So close!

Mitered corners. Trimmed. Pressed. Started stitching. This is what I did last evening on the Harley quilt. I have one side sewn so I will finish the other three sides tonight, add a label and it will be done finally.

The rest of the weekend I will be making boxy pouches and a pecan pie. Have a wonderful Easter.

Binding, daffodils, and books

My daffodils are showing yellow. I don't know that they will open up for Easter, but it is a sign spring is here.

My Lenten roses are blooming too.

I sewed on the rest of the binding! Yeah! I was about a foot short of binding so I dug around in my scraps and found a piece of black Kona.

Tonight I will miter the corners.

I learned how to request books to purchase at the library and one of them arrived. The book about Welsh quilts was my request. The other was already at the library. I will be diving into these this weekend.

Binding and deer

I now have the binding sewn on two sides of the Harley quilt. I just can't believe how I have not been able to get into a groove with the changes in my daily schedule with this new job. It is frustrating not to have my lunch hours to do stuff around the house that I now have to do when I get home after a long day. Anyway, I have the third side binding lined up ready to pin.

Last evening I was running around doing stuff, looked out the window and saw a group of deer in the backyard. There is a pack of six that hang together. Does that qualify as a herd? LOL!!Some of them headed out front and I got a picture of three of them eating the new growth the daylilies are sending up. Once the daylilies get a bit taller the deer leave them alone until the flowers bloom and then they will eat those.

I took this picture thru the upstairs window so there is the reflection and my thumb! The group is four doe and two fawn that were born last summer.

AHIQ and pouch progress

I have not made the time to work on my AHIQ project which was to hand quilt a log cabin one block quilt I made in 2010. What I have been doing is making a t-shirt quilt. I finally got around to laying out the quilt for adding the binding at 5 this morning as I had a bit of time before I need to leave for work. All I need to do is pin the binding down and I can sew the first side tonight. I also cut the binding for the opposite side of the quilt so they would be the same length. I guess you could put this quilt in the utility category as I hope that whomever wins this quilt in the raffle uses this quilt.

Last evening phone calls delayed me in getting to tasks that needed done which cut into my sewing time. I had to strip the bed and wash sheets, and cook the beautiful pieces of salmon and a small roast I bought on Saturday so I would have something to take to work (I am took cheap to eat out very often). I did fire up the iron and pressed interfacing on some of the fabric for the boxy pouches. I still have more fabric to cut out for the lining pieces, but once I have all the fabric cut out and interfaced I can just sit and put the pouches together.
Yes, I have a lot of skull fabric! I plan on taking some of these this summer to the venues my nephew plays and maybe I can sell a few skull pouches to the motorcycle crowd when we play Bike week in a couple of towns. Ann of Fret not Yourself reminded me that I should make some with music fabric and she is right! Those will be coming along with making pouches to use up some of my novelty fabrics which I have a big stack.

Busy weekend

The weekend included an oil change, laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, and going to my brother's house to get my rake. I also finished quilting the Harley quilt. I did get the binding cut, sewn together and pressed, but not sewn on the quilt.

My box with interfacing had come from HomeSew and I wanted to start getting a bunch of boxy pouches cut out. I cut out a pile of interfacing pieces and then fabric for the outside and inside of the pouches. I used up some larger scraps which was great.

I cut the fabric 12 1/2" x 9 1/2" which will make a nice medium sized pouch. My sister wanted several more for her, her daughter and a friend so I need to get those made. Also last time I went to get my hair cut, I showed one of them to my beautician and a customer of another beautician saw it and wanted one for a friend of hers so I have to have that one made next time I go get my hair cut and hand it off. I also want to make a few to give family and friends for Easter.

Babies on quilts and a bit of progress

I was really tired when I got home from work yesterday so I didn't get much quilting done. I did get a bit done on this shirt although it is next to impossible to see the stitching.

So my goal this weekend is to finish the Harley quilt.

Last Friday Brenda from Scraps and Strings showed pictures of babies on quilts she had made. I hadn't showed pictures of babies on quilts for quite awhile that I had made so here we go!
These are babies that belong to friends of my sister

This is a baby that belongs to friends of one of my brothers and was born about two weeks ago

This sweet baby belongs to a couple that are friends of one of my brother's friends. It was funny to find out that me making quilts was part of my brother's conversation to a co-worker back stage setting up a show. I don't think the parents have used the quilt. LOL!!

And here is a baby of the furry variety.

Here is a sneak peek behind the scenes of the job I am now on. We are tearing down a parking deck - the hospital is across the street in the background

and we have done some replacement and rerouting of ductwork in one of the mechanical rooms

So have you ever seen one of these doors and wonder what it looked like behind it?

Take a look at what you would see!

There is also work going on in the basement and tunnel so there is a lot to keep up with.

Have a great weekend!

Getting closer

Yes, I am getting closer to having the Harley quilt quilted. I got the navy blue shirt done so I am at 91% done. That shirt had a lot of letters I had to stitch around!

Three shirts are left to quilt.

More progress!

I got the blue shirt quilted and I am now 88% done with the quilting. I have the machine all set up and ready for the navy blue one right below it.

Four left to quilt

Old man winter will just not go away. I headed out into this at 5:43 this morning

It seemed there was about 2 inches on the garbage bin and roof. It was a bit sloppy driving as it looked like the salt trucks weren't out. I did finally see one about half way to work.
On my walk thru the hospital I did find two quarters!

Little by little

Yes, that is one of my favorite songs by Robert Plant and describes my progress on the Harley quilt. I got the white t-shirt done which puts me at 84% done with the quilting. I had a bit of laundry and cooking food for lunches to do last night and I stopped at the library after work so my time to quilt was small. I am now 84% done.

How far did I get?

I had to go and get my taxes done Saturday morning. My guy is an hour away where I use to live. He was the president of the credit union and always did taxes on the side. He is retired now, but continued the tax business. This sadly is his last season as he is having some medical issues and probably the last time I will ever see him. He and his wife are lovely people and even though I only see them once a year, it is like we are old friends. I served on the board of directors of the credit union for 9 years so I got to know them. He thanked me for my service on the board (it was a volunteer position) and we said our goodbyes.

I had gone down early and stopped at my favorite bulk food store before getting my taxes done to pick up a couple items so by the time I got home I was a bit tired. I did get some quilting done on Saturday and Sunday so I am now 81% done with the quilting. I have these six shirts left to quilt.

I did get some outlining done on the white shirt so it won't take long to finish quilting it. Here is a close up of the front and a shot of the back so you can see what is done.

Yeah it is Friday!

It was a cold walk this morning to the hospital. Right now it is 23 degrees with a 15 mph wind which make the wind chill 10 degrees. My ears got cold! It has been a busy, crazy week with this new job and I am glad it is Friday! I did see on the news that another Nor'easter is headed my way next week. March is going to make me appreciate Spring for sure!

I did get the Kuwait t-shirt done

and I have the North Carolina shirt almost done.

I am now 56% done with the quilting! I love getting over the half way point! This weekend I plan on working on this quilt this as much as I can. I need to make a few more boxy pouches for my sister and niece too so I will slide those in between quilting sessions.

Have a great weekend!

Still quilting

I finished up the t-shirt with the eagle and started on another one. It is just too hard to see quilting on black early in the morning so I started on this shirt that has a dark green background. I outlined stitched the most of the Harley Davidson at the top of the shirt, outlined the HD symbol in the middle of Kuwait and outlined Kuwait, then outlined the boat. This is to nail down the middle of the shirt before I meander free motion the background.

After work I stopped at the grocery store and the library. Weeks ago I had a librarian tell me how I could request a book to be purchased. All these years and I had no idea I could make suggestions. Well, I suggested Cotton and Indigo from Japan and it came! I only had a short time to look at it, but the photography is beautiful and it will be an interesting read.

Not done yet

I am still working on that center t-shirt! I finally got all the meandering stitching done

I now need to do some detail stitching to hold the center design of the eagle in place. I started stitching the shield, but I have a bit more to do

Then to anchor the center of the shirt I will do some outlining at the eagle's head.

It snowed again yesterday and thru the night. When I left work it was snowing hard or should I say the graupel was coming down so hard it was hard to see across the parking lot. Here is what it looks like this morning

And here is a view of the hike I have to take from the parking at the park next to the hospital to get to the entrance. See the two vertical elements toward the right center? Well, I walk to the far right one, take a left and the front entrance is about another 100 feet. I decided to check this morning how many steps it was and my fitbit said 900. Not a bad walk unless it is 25 degrees out with an 11 mph wind which makes the wind chill 14 degrees. LOL!!

I would rather walk in the cold and snow than rain and I know that will happen eventually.

Better than nothing

I am still trying to get my rhythm with the change of job location. It makes a big different from driving 5 minutes to 25 - 30 minutes. Once I got home I did a load of laundry and some cooking. Once I sat down next thing I knew it was time to get ready for bed! I get up at 4:30 so my evenings are short.

I did have some time this morning so I quilted for about 25 minutes. It is hard to see in this picture, but I quilted around the lettering Elyria and Harley Davidson and got part way around the eagle when I ran out of bobbin thread and time. I like to quilt around the lettering and any center designs before I meander stitch the blank areas. I found that if I meander stitch the blank areas then do any outline stitching it is harder to keep the shirt flat.

Put a dent in it

I never left the house from when I got home on Friday until this morning except to step outside and get the mail. I only opened the curtains enough to have better light to quilt. So after quilting most of the day Saturday and Sunday, I am now 46% done quilting the Harley quilt. That is putting a dent in it for sure after having a slow start! I have the two columns on the right and two shirts at the top of the center column quilted.

The next two shirts are going to be the hardest to quilt since they are in the center.

My machine is acting a bit strange. I will be quilting along and all of a sudden the needle speeds up even though I never pushed the food pedal any harder. The needle slows down again then goes fast. I thought it was the foot pedal so I hooked up my other pedal, but once in awhile the machine would get wacky. I found that if I turn the machine off then back on it eventually quits this. I guess I am going to have to take it in for a checkup.

By they way, my cold is almost gone. This one only lasted two weeks versus the one I had last October which lasted a month and caused me to miss the Ray LaMontagne concert. I attribute the shorter cold to drinking this Super Exlier everyday. I started drinking this in February and have noticed that I have been sleeping better and I am not as tired as I have been. It's not cheap, but since I feel better it is worth it!