It is Friday already

This week has flown by. Tomorrow is Oct. 1 and good grief the holidays will be here before we know it.

I got the flower girl dress fixed last evening. First I took the lining apart a few inches at the neckline and armhole opening. Next I shorten the dress strap by a total of 2". I ended up stitching the lining back in by hand. There was no way to do it by machine. I am just glad it is done. I know this picture looks just like the one I posted yesterday, but it is the after shot.

My plans for the weekend are to hand stitch the other I Spy quilt, paint the fabric storage room, paint the trim for the windows in the fabric storage room and hopefully get it installed, alter the bridesmaid's dress that belongs to the mother of the flower girls dress wearer, and finish that hemming the sleeves of that jacket with the buttonholes I ripped out. If I can get all of this done I will be one happy camper!

Have a great weekend!

What is next on the agenda

Last evening I mowed for an hour and then had to get out the week wacker to finish cutting down the grass in the backyard. Yes, it was that long and gotten completely out of hand. My little 18" Toro mower was struggling and was not going to able to get thru that mess, so the weed wacker was my only choice unless I could have gotten my hands on a couple of sheep! I will let the mounds of grass dry for a couple of day and then go out and rake it up.

Tonight's project is a little girls dress for a wedding. I have to take it up at the shoulders. Of course the width of the front is narrower than the back, so on the way to work I devised a plan in my head on how I am going to attack this.

My plan is after it is taken apart I will shorten the strap on the fabric and the lining and recut the curve at the neckline. I can machine sew the lining and fabric at the neck, but I am going to have to sew the fabric and lining at the the armhole by hand. I figure it is going to take me at least a couple of hours to do this. I taped the last hour of the X Factor and Property Brothers so I will watch that while I fix this dress. Then I still have the mother dress to fix. I promised them to be done Oct. 1 and I think that is going to happen! The wedding is not until the 8th so we're in good shape!

New piece hung at work

This piece is new to work, but I made it awhile ago. I have gotten favorable comments on it. It is about 24" wide and 34" high.

My job at the museum last evening was to put wrist bands on the members who came to the lecture and annual meeting. The lecture was a glass artist that makes the most amazing paperweights. I am sorry I don't have the artist name. The paperweights had little scenes in them of flowers, animals, and/or bugs made out of lamp glass and then encased in clear glass to make the paperweight. The detail was amazing. There were snacks for the patrons after the lecture and we got to sample them while they were in the lecture. I ended up leaving about 6:30 so I was glad to get home earlier than I had expected.

Patience is a key in this case

I sat down last evening and started working on a lined jacket that needed the sleeves shorten. This jacket has three faux buttonholes and buttons on each sleeve. The only way to shorten the sleeves is to rip out the faux buttonholes. Here is one of the sleeves after I ripped out one buttonhole and have the button removed off the middle buttonhole. The fabric is slick and not tightly woven. One false move with the seam ripper and I am going to put a hole in this!

I managed to get all three buttonholes ripped out of one sleeve and one out of the other sleeve. It took me about 2 hours. Here is the sleeve with all taken apart. I think after I press it the buttonhole marks will dimish. I will sew the buttons back on the jacket after I hem the sleeve and that will disguise any remaining marks.

The only other thing I could have done would be to take the sleeves out of the jacket and shorten the sleeves from the cap (which I have done on other jackets for this lady), but since this fabric is delicate I didn't want to go that route. Tonight I work at the art museum so my seam ripper will get a rest tonight.

10th Finish of 2011

I really rocked on the quilting this weekend and I am ahead of schedule for once! I finished Claire's quilt and for Sophia's is quilted and the binding is machined sewn on so all that is left is to hand sew the binding and put on the label.

Sunday I spent some time spackling holes in the fabric storage room walls, made a batch of yogurt, doctored up some blueberry jam that was pretty tasteless, and worked on alterations. I managed to get a lined skirt hemmed, shorten sleeves on a lined jacket, and hemmed a pair of lined pants. I have lots more to do and most of my evenings will be doing alterations this week. I have a bridesmaid dress, a flower girl's dress, another lined jacket that needs the sleeves shortened, and a skirt that needs a new zipper. I need to find the time to go buy a zipper - I don't have one the right color. I hate that when that happens! I will be glad to get this stuff done and out of the house!

And let the quilting begin!

I started quilting a bit on the I Spy quilts last evening. It's a start. The weekend is here already and on the schedule is machine quilting and painting the trim and extension jambs for the fabric storage room windows.

Have a great weekend!

Giveaways, fabric and midgees oh my!

I packaged up the fabric I had in my two giveaways last evening so it will be off to the post office.

Here is what I won in a recent giveaway by Lark Books and on Laura Wasilosk's blog. It was a blog hop for an autograhed copy of the new Masters Art Quilt Vol. 2. It is a beautiful book although I have not had time to throughly look at it. Thank you so much Lark Books!

My brother was home for three days and he brought me a present. He was in Anchorage, Alaska on tour with K.D. Lang and ended up in a quilt shop called The Quilted Raven! Now he is the most unlikely person to go into a quilt shop! He must have been bored out of his mind. Well, he said he went in and asked for some of the most Alaskian fabric they had and this is what he brought me.

I love it! There are two fat quarters of each of the fabric with the bear and the fabric with the Native American bear claws, and one fat quarter of each color of the deer fabric. I showed the fabric to a lady I work with and she pointed to the deer piece and said "Bubba"! This fabric will make a real manly boy baby quilt!

Speaking of baby quilts I am know of 10 people that are having babies! Holy cow! I guess once I get the I Spy quilts and the family xmas quilt done I will be working on building my stash of baby quilts. I have about 6 ready to quilt so I will work on those first, but they are mostly boy looking quilts. I have been building up my girl fabric stash and since several people are having girls I will need to get some girl quilts done.

This time of year I finally get to buy one of my favorite treats - vanilla tootie rolls. They carry them at Giant Eagle only at Holloween. Yum!

More progress on the I Spy quilts

Last night I pin basted Sophia's quilt. I also got Clair's pined basted after sewing on the last row of patches. Tonight I will wind bobbins and get ready for some serious machine quilting this weekend.

I Spy quilt progress

Thanks to the novelty fabric Glen, Janet, and Karen sent me I am finishing up the I Spy quilt tops. Here is the one for Sophia ready for pinning. I am now down to 17 days to get these quilts done. I need to have them done by Oct. 6th. The birthday party is Oct. 9th, but I am working in Charm, Ohio at Miller's Dry Goods Quilt Shop Oct. 7 and 8th for Charm Days. No problem - I will quilt and bind one this weekend and one the weekend of Oct. 1 and 2 so I am money!

The fabric that cracked me up the most was from Janet - a cow that just bought itself a two pair of cowboy boots!

Here are a few of the great novelty fabrics from Karen. All of them were wonderful!

I had to do some cleaning up in the garage last evening. My brother who is home from California for a few days is planning on moving his car out of my driveway today. He has been storing it there for almost 3 years. He needs to get into the garage to get to the air compressor in case he needs to add air to the tires and I had a bunch of stuff sitting in front of the man door. I had to move that stuff , dig out the dehumidifier that I am giving him, and put his keys where he could find them. His car has been in my driveway for so long it will be strange not seeing it there.

I Spy quilts progress, the next house project, giveaway winner

I had a crazy busy weekend. I tried real hard not to waste any time.
Here are the backs of the I Spy quilts.

I drew lines on the fabric with a Sharpie like school paper and then stamped the numbers 0 thru 59 using fabric paint.

Here I stamped using fabric inks some basic colors and then with the fabric paint I stamped the alphabet. I did goof and print a couple letters backward so I just X then out and stamped the letter correctly. What the heck, I wasn't going to start over and it is a lesson that life is not perfect - make lemonade out of those lemons!

I decided the next room I am going to finish is my fabric storage room where I sleep. So the first thing was to move the five shelving units and all the fabric. Gosh fabric is heavy! I decided to tackle the job one shelving unit at a time. My system was to take every thing off the shelf unit, place it on the bed, and sort into piles as I went. After I move the shelf to it temporary location, I moved the pile of fabric back onto the shelves. There was a lot of going back and forth between the fabric storage room and the temporary storage area when I would find fabric that needed to go on a particular pile already moved. I worked for hours and hours on Saturday sorting and moving all the fabric and moving the other decorative items that were displayed in this room.
Before:

After:

You may ask "Where are you storing your stash for the time being?" Well, hold on to your hats - I moved it next door into the bedroom I just re-did!

The fabric storage room will not take as long to re-do as the bedroom I just did. The closet and the electrical are already done and so is the floor although I may have to do some fixing up on the floor - I get into that later. But the room is cleared out and ready for finishing. So did I find any suprises? Not really, but there were some spools of quilting thread that were under the shelving units and I found a bunch of strips of Kona snow I had cut for zig zag blocks.

As I was moving I came across the PITT fabric I wanted to make a pillowcase for my dentist out of. My dentist was on a National Championship team 30 some years ago. He is not a very big guy so looking at him you would never know he played college football. I went ahead and make the pillowcase so it is ready to give next month at my next appointment.

I went ahead and made the second set of tie back for the drapes.

8:30 Saturday morning Bubba and Mom were in the front yard munching on my lovely weeds
Bubba

Here is Mom stomping her feet at me and giving me the evil eye. You can just see Bubba in the middle of the bed

I did pull some weeds this weekend and tore out a barberry bush, but the bed in which Bubba was standing did not get done. It is one heck of a mess!

The giveaway winner of the gray and yellow fat quarters is Marie from North Carolina. Marie send me an email with your address and I will get your fabric in the mail this week. The next giveaway will happen when I get the fabric storage room/bedroom done so keep tuned and get ready for another crazy ride!

Roadblock

After work I went upstairs to wash dishes and no water. I tried the faucet at the laundry tub and the cold was spitting a bit and nothing was coming out of the hot. I called the water department and here there had been a water main break down the hill from where I live. They said the water had just been turned on and to wait a couple of hours before trying to get the air out of the pipes. So the dishes did not get done and the backing for the I Spy quilts did not get washed, but the water is back on although the chlorine smell is very strong. So tonight I will get those dishes done and the backing washed and I will have busted down the roadblock and be back on schedule.
So I worked on cutting and sewing up patches with the musical fabric and adding another row to Sophia's quilt. Another blogger has contacted me and is sending me some novelty prints. With her's and the ones coming from Janet, and the ones I received from Glen, I will be in great shape to finish these. Thanks everyone for your help!

I have a long list of things that need done around the house and I have no idea at this time what I might get into. Much of what I do will depend on the weather.

Make sure you sign up on my 9-12-2011 post for the fat quarter giveaway. One of the goodies I decided to add in was some selvages. I know there are a lot of quilters using selvages and I would love to make a selvage quilt, but I don't see that I am going to have time to make one in the near future.

Have a great weekend!

More progress on Sophia's quilt

I spent about an hour last evening sewing together more patches for this quilt.

While I wait for the postman to bring me the novelty fabris Janet sent me, I noticed that I hadn't used many music fabric prints. I headed to the fabric storage room and dug out fabric that have musical instruments on them. I will fussy cut them tonight and add them on to the quilts.

Now that I am close to having these tops done, I can cut the fabric for the back and start to stamp them. On the back of one I will put numbers and on the other I will stamp the alphabet and colors. I want to get these pin basted this weekend so I need to get started on the stamping tonight. I have about 23 days to get these done.

Loretta, I have no idea how to put the accent mark over the o in your email address. How about you email me at paltier at rpj-aps dot com so I have your email address so I can contact you in case you win the fat quarters? Thanks! Patty

I Spy quilt and what I think of Microsoft

I worked on Sophia's I Spy quilt last night and got this much done. I am expecting a package of novelty fabric from Janet any day now and those will be needed in order to finish this quilt.

Now my rant about Microsoft. I come in this morning and I get this message that my desktop sticky notes file is corrupt and I have a choice of hitting the ok button which makes them disappear forever or hit ok for help. I hit ok for help but no help comes up. I have a love/hate relationship with this type of issue. You can't get a hold of a human being at Microsoft or even get a hold of tech support. I tried going thru their website, but I don't know the answers to some of the questions they are asking and if you don't answer them you are dead in the water. If I knew the sticky notes feature was not reliable, I would have not used them. If they are not reliable, then Microsoft needs to go back to the drawing board and fix it or scrap it and not put out junk. And the world wants to go all electronic! There is nothing like a piece of paper and a pencil!

Oops! I did it again!

I wasn't going to buy any more fabric, but oops I did! When I was in Dover on Saturday to install the drapes, The Material Girl was having their 4th anniversary sale. Fabric, books, and patterns were 20% off, but if you cleaned off a bolt or bought 5 yards you got an extra 20% off - that was 40% off not an additional 20% after the first 20%. They had the Habitat fabric I had my eye on so I bought three five yard pieces, cleaned off two bolts, and then bought half yard and yard pieces of the rest.

The piano key and large scale musical notes were clean off the bolt pieces. I bought a 1/2 yard of the other two for a music quilt I need to make next year for a fund raiser.

The floral with the black background was an end of the bolt. I bought a yard of each of the other pieces.

Speaking of installing the drapes, the mother asked me if I would help her strip the wallpaper off her kitchen and paint the ceiling, walls and trim. The baby girls are now entertaining themselves by picking and ripping off the wallpaper in the kitchen! The wallpaper is old so no real loss. I guess I will be doing this re-do after the holidays.

Mom and Bubba chillin' in the backyard this weekend. Bubba has gotten big and he still has his spots.

The drummer in my nephew's band is having problems with the zipper slides on his Beato drum bags. (FYI the Beato drum bags with the gold lettering are Chinese made and the ones with the white lettering are made in the USA. I am dealing with the Chinese bags.) So of course I was asked if I could fix them - ugh! The bags are too old for Beato to do anything about, so next step was to get new sliders for the zippers. The zippers were fine it is just the sliders that are breaking. So here is my shout out to Stan's Sewing Supplies for having all the info on their website to figure out what size sliders I needed. I ordered the sliders on Friday and received them on Monday! This is not my first order with Stan's and they are the solution for all you custom zipper issues. I have received nothing from Stan's for this endorsement, they are just a great company to work with and I wanted my readers to know this in case they have a zipper issue. Here is how big these #10 sliders are

I took the bag apart just enought to expose one end of the zipper so I could get the slider on. It must had taken me a half an hour of messing around to get the slider on and to be able to start zipping. I put some silicone on the zipper to try and make it slide easier. I had to hand sew a stop at the end of the zipper I had loosen up, but it is fixed and I am glad to had this job done. Unfortunately the drummer had a couple more bags with zipper slider issues so I will end up fixing those too, but I learned a lot from the first one so the rest should go faster.

Don't forget to leave a comment on the September 12th post for a chance to win a set of fat quarters.

Lots to report and the re-do bedroom giveaway!

I ended up going to see my nephew play, because the friend who was going to come over for a binding lesson had to cancel. Apparently if you machine quilt for too long on her machine it overheats and melts some of the plastic gears inside. What the heck?! Added comment: I will post what the service person finds once she gets her machine back. Maybe there is something else other than machine quilting for hours that contributed to the problem.So she couldn't finish the machine quilting and will have to wait two weeks to get it back from the repairman. She has a Husqvarna. Here is my nephew playing with Colin John. After the first set I asked Michael if he knew all the songs they played and he said he only had heard two of the songs, all the rest of the material was new to him!

Here are the drapes installed. They are short enough to clear the baseboard heaters. I only made one set of tie backs and the mother asked for another set for the front window. I have enough fabric leftover so that is not a problem. The tie backs are installed high so the babies can't reach them.

I worked Saturday and Sunday on the I Spy quilts. Here is where they are right now

Gosh I made their names BIG! Claire's is sewn together, but I think I want to add another row along each side to make it a bit wider. I haven't started sewing Sophia's together yet. Oh, I have to have these done by Oct. 9.

And now the giveaway. As you all know I have been working on the re-do bedroom for a while now. Well, it is as done as it can be at this point in time. I still have to solve the water issue before I can install the baseboards and I have to wait until I save a little money until I can buy the closet doors. I have a room upstairs that also needs closet doors so I want to buy both sets at the same time so when I get my brother over to help me install them, we can do both at the same time. I will eventually move in the bed frame. It rained or threaten to rain all weekend so I could not spray paint the metal bed frame. The shelf along the west wall still needs some primping. I installed the door on Sunday - not an easy job to do by yourself! I ended up having to plane the top of the door because it was sticking and would not close. But it is installed with new hinges and a new door handle and I am a happy camper!

Here are the befores and afters - then I will talk about the giveaway.

Now the giveaway. The winner gets a group of fat quarters that is inspired by the rooms colors. I am feeling pretty generous so I will probably throw a few more goodies.

You have three chances to win! 1. Enter a comment - come on I need some love. Let me know what you like or don't like about the room. Do you have a question about how I did something? I started this project about August 1 so you could always go back and see what I was doing.
2. Become a follower and leave me another comment saying you became a follower.
3. Post it on you blog about the giveaway and leave me a comment saying you did this.

I will draw a name Monday morning, September 19. Thanks for stopping by!