On a Whim

The morning started out with the Temperature blocks and then I had to make a prototype of a notebook cover to see if I liked the pattern I've selected for that. 

This is the before

Here is the after. 

I messed up the measurement (which is why I always do trial run) wrapped cover. There shouldn't be any of the blue polka dot fabric peeking out of the right side. 

I made a fabric bow last year around the holidays and wanted to make a few larger ones for the door to the studio. There are plenty of free videos on how to make one of these. Kind of. They give you the general instructions, but aren't specific about cuts/amount of squares, etc. 

I purchased a pattern from a maker on Etsy (must support small businesses) for the full pattern since I plan on making many of these.

Here's where I left off late last night.

It looks like I'm making a camouflage bow doesn't it? It's all the left over Sparty fabric I have in my stash along with a few other fabrics that worked well here. Before the picnic I want to get started sewing these all together. 

From the picnic we have to head to Lansing for Bens birthday. Don't know what time we'll get home so this morning may be my only sewing window. 

A Perfect Sunggle Sunday

A nice rain outside, thunder in the distance, overcast and gloomy. Yep. A perfect day to knit and snuggle with the dogs on the couch all day while watching sappy rom-com movies. 

Jim and I did some purchase damage at Bittersweet yesterday. I LOVE that quilt shop. Quality fabrics for sure and the staff are always so nice. Here's the haul.

Backing fabrics and other stuff

The MSU minky panel Jim brought home a few months ago-we needed a back for it. The inspirational teen girl panel I brought home last fall needed a back too. Then I found the book on the right to go with the pre-printed fusible above it and hey, I just got six new quilt ideas to make and holy cow, we just had a lightning strike a few hundred feet north of us. Big boom of thunder too. Shook the house. I won't be long arming today. 

After taking care of our purchases and making/eating lunch I wandered into the studio for the afternoon/evening. 

All the Flower Power blocks are blanket stitched and I'll be taking them to retreat in a few weeks to put together. 

Ready to be assembled

Once those were done I had to get the rest of the next block together in the Quilt Room. 

The next 'chunk' in the Quilt Room

These almost look like they're real. Once the block was finished, I had to get caught up on the Temperature blocks. I was nine days in arrears. Hopefully I can stay on task from here on in since we have nothing really scheduled for the remaining weeks of the year. 

I did not have time to long arm since I had all this other stuff I wanted to get done. Sad Face!

Forgot to Mention

One of the other items I hauled home was a new 24" x 36" cutting mat. Isn't it funny that after about five years, despite my changing blades often and cleaning the mat periodically, I have to replace them?

Here's some more quilting detail on Sandy's quilt...

I worked later last night trying to make up for some lost time with the Germany visitors and the AQS show. I'll do the same on Monday as we are not going to be here Tuesday or Wednesday. More on that later. 

Once I was done on Marty for the day I started in on a Flower Power block and my phone indicated a customer/friend calling (she calls after hours so not to disrupt my quilting zen). How come I get more done when I'm on the phone? Before I knew it, my Flower Power block was done and I was moving to something else.

I glanced under DW and saw my Temperature quilt and realized I hadn't worked that in two weeks. That was interesting trying to get the readings. NOAA has changed its website and it would only bring up snowfall amounts for Gladwin. I don't think we had any snowfall in the past two weeks.

I had to source elsewhere. Aaaannnddd...it's growing!

The backside

I want to get onto DW today to complete the last two weeks' worth of QAL blocks and then I'm going to pull that top off. I have the farmers table runner I finished last week to get on there to get it done for harvest season. 

While I was perusing IG this morning, before getting around for the day, somebody out there reminded us we should be starting our Christmas projects soon. Mom bought me a kit last Christmas to make [another] holiday quilt. I should cut that up and get it ready for retreat in a couple of weeks? I have to get in my retreat bin to see what I have there to work on and whether or not I should be taking something else along. 

If my memory serves me from April, I still have plenty to work in the bin. Here's the thing. The retreat I'm attending in a few weeks is up at The Springs. I've been there and obviously know how things work there. BUT, I'm going knowing zero people. Not. A. Sole. The one friend who was going texted me to let me know she was backing out. Whelp. Either these folks will love me or wish I'd never attended.

The issue I see in the future is that I need a design wall for all things I'm remembering are in that bin. If I get stuck out in the middle of the room I need to have something I can just sew and not need a wall for. I'll go through it today and see where I'm at.

Rearrange

While this rearrangement wasn't in the studio, it did keep me out of the studio most of the morning. I had to do something with our 'reading room' arrangement. We keep adopting moms furniture and prior to yesterday, everything had pretty much just gotten tossed in the reading room. It needed organizing and rearranging. 

And I had to clean some windows in the man cave. And then I had to vacuum the floors because you know, I moved furniture. Then the door to the girls' pen needed cleaning. And then after moving things around in the reading room I noticed the walls were looking pretty dirty. Jim was out weed whacking so I did all this while he was outside. He hates it when I rearrange stuff. 

Once we downed lunch we had to head to West Branch for my eye appointment. Cataracts are forming in both eyes and I'm having a prism situation required to be put into my new glasses. My eyes aren't lining things up correctly which is the reason for the [often] blurry vision. Which isn't good in my line of work.

After we returned from town it was after 4:00 already. No long arming for customers. I did get the following block(s) done: Flower Power, Temperatures, and I got one quilted on DW. I did cut out for the next block in the Quilt Room to round out the evening. 

Block #6

Jim is doing his volunteer work at the food pantry and I'm not sure what's in the works for this afternoon? It's supposed to be icky outside so something indoors I'm sure. 

Finally, Some Rain

While everybody in the state was getting rain the past day or so, we were not. The dirt pile Jim was moving, which is mostly all clay, was like dustbowl Oklahoma. It was dry throughout even to the bottom. 

Last night we finally received a thunderstorm and some decent rain. Even the dirt under the oak trees is wet. Hallelujah!

One more day on Julie's Flea Market and it should be a wrap. Fingers crossed. I did a Love Letter block after working and then realized I hadn't done any Temperature blocks in a while. Two weeks actually. I don't like getting that far behind and so took some time last night to get those caught up. Isn't it pretty?

That took most of the rest of the night so nothing else was accomplished. More of the same today minus the temperature quilt. Hopefully I'll be able to jump on DW and get the Raven finished. I am so excited to get the next quilt loaded but am not going to share just yet in case something else grabs my fancy. 😁

Violations

Notice how late I'm blogging this morning? It was a very restless night and I didn't actually get out of bed until almost 10:00. Then the kids called from Germany so here we are finally.

Jim and I are trying to find something to do today so while he's in the shower, I'll share my quilt police violation.

The first of 15

The directions on this piece are to fuse these petals down using some kind of fusible web. I don't like how stiff fusible web leaves the block. I hate it in fact. But I have zero desire to learn turn-edge appliqué and my thumb probably wouldn't deal with it any way.

There are a number of fusibles out there claiming to not a) gum up the needle when stitching it down and b)leaving the quilt soft and pliable after application. I find that it's either one or the other and I haven't found one yet that is true to both statements. Misty Fuse is about as close as it gets and you can still tell there is a webbing underneath. 

Solution? I had a hair brained idea to just cut the shapes out without fusible. Position them. Use Roxannes glue baste sparingly to get them to set down just enough until I could get them blanket stitched in. The result is above. The quilt police would be handcuffing me to a post!

I have two leaf sections already stitched in place with only minimal issues and it was issues easily dealt with (waving while stitching them down). Once I repositioned the piece, they stitched down fine. And honestly, that may be because I've got a thin batt down underneath to act as an interfacing. I'd rather use a batt than a woven/non-woven interface because, again, I want the block to be pliable. 

Prior to working on Flower Power I did the temperature quilt blocks for the week and after gluing all the leaves down to ready them for blanket stitching I moved over to DW. Here's what he's wearing for the next few days.

OMG, see the block towards the bottom right hand side? It looks wrong. And I'm just noticing this? It's too late now because I've already started quilting this.

Well, this is a utility quilt anyway so I guess it's going to be okay. 

A Well Rounded Day

About the only thing I didn't do yesterday was get on one of the big machines. First thing was the temperature quilt block catch up.

About half of it

That took until lunch time. During lunch I drug out the bag of solids fabrics and started checking to see what would work for the nine patch. 

Most of these are from Amish with a Twist I and II. I jumped on Mike and completed the last cowboy boot before getting into these. Here's the pile of 20 plus one pillow block. These have to be paired with the checkerboard blocks I made at retreat in April. 

Ready for pairing

After working the cowboy boot I started prepping and cutting the fabric for the 9-patch. The neighbor north of us stopped by to repair a cracked step from the new installation going to the lake and then said his wife was at the property. Pause quilt work.

After visiting for a number of hours I headed back home and into the studio and finished cutting and then assembled all 12 blocks. 

Ready for sashing

It was nearly 9:00 when I finally called it a day. See, no time for long arming. 

Beautiful Day

Oh yesterday was one of those perfect days. The weather was cool-ish, the day started out with some shopping at a quilt store (Bittersweet), we grabbed a few things at the local grocery store in Standish on our way home, had an excellent lunch, watched a movie, and then moved into the studio for some work there.

First, a Love Letter block and then the Temperature quilt needed to be caught up. Eight full rows are in. 

Starting to get pretty colorful

I started working on the daily Cowboy Boot block but then got a text from our neighbor three doors to the north saying they would be out to the property. I closed up shop and went for a visit. Jim and I didn't return until dusk. 

This morning we have to go visit my mother. Meaning I'm not sure anything will be done in the studio since I usually try to take Sunday afternoons off. Ah well, at least there was yesterday to reflect on. 😊

A Lot Done Yesterday

The first thing I needed to do was get caught up on the Temperature blocks. 15 of them. Check.

I then moved over to working on a few of the Love Letter blocks and actually got the first and second rows together.

After a wonderfully tasty lunch (which my gut did not like) I jumped onto DW to start working the strip quilt. Here are the next eight rows...
 

I'm not working in the studio today. I had/have some housekeeping stuff to deal with and need to keep going on that. It was half-way through I remembered I hadn't blogged yet because we had to do haircuts before anything else this morning. 

Storms coming this afternoon despite the beautiful sunny day we are experiencing. 

Getting Mom To Ireland

Mom leaves today for her adventure in Ireland. We have to run in and take her to her pick up location. This way, her car isn't sitting outside for 13 days, unattended, at the parking lot where she is to get on the bus headed to DTW. And, we have other errands to do ourselves.

I did get my Temperature quilt caught up to date and this is what it's looking like so far...

I love how the warm days are integrating themselves in here

I picked this pattern up last week at Elm Creek...

I'm planning on working on this during the retreat next weekend. It's a gift for the neighbors little boy who just got a puppy a few weeks ago.

And they say making a quilt is easy...

All the backgrounds, ears, noses, tongues, and bone fabrics are cut. Each dog is going to be a different color and I'll start those later this afternoon when we return home from our errands. Since I'll be out of the studio all of next weekend, I'm making a Sunday exception today. 

And, for the first time in a month, I did not turn one of the long arms. I feel like I'm slacking. 😜

Kentucky Derby Day

Since horses are my second love of all time, it would be such fun to attend and participate in all the Kentucky Derby celebrations. I never have, but it's on my bucket list. Although, going down with somebody who has/knows about such things would be the better bet.

The Tilda Sampler is done. Here are some of the remaining blocks...

I had a notion to load the strip quilt onto Marty and get caught up, but then we'd have to unload it again to get another customer quilt on. We are only on block 90 of 100+ and it would have to stay on Marty for over 10 days. I'm not willing to do that. AND, I have other May deadlines to get done.

Instead I'm going to get caught up on the Temperature quilt blocks and cut out another new pattern I picked up last week at Elm Creek for our neighbors son. I'll take that and the Pineapple quilt which should keep me busy for the three days we're there in Chesaning. 

Happy Easter

Remember me saying yesterday we are having bad smells coming from the new water heater? Smells like rotten eggs and after today's shower, this proves we have sulfur being released from the anode rod in the water heater...

Not supposed to be this color

My ring(s) are usually very bright silver. That's Jims project while I'm gone next week. While I know eggs are associated with Easter, this is taking it a bit far.😉

I did my strip block yesterday. I started two pineapples, and in between all of that I was packing. And making Jim his anniversary gift; a stool cover/pad for his stool out in the studio. 

I keep thinking of little things here and there to grab (vitamins, acorn fabric treatment) and am putting them in their respective places/piles while making this weeks temperature blocks/row. 

Getting ready and so excited!

Here's where the temperature top is as of yesterday...

Through April 2nd

Today I'll continue to grab stuff as I think of it. I am going out to do my strip today since I'll be gone for the whole week and maybe a little something else. Jim is making us cookies for the meet and greet tomorrow night.

I did drag out my brothers Flying Pig (Laura Heine) to transfer the design onto the pattern ease fabric yesterday after working the temperature blocks, but that's about as far as it went before my batteries were getting low. 🐇🐇

Starting Out Normal

This week, aside from the new washing machine being delivered today, will start out like normal. Thursday starts the difference with my having to head to Hale for my first guild meeting of the year. And then things get busy. More on that during those days.

Here's some of the quilting going into Dianes Squirrel body...

If you look, I have to straight-line through the 'flower' sections and those require a lot of starts and stops. But doesn't it look great?

Because I slacked off Saturday I did get the two pineapple blocks done yesterday for the center section of that top. I was going to start cutting for the edge pieces. See the difference in color for the backgrounds?

What I started with on the left. 

I don't really have a choice in the matter since we can't seem to find the correct shade of gray, but I think it'll be okay. I did not do my strip but did get the temperature quilt up to date. 

I'll be on Dianes quilt all day today on Bernie. Jim can handle the washer delivery guys. 

March is Ugly

Isn't the landscape not so pretty in March? Everything is brown and there's really nothing very nice to look at. Except in the studio. I get to look at beautiful quilts all day so I feel very fortunate.

Dianes quilt was finished in the early afternoon and I moved over to this quilt after...

Hometown

This is Lori Holts' Hometown quilt top that Bernadette is having me custom quilt. Isn't it gorgeous? I've already got the borders set in...

Border treatment

I'll be working on this one for a few days...or more.

After working a little later I jumped over to DW to get the two days worth of strips completed. From there I worked on the temperature quilt blocks for the past week and have those all caught up. Monday seems to be a good day to work those. 

I did one block in Scrappy Goodness and then it was nearly 8:00. Where does the time go? 

Jim is at the vets this morning with the girls getting their annual physicals and shots and their meds for the summer. Wow, is it quiet around here with everybody gone!

Shipshewana

I just found out my non-quilting mother is heading to Shipshewana tomorrow. She's staying at the same hotel we stay at during our retreats (Blue Gate Garden Inn). I'm so bummed! There are a few seats left on the bus, but I have a customer coming tomorrow and a meeting (retreat related) on Friday at 11:00. And, it's not just the expense of the trip, but the shopping that'll get ya.

Sigh.

Here's some more quilting eye candy on Judy's Tie quilt...

Center of the middle ties

Perimeter of the center ties

I did my strip last night on DW, two Scrappy Goodness blocks, attached the sleeve binding on the coat, and sewed the last binding around the perimeter of the coat as well. I started hand stitching that down and am nearly half-way done. Jim may take the remainder over since my middle finger is now numb. 

I have all the temperature houses caught up and the frames are ordered for the caddy's. 

I received a message from a lady wanting pricing on E2E quilting through my web site. She must have missed the banner at the top indicating I wasn't taking new customers any longer. I called her back (got voice mail) and let her know the situation. I referred her to Sarah across town for E2E services. 

More on Judys quilt today. I'm past the half-way point so the schedule in my head is good. 

All Caught Up

The temperature blocks are all caught up to the information available at this time. Row three is in...

Here are pics of the last weeks strips in the 99 strip quilt along with corrected numbers I might add...

One caddy was made; all of the above before lunch.

Since Jim was still a little under the weather and he had a basketball game to watch in the afternoon anyway, I retired back to the studio after lunch/movie to work on Rita. Her first two columns are constructed and are together...

I'll be working Virginias Stars and Shadows quilt most of the day today. I have to remove Dianes quilt from Bernie and load her next backing on to start frame ironing it and will weave all of that into my day.

Accomodations

I had a customer call yesterday morning when I was working on caddies. She lives about an hour away and said they were coming to Clare. Could she drop off two quilt tops to be worked? Since it was a low-key day out in the studio and we weren't planning on going anywhere, said she could bring it them on over. 

I will accommodate clients as best as I can. It would be silly for her to make an extra trip since she was already in the area. Jim was none too pleased as he was in his underwear pulling stitches out for me on DW. Did I mention I can no longer count? Here is where things went south...

The five he pulled should have been a six

I'll have to restitch those today at some point. Not sure where my head was at last weekend when I put all of those in. Who knows?

I did get two caddies done yesterday and the second row is in the temperature quilt. 

I know I don't usually spend time in the studio on Sunday, but yesterday afternoon turned into a pseudo-Sunday since Jim was having some sick issues. I was worried about him and wanted the dogs to stay quiet so he could rest so the girls and I snuggled on the couch while watching movies most of the rest of the day.

He's feeling a bit better today and is going out to get some fresh air to see if that'll help. I'm going to play in the studio: Make a caddy, do my strip, and then work on some houses since today we have moved into March. As you can tell above, I'm only up to February 6th so there are quite a few I need to still make before being caught up. 

Missed Birthday(s)

When I got a new phone last year, not only did it delete half of my customer information (that's been fun), I'm discovering it deleted nearly all the birthdays I had in my calendar. Including my DIL's. Which, I have guiltily missed in previous years. 

I don't know what it is about February that I lose my head. Maybe because I'm trying to play catch-up in my queue and running hard with the machines? Maybe it's my age? I don't like that I forget stuff and my studio is starting to look like a poster child for Post-It Notes with reminders I need to remember. Apparently, I missed the birthday one for Alicia.

And, I feel awful! Jim was planning on heading downstate today to spend a quality day with the kids/grandkids. He has the truck all packed with food, toolboxes, and clothes/overnight bag and then last night we found out the grandkids are all going to a slumber party this morning and will not even be there.

Jim cancelled his trip down because I guess he wanted to spend the day with the entire family. He had no other reason to head downstate other than to play with the family in Lansing. 

Meanwhile, Diane's leaf quilt was worked all morning and after lunch, Virginia's Stars and Shadows had the body started...

Some of the quilting

Here's a better shot of the reason we purchased this pattern...

This section above takes me about an hour to work. I did four yesterday. I have five to do today with the new roll. Doing this intense work for more than a few hours is hard on the eyes, which is why I'm mixing two quilts into a day. 

I actually did my DW work prior to starting yesterday morning. The furnace was running in front of the leaf quilt and it was an easy motif. And, apparently I can not count. I have two day 24's in there. I was going to rip it out but had already quilted up to date 31 and decided to just make it 24a and 24b. 

I constructed one caddy, made eight houses, 12 trees, and talked to Andrew while he was driving home. I have row two together in the temperature quilt and have rows one and two pinned together and ready to sew. 

More of the same today. Diane's quilt should be finished after this morning. I hope. I have a customer coming to pick up and drop off around lunch time so I better get to it. 

All Three Long Arms

I've used all three long arms in a day before. But usually one or more of them is just turned on to baste in a quilt or finish a small section. Yesterday, I actually did work on all three machines and not just little fiddly stuff. I was in heaven!

I realized I hadn't posted any quilting going into Diane's leaf quilt so he's a small glimpse...

Flannels show the quilting so nicely

I worked on hers in the morning. Virginia's Stars and Shadows was worked all afternoon. Here are the two borders which always take the longest to get in...

Not my choice for the black outer

I'm following the quilting pattern received with the piecing pattern and would have probably did something different in the red border and feathered the black border. The red border is going to be next to some other feathers in the gray blocks and I feel like it's going to compete. When I do my own Stars and Shadows (yes it's done, and yes it's in my own personal queue) I'll change the red border. But the customer wanted it like the picture and I do what the customer wants.

I jumped right onto DW from Marty. I don't normally do that because DW is so much heavier and I have to desensitize myself from the easier-to-push-around machine. But I had numbers to get into the corners (which I messed up) and had some ditching to do before starting on yesterdays motif. 

I forgot to mention yesterday, also, that I did nine houses on the temperature quilt the prior day. Why nine? Each row is going to consist of 19 houses. I had 10 already made so did another nine to give me a full row. I did ten more last night. 

I also did one caddy, one scrappy goodness block, and then I got a bug up my behind and decided I needed to put a tree between each of the houses after their month on the temperature quilt and had to work through my own "creation" on a tree. 

Two trees finally got me worked through where I need to go with those. They are all going to be pretty much the same because this quilt is pretty simple as it is and I want a constant in there between each month. 

More work on all three machines today. Pretty much the same as yesterday; Bernie in the morning, Marty in the afternoon, and DW at night.

A Mixed Couple of Days

Yesterday started out like normal. Blog. Open Studio. Quilt. Then it all changed.

We met our friends/customers for lunch. Went to the tax preparer. Did a few other errands. Came home and it was after 4:00. Well, no more customer long arming.

I did long arm on DW. Here is a few pics of the strips done thus far...

Odd Days

Even days

I like to show these because they are so fun. The only rule for this project is no measuring. In a customer quilt, I would, of course, measure out each motif that needed precision, but we are being a little more free with these.

After shutting down DW, my phone rang with another friend/customer coming up on the caller ID. Hmmm? Hoping everything was okay I picked it up and ended up working on these while chatting for over an hour...

The first 10 days of the year

Yep, this is how my temperature quilt is starting out. They went fast, and the hardest part was actually sorting through all the bags with each designated temp. Not too tough, huh? 

I had an hour or so left in me so I did one block in the scrappy quilt and built two more blocks in the Rita the Ripper top. 

This morning I had a customer arrive (per our preset agreement) before I even 'opened' to come and pick up a quilt. We chatted, laughed, and learned together until just a few minutes ago. I love to spend time with my customers!

I'll be working on Bernie for what is left of the morning. I'm loading onto Marty after lunch and will start a little bit on that after working on Bernie for a spell this afternoon. BUT, my mother is supposed to be stopping by at some point today, so maybe my goals are a little high in my head.