Where Does the Time Go?

Yesterday flew by. I was so darn busy it just seemed to pass like the speed of light. 

Nails, dig out quilt to hang, call Verizon, do normal chores, administrative stuff, hang quilt, quilt, lunch, quilt, dog sitter visit, quilt, customer came to pick up, grocery shopping, and then the clocks say 9:00. WOW!

Here's the quilt I dug out and hung in the new studio. It's my pride and joy as it was on and off again over the course of five years...

Town and Country

If you don't remember this quilt...it has 365 little 4" blocks, all of which are individually appliquéd. It's one of those quilts you could look at for hours and still find stuff.

While shopping, I found a really cute door mat for the new studio...

And everybody is truly welcome here!

I love the buffalo plaid!

I've already been "choring" this morning while, once again, on the phone with Verizon, but I think we got everything all settled with them (one of the kids "left the island"). 

I'm going to finish Rae's quilt today if it kills me; I only have two borders left to do. Jim is out mowing so he'll be busy for at least another hour which means I should be working too. Maybe later today/this weekend, I can play some more on Foster??? 

Getting Worried

My neighbor had has 70th birthday yesterday. Remember when 70 seemed ancient to us as kids? And we're not that much younger than him which makes me wonder about my mind at this conjecture. 

I thought I ordered Red Snappers for Foster a few weeks ago. The company I went through sent an odd email regarding the make and model of my machine and did the head sit on a carriage and was there a bed on the frame. I answered the email and figured it was for statistical purposes.

There's a lot more to this story but what it boiled down to was my ordering a ruler base (which my dealer was getting for me and didn't need to order) instead of those Red Snappers I've been waiting for which I desperately need.

Is my mind starting to wain? Is my age starting to actually show? This is scaring the crap out of me!

Here's what's on DW this morning...

Gwens Sampler

This is getting an E2E (cringe) instead of custom work, but hey, I do what the customer wants.

The poppy bloomed yesterday and here is what I can see out the south window...

Love the salmon color

I'll be finishing Rae's quilt today on Bernie before I attempt Gwens quilt, or maybe while it's stitching out. I have nails first thing and then I'm coming right home after. Happy Friday!

Fast Day

Yesterday was long day (got up early) and yet, it went by extremely fast. I should be finishing up Linda's third quilt today at some point; I'm on the last row!

The youngest son and his wife came up yesterday. Caleb was helping Jim put up strawberry jam, Lia was applying for a job, and I was of course working. 

Caleb brought some of the goodies Foster was missing. The only thing now is those side clamps, but I "borrowed" one from DW and am making do.

That's about all to report. Here's Lucy taking advantage of Lia's presence...

Traitor!

But Lia doesn't really mind and at this point, she was just reading while Caleb was finishing up with berries. 

Thunderstorm Morning

We have a nice late spring/early summer thunderstorm rolling through right now. It doesn't look like it's going to last too long but we needed the rain at any amount.

Yesterday morning was spent on the phone. Literally. ALL MORNING! The only thing I stitched on DW was to baste in the batting to the back to get a plumb line. Yep, that was it. 

I only took one break after lunch and when Jim got home, I had only set in the first two rows. The motif Linda decided on is spectacular, but so (so, so, so) time consuming. Here's what the last of her quilts is getting...

Custom quilting the last one

What takes so long are the channels and the feather spines. Each and every one has to be individually started and stopped.

Gall Sewing called yesterday and said all my goodies were there. Caleb is planning on coming up today to do berries with Jim and he'll bring everything with him. It'll be nice to get a ruler base on Foster. It's even nicer to have children that support what you do!

Sherry's quilt arrived to her place all safe and sound (UPS'd that out on Monday night), and Pat N. called to thank me for the beautiful job I did in her quilt (that was delivered to Terry a few weeks ago). I needed those calls after the mornings phone interludes. 

Looks like the storm is already winding down. Time to get the music on and the thread a runnin'. 

Price Increase

I have to do it. I have to raise my quilting prices a smidge to stop taking a loss. Thread, needles, electricity, oil, and well, wages, have all increased on me, yet I'm hesitant about raising my per-inch price. 

I'll have to post something on my web site I suppose. Ugh.

Anyway...price increases will take affect starting July 1 meaning any top received after July 1 will receive new pricing. I'm only going up a penny and quite honestly, I'm eliminating the thread charge so it's not even going up that much. 

I'm working on frame ironing Linda's third quilt. I had a lot of traffic (phone and in-person) yesterday afternoon so I didn't get done as quickly as would have liked on the second quilt.

I've already posted a pic of what that second quilt is getting, so here's a pic of the view leading up to the new studio now...

Welcome!

The scaffolding is still in place for when the metal is ready to get put on. Which will probably be this weekend. Hopefully.

No customers expected today. I'm still waiting on deliveries from Gall Sewing on my ruler base, welcome kit, and bobbin winder for Foster. 

[Not so] Small Projects

Saturday was spent on the roof. Which was fine in the morning before the sun came out. And then it got hot. Here I am "fixing" the damage we did to the existing house when we tore off the siding to join the two structures...

Trying not to burn my feet

See the grey siding void in that triangle to the left? That needed to be fixed. Which we did. Then we proceeded to get the rest of the roof done (what we could with what supplies we had) over the porch. Still waiting on the metal. 

I did manage to get a little fun time in the studio. Saturday, I started on Foster with the Dream Big panel until Jim needed my help outside. Friday night and Sunday morning I made thread baskets; one for Foster and one for Jay. 

This was supposed to be for Jay

I ended up putting this one between Mike and Ellie because it's bigger than the one that was there. I moved the yellow one over to Jays table.

Fosters thread basket

Since this was his "initial" stitch quilt, I repurposed his sandwich into his own thread basket.

Yeah, that's about all I got done this weekend. Jim planted his garden yesterday and I planted a few perennial plants (Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, and Lemon Grass) into a bowl and put it outside the new studio door hoping to keep mosquitos from coming in. Yeah, right.

I actually had a customer come last night. Yep, Sunday night. She was in the area and wanted to pick up her quilt. We weren't doing anything earth shattering so I said it would be okay. She brought her grandson and he loved the girls. 

Today I have to return and few phone calls before getting onto DW. I'll be working/finishing Linda's second quilt. Don't know if I'll be loading her third because that's one of the phone calls I have to make to clarify motif placement. Don't know if she'll pick up or not. She tried calling yesterday. I'm not sure what about "I'm closed on Sunday" people aren't getting lately? 

As much as my life is about quilting, sometimes it just isn't. <Gasp>. I need the time to just take a break so I don't burn out and resent my passion. I want to continue to love, love, love what I do, ya know? 

Challenges

When I'm given a challenge, I love to use problem solving methods to make the situation right. Yesterday, the borders were the challenge. I starched. I steam pressed, and even that wasn't enough to ease in the large amount of fullness in this border...

This is kind of excessive

I ended up taking a tuck because there was still over an inch remaining after all my other options were exhausted.

Here's what's going into each of the blocks in this piece...

A Sawtooth Star

I realize now why I'm not traditionally an edge-to-edger. Yawn. These motifs take a little under a minute to stitch out. Not enough time to work on Bernie, or do much of anything else. Then the motif has to be tied off, moved, realigned with the next block, bobbin thread pulled up and then stitch again. That's not problem solving nor is it a challenge. 

After working on this piece over six hours yesterday, I moved onto Foster to work the Dream Big Minky piece...

Eight petals completed

This machine has excellent lighting. But when I switch over to it during the evening hours, the window behind it faces west. With the sunlight coming through and the lighting on the machine, I was having a really hard time seeing the petals in here. I dialed the lighting down on the machine and that helped.

After working on that for a bit, I moved to Mike to stitch the first six blocks together in my sit-down 365 project...

That didn't take too long

Once that was finished I rolled it up and put it away until the next six blocks are done. I moved over to Ellie to construct the next set of blocks (33 of them) in the scrappy green clean-out-the-dresser project I'll be chipping away at for a while. I have 80 more blocks to go of the 168 I'm going to need.

Jim was busy cutting trim pieces for the studio and he got the transitional stair piece installed too.

No customers scheduled today. I'm going to make a thread basket for Foster to start and then I'll see if Jim needs my help outside (he's working on the porch).