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. 

Oh, The Miles

Jim and I spent the whole day on the road yesterday! First my physical. Why are doctors so damn animate about the colonoscopy? UGH! From the doctor we headed to AuGres and I purchased all this fabric for $65. Jackpot!

From there Jim had to do some food pantry stuff while I let the dogs out and played with them a bit as we were then headed to Owosso to look at a pontoon there. Jim was leary about the boat and the lady selling it was very elusive with any information Jim asked of her.

From there we had a 5:30 appointment in Midland to look at another pontoon.

Here's our newest addition to the lake house. We gave them a deposit and mom is gifting the rest for our past two anniversary and birthday gifts. 

We did not get home from Midland (because groceries were done after the pontoon purchase) until 8:30 last night. Needless to say, there was zero quilting work done in the studio so we'll try again today. 

Mom is here right now dropping off quilts and sheets for the bedroom set we are inheriting from her next month. Once she leaves, I'll start back in on Diane's quilt on Bernie. 

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. 

Did You Know...

...that fabric manufacturers offer free patterns on their web sites? We had a fabric rep demonstration on Sunday morning at retreat showing lines of fabric available from Free Spirit, Blank, Studio e, and other textile producers. It was a delightful presentation. Each of her 'cards' with fabric samples were passed around and on some of those cards were a few free pattern samples. 

I snagged a pic of one of the patterns I liked...

Here's the problem with the situation. IF your local quilt shop orders from that manufacturer it's a crap shoot whether the owner of said quilt shop orders the exact fabric you like. At that point it turns into a search and seek mission from other quilt shops around the country.

I would definitely make the quilt shown above as I tend more towards colorful and whimsical quilts. But, I know for a fact Susan at Pieces does not order these fabrics from Studio e because the fabric rep has tried (and tried again) to get in to see Susan to start supplying her shop. 

This morning I'll be working on Floral Felicity on Marty until customers show up. They'll be here some time around 12:30 and then after she picks up and drops off her quilts/quilt tops, we are going to lunch as a group since this particular customer has moved away and only gets up here twice or so a year. 

After I worked on Marty last night (all while talking to Ben on the phone), I headed outside to do some spring clean up; the north flower bed was looking pretty gnarly. And, Jim and I had to unload the boards/posts for the stairs going down to the water that'll hopefully get started later this week. I'm sore!

Uno Mas (One More)

One more day on Sharon's quilt. Only the last border but it's a lot of starts/stops since I decided to be a bonehead and not connect the circles between each of the piano key border sections. 

I noticed this when I took the last roll...

Some discoloration

I'm not sure if this is bleed from another fabric or a stain from the fabric purchased. At any case, I've noted it on the work order and will show her this pic.

Nothing else was worked on yesterday; this was worked on until nearly 7:00 because I had a customer come by and was here chatting for about two hours. The longer customers and I chat, the longer I have to work at night. Which is fine. With the time change, it doesn't even seem like I'm working late. 

Sunny today and warmer temps mocking a spring-like day. But I heard a Killdeer last night so maybe we'll be in for an early one this year?

A Gift

I love to get surprise gifts. Maybe I'm selfish but getting something unexpected is always fun to me. Linda brought these with her yesterday when she dropped off her next top for me to quilt...

All Tula Pink fabrics

I was so appreciative of her, the top she dropped off is going to be pro-bono because there are some cuts in there exceeding a yard. 

Before and after my lunch with Linda I worked on Ginny's top and here's where I am starting today...

Day 1 of ???

There are over 16 threads in here meaning a lot of thread changes. And then you miss a spot you already loaded that thread for (three thread changes ago) and have to reload that thread. UGH!

After working on DW to almost dark, I switched to prepping for an art class I'm teaching in May. I've got all the girls marked out and I'll hopefully be starting to stitch out my marks tonight or tomorrow...

The lady with the pearl earring

There are four of these that need to be made in various stages of completion for demonstration purposes. Only three of the four are going to be time consuming since the first one is just a demonstration of the overlay in front of her. 

I'm debating on whether or not to just do these on the long arm or the sit-down machine. I can think about that today while I'm working I suppose. 

Traveling Sunday

I don't have much in the way of quilting to share today. We were on the road all day and if not traveling, visiting with the kids and grandkids. 

We had some items to exchange with everybody. Ben received his birthday gifts. Caleb received his diploma (which got lost getting here). All the kids received a nice meal at Pizza House for their birthday meals (all inclusive). Jim received canning jars and I received my gifts from the kids' cruise. They picked up some fabrics and a small skein of wool yarn and wow are these fabrics lovely... 

Love to get fabrics from abroad

So, with the wool yarn, I decided to try to knit. Again. Once again, epic fail. I love to crochet, but I get lost in the turns and don't have the ability to keep my rows consistent. Now I haven't a clue what I'm going to do with said yarn. 

I'll be finishing the UofM quilt on DW. I'll move over to Kathys barn quilt on Bernie while DW is frame ironing the backing to the next emergent quilt. I have a  busy couple of weeks coming up! 

Moms and Dads

Jim's mom, and my dad, aren't doing well. My grandma (who heard it from her mother) used to say, "Getting old isn't for sissy's!" A fractured text/phone conversation with my dad first thing this morning proves as much.  

I'm just thankful I can do what I love to do in the years I can still do it. I know someday this will all come to an end so I savor and enjoy each and every minute I get to make quilt tops actual quilts for clients. 

This is shown in what I put into them. Like the one below...

Ila's quilting detail

This is NOT computerized, but done on an imaginary grid using rulers. I'll continue on with this today and work more on cutting pieces out for the pineapple blocks. I made a dent in that endeavor last night but still have a long way to go. 

I also need to start looking for fabric for the snowflake top Linda McGibbon designed. It may be tough because she said this was a design from last year and trying to find the same fabrics could be tricky. Challenge accepted!

Screaming Wind

We have wind gusts today predicted to be up to 60 mph. That means not a lot of long arming until it settles down. The machine doesn't do well in power outages and I'm not willing to risk it for a few hours' worth of work. 

But we were expecting this so I worked late last night to make up for it. Here's what's on the frame today...

Monica's second top

I'm seeing a lot of hand embroidery and flannels coming through lately. Is this a new trend I'm unaware of?

Went over the Pieces yesterday and picked up the black fabric I was in need of as well as some other odds and ends. It's always good to visit with the girls.

I'm going to cut retreat fabric/kits and maybe throw some YouTube videos I'm behind on. Jim is working  but I'm not sure for how long and mentioned he wanted to be home in time for the basketball game at 2:00. I'll long arm (if the wind has quieted) during the game, otherwise, I'll just keep cutting, just keep cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting. 

Sew by Row by Lori Holt

This project book was in the bin...

Sew by Row by Lori Holt

I've done a few of Lori's quilts already. She has excellent instructions, options, and pictures/diagrams to assist even the most novice of sewers. While DW was stitching out Jodi's top yesterday, I started pulling fabrics.

Here's the pull

I started cutting fabrics for the first row first (scissors) and then decided, since there are so many fabrics, and rifling through them with each row would cause some mix up issues, I would precut everything. Since precutting the fabric for The Blue Plate Special (burger) top worked out well I started right in cutting. I worked until almost 11:00 last night (started around 3:00) and still have five or six fabrics to cut yet today.

But then piecing can commence tonight. 

I made a mistake yesterday saying Jodi's quilt was the one I finished; it was actually Deb K.'s quilt. Jodi's was the one loaded yesterday morning...

What's on the frame today

It's still on the frame since I can only stand DW screaming at me for so long. It'll be finished today though once I get all my Sew by Row bags off of DW (he's helping to sort). 

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. 

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).