Conquering fears and making a decision

I have been looking at the clothes and fabric for Justin's quilt as they have hung on the design wall all summer.

The thoughts in my head were saying what if he doesn't like what I do? How am I going to design this/ What should it look like? Yes, all those self-doubts were creeping in. But then Justin has always loved everything I have done, so I need to put on my big girl pants and just dive in! The other mental roadblock was that I had too much fabric especially when this is going to be a smaller wall hanging. You know how I even make my baby quilts big so small is a challenge for me! Well, I was up early this morning and it hit me to start out by limiting myself to using one sleeve of each garment thus reducing the amount of fabric I had to work with. That worked and I started making parts.

After making the first cut into the first sleeve I feel so free and excited about this project! All the doubts are gone and it is full steam ahead! I will have to deal with the types of fabric that I am working with in a slightly different way when it comes to quilting this piece. There is a lot of poly/cotton blends which of course I never use, but this is a special project and I am excited to see what I learn from doing this. I would love to get it done by Nov. 22. I will be at the art museum that evening working an opening exhibit reception and I know Justin will be there.

Next project

Here is a look at the materials for my next project. There is a sweet fellow at the art museum and he is graduating with his master's this fall. He gave me a bunch of his old clothes to make a wall hanging sized piece. These items are sentimental that no longer fit.

The man that delivers our copies paper was here yesterday. He is an avid bike rider and noticed that my bike seat was a bit out of wack. I have always had a problem getting that seat to stay where I wanted it to stay. The man fixed it and it was so much easier riding home last evening! Glen, my seat is one of those comfort seats, but since I haven't ridden in while and it was not aligned correctly it was giving my bum fits. Thanks for the info that may come in handy in the future!

Fabric for the next project and riding a bike

I purchased a bunch of 1/2 yard pieces for a project I am going to work on this winter. I managed to get all the fabric washed and pressed this passed weekend.

I am slowly recovering from the exhaustion. I rode my bike to work, home for lunch and back, then home at the end of the day. It is a hair over a mile one way, but there is a bit of a uphill grade to work. After a couple of weeks I know it will get easier and I finally got my gears figured out to make it easier to ride up those grades. My bum is a bit tender too - you know, right on those bones that come in contact with the seat. Ouch! Here is my bike parked and locked outside the trailer. I only plan on taking the car is when it is raining or I have to run errands at lunchtime.

10th finish for 2013, the big move, and a gig

Can I even describe how tired I have been with the big move? No, only total exhaustion comes close. We moved boxes and furniture on Thursday and Friday; Monday thru Wednesday it was packing hauling files and drawings to the basement storage room and hauling trash and recycling out to the back of the building. Here is what the place looked like on Thursday

I spent Thrusday and Friday afternoon putting stuff away - I lost count at 55. So here is what I have left to find a home for:

Saturday night the band had a gig so I helped unload and load the equipment - yes, I was still tired, but I soldiered thru. Unfortunately it was too cold to set up at the outdoor stage

They had a tiny indoor stage at the one end of the restaurant/bar.

During the break, we celebrated my brother's birthday. See the quilt is on the back of the booth?

Here is the Halloween quilt, my 10th finish for the year.

Mike was quite surprised and love the quilt.

Block 28 and 29 quilted

SO close!! Almost done with the Halloween quilt! One block to quilt and that puppy is done!

I have quilt group tonight so I don't know if I will have enough time to get that last block done after work. Speaking of work, the move is going pretty well. We took a box truck load over to the new location yesterday and I continue to make many, many trips to the recycling bin and dumpster. I found more file boxes and rolls of drawing that need taken down to the basement storage room. Gosh I thought I would be done with that by now, but there always seems to be some other paperwork that needs to be boxed and stored. I still have to clean out my desk which I haven't had time to do since I have been working on cleaning out file cabinets, abandon offices, and cupboards. I know I will be headed to the recycling bin a few more times today!

Quilting and packing

The office I work in is moving and guess who has to pack everything? I spent hours and hours last week packing stuff that needs moved to the double wide trailer that we are moving into, packing stuff to go downstairs to the storage room, and making many trips to the recycling bin and trash bin. To say the least I was tired.

Boxes packed to move to the trailer

Since I was so tired after work last week I didn't get much done on the Halloween quilt. I did hit it hard yesterday and got one block quilted, finished up quilting the zig zag border, and hand sewed the binding. All I have left to do is quilt three blocks and sew on a label and it will be done. Saturday is my deadline and that should not be a problem to meet.

Halloween quilt update

I have bee plugging away - one block at a time - and I now only have four more to quilt!

Last night I mowed and I was whipped. The humidity is still so high that even though it is not hot the sweat was dripping down my face. Is it ever going to get cold so I can work in the yard and not sweat?

Charm - part 2

Every year they have an auction to benefit different causes. Here are some of the quilts that were going to be auctioned off. They were hung at Keim Lumber which is across the street and up a steep hill from the quilt shop.

I had stopped at Keim on Friday morning before I went to the quilt shop and bought this flashlight to keep at my sewing table. The light is very white so it is easy to tell navy from black and gray from black now.

After the shop closed I walked down the street to the bicycle shop and bought a bracket and side pouch for my bicycle. All the Amish have these on their bikes. I will see how it works out and I may have to buy a second side pouch when I head out to Charm to work in May.

I had to fiddle around a bit to get the bracket on the bike, but I managed to get it installed. Now I am all ready to ride my bike to work once we move next week.

Remember this quilt I made? Well at least you saw parts of it when I was working on it earlier this year. I was looking for the post and it was still a draft - I never posted it. This was my first finish for 2013. It is posted now.

Here is a picture of a picture of the baby who the quilt was made for. Such a cutie! His parents call him Trip, but that is not his given name.

I will post an update on the Halloween quilt tomorrow.

My two days in Charm

I should have a t-shirt with "I survived Charm Days!" written on it. The weather was beautiful and the people were out to enjoy the leaves, food, and shopping. I worked at Miller's both Friday and Saturday. Here is the sunrise on Saturday morning.

The store before we turned on the lights and opened the doors at 8 am.

Here are my purchases from the quilt shop.

To be continued ....

Rolling right along on the Halloween quilt

Another block done last evening!

I woke up at 5:15 this morning so I decided to get up and work on another block. I got about 3/4 of this block done.

I found another dark block that I missed quilting the white stripes so I quilted those last night too. SO I am down to 7 1/4 blocks to go!

Tomorrow and Saturday I will be working at Miller's Dry Goods in Charm, Ohio for the Charm Days Celebration. I am looking forward to getting out of this office! I got the phase books put together, but I am still waiting on some info from the architect and a consultant before they are complete. Handling fabric all day for two days is just what I need after these last six weeks of madness. Here are my piles of books. I need to bind two of them for submission to the board and one for a representative and the rest will get distributed after the books are signed.

Next week is all about packing up the office as we are moving the 21st thru the 24th to a double wide trailer out at a job site.

Have a great weekend and if you come to Charm, look me up at the quilt shop! I have crazy curly hair so you will know it's me - Patty, the quilt lady!

Halloween quilt is coming along grand!

Last evening I decided to sew on the binding. I already had the strips cut so it was a matter of sewing the lengths together, pressing, sewing them on, and mitering the corners. I got the quilt trimmed, the binding pressed and now it is ready for the hand stitching.

This morning I had some extra time so I decided to quilt a block. I got the white areas of this block done so tonight I will do the black stripes and another block will be done! That would mean only 9 more to quilt! I want to get this done so I can at least enjoy it for a little while before it get handed over to my brother on the 26th. I really love the way this quilt is turning out.

Another block done

Here is the block I quilted last evening.

My deadline is now the 26th and with only 10 more blocks to quilt I will make that deadline.

I received my swag bag from the Quilt Alliance last evening. There was a nice mix of items including some fabric! There were some tickets - I don't know what those are for - and a thing called Story Patches - I haven't' figured out how it works yet. I also have to figure out how to go see the videos from the event.

Where have I been?

Well, last week was just crazy at work. I had a 3 hour meeting on Thursday and didn't get home to almost 6 p.m. The project I have been working on is still not done. There is a book we put together to present to the school board. I was told 6 weeks ago it had to be to the board by the 18th. Thursday the date was changed to the 11th. Poof!!! a whole week of review time gone. Let's say I am not happy. I am not into doing half-assed work, but that is all the time I have. I lose another day since I will be heading to Charm, Ohio on Friday the 11th to work at the quilt shop, so I have to have the book done and delivered on the 10th. Poof - another day gone!

I did work on the Halloween quilt this weekend. I got five blocks quilted and a lot of the zig zag border quilted.

Saturday I gave the Akron Art Museum 5 hours of my time to help out at an event. It was the Akron Art Prize announcement. Artists submitted their work and the public went to different galleries in town to see the work and vote on their favorite pieces. The winner got $5,000 and five runner ups got $1,000 each. There was food

And music

Sunday was the birthday party for the two little girls that I made the quilts for. They opened lots of presents. Here they are opening the quilts

But this is what they really loved - the mechanical cat and dog. When you rubbed their back, they walked.

So the girls were helping to carry last couple of bags of their loot out to the car and one of them turned to me and said "Where's my Yo Gabba Gabba quilt?" So I guess it did make an impression. They were quite overwhelmed with everything and what can you expect out of a three year old anyway?