Happy Early Morning

This weeks BOW

I needed to color my hair this morning and I was up early anyway. Jim is in the shower and we're running for a few groceries before we start our day. Here's some things going on in the studio though not exactly in order since I batch sent these to the Mac...

Next up on Marty

Background fill on the polar bear

Background fill on the moose

For a customers granddaughter for the holidays

The book top is done!

Once we return I have to install a new router that came Fed Ex yesterday. Our old one is getting weird. I'll also be working the quilt on Marty most of the rest of the day since Rae's quilt on Bernie is done. And if time permits, I'll start on the one on DW. Yes, that's a customer quilt for a granddaughter for Christmas, not mine as DW is intended to be supposedly.  

Last Day of This Retreat

This is my last day of the Quirky Quilters quilt retreat. They go by so fast...

I've been working on a pretty intense project this whole week. Lots of little pieces and parts. Many have stopped by my work station to ask what I was up to (as we do as a group) and they are loving the pattern; not loving the tiny pieces and the vast amount of them...

Three of the 'bundles' for the next pic

I have four more of these to go...

I already know how I'm going to quilt these

And all the big books are done...

A sideways view

I'll be working here in the studio on Bernie on the door hanger and getting Jim started on his fourth Shop Hop top on DW this morning before heading up to retreat. 

Hopefully DW will be better behaved this morning as he was having issues yesterday. We ended up pulling a lot of thread out of yesterday's project and may end up just redoing the whole thing depending on what the customer decides. At any case, it's a no charge job since it's become such a problem.

I did get about half the door hanger done yesterday but forgot to grab some pics of my work so will hope to remember to do that today. 

Spring Flowers

That darn bird is trying to make another nest in the rafters of the studio porch. It truly is spring. 

Here are a few of the flowers around the yard blooming in their glory...

Errands to run this morning: The semi-annual library book sale, Pieces of Thyme, Bittersweet Quilt Shop, and Family Farm and Home. Grilled cheese and soup for lunch since it's not any too warm out today and it's overcast and dreary looking. I'm hoping to hop on one of the long arms later this afternoon. Or, hey, how about some piecing that I haven't done in ohhh, like three weeks. 

Small Project Saturday and Sunday

Saturday morning I made this new banner to hang under our fireplace mantel...

Spring banner

Since Easter was yesterday, the eggs that are up there will come down today and be replaced with these.

Didn't feel very good in the afternoon (not sick, just out of sorts) so took it easy the rest of the day. Yesterday we did administrative junk.

Jim is going to be taking over all the admin stuff for the business. I need to ease him in slowly and since I hadn't done my books at all for '25 I thought this would be a good start. It's actually the hardest of my admin chores and after checking February's input, it looks pretty good.

I demonstrated with January. We have also done a little web tweaking and also, some work order changing since I no longer have Foster and am using Marty instead. Prices also went up a smidge.

I have a crazy busy week this week. Too many May deadlines looming at me and not enough time to work so I'll be putting in lots of hours to try to get my head above water. 

Shift. Change.

I've shifted from the parallelogram top to the Pineapple top using the Creative Grids Pineapple ruler to trim each fabric addition. Here's the first three complete. I'm making a queen-sized quilt so I'll need to make a total of 81 blocks. I'll be at this for a while.

I'm thinking (already) about how I'm going to set these

Before working on these guys, I did a small project to make my long arm notions basket a bit more robust...

It has Bosal Interform and interfacing both

The other cute frog one I made was collapsing under all the stuff and is going to be over between Bernie and Marty (once he arrives) since the Bernina's require less "toys". 

Today's IG Quilt Fest prompt is our favorite quilting book. These two, by far, are my absolute go-to resources when I get stuck working a quilt...

Favorite books!

Not sure where I'm headed today. Probably not very far since I slept in this morning and am already trying to get some house crap done. 

Directions

The pattern: $59.95

The number of pages in said pattern: 207

The directions to do the last set of borders: Half a Page and extremely ambiguous 

I re-read the directions a number of times thinking that certainly 37 more appliqué pieces wouldn't be that big of a deal. What the pattern designer failed to mention is that the border would require these 37 pieces EACH...for a total of another 148 pieces. UGH!

Here are the corner pieces all stitched out...

Block #'s 362-365: Corner Tree(s) and Corner Cottage

Here are the two borders I did manage to get prepped before calling it a night at 9:00...

Two Borders Prepped

Today I have to work on the sit-down quilt for my customer and I'll load another customer quilt onto the frame. Then, on to more border work since these take a LONG time to get together (about two hours each). It'll be fun trying to get the blanket stitching into these since I'll be working with 78" strips (trying to remain optimistic about it). 

So. Much. Better!

The fabrics, as mentioned before, were kept in crates throughout the studio, most of which were living under the long arm, facing east. I have huge windows facing east and we get a lot of sun up here on the hill. My fabrics were going to be ruined in no time had we not moved them.

The new and improved studio!

Notice also, the cutting mat on the right side of the pic which is attached to the pressing table and raised a few inches from what it was before. My last task in this whole process is to get uniform looking storage units to go under the long arm where we took out the crates. That will be a later task.

The quilting books and thread are now on the long arm side

Easily to get to and reference while working on customer quilts, we moved the bookshelf side of the unit to the long arm side. And...it hides my seemingly unorganized tools, although they are organized for me. 

Luann's last quilt was taken off the frame yesterday afternoon and will be delivered tomorrow when we drop off Hazel for Jim's surgery.

Working on getting the house ready for his surgery and having lunch with mom today. I don't think there will be much going on in here for a few days. Tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend downstate and a trip to Grand Rapids for "the day before". Monday is a wash since that's surgery day. 

Slab-Tastic

All the slabs are done for the Scrap Happy top.

The slabs

Once MSQC sends me the background fabric, sewing will commence. Until then...

Adding titles to the spines

Not sure why my photos are being dingus lately, but you get the idea. I'm "borrowing" from my selvedges and adding those as the "book titles" and "authors". It's a long process; once you've found that 'just right' selvedge, it has to be fussy cut and trimmed accordingly.

May Wallhanging

This is the one I severely messed up on but corrected by adding some outline stitching to the whole motif. It still needs to be bound so maybe today?

Good Morning

And who can resist taking pics of this wonderful face/friend? The lighting lately has been great to photograph her so I've managed to grab some great pics. Opportunity!

Today I'll continue on with Valeries quilt since the selvedges are taking longer then originally planned. The Sugaridoo BOM (actually, RxR) came out last night, and we can't forget the May wallhanging that needs binding. Great way to play and enjoy the sunny (yet very cold) day outside.

Late Blogging Today

We attended an art show first thing this morning after having breakfast with mom. Jan Berg had some pretty cool stuff entered this year and it was an honor (as it was other artists including my mom) to see some pretty talented artists displaying their works. For a little community we certainly have some true artists.

You're wondering who Jan Berg is? Check out last years AQS winner in the wall hanging art category. She took first in Paducah. Just sayin'.

We also talked to a member of the guild who published a children's book titled "A Child's Sky" by Carol Fink. She displayed some nice art pieces, but wrote this book to raise money for the continuation of arts in the community. The artwork in the book is done by many of the artists in the guild and I hope she continues to publish more books in the future because this one is a definite must for all parents and grandparents alike to have in their read-to library. Truly!

Long Time Gone has been photographed and is in the pile to have put away. Sadly. It's one of my favorites.

Long Time Gone

We have storms headed our way later tonight but I think my rainbow rail fence black and white checker top is going to be loaded after I get done blogging. It's been hanging on the rail a a few weeks now and needs to be quilted. It doesn't really fit on the rail anyway so that's probably a good thing.