Friday, September 29, 2017

80% done

I made a lot of progress on the feed sack quilt last evening. I had taped the Indians game - it was a day game - so I turned that on while I quilted. The weather finally cooled off yesterday so I felt much better. I quilted this sack last night and the Indians won. They have won the last 30 out of 33 games they played. They had two 2-run homers and a solo shot to win 5-2.

I have one sack left to do and I figure it will take me 4 hours to quilt it because of all the detailed quilting I will be doing.


I can finally get back to walking before work since it has cooled off. Here is what I collected this morning on my walk thru the high and middle school parking lots. Yes, that is a dozen pennies that I found all in the same general area.

As of right now my plans for the weekend are to finish the feed sack quilt, get a UFO pin basted, and do a bit of cleaning. Have a great weekend!

Thursday, September 28, 2017

A little more progress on the feed sack quilt and swag bag

I was so tired when I got home from work yesterday. I spent over 1 and 1/2 hours out in 89 degree heat walking around the site and on the asphalt track. The heat just sucked the life out of me. So the bottom line is I only got an hour of quilting in last evening. I finished up the yellow sack and I am now 65% done.

I received my swag bag from the Quilt Alliance yesterday. It is always fun to see what they send and the tote bags are top quality. This year's bag included a 12 1/2 ruler, some charm squares, mini squares, 8 small pieces of Cherrywood, a FQ, a copy of a SAQA journal, a spool of Aurifil 12 wt., and a pressing sheet along with various advertisements.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Second Wednesday quilt sale

Last Wednesday's Chinese Coin quilt did not sell and that's ok. Here is this week's offering - the Blue Log Cabin I just finished. You can email me at pattynubs at gmail.com if you would like to buy it. I will post a price and will be open to counters. If you are someone I don't know I would ask for a casher's check or a money order including $10.00 for postage. I am asking $200.00 for it. I threw it in the wash to get the blue marking out so it is ready to go. 58" x 69" various cotton, homespuns, and batiks, warm and natural 80/20 batting, Sulky rayon for top thread, cotton for bottom thread. Let me know if there are any questions you might have.
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I am now about 62% done with the feed sack quilt. I quilted the brown fabric I added to the bottom of this sack that was damaged

I finished quilting the left yellow sack, got started on the right yellow sack, and quilted the tan fabric that joined the yellow sacks together.

There is quite a bit of detail work to do on the right yellow sack

I went outside last evening to give my plants a little drink since we have had no rain for at least a month and it has been in the 90's every day. Today is suppose to be the last day of this horrible heat, but there is still no rain in the forecast.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Chugging away

I quilted on the feed sack quilt for about 3 1/2 hours yesterday - lunch time plus after work. I now am 50% done with the quilting.

I quilted this green and yellow sack

and I got part of this yellow sack quilted

Here is a peek of the back so you can see the detail quilting I am doing. Going around the lettering takes more time and a lot of concentration, but the result is well worth it.

The fellow I am making the quilt for offered me this cute puppet this morning for all my hard work. It has glasses like me and has some knitting in her hand. I thanked the fellow very much for the puppet, but I didn't have a place to keep it. He collects puppets and I told him he needed to keep it, but from now on her name is Patty. He was ok with that.

Monday, September 25, 2017

13th finish of 2017 and feed sack quilt

Yes I got it done. I threw it in the wash to get the blue marking out so here it is. 58" x 69" various cotton, homespuns, and batiks, warm and natural 80/20 batting, Sulky rayon for top thread, cotton for bottom thread

I made great progress on the feed sack quilt. I now have 33% of it quilted.

A couple of the bags had some damage I had to deal with. The bottom of this bag was ripped so I cut that off and pieced together some scraps of the extra bag. I trimmed the ripped area and pieced in to fill the area.

The chicken feed bag is a thin fabric and there was a hole in the bag. I wanted to lose as little of the bag so I patched the hole with a piece that I had cut off. The piece I cut off was full of holes. At the lower left there are three small holes. I plan on darning those with some free motion stitching.

The top is 67" x 84". I am meander free motion stitching and outline stitching the letters and motifs. I used off white for the backing which I wish now I would have dyed a pale tea dye color. The backing looks too new.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Blue log cabin binding

When I got home from work the Indians game was on. They were playing a day game in California against the Angels. As I watched the game I sewed the binding on the blue log cabin quilt.

Swoozie of swooze.blogspot.com and Glen of Quiltswissy.blogspot.com (sorry I can't figure out how to add links) efforts to get some UFOs done prompted me to go ahead and get the binding on this quilt rather than start sewing together the feed sack quilt. So you all know what I will be doing this weekend - hand sewing the binding on and putting together the feed sack quilt!

By the way, the Indians won the game and swept the Angles. They have won 27 out of their last 28 games! We are on a roll! The bullpen came thru big time yesterday and the home runs with men on base sealed the deal.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Feed sack quilt

I know I need to get the binding on the blue log cabin quilt, but I decided to press the feed sacks to see what I had to work with. I think this is going to be an interesting project. I plan on using the extra bag off to the right to fill in places I need to in order to make the quilt top rectangular. This bag has some holes it in anyway so it is the perfect cutter bag. My improv piecing skills are going to come in handy in putting this top together!

I have a bin of vintage printed feed sack fabric and I found two that would work for the binding. I am leaning toward the top one with the red and green.

I am going to have to dig around to see if I have any muslin backing fabric. I think that would be more in line with what would be on the back if this quilt was made 50 - 60 years ago.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Wednesday quilt sale

Every Wednesday I am going to post a quilt for sale. Why you may ask? Yesterday I took my beloved Eclipse into the shop because the battery was on its way out. What ended up happening is the technician pronounced my car terminal and unsafe to drive due to massive rust issues. I am crushed deeply.

I know there are people with bigger problems in this world and some may say it's just a car, but it was my car, my dream car and I loved that car. I had the Eclipse for two weeks shy of 15 years. The Eclipse was cool and it fit me like a glove. So I was stuck having to buy a car on the fly. So as I cried the salesman asked me what I wanted - which I had no idea what I wanted - and showed me cars. What I wanted was my car. Then I had to drive the Eclipse for the last time around the building to remove all my stuff crying the entire time. I ended up with this stupid gray Tucson. They only had black, blue, and gray on hand. So now I need to pay for the stupid thing.

So every Wednesday I am going to post a quilt and you can email me at pattynubs at gmail.com if you would like to buy it. I will post a price and will be open to counters. If you are someone I don't know I would ask for a casher's check or a money order including $10.00 for postage. Here is my first offering - my Chinese Coin quilt for $200.00. It is 60.5" x 69". If there are any details you want to know just email me.

I couldn't go back to sleep this morning so I was up at 4:30. I finished quilting the blue log cabin and cut the binding.

In conjunction with hopefully selling some quilts, I am also hoping for some commissions. I have one right now. One of the fellows on the jobsite had some feed sacks he wants me to make a quilt out of for his wife. The sacks were very dirty so I had to wash them twice. Once I get them pressed and hung on the design wall I will post a picture. The quilt won't be very big so this should not take me too long.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Hight Arts opening, fabric, work, and baseball

Friday night I attended the opening of the High Arts Prize for a couple hours. I ran into a couple of people I hadn't seen in awhile and talk to a lot of new people. I received a good response from many different people on my R.E.M. piece and it was hung so much better than my pieces were hung the last two years. I couldn't stay the whole time because I needed to go to work on Saturday. I didn't have time to walk around and see all the art, but I will go back and post pictures.

Saturday the asphalt pavers were starting on the base layer for the parking lot, track and basketball court. I stayed for about 5 hours and went home. I went back about 4 just to see how far they had gotten. It was 85 degrees and with hot asphalt, it was quite warm.

I did manage to get that blue and taupe log cabin quilt pin basted, but it was a struggle. I was tired. Sunday I quilted on it all day. I decided to start using up my Sulky rayon thread that I don't use much any more. I did the logs with a variegated cream to taupe thread, the taupe border with a solid matching color, and the blue border I meandered with a blue variegated thread. I had matching solid colored cotton thread in the bobbin.

All I have left to quilt is the taupe and blue border at one end. I had trimmed the blue border down about 1 1/2" before I had pin basted. The border was a bit too wide.

I even managed to find the binding fabric I had chosen 20 years ago for this quilt!

While I quilted I watched the Indians game. Before the game they hung the Central Division Champion flag - they had clinched when Minnesota had lost on Saturday night - and then the players got to celebrate the division win after the game.

My fabric arrived that I ordered from eQuilters. They were having a sale and I found three fabrics with skulls that I could use for the backs of Harley quilts. I bought 6 1/4 yards of each.

For some reason this morning my car wouldn't start - it was just clicking. Time to test the Halo! I had bought a Halo for the portable charging and that it could start a car. I read the instructions, hooked it up and BAM the car started! I will have to investigate why the battery was dead, but I am happy that my investment of buying the Halo paid off.

Friday, September 15, 2017

What a week

It has been a crazy week. I may have electricity in the job site trailer a bit longer than I thought. All the electrical crews are in Texas or Florida helping out to restore power so there are no crews to remove the drop pole where my electricity comes from. I heard on the news last night that the crews are ahead of schedule restoring power in Florida - that is a great thing!

I stopped at the bulk food store which is an hour and 15 minutes away from where I live, to stock up on supplies for baking cookies and pecan pies for xmas. I was at the dentist in the town where I use to live so I figure I might as well stop at the bulk food store. Here is my haul - pecans, almonds, organic raisins, organic oatmeal, brown sugar, a block of chocolate, powdered sugar, and cumin.

By the time I got home I was tired and it was around 5:30. I unloaded the car and got ready to watch the Indians. They showed a picture of the crowd trying to get in the ballpark. This was the middle of the second inning. The lines were at least a block long.

Last night was win 22 in a row! Tonight is the opening of the High Art Prize so I think I will go for a little bit, but I want to get home to see tonight's game and I have to spend some time at work tomorrow. The asphalt guys are starting tomorrow so I have to be there to take some pictures.

This morning I went around the job site and passed out stickers to the contractor's workers. They put them on their hard hats and the stickers put a smile on everyone's face - even the grumpy guys. I have had these sticker for probably more than 15 years. It was time to break them out!

Have a great weekend!