Short Week

Another short week in the horizon this week. I'll only be open today through Wednesday. Thursday we leave for reunion. I'd rather be working if I'm being honest. 

The reunion, for most, is a vacation. For Jim and me it's work, work, work. And it's not just the four days we are there. No, it's the three days preceding and the two days after packing and unpacking, cleaning, etc. I could go on all day about this, but this is a quilting blog, not a bitch blog.

Here's the quilting that went into the Lake pillow...

Looks like gentle waters

Once that was quilted, I moved along to another project I started on Saturday; the Helen Godden pattern I downloaded a week or so ago...

Not sure how I'm going to color these yet

This is going to be an alphabet quilt that will be quilted on the sit-down. After tracing all the letters, I now have to color them in. Not sure yet how I'm going to do that; whether it's going to be my luminary paints or with my InkTense blocks. I have plenty of time to think about that though. 

Here's what's on DW today...

Diane's beautiful EPP and hand embroidered top

Diane does such beautiful work. Actually, most of my customers do. I won't be long arming for a bit though because I have two quilts to pull and trim off Bernie and Foster and two backs to get back on them to frame iron. And, we have another thunderstorm going through this morning.  

Another Project (Done)

The Twirly quilt is quilted and bound. 

Ready for a class sample

Once I finished that I started another little project I picked up from Bittersweet last week...

Love it!

This is already on the long arm and I'm hoping to get some quilting done to it today. It's going to be a giant pillow with which I'm going to try my hand at a zippered envelope back. Never attempted one of those before. 

After loading this last night, my gears shifted (again) to this project...

a Helen Godden pattern

This is going to be for sit-down work, but all the letters need to be traced out first on fabric before any stitching can commence.

This morning I was (once again) on the roof. Our Amish guy finally decided to get out of the hay fields and make our metal for the porch...

Getting the metal on top

It started getting hot out there so I'm glad this wasn't a day-long type of project. It looks so much better than the ice melt/tar paper that's been hanging on for a month or better. 

More fun studio work during the warm part of today. Tonight, when the sun settles down a bit in the horizon, it's time to start working on the trailer and getting ready for reunion. I only have tonight, Monday and Tuesday to work out there because we have family coming over Wednesday after work. And we leave Thursday. I just hope the initial inspection proves our mouse eradicator worked and I don't have all of that to deal with. 

Scooting Along

My wall hanging is up and it looks great in the spot I wanted to put it. Here's what's on Foster today...

Twirly Quilt

I had to put off long arming for a bit yesterday. Seems we had a bit of a weather situation...

Forming a possible tornado

We hung out in the neighbors (very) nice basement for a spell waiting for the weather to pass. Ignore the picture of the next insert, but turn up the volume and just listen...

Almost an hour of continuous thunder; that is not wind you hear as you can see not a branch is moving in our white pine. Our 70-year old neighbor said he had never heard or seen anything like this in his lifetime. Jim and I know we haven't either. 

Working on bags this morning and then hopefully hop on the long arm at some point today. 

Day One

This was my intention yesterday playing in the studio...

To go over the electrical panel

And after helping Jim wash the house, and after the neighbors' granddaughters coming over to inquire about their quilts, I chipped away all day on this project and behold! It's on the frame!

Just need to quilt and bind

After completing this top, I bound three other quilts; one for the neighbor granddaughter and two for charity; they are going to Alaska, via Vegas for Sew Yeah Quilting.

We are running to town this morning to get groceries before all the drunks wake up. It was very loud here last night as our new neighbor to the south has decided to join in on the commercial fireworks war we have going on here. 

Lucy DOES NOT like fireworks. Hazel could care less. I want to get the above piece quilted later and maybe get Twirly quilt on the frame too. I have to find a back for that but I'm sure I can come up with something around here. 

Closed Independence Day Weekend

I will be closed after 4:00 today until next Monday. I'll be working in the studio, but on whatever comes my way or what I feel like. I'm calling it a sewing stay-cation 

It's always nuts around the lake on the 4th, but we don't participate in most of it as we have next weekend to deal with which is exciting enough for people our age.

Here's some quilting detail going into Bernadettes quilt...

I love ruler work!

After working for nine hours on this one, my feet were tired and I wanted to do something sit-down, so I put this class sample together...

Showing the many layouts possible

I had a bundle of 16 fat eights which was just enough to make this sample, which will eventually end up as a baby quilt for some cute little girl. 

I'll be finishing Bernadettes quilt today and then who knows what. 

I picked up a table runner at Bittersweet last Saturday that I'm hoping to get done over the weekend to use as a cover up for the electrical panel in the new studio. And, there's plenty of other things to fiddle with out there and am so excited to be able to just enjoy the space instead of the pressure of working since that's basically all I've been doing since moving in six weeks ago. 

Happy 4th of July weekend!

Loaded Up

DW has a quilt waiting to be basted in. Bernie has Bernadettes quilt on it that I'll be working on again today. Possibly tomorrow as well; it's getting a lot of thread and ruler work. Foster has three quilts on it right now; two are quilted and the other may be quilted tonight. 

The one I'm working now

I'll try to get some quilting detail on it. 

Abbey's quilt

Going to Alaska

Up next for possibly tonight

I'll show what's on DW when I get to working on it. No other sewing last night. Had two customers come yesterday. One to pick up and another to not only pick up, but drop off as well. 

The flags are out for our Independence Day celebration. Today is logistically my Thursday as I'll be closed on the 4th and 5th both. I do plan on spending a LOT of quality time in the studio, but not actually "working". 

Re-load

I have two machines that are empty. Well, DW isn't, yet, but he will be here in about 20 minutes. Foster is also empty. Bernie has a back on him but I need to get the batting/top loaded and basted in. Apparently this morning I'm going to be reloading. 

All of yesterday was spent in Saginaw and Midland getting mom a new phone. Hers was DOA and there wasn't a whole lot anybody could do about it. 

Once we were done at Best Buy and Verizon, we headed back here to get all of her apps downloaded, her security parameters set, and to see if we could recover anything. Unfortunately, we could not recover her pics or music. 

After she left, I needed to sew something. It was nearly 6:00 so not much sewing time left. I was able to attach the binding onto Amish with a Twist and to press, cut, and start the next Twirly quilt. This is a sample to take for a class I'm teaching on this technique in August. Here's the first block...

The first block of 16

Sometime today I need to get our flags out in the driveway. I was going to do it first thing this morning, but they become a burden to get around when Jim is pulling the RV out of the barn; which will be in the next day or so. Ahhh...it's reunion time. 😑