Big progress

I managed to get both motifs quilted last evening

and some of the star quilted. Since the weather is rainy I will stay indoors tonight and try to get the star quilted so this piece will be a finish for March and another UFO done.

The contractors have made a small retaining basin trying to get the site to drain and dry out. Good luck with that with it raining yesterday, today and rain called for every weekday next week. But anyway, I drove by the pond and there was a pair of ducks that had stopped by.

I plan on working on the R.E.M. t-shirt quilt this weekend. Have a great weekend!

The push is on

Last evening is spent two relaxing hours cleaning up the garage and spraying weed killer on all the thistle coming up in the flower beds. The sun was shinning and the temps were decent. I just didn't want to go in the house and work.

It dawned on me the month is almost over and I want to get the nine patch star quilt done. It would be nice to have another UFO done. I need to finish quilting the star. To remind you the star was made by a friend's aunt and I made this quilt to do something with that one lone block.

and I have two of the motifs to quilt.

The weather is not very nice today and a chance of rain is expected all day so I working on this quilt seems like what I will do after work. It think finishing this could be doable, but it will be close!

T-shirt quilt progress

Things were kind of crazy yesterday so I didn't have time to post. Here are some progress pictures of the design wall as I continue to get the shirts cut up and interfaced.

My next decision will be on how I plan on sewing these together. I have a couple of ideas, but I will have to play around with them before I commit to what I am going to do.

One Monthly goal report

My goal was to get started on my piece for the Akron Art Prize which will be a piece made with R.E.M. t-shirts. I met my goal! I had sorted and pinned shirts to my design wall

and now I started cutting up the shirts and ironing on interfacing to the backs of the shirts.

I made another batch of yogurt yesterday and it turned out great! I am getting much better yields than I ever did before. In the past I put the milk with cultures in thermos containers to process. Now I have been leaving the mix in the big stock pot I heated the milk in. After the milk has cooled to 122 degrees and I add the cultures, I stick the towel wrapped pot under a couple of quilts on my bed with the electric blanket turned up to quite warm. A little crazy but it works!

I also made this little doll quilt for the exchange I am participating in. There are only a couple of pieces of fabric in the four patches that are not vintage fabrics. I have just a little more basting to do and it will be ready to quilt. It is about 15" x 19".

This and that

I had to clean the inside of the car because it was quite dusty and I had to take it in for service today. It looks so nice now! I couldn't wash the outside because it was just too cold outside - 35 degrees. The car has a lot of mud on it because of the job site I am on, so I asked them to run the car thru the car wash twice to see if they could some of the mud off the car especially in the wheel wells. Let's just say I won't be buying any fabric for awhile with the bill that will be handed to me!

I then made lemon curd to go with the yogurt I made this past weekend. I needed to use up the lemons I had. The curd turned out great and tastes wonderful!

When I was in the garage I found a pile of t-shirts sitting in a chair that I forgot about. I went thru them to see if there were any I could use in the R.E.M. quilt.

This is what the wall looks like now. Kind of looks like a hot mess, but there is a method to my madness!

I got a few strips cut for the doll quilt.

It was a busy evening!

The beauty of a stash

Over at Humble Quilts I decided I wanted to participate in a doll quilt swap. I threw my name in the hat and I was accepted. The fabrics that are to be used are 1910 or before prints. Since I have a pretty good stash that contains vintage fabrics, I just happen to have some authentic turn of the century prints in a wonderful blue color.

I also have some different colors of prints, but I was thinking maybe I would pair the blue up with white shirt prints. I knew I had some years ago, but did I still have them? Yes I did! Here is what I found

So I am good to go on this project. The quilt can't be bigger than 24" square and has to be mailed by May 1. I can do that!

My brother also called and asked if I would make two covers for his son - one for a keyboard and one for an amp. Of course, I said yes. I have plenty of car cover fabric and flannel to line them with.

And he measured everything adding slack. Now I just need to get started!

Next project and a new badge

It is time to get started on my next big project - my piece for the Akron Art Prize. The last two t-shirt pieces I made took me several hundred hours each to construct, free motion machine quilt, embroider, and finish so I need to get started on this. I will be due mid-August, but I will need something to submit in late April or May with my application so I need to get the top constructed.

First I had to go thru these t-shirts and sort them.

Here they are laid out on my big table in piles by tour years. The theme of this piece will be the band R.E.M. My brother toured with them on every tour since 1988 and he saved a lot of shirts thank goodness!

I then sorted thru each year and picked the shirt I thought might work. I have some of them pinned on the design wall now. I have a few more I am going to add. I sure had lots of choices and there will be many that will go back in the containers and back to my brother's house!

I am still thinking about how I am going to construct this piece. I want to do something a bit different than what I have done for the last two years. This is my piece for 2015

and my piece for 2016

Kaja, this is the part of improv quilting we had some conversation about; that much of improv quiltmaking involves time to think about how to design, construct, and solve problems. I think I have a design plan which is a huge step!

Yesterday I got a new badge from fitbit - my monarch migration badge which means I have walked 2,500 miles.

6th finish of 2017

I got my AHIQ project done this weekend. It finished at 60.5 X 69.

I made the best batch ever of yogurt yesterday. I decided to leave my milk with starter in the big stock pot I heated the milk in and keep it warm by wrapping it a towel, then turning on the electric blanket on my bed, and wrapping the pot in the quilts on my bed. I used whole milk and the yield was impressive. I used some of it this morning in my smoothie and it was great.

I have a question - what is the best way to get the musty smell out of fabric? I have some vintage fabric that was given to me and it has a musty smell.

No sweat!

I ended up not making and cookies for today; I was tired. I did relax and finish quilting the Chinese Coin quilt.

The thread situation? No sweat; I had plenty! This is what was left. It is a good thing I left off that other border or I would not have had enough thread.

The sunrise was very pretty this morning.

This weekend I plan on getting the binding on my Chinese Coin quilt. Have a great weekend!

Getting close

30 more rows are done. Here is what it looked like before

And here is what it looks like now

I have another 28 to 30 rows to stitch. I managed to get two more rows from the aqua spool of thread when I thought I wouldn't. Here is what the thread situation looks like now and I know I will have enough to get thru this project

I probably won't get the last of the rows stitched tonight because I plan on making shamrock cutout cookies for the guys at work for St. Patrick's Day.

Figured wrong

I stitched 33 rows last evening. I now have stitched to the edge of the quilt on two sides, so two sides to go. Here is what the two sides to go looked like before I started stitching last evening

and here is what it looks like now

What I figured wrong was the number of rows left to stitch. I was figuring two rows for every inch when it is two rows for every 3/4". I am thinking I still have at least another 46 rows to stitch.

Now the thread situation. I used up almost another spool of blue, the pink has just enough thread for two more rows, the orange I am not sure if I can get 4 rows or only 2 out of what is left, and the yellow and yellow orange have maybe 6 more rows left on them. It is going to be close, but I still think I will have enough thread to finish this.

We got another 1 or 2 of snow last night. The wind is blowing a bit which makes the wind chill 4 degrees. I actually had to shovel my driveway this morning! It is only the second time this winter.

Two more bite the dust

Guess where I was yesterday afternoon?

It was just for a cleaning, but my dentist is an hour away in the town where I use to live. I have been going to him forever and I am not about to change. I didn't get back home until after 5. I got something to eat and the next thing I know it is 6 p.m. I stitched until 8 and got 29 rows sewn. Yes, they are going faster since I am nearer to the edges. Here are a couple pictures of where I was before I started last night and what it looked like afterwards. I sew two rows of the same color on each side for a total of eight rows per round. Sometimes I will sew rows of a color on just two sides and then switch up colors so I don't have a develop pattern. I did sew 8 rows of blue.

I pretty much emptied two more spools of thread. That aqua blue thread - there wasn't enough for two rows of stitching. I still have approximately 51 rows to go.

So far today we have about 2" of snow. The streets were terrible so they closed the schools. I think this might be only the second snow day this year.