW and then mom came over to work on booking flights for a few trips she's taking this year. Jim is great at finding flights and working into her requests. After lunch, Caleb and Lia called and the three of us found a nice Save the Date announcement the kids liked. Moving on.

When mom left, I was not in a long arming zen place and, while Jim made cookies and blueberry cobbler, I decided to make this for the next PQ challenge. This weeks prompt was Hearts a Flutter...or something like that.

PQ Challenge Week #3

I have a new customer coming over later this morning to discuss her king-sized top. I'll get working on DW so I can clear the frame and prepare for her quilt should she decide to have me work this one for her. And...work may call me in to unload truck but my phone may be "disabled" for a while this afternoon. Wink, wink.

The Weekend Off

No work at the store today. Enough of that occurred this week so today I get a free day in the studio.

I have managed to slip in some long arming on The Fairest of Them All. Here's a sneak peek of the beginning.

Upper, right hand corner of the top

After having spent those four days in Utah last year, we learned ANY thread can be put through your machine. Adjustments to top and bobbin tension are necessary, but they had us go through an exercise to get over the phobia of messing with said tension and to overcome the fear of using weird threads.

The thread pictured above is a very delicate glittery thread and as you can see, DW put it down beautifully.

I'm about half way through the quilting on the piece and the last thread count going into the piece is 32. Lots of starts and stops; lots of thread changes. But it's turning out cute and while Jim is working on the taxes today, I'll continue on with this.