Well, Isn't Being Quarantined Fun?

Actually, it's okay. Jim started showing mild symptoms Christmas day and yesterday went into the full blown yucks. He went and got tested this morning. Meanwhile, my mom is about a day and a half ahead of him and went and got tested yesterday. I'm still cruising along.

I started this two days ago.

An activity Wall Hanging for the Grandkids in Lansing

And then I finished it.

Great for homeschoolers like the grandkids will be

Yesterday I loaded and started this.

From my virtual retreat a few months ago

And then I finished it.

Already hung

What to do today?

I want to actually make something and not long arm today. It's hard to long arm with a house full of people. It's pretty distracting and I like to stay focused when on the frame. I'll dig through my bag of tricks and see what I come up with for a project for the next week or so since the Health Department has directed us to stay quarantined until January 10th. 

 

Despite the Quarantine

I'm getting some long arming and sewing tucked in here and there. 

Getting the activity top quilted

I just ran a meander throughout the piece because, frankly, the grandkids aren't going to give one hoot about what I put into the quilting. And it was quick while Jim was talking to the kids after he got home from work.

Today I hope to get this bound and all the activity pieces put into place. In other words, finished. 

Happy Quarantine

The kids are starting to mend after their "thing" came back positive. They'll be here until at least Wednesday and are pretty cool about me working in the studio why they are here. But, I would like to spend some time with them as well since I probably won't get to see them for another six (or more) months. 

I've got to get Nessy done today and then I'm hesitant about putting customer quilts on until we are sure we are "thing" free around here. I'm going to hold off on that until at least next week. Which means, I'm going to try to get some of my quilts on the frame in lieu of.

I drug out another WIP last night when we finally got our bearings to Lansing for our Christmas celebration down there. This is kinda what it looks like.

Activity Quilt for the Grandkids

I don't remember how long ago I started this thing, but it's time for it to become a finished quilt. There are a gazillion pieces to getting it together and it took a little while to find out where I left off and what still needed to be done. I think (I think) I'm at the point of having to quilt the thing before I add all the do-dads onto it and getting to the "active" part of the activity quilt.

I was pretty tired last night from not sleeping the night before at the B house and therefore need to go over this again today to see what exactly I need to do.

Happy Christmas Eve!

And our snow is coming down. Although sporadic and light, but snow nonetheless which is welcome since yesterday was 46 degrees and most of the snow we did have melted. 

I did manage to get in some sewing while the kids were in town with dad. Sugaridoo Row by Row is together and on the "to quilt" pile. I loaded and started Elijah's quilt last night while Lia was wrapping presents. Jim was making Christmas cookies and Caleb was resting on the couch since he wasn't feeling very well.

Elijah's Loch-Nessy

I'll finish Elijah's quilt sometime today (hopefully). We have a gingerbread house to build and decorate and have those Christmas cookies to decorate too. Jim will be making fudge while his Christmas present is being installed, and the kids are still asleep. 

I think we may have to run out quickly to get some meat for sandwiches tomorrow but will otherwise stay hunkered down here since with our snow flurries we have high winds and dangerously cold temps. 

Holiday Homecoming

Two of the kids are back--from Washington state and we're over the moon having them back home. Once we met them in Midland, shopping, and general merriment here at the house ensued. It's been a year since I've seen my big and my little kid and at least, this season, we'll be with two out of the three. The big kid is abstaining this year due to the "thing", which means we don't get to see our big kid and his wife, or our grandkids either. <sigh>.

The last Christmas order is being delivered today.

Getting the pillows quilted and ready for couching

The three custom ordered pillow casings

I had to wait until yesterday to get the pillow forms and neglected to get a pic prior to getting them packed and ready to be delivered.

I've also been whittling away at that darn WIPs pile. These are ready to have their sashing attached to them but don't know how much sewing I'll get in this week, which is okay given the trade-off of spending time with my kiddos. 

Sugaridoo BOM from 2020

Hazel missed the kids too.

"What you two doin'?"

She laid in front of their door this morning waiting for them to get up. The kids, however, are still on Pacific time and haven't yet adjusted back to EST so are still snoozing away.

Busy But Not In The Studio

Jims birthday was yesterday. The only thing that happened in the studio during the day was wrapping presents. The rest of the day was spent preparing a nice meal for Jim, dealing with the Culligan man, and wrapping more presents. 

I was able to do something in the studio in the evening hours; around 6:30. River Rock is what's on the frame for today.

Moms Birthday/Christmas Present

Not my color way, but mom loves these muted batiks and she picked out the kit at The Hen House when we went down together in the fall. This will get an open E2E on it since it's so busy and most all quilting will disappear if I try to do any custom. And she selected a wool batt so I want it to remain pliable during use. 

And hey, this is not a customer quilt. It's actually one of mine. At this rate, I'll get to do one of my own quilts every three months...or four times a year. Whoo Hooo! 

This will be most of today's project since the wrapping is, well, wrapped up, for now anyway. I have to run to the groomer and then to Pieces of Thyme (which will be closing for three weeks after tomorrow) to drop off brochures and Linda's quilt. 

Christmas and Birthdays

I had a customer contact me earlier this morning that she received the Christmas card I sent to her. She also let me know her baby was born on the 9th. Poor thing has to share her birthday with the biggest holiday of the year. As does Jim.

It's usually hard to make the day special and not-Christmas-like when Christmas is becoming so commercialized. But this year is different. This year we are all dealing with the "thing" and very few holiday activities are actually occurring. Maybe with this shoulder shake the masses will wake up and smell the coffee about what Christmas actually means. And birthdays too.

This is what's on the frame this morning. 

Linda's Present top

After quilting most of this last night I worked on more UFO things. 

Orphan block already quilted

A leftover from the Twirly quilt that just had to be made into a pillow top. I don't have enough fluff to make the actual pillow portion inside, but I got it squared and assembled into a pillow cover. 

Next.

Two test sandwiches used when DW was being naughty

These have a relatively nice batting in them and to just throw them away wasn't in the cards. I've square them up and, once again, will make large throw/floor pillows out of them that we can use without worrying about their demise. I've also run out of muslin to make the pillows out of so I'm afraid a trip to JoAnn's is in my future. Groan. 

That about covers the sewing projects sitting immediately on top. Mom's top is next in the pile so once I complete Linda's quilt today I can get moms loaded and worked on before Christmas actually arrives. It was supposed to be her birthday present. Thankfully, she's very understanding. 

Heelllooo Newman

I wanted to say that to Culligan this morning when I called them only substituting Newman's name for Culligan's name. We are [still] having water issues and they need to come out and take a look at the situation. Sulfur, Iron, Calcium all building up on our outlet heads.

Yuck!

Now that this is done, I can move along in my day. Got an early start this morning. Something woke me up...probably the ice freezing on the lake since it makes a small boom with each freeze moment.

Starting to freeze over

Cpt. Morgans quilt is finished! After removing, trimming, and binding her quilt, I was able to move on to UFOs (remember, not starting anything new until these are dealt with). 

Here's one of what was unearthed during Sunday cleaning.

What I started with

It was from a class I took on Craftsy and never really got much further with it. It required a bunch of hand stitching and my interest waned at some point throughout the stitching process. Here's how it was rescued. 

A cool pillow

I'll continue moving along with those UFOs after my day of long arming today. Linda's Presents top is up next, but uncharacteristically did not get loaded last night?! I don't think my heart was in it...or something. 

A Productive Unproductive Weekend

Nothing was long armed this weekend. Zero! I needed to take the weekend off and recharge. Going as much as I have was burning me out and that's the last thing I want on my big machine. I love that machine. But I want to continue to love it.

We received a storm on Friday night/Saturday

But we picked out our tree before the storm hit

When Jim got home Friday afternoon, I immediately turned off the long arm and we beat feet to get our tree before the predicted rain/freezing rain arrived. We decorated on Saturday, I wrapped some gifts, and I worked on the nine-patch blocks. I crocheted Jim's mom some dishcloths and started a scarf.

And hand made gifts are always the best!

Sunday I needed to do some Flimsy downsizing. They used to be on a large "Z" rack hanging in the spare bedroom. This had to be moved every time one of the kids came to stay for even one night because it was a toddler temptation for sure. And it was pretty crowded in the bedroom with it in there. 

All the tops were folded and put into a tote for safe keeping. I organized the WIP's that were sharing the rack with the Flimsy's and will complete those over the holiday season. Nothing new is to be started until I work through all of those (about five of them...or so).  

Given I needed to finish what I've started after my purge session, I diligently worked on the nine-patch top throughout yesterday afternoon/evening. It is ready for the long arm. Didn't grab a pic before I folded it up and put it in the queue. Sorry. I finished the scarf and started another one. 

Today I feel refreshed and ready to fire DW back up and continue on with the king-size quilt for Cpt. Morgan (see Thursday/Friday post).  If I don't get too distracted and keep my head to the grindstone, I should be able to finish it up today. I have four (Bunny and Mary Kay's) quilts being picked up today, and Bunny doesn't usually stay and chat for too awful long so my goal should be attainable. 

Home Appliances

I don't know if you would call the water heater a home appliance, but ours is looking pretty bad. The plumber came out and took a look at it yesterday and decided we should get one pretty darn soon. Like today.

The guys are already here (it's not even 8:30) to work on it. 

Meanwhile, I'm already showered and will be working on this while they are working on that.

Cpt. Morgans flannel king-size quilt

We had some really cool freezing fog yesterday morning. I grabbed a few cool pics before it melted. 

On our Northern Catalpa tree branch

Merry Christmas

There is a front coming through later this afternoon which may hinder our plans on getting the Christmas tree. I know my sinuses are telling me this one may be a doozy. 

Christmas shopping is going to be weird this year. Present wrapping will be a minimal experience and it looks like gift cards will be flooding the family. Caleb and Lia simply because shipping back to Washington state is ridiculous expensive. Andrew and Laura because they're not coming up. 

Time to start working. 

Opportunities

After quilting, trimming, and then binding Jills table topper, I moved along to this next quilt.

Bunny's camp quilt for her grandson

I was finishing this up when Jim came home (who knew it was actually that late already) and after his shower, we took off for Houghton Lake.

A lady there (Deanna) was retiring from her quilt shop (located somewhere along the bay area I think) and had all of her quilt shop quality fabrics for $5 a yard! Merry Christmas Colette!

This is what I brought home.

A Normally $150 kit for $30

And 48 yards of fabric

Some of these will be backs. Some will get added to the stash for "whatever", some of this will be used as backgrounds for some other quilt top I happen across. It's all excellent quality and at prices we haven't seen in years. 

I should have gotten more. I could certainly have gotten more, but the people didn't seem too overly friendly and frankly, I needed to get out of there. They had made something with a Fry Daddy and the smell of the oil and the food is still in my nose. I'm going to wash all these fabrics today to get the smell out of them because I don't want it in my studio. 

The perils of having an overactive olfactory sense I guess. 

Maybe Jim will go back and get some more since he's up in Houghton Lake on occasion?

I'm loading a king top today. Had to wait to get all the wrinkles ironed out on the backing last night and when working with 110" of fabric, it takes some time especially since the backing is flannel, which takes even longer to dry between rolls. And...I needed to piece the batting (my rolls are only 96" wide). 

The Downside

I'm very ready to start my holiday fun. Late next week (we're keeping our fingers crossed with this "thing" looming over our heads) our youngest son and his wife will be back in Michigan. They'll be up here a few days after their impending arrival.

We will be celebrating the holiday at the middle sons house the day after Christmas. Which, isn't that far away. Unfortunately, and because of the "thing" we will not be seeing our eldest. Don't even get me started. 

Except for decorating the house and seeing our lights beautifully lit every night, we haven't shopped, wrapped, prepared, made, or cleaned for the holiday season. Our tree isn't even here yet. 

And this is the downside to having a business where Christmas deadlines are hanging in the wings. I can only focus on so many things at once, and right now, the tops still sitting patiently in-wait are the priority. I think next year I'm going to limit the amount of tops received for the holiday, leave a space or two for those 'last-minute-because-I-can't-plan' tops and then maybe it'll be a little less stressful. And somewhat enjoyable. 

My problem: I can't say no. I like to please and make everybody happy even if it's at my expense. That's who I am and I need to find a way to maybe alter my ways a bit?

So, here is what was done yesterday morning/afternoon.

Mary Kay's second son's quilt

It was pulled off the frame around 3:30-ish. Her daughters top was loaded next,

Mary Kay's daughters quilt

I had no intention on completing this one yesterday except I got a call from Jill who wanted to bring over a few tops to do. One, of course, for a Christmas deadline.

Jill's table topper for gift exchange

I'll work on this most of the morning and then load Carla's top next. 

I think somewhere in my [next] brochure I should add something about artistry and creativity being an unhurried task. I'll have to think about it. I have a while to come up with something because my new brochures are en-route currently.

Jim was perusing his FB Marketplace a few days ago and a lady up in Houghton Lake is depleting her fabric stash. All yardages are $5. We are headed there tonight to do a little "me" shopping. I suppose if the downside to not making cookies is buying fabric, well, I really have nothing to squabble about do I? 

Two of Two

This is the second in the set of two of these, and then this customer brought one more that I'll hopefully load later today. For now, I'll continue on with this one.

Grandpa Tim's memory top by Mary Kay

So many Christmas deadlines!

Here's the house all lit up. Don't remember if I posted this yesterday. This is the lake side.

Jim did a great job of decorating!

All sewn and getting ready to add in

These have been fun to do. It should be a top by weeks end. 

Good Monday Long Arming Morning

Another round of "Have to have this by Christmas" tops this week. Three of them already have quilt plans drawn which makes the process every so better.

One of the blocks I'm quilting today...already preplanned

Yesterday I vowed to not long arm. It was hard, but I did work last Sunday and I feel like I'm okay with the time I have left to finish those Christmas deadlines. 

This is what I did instead...

I finished my knitted scarf

I made another holiday mask using a new pattern

A new bowl to organize my odds and ends near Jay

Made a chalkboard menu for batting prices

And grabbed a pic of the house from the lake side all decorated

I better quit dawdling and plug in that Christmas music to get me started into my week. 

Love em' or Hate em'

My main computer, which is a Mac desktop, is the computer I blog on, work on the web page, purchase items through my suppliers, and do administrative work through. It had a few days where we thought we lost it. 

I can't say enough good things about Mac Apple Care and their team. Within three hours last night we were able to revive the machine and I'm back to working on it now. BUT, this was after two days working on it with the boys and they had covered a lot of what we would have had to do last night through Apple Care, making the time with them less.

While most everything could have been done through my iPad, the extensive music library we have on this machine was in jeopardy. I do have an external back-up, but some of the music library is nearly 200 Christmas songs built over several years that are no longer even available through the usual music channels (Amazon, Pandora, iTunes, etc.). I was a little nervous!

On to actual quilting stuff. Because I was fiddling around with the Mac for two days, it took me that long to quilt Joan's guitar quilt shown previously. And, I had a bevy of customers coming and going to pick up and drop off both. As well as two visits from mom. 

I'm working Joan's second quilt this morning, and would love to show you, but the photos on the mac are still restoring and will have to wait to post them tomorrow.

I have been able to get a little Gravity work done (all while waiting for computer rebuilding steps to happen) and only have two sections to construct before it can start turning into a top. 

Merrily Quilting Along

It's fun to quilt with Christmas music in the background. It's the one month of the year I get to do it and I forgot just how much I truly enjoy it. My iTunes library has 164 carefully curated and selected holiday songs which is enough to entertain me throughout a whole day without hearing a repeat. Or any commercials. 

The "monster" is done. OMG when I pulled it off the frame yesterday afternoon to trim it up, was it ever heavy! The customer has been notified and now I'm moving along. I had another customers' husband drop off a top last night. What a very nice guy. Jim and I chatted with him for over an hour. Lake people, for the most part, are pretty cool people.

On the frame this morning is this top. 

Joan's Musical Quilt

I'm going to try my hand at free motion guitars and musical notes. I practiced last night on the iPad and think I've got it handled. 

After wrangling the monster and getting the top above loaded, I wanted to make a holiday mask. I don't have much holiday print in the stash so settled for these. 

Once those were done I worked on the center bottom section of Gravity. These sections are going together rather well; much to my surprise given it's mostly on bias I'm dealing with. But I'm being careful not to pull or stretch anything since I'm aware of what could happen if I do. 

So...

...day three. I should be able to finish this quilt by the end of today. While I only have one row left to ditch and work the appliqué, I still have five borders to contend with and they don't act like they're going to behave. 

Hazel is finding all of it rather boring. 

This indicates we're going to have to duke it out today

It's a sunny day so at least I'll have a beautiful day to work all day. 

Reason Number 412...

...why measuring your borders is essential. 

Puckers and Tucks WILL occur

Enough on that. 

Let me give a shout out to the Handi Quilter Glide foot, without which, would not be able to ditch some of these seams.

Bulk can't beat me with the Glide foot

Here are all the Gravity blocks cut and ready to be assembled. Oh wait, I did that last night. 

Background blocks ready to go

Tonight, after long arming, I can start to put blocks together to make sections.