The Doug (Dug, Dugg?)

Normal work day yesterday except I knocked off a little early. I took this pic before we left.

A view from our front (back) deck

I wanted to show the Fowler's where the new pontoon was going to 'live' over the summer. Speaking of pontoons, it's now in our yard. Which is why I had to knock off early. Jim wanted to avoid post-work traffic going through Midland with a pontoon boat. 

Home at last

I was pondering all week what to name the pontoon. It's a Bennington. Caleb's FFA advisors last name was Pennington. His first name was Doug. I keep calling the pontoon Doug so I believe that is going to be the name we settle on for the new toy.

Once we got home and settled Doug in the yard (for now) and let the girls out for a bit, I hustled in the studio and was able to get the next set of sashings/borders quilted in and the four blocks above done on the QAL.

Then I started cutting. 

Just a few pieces in the next block

It had been dark for quite some time by the time I left out of the studio. Making up for the couple of hours we were gone maybe?

A very rainy day today (hurray) which makes quilting perfect!

It's Too Early

Even my computer is misbehaving this morning because it's too darn early. 

A fun new border treatment

Following the lines for quilting

I"m having fun playing with the piece I'm working yesterday and today. Diane gives me free rein and so I get to experiment with new motifs. Once work was done I continued with what I started last night. 

I got all the white (background) cut last night topping over 600 pieces. 

Time for some fun. This is the fat quarter bundle going into the next project. The sun last night was shining through (well, trying to shine through my very dirty window) onto the pressing table. At the angle the autumn/spring sun beams fall every wrinkle in the fabric is visible. 

I started using the Acorn on the fabrics to pretreat but found it wasn't doing a whole lot. I mean, it was easing the very light creases, but those deep creases were not coming out. 

Science experiment time (while I had the sun in my favor), I got all my pretreats out to see which one worked the best on fat quarters that have been folded and squished into that cellophane for who knows how long? 

Let me tell ya, this is one of those examples where the most expensive isn't always the best. That $1.49 can of starch outdid the other two by almost double. I know starch gets a bad wrap (attracts bugs, sticky, etc.) but I"m not planning on going on a picnic with the quilt I'm building and quite honestly, after the first wash, the stuff comes out of the quilt so it's not going to be there forever. AND, we don't have bugs in our house since we treat for them every other month. 

I'm kind of disappointed in my findings actually. I was hoping the Best Press would have been the winner since you can get it in so many scents and it's not as gummy on the dispenser as the Acorn. It was the last place winner. Unfortunately. 

Okay, why am I up so early? I have a very busy day. Right now I"m heading to my annual physical. Once home, I'm heading to Au Gres for a fabric sale a fellow guild member is having; $2/yard . We have to get groceries tonight, Jim has food pantry, and we have an appointment in Midland to look at a pontoon at 5:30. I'll get some quilting done in between all of that. I hope. 

Do You Pretreat?

Sue's quilt is quilted on Marty but yet to come off the frame. Once that's done this morning I'll be turning to Bernie and working on this.

Diane's fourth quilt in the project pile for her

Once work was done yesterday the moving/cleaning started. I was able to get the dresser into the studio with all my under-a-yard cuts in it. It's going to hang out with all the customer quilts waiting in queue.

Once I was done with that for the day (more to come in the following week(s)) I was contemplating starting a new project and then after looking through my bucket list stash finally decided on something. Oh the choices! 

The Quilt Room is still going strong, but I like to have more than one project going at a time and I have nothing else in the works at the moment. Not until I can get to a retreat and get the Flower Power and Cowboy Boots on the wall to get them together correctly.

I do not normally pretreat my fabrics. I used to. I used to prewash and starch all the fabrics I used in a quilt. And then I started using precuts and it's pretty hard to prewash jelly roll strips or 5/10" squares. 

I LOVE Acorn!

And when I started using precuts I stopped the whole prewash/pretreat thing altogether. 

I recently watched a YouTube video about why I should at least pretreat fabrics before delving into a project. Well, I'm still not going to pretreat precuts but I will yardage and a FQ bundle. This next project has me using both and so it's getting the royal treatment. 

I hope it makes a difference because I need to piece pretty tight with Granny Squares by Lori Holt; which is the project I'm marathon cutting for.

I know a lot of quilters who have cutting their fabric at the top of the dislike list. It's actually one of my favorite things to do. I may feel differently after cutting over 700 white pieces and nearly 800 colored fabrics but that's what I started doing last night. Cutting for the next project. 

I also need to make a small design thing so I can lay out my blocks before piecing them together. I'll be working on this at retreat(s) because it's more like assembly line sewing and won't have to really think while making the blocks while gabbing with folks. I've learned my lesson about doing an intense project at retreat. Not a good decision. 

Problem Solved

As much as I can't believe I'm saying this but it WAS our bladder tank causing all our water issues. The well guy didn't even head to the well when he arrived but immediately headed to the crawl space to check out the tank. Sure enough, despite what the plumber said, the tank was bad.

So far we have great water pressure, the water smells cleaner (another well guy said it was the bladder tanks that was causing the issue with our smell/salt content), and we are still clearing out all the mud from the days worth of usage without the filter. 

This is what I'm working on right now.

Diana's Dresden

Here is some of the quilting going into Diana's quilt.

The borders to start

Here is what is going into the actual blocks.

Feathers all around

After working well past quitting time I cut out and then pieced the next block in the Quilt Room.

Block #10

I jumped on DW and worked a full row in the Book Nook while I was talking to Andrew on his way home.

I had enough time to cut out for the next block in the Quilt Room before closing up for the night. 

This morning we have to run into town; I'm going to support mom at her art show exhibition and Jim is going to run errands. He'll meet me back at the art show later. I'll work this afternoon after we return and I get back into my comfy clothes. 😀 I remember when I used to like dressing up. It must be my age?

Puppies

My silly pup decided to challenge the temporary fence she had around her yard. It was temporary after all. And she is growing much faster than we anticipated. Needless to say, we spent last night installing a new permanent fence for her yard. And we made it much bigger to accommodate her size.

Since I was basically on total puppy watch yesterday, I didn't get much sewing done.

The previous few days have just been cutting. And more cutting. And then when a blister formed on my thumb from all the work, I did some more cutting just to hit the point home.

Pictures of cut strips of fabrics aren't any fun, therefore I'll not include any. But I'm ready for our retreat in January and have two quilt tops (similar in build as they are a log cabin-type of block), but it's mindless sewing and easier for me to do while visiting with all my friends.

After the cutting commenced, I needed to do something tangible. Something quick and fun. Something with a little whimsy and sense of humor. I haven't been able to get Ben's cow out of my head for about a week, and found the book I based the cow off of (It's titled 'Out of the Box with Easy Blocks' by Mary Lou Weidman and Melanie Bautista McFarland).

I started it yesterday and hope to have a completed top at least by the end of today. More to come...