8th and 9th finishes

Good grief I haven't posted a finish since 7/8/13! Well, the Yo Gabba Gabba and Elmo quilts are done including the label! Here are shots of the fronts and backs. You can really see the stitching on the back where I used the same color for both the front and back. It looks like it is the fabric showing thru but it is just the stitching.

256 Square Inches - that is one block

I was beat when I got to the house after work yesterday. It has been very intense with trying to meet the deadline on a project. Eight straight hours everyday for the last four weeks of concentration on my feet running back and forth from the work island to the computer has worn me out. I sat last night for a while just to chill and eventually found enough energy to quilt one block. So now only three more to quilt and a bit of border to go.

Wednesday's MQG meeting was a intimate group of five. Judy led the group and talked about Hawaiian style quilts and Sachiko. I forgot to take a picture of the blocks she brought. She is going to make a wall hanging with them so I know she will bring it back to group and I will make sure I get a shot of it. The Sachiko stitching she did was beautiful and the Hawaiian blocks were done in a gorgeous batik. For show and tell Stephanie brought her Nancy Drew quilt top and her plus sign quilt all bound and ready to gift. Both turned out great!

I received my African fabrics last night. I have been trying to find fabrics with mostly a blue background, red background and light background. At Tambo Collection I found these two blues and one light. The print on the left is a 6 yard piece I plan on using for a backing. This is my first quilting fabric purchase since May 4. Now my brother sent me 18 yards of 3 African prints, so my stash has increased a bit.

This weekend is all about finishing the Yo GG and Elmo quilts, mowing the grass, and cleaning the kitchen. I will get out the Halloween quilt and start working on it again. I plan on staying home all weekend and just enjoy the quiet.

Have a great weekend!

344 square inches

That equates to one block and the adjoin border quilted. I now have four blocks and the borders on two of those blocks yet to go. I am getting there! I just love red and yellow together. I have been collecting red and yellow fabrics for quite a while to make myself a quilt with those colors. I think that will be my project this winter.

I used a different setting on my camera this morning and it captured the colors of this sunrise. So beautiful this morning.

Tonight is the MQG meeting so I wont' get any quilting done, but I plan on taking the Yo GG quilt and work on hand sewing the binding.

462 square inches

I got one more block quilted plus the adjoining borders so that section measured 21.5" x 21.5" which equals 462 square inches. 462 square inches sounds like so much more than a block and some border.

Five blocks and 1/4 of the border to go!

Status of the Elmo quilt

Saturday afternoon I had all the blocks made and on the design wall. I wasn't digging the blocks with the tone on tone black fabric.

I decided to make two more blocks with blue fabric instead and I liked this much better. The black blocks will go on the back.

Sunday morning at 10:30 I had the borders on and the quilt pin basted.

I started quilting at 11:30 and at 8:30 I quit. I managed to get 6 blocks quilted and 2/3 of the border is also done.

I am happy with how much I got done and I am now confident that I can easily meet my deadline of Oct. 6.

The doe and twins were wandering the neighborhood on Saturday. They were in the front yard and then strolled across the cul-de-sac.
The twins

Mom

All together

The lecture and plans for the weekend

Overall I think my lecture at the Cascade Quilt Guild went well last night. Yes, there was some technical issues with the power point, but since I had made handouts, we worked around that. The humidity shot up yesterday so the room was a bit warm, but there was a kitchenette so I was able to grab a couple of paper towels to mop the sweat pouring off my face. I never had time to take any pictures, but I am guessing there was about 30 ladies. It was a lot of fun to do this! There were a few looks of "Is she crazy?" and other looks of wow that is pretty cool. There were lots of questions like what type of batting I use and how close I quilt my lines. Showing the quilts that I made using the different techniques was a big hit.

Thank goodness two ladies from the Modern Quilt Guild came to this event. Without asking, they helped me haul all the boxes of fabric and quilts inside. They also helped me pack everything up and haul it back to the car. I don't know what I would have done without them! One of the ladies also passed out the handouts and the other lady help me hold up quilts during the lecture. I will be forever grateful to them!

I sold quite a bit of fabric - lots of the hand dyed and batiks. Thank you ladies!

One stupid thing I did was when I backed out the car to leave I looked at where I pulled out and there was something laying in the parking lot. I was my black computer bag! I had set it down and forgot to put it in the car. It was dark outside and I just didn't see it sitting there. It is a wonder I didn't run over it - it must have gone under the car between the wheels - and it is a lucky break that I had looked at the space before I left. I am such a goof!

I emptied out the car when I got home at 9 p.m. and here are the quilts ready to be put away.

This weekend will be all about working on the Elmo quilt. I have the strip sets pinned on my secondary design wall.

How far do you think I will be by Monday on this quilt? I have to have it done by October 6 - that is 16 days away! Holy cow!!!


You know what I will be doing (LOL!!!!) what are you up to this weekend? Have a great weekend!

Ready for talk

Power point - done.

Fabric boxed and supplies gathered - done

Quilts to show stacked - done

Fresh batteries in the laser pointer - done

I am as ready as I will ever be!

Binding and samples

I spent last evening binding the Yo GG quilt - well, at least doing the machine sewing part. I didn't have enough of an odd orange fabric that I wanted to use for the binding so I settled on this green. The green pulls out the green of some of the characters. My next color choice was purple, but I don't have any purple fabric in my stash.

Here is the start of the pile of samples for my lecture on Thursday. Since I used the last samples I made in a quilt I needed to make new ones. I did them in black and white so they would photograph better and the contrast would help when I print them on the non-color printer.

Saturday I had an unexpected visitor - a quilting friend Peg! We spent the afternoon cutting FQ of my African fabrics for my lecture/trunk show on Thursday. She was such a great help! Hello to all my quilt friends in Tuscarawas County!

Yo GG quilt is all quilted!

Here are the spools of thread I used compared to a unopened spool so you can see how much thread I went thru on this quilt.

Sunday I made roasted red pepper hummus and vegetable beef soup.

I worked on some examples for my lecture and will need to finish that up tonight so I can take the pictures and finish my power point. Right now I am slammed at work and at home. I will be a busy couple of weeks.

Weekend plans

I am beat. It has been a very busy week at work and I am tired. I have spent my week at work counting acoustical wall and ceiling panels, checking finish schedules against what is shown on the drawings for ceiling types, and trying to capture all the miscellaneous items that will be doing into a 350,000+ S.F. high school/middle school. If that weren't enough we are also getting ready to move our office to a different location.

I have a very busy weekend planned. I want to finish the Yo GG quilt. Last night I got two more blocks quilted - so that is 8 blocks done, one block half quilted and three more to completely quilt. I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this project.

The back

Next Thursday I give my lecture to the quilt guild so I need to work on finishing up my power point and make some demonstration pieces. I need to take some pictures of some quilts and gather quilts to show. I would like to get the final border on my tea towel top top so I could use it for an example of improv triangles.

I don't have any place I need to go this weekend so I will be able to stay home and concentrate on getting all these jobs done. I did cook a chuck roast in water for soup stock last night, so I will be able to throw together a pot of vegetable soup tonight and have some quick meals for the weekend.

Onward we go! Have a great weekend!

Where I am

I now have a better idea of where I am on the Yo GG quilt. I threaded up the machine with black thread last night and finished quilting two blocks. So now I have 6 of the twelve blocks quilted, three blocks half quilted, and three blocks with no quilting.

I have used over half of the 1200 yard spool of blue thread in this quilt and I don't have all the blue quilted yet. No wonder it is taking me so long to quilt this!

Yo GG quilt - still plugging away!

I got the blue background fabric quilted in another block last evening plus the blue border pieces next to the block. I keep plugging away, but it seems like this quilt is taking forever!

I wound another 5 bobbins of blue thread this morning so I will be ready to quilt more blue tonight. I only have about an hour every evening after work to quilt.

Yo GG quilt and two more projects

I got the blue areas in this section of the Yo GG quilt done last evening and this morning including the border. I keep telling myself "slowly but surely it is getting done." Since I have to get this one done and the Elmo quilt done by Oct. 6, I am in kind of a panic of how long it seems to be taking me. If I would have done an all over pattern instead of quilting lines it would go faster, but I would not have been as happy with the finished product.

Yes, I finished the girl's dresses, but I just had two more projects added to the things to do list. I want to make a cover for the grille I bought my son a couple of months ago to help protect it. I took the measurements and I think I have enough of the car cover fabric left over from the covers I made for the Springsteen tour to make the grille cover. This will be his birthday present! There is no rush on this so it will get made after the quilts are done.

The next project is for the band. Here is the lid for the merchandise road case that we are going to use as the table top for the merchandise booth so we don't have to drag around a separate 8' table. The top of the road case just sits on top of the legs. I need to make a cover that fits like a toaster cover. I will be using some black duck left over from when I made a lighting truss curtain for Springsteen and the guitar fabric you see on top of the table which we had used as a skirt Velcro to the other table. I don't need to have this done for awhile since we don't have any gigs lined up right now.

Here is the sunrise this morning. The pink was so beautiful!

Weekend goals - accomplished?

I am happy to report that I did accomplish my weekend goals and more!
First - to work on the Yo GG quilt. I quilted all the white areas and since the blue quilting thread came on Saturday

I was able to start on the blue areas. I have 4 blocks done and 3 blocks half done so I made pretty good progress.

On Sunday I packed the sewing machine and tools in the car to take to the dress fitting. I had some extra time before I need to leave for the fitting so I decided to cut the blocks for the Elmo quilt. I had to add quite a bit of non-Elmo fabric since I only had three one yard pieces of Elmo fabric. For the Yo GG quilt I have six one pieces of novelty fabric (p.s. I only have one FQ and a few scraps left of those six yards).

Here is the process. I cut two FQ from each novelty print

I cut FQ of the coordinating tone on tone fabric and matched them up with the novelty prints

Layered two FQ - both face up - trimmed one end -

Sliced the layers

Sorted the fabric into two blocks

Stacked the pieces with the far right fabric on the bottom so the far left fabric is on the top

All the blocks sliced, stacked and ready for sewing together.

Second - the dresses. The little girls dresses fitted great so all I needed to do was to hem them and attached the straps. I added a row of lace at the bottom of the hem and a pearl button on the straps to add a little bling. So both dresses are done - yeah!

Third - mow and weed wack. Once I got back to the house it was time to tackle at least the front yard. Over an hour and a half later the front was looking decent. I had not mowed for a very long time. The humidity was high and I was drenched, but as my mom use to say "that's a good job done."