Minus 34 hours

34 hours and counting until I have to have my R.E.M. piece photo ready. I managed a total of 20 hours and 45 minutes of stitching from Friday at 4 until 7:30 last night. Saturday I got up early since is was nice and cool out and weeded the front flower bed. I just couldn't stand the way it looked.

I also needed to go to the grocery store so between that and the weeding I used up 3 hours. On Sunday my brother came over with a few items that I needed repaired. Before he came I needed to do some clean up! All of that took about 3 hours, but I still got a lot done this weekend. I finished the gray t-shirt with the purple. I also embroidered around the show date that I attended.

While I was working with red thread, I highlighted around the show I attended on this shirt

I worked on the olive green shirt with the rabbit all day Saturday. I still have a bit more I need to finish, but the goal was to get everything stitched down to where the 4" rod pocket would be. It is hard to get enough light for a good picture, but here is the before

and after

I added some sashiko stitching in this denim area.

In other denim areas I added free motion matchstick quilting and hand embroidered the other dates I went to R.E.M. concerts.

My to do list for the next 34 hours is:
1. get the guitar, Bruce, and R.E.M. outlined on this shirt

2. Sew on the binding and rod pocket
3. Drill a hole in the guitar picks and sew them on
4. Add the rest of the embellishments - pins and patches
5. Put eye screws in the rod

I still will have more embroidery I will do on this quilt, but at least I can pace myself a bit. I have to turn it in by September 8. Much of the hand work is not going to show up in the photo anyway, but in person it will be noticed so I need more!

Purple

I decided I would use these three purples for the next stitching on one of the t-shirts

Here is the before or I was just getting started

and here is where I am right now. I have just a bit more to do on the left face which is Mike Mills.

Yesterday I got in 3 1/2 hours of stitching and I have about 20 minutes in before I went to work. I need to get all the stitching done at the top of the piece at least 4" down so I don't have to undo the hanging pocket. Along the sides and bottom, I need to get anything within 2" done so I don't have to undo the facing binding. The binding and rod pocket have to be done by Tuesday for the picture being taken by the professional photographer - this is free by the way! SO you know what I will be doing all weekend - hours and hours of stitching.

Have a great weekend!

More done; more to go

I managed to get that section of shirt weight denim quilted between phone calls and texts.

There is a lot more to do on this piece so I will keep at it. I figure I have a possible 30 more hours I can used between now and Tuesday to make a dent in the stitching.

Working my way around

I am working my way around the R.E.M. piece to get the stitching done at the edges so I can sew on the facing binding and the hanging pocket by August 1. Here again is the entire quilt and the piece I am now stitching is the denim at the top right area.

Here is a close up of the before

I got a couple of hours of stitching done, but I had to stop to mow the grass. I also stitched for about 20 minutes before work and here is where I am right now on this section.

I looked out back before I went to mow and this little fellow was taking a rest. He got up and ran away once I started mowing, but then came back. I was mowing the front first and when I went over to the other side of the front yard I saw him again looking at what I was doing. He then ran back across the yard when I went into the back to dump the grass, but continued to watch me. He finally took off.

I only got about half the back yard mowed. The bugs were getting to me and the sweat was dripping after an hour and 10 minutes so I called it quits.

Done for now/AHIQ #23

I have been working this piece since April or May. All the t-shirts and denim shirts are authentic R.E.M. shirts - some mine, but most from my brother who toured with R.E.M. every tour since 1988. I improv pieced them together and I am now adding embroidery to up the arty factor as this piece was accepted into the High Arts Prize in the town where I now live. I edited my post for the day to included a bit a background so I could link this to the AHIQ monthly post on Ann's Fret Not Yourself blog. I will continue to embroider and embellish this until the moment I have to hand it over.

I finished the t-shirt with the large circles for now. I could always add more, but I need to move on. Here is what it looked like before

and the after. I had to do some stab stitching in those tight areas which took longer to do, but it looks good.

I also made an embellishment for the quilt. There was this thumbs up on the cover artwork in the 2001 fan pack and I thought it would be a fun addition to the quilt. I had some scraps of ultrasuede and some heat and bond so it was a easy project.

I learned how to do this and had the scraps from when I worked at a shop that made custom clothes for people who showed Western horses. I started out doing alterations then moved into making chaps using lamb leather, lamb jackets, and jackets made using polyester twill. The jackets were decorated with ultrasuede designs and Swarovski crystals. I learned by watching. We had women that drew the designs on the heat and bond and ironed it to the ultrasuede. Then another group of worker's job was to hand cut all the ultrasuede designs out. Other women iron the designs on the jackets and other women outlined stitched the designs on the jackets. The jacket parts would be passed on to a sewer to assemble the jacket, and finally the stoners - yes, we called them stoners, would glue on the crystals. It was quite a process. I made all the leather jackets the last 6 months I was there. Here are a few that I made.

I won't be getting in my 3 hours of stitching tonight. The weather has cooled off a bit and I need to mow.

Weekend activities

Oh it was a hot and humid weekend. Saturday morning was a haircut and then I headed over the Cuyahoga Falls to work the merchandise booth for my nephew's band. On Friday night and a bit on Saturday I made a new cover for the merchandise booth. The cover that I had made before wasn't enough for complete sun protection and was not hurricane/tornado/gale proof as demonstrated by the torrential downpour that happened to us two weeks ago. This cover is easy for me to zip up and worked well at Saturday's gig. I made it out of the car cover fabric I have used in the past for the covers I made for my brother and the water will just roll off of it.

It was so hot and humid at the show. Everyone was exhausted after the show and thank goodness we had some friends who helped us load out. I don't know what we would do without their help. My SIL always packs two large coolers with lots of water and drinks for us and the band, and we ran out. That has never happened. It was brutal, but we had a great crowd. I took this picture when they first started and then more people showed up.

I tried stitching a bit while I sat at the merch booth, but it was so hot and sticky that it was just to hard to sew. I did stitch all day Sunday; I was too tired to do much of anything else. I did get this pocket section done.

Then I jumped over to this t-shirt. I first stitched around the R.E.M. while I watched the final stage of the Tour de France. Here is what the letters looked like partially done.

I needed to add some stitching to those circles so I decided to use a running stitch. It is a bit hard to get the needle thru that rubbery stuff so I have to use a pliers to pull the needle thru, but it looks so good! I have one of the circles done and it really nails down the material. It will probably take at least two hours to finish the remaining circle. I was too tired to even bother tracking my time, but I would guess I got in at least 8 hours on Sunday.

Saturday the deer were back.

My friend, Glenda of QuiltSwissy.blogspot.com found this cool Eagles t-shirt and sent it to me. This will go into one of my arty t-shirt quilts. She also doodled the back of the mailing envelop which was so fun! Thanks so much Glen!

Got my 3 hours in

I ended up getting 190 minutes of stitching in yesterday which is a bit over my daily goal of 3 hours or 180 minutes. I am almost done with stitching that denim area with the pocket. Here is where I started

and this is what it looks like now.

I went outside to cover my daylily and this coneflower was giving me quite a show.

I will be busy stitching the R.E.M. piece as much as I can this weekend. Have a great weekend!

Back to the R.E.M. quilt

Between work, laundry, texting, phone calls, and watching the Tour de France I still managed to get in about 160 minutes of stitching - not quite my goal of 3 hours a day. My plan is to first work on all the areas that touch the outer edges between now and August 1. August 1 I have to get the official photo taken for the High Arts Prize. Having the outside edges all finished will allow me to put the facing binding and hanging pocket on. I will then work on the center area between August 2 and September 8 when I have to turn the piece over.

Here is what I worked on yesterday. This is a picture I took last month before I stopped and moved on to other areas.

This is what it looks like now.

I didn't cover my daylily the night before last and the deer had come by and chomped on it pretty good. There are still a few buds left and I covered it up last night.

10th finish for 2017

Yes! The Harley quilt is done! It finished at 81" x 95". I used warn and natural 80/20 for the batting and a variety of threads to quilt it including King Tut, Aurifil, Signature, and Essentials from Connecting Threads. I was up at 4:50 this morning to sew on the label and take pictures. I had sewn the binding together and pressed it at lunchtime yesterday. After work machine sewed the binding on while watching the Tour de France.

Now I must focus on getting as much stitching as possible done on the R.E.M. quilt. I don't have to hand it over until September 8, but my appointment for a photo is August 1. So that gives me 12 days and approximately 53 hours of stitching if I stitch 3 hours after work, and 10 hours a day on the weekends except for this Saturday. I have a hair cut appointment and the band is playing an event so I will be lucky to get 3 hours in that day. I have a few more pin buttons coming in the mail for embellishment. I will continue to work on it after the photo is taken, because it is all about how it looks in person. The photo is for the slide show the event puts on and for the voting on the iPads.