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. 

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.

Class, Quilt Show, and Moving

Class was very fun and I have all the pieces cut out for the quilted jacket. Talk about an emotional thing to do; cut up a completely finished quilt... 

A repurpose exercise

The coat in chunks

So, after we were finished with our class (around 2:00) I wandered over to the Midland Quilters Guild show at the Midland Center for the Arts. What a beautiful venue and what a great show! Several quilts I've worked on for customers were displayed and it was nice to see them in their full glory instead of laterally on the frame. 

I purchased a quilt kit from a quilt shop in Chesaning related to our lake and talked to a LOT of people during both the class and the quilt show. I have one business card left and I had zero intention of doing that. 

After getting home around 4:00-ish I inhaled some lunch and then Jim was able to show me what he did while I was gone. 

Getting ready for Marty on the east wall

DW is now facing the garage

The room looks kind of empty on the east side but only until Thursday morning. Haircuts this morning first thing and then I think I may piece a little before lunch. 

Now We're Moving

No, we're not moving away. But the studio is getting a shift in long arm placement. Quickly before I head off to my class...

Stripping DW down

Disassembling Foster

Jim has to run to get the moving dollies from our neighbor and I'm going to class. DW should be moved by the time I get home since he's going to where Foster was.

Marty will be going where DW is currently at since he'll be my new primary machine with Bernie. DW will be strictly used for my stuff and ONLY digital edge to edge for customers. 

Learning New Routes

I'm a creature of habit. I think most of us are. I eat nearly the same thing for breakfast everyday. The same thing for lunch. I get up at about the same time (barring Crows, dogs, or Bluejays interrupting my slumber), I take breaks at relatively same times. I know where everything is (usually) because I take care of things as soon as I'm finished with them. 

Except things aren't where they were before. And I have to learn the route around the studio to get the marking utensil, to roll the quilt forward, to change out threads, to grab a pencil to make a note. Yep, I'll just get used to it and then the new long arm will arrive and I'll have to do that all over again.

But DW seems to like his new position out there. We have him all leveled so he doesn't pull or push at me while I'm working so here's what's on the frame today...

Small but mighty

When we planned this top together, we put in a lot of changes in direction of detail so I'm definitely not going to get bored working this one. I have to teach myself how to quilt a cowboy hat, a horseshoe, and a pair of boots. And then do all my regular work in there. 

Hopefully we won't be bothered with more thunderstorms tonight as we have the past four or so evenings. Long arms and thunderstorms just don't mix. 

[Not] Working in the Studio

I did zero sewing. Zero long arming. Zero hand stitching yesterday. But we were in the studio working for over five hours. 

Our original plan of receiving the new addition to the mix wasn't working out on paper. Nor were any of the other options we played with using graph paper and "mock" pieces of furniture to scale. The room is only so big and we discovered something had to give. Bye bye sewing table. 

That opens things on the south end

The new long arm wasn't going to fit in that space we just opened up. It's too long (despite getting a slightly shorter table.) over reaching into the door where the girls go out. DW and the pressing/planning table had to be moved down a few feet.

Opening up the north end for Bernie

Hopefully this will give us enough room. Now that I don't have two sewing machines set up any longer, I'm going to have to do more on the long arm.

Here's what's on the frame this morning...

This could have been done on the sit-down

I'll get this done this morning and then load the next customer quilt. I did work all day Saturday, so I'm a little ahead of myself, but we have Labor Day weekend starting Thursday night and a whole lot of neighbors who are going to be up to distract me, to include a brand new baby. I love babies!

Unproductive Two Days

Monday was moving day. My brother wanted a pic of the kids in their new apartment. I sent him this to be a little bit of a smart aleck...

They've made it back home.

We spent all of Monday in East Lansing and Lansing visiting with the B's, unloading and unpacking the C's, and we never got back home until around 9:30. We were exhausted!

Yet, we had to unload the truck (there wasn't much), reload the truck with stuff for my trip to Pinconning for yesterdays Quilts for Kids show. I was vendor-ing and what I thought was going to be a pretty sedate day turned out to be go, go, go nearly all day long. 

And I thought I was tired after Mondays activities? Ha! I was a walking zombie when I went to bed last night. I got back home around 7:00, had to unload the truck despite my knee being swollen, my back screaming from standing on uneven ground all day, and my head screaming from not enough water and being "live" with customers educating, explaining, answering questions, and promoting my abilities. 

Needless to say, I slept in a little bit this morning only to be awaken by the thunderstorms rolling through. It was a sound sleep though. The quilts were hardly moved when I made my bed this morning. 

Orkin is here this morning to spray us and the neighbors so I have to deal with that before getting on the frame. And here Chris' quilt sits yet another day unfinished.