First Order of Business

Wow, did I get some things done in the studio yesterday. I think I was making up for the past two unproductive days. 

First: All the pieces for the Granny Squares top are cut, organized, and ready to head to a retreat. Check. 

Next. Finish the Book Nook quilt on DW. Check.

Next. Get binding on said Book Nook quilt and shoot a photo before putting it away. Check.

The pumpkin was still sweating from the cold night we had so was finally able to get it dollied up for the fall season. Check. 

Get new top loaded onto DW for the 9-Patch Quilt-Along with Natalia Bonner. Check.

Decided on a different border treatment than she put in because I know this quilt-along is a bit simpler than the one I'm doing with Sam from Quilting Curve Studio. How about this?

I'm now ready to actually participate in the QAL since I have the borders and sashing started. Yay!

Because I had spent a lot of time on DW yesterday getting things finished and started, I pulled away from him around 7:00 to do some cutting for the next block on the Quilt Room. 

But today I'll not be doing that. In fact, I should be heading to Crosswell for a fantastic fabric sale going on but it's a 2 1/2 hour drive one way and the sale started yesterday. Chances are, everything is picked over and it's too nice to be in the truck all day long (again) today. 

Jim has applesauce he wants to start. There is another sale next weekend in Harrison with even better prices than Crosswell and I'll just attend that on Friday (Saturday, we have family coming up). 

I need to run into town sometime today to find a foam core board for the super-mini design wall I'm going to need for the Granny Square planning. I also need to wash down the trim and ceiling fan in the guest bedroom to prepare it for painting so I'll start there and later we can run in after Jim fends off all the mean bees out right now while he's peeling and coring apples outside. 

An Unexpected Day

Yesterday started out relatively normal. Jim mentioned mom was going to come by and drop off the queen-sized quilts for the bed we are inheriting along with some other odds and ends. 

After lunch. I started in on Dianes quilt and then the neighbor showed up with a visitor and wanted to show said visitor the studio. Not sure why; visitor knows nothing about quilting or sewing. Anyway, we were visiting and then mom showed up.

While the four of us were visiting, the other neighbor showed up in their golf cart and then Jim joined us (he was mowing at the time), and we all chatted for about a half hour. While they were departing there was mention of a campfire later.

Yep, all the people in our driveway were at the campfire as well as three others; Mike, Thom, and Pam. 

Needless to say, the quilting was pretty unproductive. I didn't even get done cutting for the next quilt top before the campfire was lit.

Still more to go

We were home by 9:00 and I felt like I'd spent the day doing manual work. What the heck? I have a lot of around the house stuff to do this morning and then maybe I can get to studio stuff. 

Have you ever read this book?

I have never read or even perused its contents so I'm going to this morning since I've purchased it and will read it to the grandkids next week when they're here. There's another in the series I believe, but I'll see how well this one is written before getting the next one. 

A Few Household Changes

Mom wants to get rid of her bedroom set. Not sure why because it's gorgeous. We are inheriting said bedroom set to include a large dresser, night stand, and a sleigh bed frame and mattress. The situation we have with that is moving the very heavy set. And, I need to rearrange/paint the room.

How is this quilting relate? The other lighter cherry dresser we have in the guest bedroom has all my under a yard fabrics in it. It will need to be moved out to the studio to make room for the other set. Jims 'dresser' (it's very small) will be moved upstairs as will the two mattresses from his downstairs bedroom.

Moms new bed should be here in a few weeks so I have very little time to get all of this done. I think maybe we'll move the fabric dresser tonight?

Anyway, back to the studio stuff. I have this going into Sues quilt on Marty. She wanted very light custom quilting in here so I'm doing a piano key in the border and a continuous curve in every other block in the body. I'm nearly half-way complete. 

Piano key border with cc's in every other block

I cut out and pieced the next block in the Quilt Room. 

Books!

I jumped on DW after I got that finished and am on the last row of Book Nook. Jim is concerned about him moving upstairs in that the girls use that bed to look out the window for incoming visitors. They mash down any dirt they have on their paws and although I have a protective 'cover' on the top of the bed, it's not quite big enough to cover the whole thing.

I guess I need to make another cover and I think Christmas is a good time to do that. We can have all the family long arm something for memories. The current cover is just that. When I first got DW we loaded some fabric onto the machine and let all the grownups play. I'll keep that quilt forever even though it's not finished or correct. But, it's memories. Once we get to this age, that's about all that really matters anymore.

Unexpected Disruption

Our water situation at the house is less than desirable. We have a high salt content in our well (running raw without the softener) and even after running through the softener the salt content is still very high. The only way we get drinking water is through our R/O system and even that is chewing through my granite counter tops. 

Our plumber was out to check the bladder tanks to see if that was the problem. We have two down in the crawl space and after he checked them both, deemed one completely shot. He unhooked it and aired up the second one (it only had 9lbs of pressure). All was good. Until it wasn't.

Jim was in the shower last night and the water pressure was about non-existent after only a few minutes. He called the plumber back and he'll be here this morning after another earlier appointment already scheduled.

Meanwhile, I took a little "shower" in the kitchen sink to wash my hair/face and did a small sponge bath upstairs. I hate not taking a shower in the morning. It wakes me up and I feel all refreshed; ready to go for the day.

I have a lot of visitors coming today. Jim is gone to PT and I'll be dealing with the plumber (when he finally gets here) and I have a customer coming to drop off sometime after 10:00 (???).

I'll be working on getting this piece done throughout the day in between all of that.

A little quilting eye candy

I had to move the bow to the screen door yesterday and so far it's holding. Once I was done working for the day, I cut out for the next Quilt Room block and then moved over to DW to get the second row done in Book Nook.

Then I started piecing the block in the Quilt Room and actually finished it before quitting in the studio. 

Block #9

I better get to it since it's nearly 10:00 now.

Happy Early Morning

This weeks BOW

I needed to color my hair this morning and I was up early anyway. Jim is in the shower and we're running for a few groceries before we start our day. Here's some things going on in the studio though not exactly in order since I batch sent these to the Mac...

Next up on Marty

Background fill on the polar bear

Background fill on the moose

For a customers granddaughter for the holidays

The book top is done!

Once we return I have to install a new router that came Fed Ex yesterday. Our old one is getting weird. I'll also be working the quilt on Marty most of the rest of the day since Rae's quilt on Bernie is done. And if time permits, I'll start on the one on DW. Yes, that's a customer quilt for a granddaughter for Christmas, not mine as DW is intended to be supposedly.  

Last Day of This Retreat

This is my last day of the Quirky Quilters quilt retreat. They go by so fast...

I've been working on a pretty intense project this whole week. Lots of little pieces and parts. Many have stopped by my work station to ask what I was up to (as we do as a group) and they are loving the pattern; not loving the tiny pieces and the vast amount of them...

Three of the 'bundles' for the next pic

I have four more of these to go...

I already know how I'm going to quilt these

And all the big books are done...

A sideways view

I'll be working here in the studio on Bernie on the door hanger and getting Jim started on his fourth Shop Hop top on DW this morning before heading up to retreat. 

Hopefully DW will be better behaved this morning as he was having issues yesterday. We ended up pulling a lot of thread out of yesterday's project and may end up just redoing the whole thing depending on what the customer decides. At any case, it's a no charge job since it's become such a problem.

I did get about half the door hanger done yesterday but forgot to grab some pics of my work so will hope to remember to do that today. 

Spring Flowers

That darn bird is trying to make another nest in the rafters of the studio porch. It truly is spring. 

Here are a few of the flowers around the yard blooming in their glory...

Errands to run this morning: The semi-annual library book sale, Pieces of Thyme, Bittersweet Quilt Shop, and Family Farm and Home. Grilled cheese and soup for lunch since it's not any too warm out today and it's overcast and dreary looking. I'm hoping to hop on one of the long arms later this afternoon. Or, hey, how about some piecing that I haven't done in ohhh, like three weeks. 

Small Project Saturday and Sunday

Saturday morning I made this new banner to hang under our fireplace mantel...

Spring banner

Since Easter was yesterday, the eggs that are up there will come down today and be replaced with these.

Didn't feel very good in the afternoon (not sick, just out of sorts) so took it easy the rest of the day. Yesterday we did administrative junk.

Jim is going to be taking over all the admin stuff for the business. I need to ease him in slowly and since I hadn't done my books at all for '25 I thought this would be a good start. It's actually the hardest of my admin chores and after checking February's input, it looks pretty good.

I demonstrated with January. We have also done a little web tweaking and also, some work order changing since I no longer have Foster and am using Marty instead. Prices also went up a smidge.

I have a crazy busy week this week. Too many May deadlines looming at me and not enough time to work so I'll be putting in lots of hours to try to get my head above water. 

Shift. Change.

I've shifted from the parallelogram top to the Pineapple top using the Creative Grids Pineapple ruler to trim each fabric addition. Here's the first three complete. I'm making a queen-sized quilt so I'll need to make a total of 81 blocks. I'll be at this for a while.

I'm thinking (already) about how I'm going to set these

Before working on these guys, I did a small project to make my long arm notions basket a bit more robust...

It has Bosal Interform and interfacing both

The other cute frog one I made was collapsing under all the stuff and is going to be over between Bernie and Marty (once he arrives) since the Bernina's require less "toys". 

Today's IG Quilt Fest prompt is our favorite quilting book. These two, by far, are my absolute go-to resources when I get stuck working a quilt...

Favorite books!

Not sure where I'm headed today. Probably not very far since I slept in this morning and am already trying to get some house crap done. 

Directions

The pattern: $59.95

The number of pages in said pattern: 207

The directions to do the last set of borders: Half a Page and extremely ambiguous 

I re-read the directions a number of times thinking that certainly 37 more appliqué pieces wouldn't be that big of a deal. What the pattern designer failed to mention is that the border would require these 37 pieces EACH...for a total of another 148 pieces. UGH!

Here are the corner pieces all stitched out...

Block #'s 362-365: Corner Tree(s) and Corner Cottage

Here are the two borders I did manage to get prepped before calling it a night at 9:00...

Two Borders Prepped

Today I have to work on the sit-down quilt for my customer and I'll load another customer quilt onto the frame. Then, on to more border work since these take a LONG time to get together (about two hours each). It'll be fun trying to get the blanket stitching into these since I'll be working with 78" strips (trying to remain optimistic about it). 

So. Much. Better!

The fabrics, as mentioned before, were kept in crates throughout the studio, most of which were living under the long arm, facing east. I have huge windows facing east and we get a lot of sun up here on the hill. My fabrics were going to be ruined in no time had we not moved them.

The new and improved studio!

Notice also, the cutting mat on the right side of the pic which is attached to the pressing table and raised a few inches from what it was before. My last task in this whole process is to get uniform looking storage units to go under the long arm where we took out the crates. That will be a later task.

The quilting books and thread are now on the long arm side

Easily to get to and reference while working on customer quilts, we moved the bookshelf side of the unit to the long arm side. And...it hides my seemingly unorganized tools, although they are organized for me. 

Luann's last quilt was taken off the frame yesterday afternoon and will be delivered tomorrow when we drop off Hazel for Jim's surgery.

Working on getting the house ready for his surgery and having lunch with mom today. I don't think there will be much going on in here for a few days. Tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend downstate and a trip to Grand Rapids for "the day before". Monday is a wash since that's surgery day. 

Slab-Tastic

All the slabs are done for the Scrap Happy top.

The slabs

Once MSQC sends me the background fabric, sewing will commence. Until then...

Adding titles to the spines

Not sure why my photos are being dingus lately, but you get the idea. I'm "borrowing" from my selvedges and adding those as the "book titles" and "authors". It's a long process; once you've found that 'just right' selvedge, it has to be fussy cut and trimmed accordingly.

May Wallhanging

This is the one I severely messed up on but corrected by adding some outline stitching to the whole motif. It still needs to be bound so maybe today?

Good Morning

And who can resist taking pics of this wonderful face/friend? The lighting lately has been great to photograph her so I've managed to grab some great pics. Opportunity!

Today I'll continue on with Valeries quilt since the selvedges are taking longer then originally planned. The Sugaridoo BOM (actually, RxR) came out last night, and we can't forget the May wallhanging that needs binding. Great way to play and enjoy the sunny (yet very cold) day outside.

Late Blogging Today

We attended an art show first thing this morning after having breakfast with mom. Jan Berg had some pretty cool stuff entered this year and it was an honor (as it was other artists including my mom) to see some pretty talented artists displaying their works. For a little community we certainly have some true artists.

You're wondering who Jan Berg is? Check out last years AQS winner in the wall hanging art category. She took first in Paducah. Just sayin'.

We also talked to a member of the guild who published a children's book titled "A Child's Sky" by Carol Fink. She displayed some nice art pieces, but wrote this book to raise money for the continuation of arts in the community. The artwork in the book is done by many of the artists in the guild and I hope she continues to publish more books in the future because this one is a definite must for all parents and grandparents alike to have in their read-to library. Truly!

Long Time Gone has been photographed and is in the pile to have put away. Sadly. It's one of my favorites.

Long Time Gone

We have storms headed our way later tonight but I think my rainbow rail fence black and white checker top is going to be loaded after I get done blogging. It's been hanging on the rail a a few weeks now and needs to be quilted. It doesn't really fit on the rail anyway so that's probably a good thing.