Real Quick

Jim and I are heading to Frakenmuth today to play tourists. The repayment for all the hard work I did getting Jim back on the road to recovery with the ankle surgery, all the hard work keeping the yard up, planting his garden and tending to that, the doctor visits and the list goes on. 

Both the quilts (zoology and Penny's) are bound and finished. I cleaned up the studio a bit (more beetles to vacuum) and then started in on this...

Hazel in the "ruff"

The backfill has actually begun but instead of doing it on the little domestic machine I have opted to load it onto DW and fill there. 

It's supposed to be a cool to colder day today but sunny and perfect for shopping, touring the city, and having a warm bowl of soup at one of the million restaurants they have in Frakenmuth. 

80 Degrees in Michigan in October?

And because it was 80 degrees yesterday, all the Japanese Lady Beetles were out. This meant stitch a little on DW, vacuum bugs, stitch a little, suck up bugs. UGH!

Today is cooler with rain and so they don't seem as prevalent. I should get more stitching done today. 

Had a customer come and drop off first thing this morning and they were enamored with Hazel. They just left which is why I'm blogging so late.

Here is some detail going into the Zoology top...

N is for Norwall

After working on the long arm well past my usual time (because the morning was spent cleaning the entire house after the kids/grandkids were here the past weekend), I pieced together the vertical sections of the colored pencils heart...

Now to get those vertical rows assembled

I would like this to be a more usable quilt. I'm thinking, after getting it together and bordering the first border, I'll do something else for a second border. Maybe make some letters to go around. The actual name of the quilt is Color Outside the Lines. Maybe putting that around it?

Zoology should be finished today if there are no more interruptions in my day. I'm hoping to get the heart pencils put together and get the first border at least made. 

Empty Long Arm? WHAT???

Until my new bobbin case arrives, DW is looking like this...

Not Cool

He should never (ever) be empty unless he's going in for his annual spa day. The science dork in me decided to research why his bobbin case may have decided to poop out. Here's what I discovered...

Back lash spring issue

Where the arrow is pointing appears to be the problem; a bend in his backlash spring. And the spring isn't sitting flush with the bobbin case itself causing it to give me erratic tension. But this provides me the opportunity to do some much needed cleaning and maintenance I've neglected to deal with. Like centering his foot position...

Realigning needle center

And I've thoroughly cleaned his rails, rail wheels, the bed, and the bobbin area, so when that bobbin case does show up I'm all ready to rock. 

Meanwhile, The Zoology top is finished. 

Zoology top complete

I found this in my stash for backing. I didn't have enough to do the complete back so I paired it with one of the stripes within the top and now it's ready to go onto the frame. Someday. 

Perfect backing for the Zoology top

The next project is one I've been holding on to for a while and am going to hold off sharing what I'm working on until I do some more experimenting with fusible. I've blogged enough for today so we'll just stick with this for now. 

Bobbin Case

I was having a little trouble with the bobbin case on DW yesterday. I was either receiving no tension or complete tension stoppage on my bobbin thread. I fiddled with it for a while and got it a little better, but not stellar. I cleaned it. Readjusted things. Cleaned it again and it seemed worse. 

I powered through the addresses top and completed it's quilting, but I'm not particularly happy with the tension it gave at the end. I thought I had a spare around here and have spent the morning trying to find it with no luck. 

I've fiddled with the case a little more and it's a dead duck. New bobbin case on order and it'll be here in a few days. Meanwhile, no customer quilting until I get that rectified. UGH! It's always something isn't it?

I still have the addresses quilt to bind and the Zoology top to put together so I'll work on that most of today. Here's where I left off with the Zoology blocks last night...

Zoology Blocks

I watched a Handi Quilter video last night about all the feet we have available to us (I have them all but one) and remembered how to better utilize these feet in my quilting. It's always good to get back to basics and I came up with a couching idea for this top above. I'm going to acquire some low volume yarn and couch between each of those blocks in the seam line to give it some texture. Kids love that and I think it will set this top off.

Fall Storms

I remember now why sometimes it takes me a lot longer to quilt a top up during the autumn months. We get a lot of pop up storms with high winds and lightning. This morning it's the lightning. I can't see it but can hear the thunder booming all around me. 

It's moving off to the east and they sound more southerly so I can safely turn on the long arm and get started with my day. For a little while anyway. More storms expected later this afternoon. And, a visit from mom at some point. 

After working on the addresses top (for longer than I usually do), I started pulling fabrics for the Zoology top (with Jims very helpful eye) and started putting the blocks together. Here's where I left off last night...

Zoology in Progress

My goal is to finish the addresses top and get another top loaded before the day ends on the long arm. That's entirely mom visit dependent as well as the storm frequency. 

Late Start

Getting a little bit of a late start this morning, but I'm finally here in the studio.

Didn't work on much yesterday. No long arming anyway. But I did get the fabrics filed from the three previous projects, the studio tidied up and a new project is underway. Here's where I decided to head towards before taking a totally relaxing afternoon and evening on the couch with movies and Hazel snuggles. 

A-B-C Zoology

This isn't my actual top but a Cluck, Cluck, Sews design using this particular panel. I'm going to do about the same thing with my panel which is already cut apart and on the design wall ready to make some block frames. The only difference in this one and mine is I'm running a consistent striped fabric in every other block rather than making them all different. 

I'll be working the addresses quilt on the frame all day and see how far I get on that. My stomach is rolling (big vaccine decision setting it off) and I'm probably going to end up working through lunch since it doesn't seem very interested in any food for a while.