The Dog Days of Summer

I've noticed our Maple tree starting to change a little in color. Our neighbors tree is doing the same thing. Summer is just starting to wind down; my grand kids start school on Monday. Where, oh where, did the summer go? 

But, I'm happy fall is approaching. It's my favorite season. And with that, I'm starting to work on all the fall quilts in the queue. 

I have three quilts I'm going to be quilting over the next few days. This one on DW will probably be done on Friday. Today I have a luncheon a ways away. The quilt on DW is a large one and will take about five or so hours to stitch out; it's getting an E2E...

Another very large quilt

I'm going to work on the two I've loaded onto Bernie this morning before I have to leave...

The Last Supper

Yep, two at once. They are getting nearly identical quilting in them, but all custom. One is a gift. I had to add to the backing on these since the piece the customer gave me was NOT square and lacked more than an inch on either side as I would have advanced. I wasn't going to fight with this situation so decided to just add to her all black backing.

A good long armer goes out of their way to make sure the quilt is finished correctly and this is just one example of that.

After working on both machines getting them loaded I moved over to the 365 sit-down piece.

Section 16

Section 17

I'm getting better at finding my rhythm with Jay and getting back into the sit-down stuff. 

Labs and Nails

I had to have a fasting/no vitamin lab draw this morning (part of my physical from earlier this week), and from there it was a nail appointment. I'm finally back home. Not expecting anybody today (Joan already dropped off a back while I was gone).

I'll be working on Dianes pink Stack and Wack all day (it's a pretty good size). It's receiving an E2E and I'm going to drive this one. That way I can rest if I want or whatever. 

It took all day to get the rest of her first quilt done yesterday since I had a pop-in customer come and visit for a while. 

After working on The 'tis the Season quilt I moved over to Foster to work on Arcadia Avenue. No more outdoor work for me for a while. The eye is not as swollen as yesterday, but there is new swelling below the eye now; looks like I haven't slept in a week. 

After getting two octagons and a black row done, I moved over to sit-down quilting. Section 15 is done and have now started section 16...

Starting section 16

Nothing major planned for the weekend that I know of. We do have to work a little on the girls' new pen. Well, Jim will dig holes and I'll only go out to help string wire...if we even get that far. I plan on doing mostly Foster work tomorrow and then maybe it's time to start something new. Or, maybe I'll just crank out some of that sit-down work. Happy Friday. 

Good, Rainy Tuesday Morning

We have a rather nice rain shower coming down but is expected to be out of here by late morning. Meanwhile, the annual physical is at 10:00 today so I'll be starting out with that this morning. Bleh.

Here's some of the quilting detail going into the Quilted Witch...

Curly Hair

A spider web

Pumpkin face

I have about a third more to go on this piece and don't know, if with this mornings appointment, I'll get this one finished today. Hopefully.

After working later last night (to make up for this morning) I had to rest my foot and worked on some sit-down quilting. I haven't been taking many pictures of all of that and I'm not really sure why. Here's some of last nights...

Section 14 or 15 (I think)

What's funny about this project is that even though it's quilted to death, once I get all the sections done and together, I'll have to still put it one the long arm to do the borders (because four of the blocks are cornerstones) as well as ditching all the actual quilted blocks. I'm not doing a traditional quilt-as-you-go assembly on these and that's why. 

Making The Most

Out of all the machines I have. Yesterday was another six machine kind of day. 

It started with finishing Ruths quilt on Bernie. I accomplished this right after lunch. DW was up next to work on Pats quilt. Here's some of the quilting going into that...

Each block is different

I have finished row one and will work this most of today. From DW I moved over to Foster to work the next row on Arcadia Avenue. My foot was getting tired so I shut off the big machines and moved over to the little ones.

On Ellie I finished all the little blocks in Charlottes quilt top and they are now ready to be put into their big block format. That would have taken too long so I changed gears and did some sit-down quilting on Jay. Whoops...only two sections to go on block 12 so I finished those out, trimmed the block, and then put blocks 7-12 together. 

Row 2. Blocks 7-12

I have so much fun doing these, but I'm not very good at it. Getting better with all the practice though.

I needed Mike to put these together since it's kind of a quilt-as-you-go situation and there are six layers that need to be joined. He has the best walking foot to aid in assembly.

We heard from the cruising kids yesterday off and on. They have set sail and are headed to Iceland. So excited for them! 

I have one customer coming with a friend later this morning to drop off and that's about it. 

Messed Up

I thought our guild retreat started today. I checked last night just before we headed to bed to make sure (I always do that) and it's a good thing I did. It actually starts tomorrow. Here's what's on DW for the unforeseeable future...

Rita's 365

This is a quilt pattern that came out around 2016 by Kathryn Kerr. It was free but I'm not sure if it still is. There are 365 blocks in this quilt; one for each day of the year. I've made one of these in blues and tans back when the pattern was first released. I need to pull it out of storage to see how I quilted it and do much of the same on this one. Here's a close up shot of some of the tiny 3" blocks...

These were NOT paper pieced either!

I've started ditching this one in, but until retreat is finished, that's about all I'm going to do on it. Bunny's quilt is done and off Bernie and I'm frame ironing Tina's backing to get onto Bernie next. I'll work on that a little bit today but have some admin stuff to do around the studio before I can start long arming. I'm going to take advantage of the day I originally thought I was going to be off by taking care of neglected paperwork things. 

Happy Saturday

Well, in my world every day is a Saturday. Or a Monday, depending on how the day is going. 😀

Sally's quilt was completed and this is what's on the frame this morning... 

Linda's SIL memory quilt-complete with pockets

I may or may not work this today. I'll see where the morning goes. Prior to loading this top I hopped on over the Pieces to get the fabric for my new (365) project. Once Linda's quilt was loaded (work before play), cutting began.

Here's kind of where I'm going with this...

New Project

I was nervous about starting this because I've gotten kind of rusty with my sit-down skills. And, I'm doing these dark colors in white thread! I mean, if I can put it on my long arm, I'm certainly going to, so sit-down skills have waned a bit. This is going to provide me with skill building, new motifs to put into customer quilts (because if I can do it on the sit-down, long arming is a piece of cake), and something other than building yet another quilt top I probably don't need to add to my already huge pile of flimsies. 

I took a deep breath and jumped right in once the first quadrant was pieced, backing was cut, batting was found, and the sandwich was made. Here's the first five blocks...

Just getting started

I'm not going to use JUST Leah Day's book. I have another book that Natalia Bonner published with another set of 365 blocks. The difference is free motion work (Leah) versus ruler work (Natalia).

Natalia's book

If I feel like I don't want to incorporate something from Leah's book, I'll put a motif in from Natalia's book. I've already installed the ruler foot onto my sit-down, so bouncing between the two isn't going to be a problem. I hope. I've never used rulers on the sit-down so this should be fun (or interesting, or absolutely maddening).