Quilting has begun and thank goodness it is Friday

I got about one third of the green zig zag quilted last evening. My goal is to get this done this weekend. I won't hand it off until March 4th so for once I will be ahead of schedule!

My other plans are to start quilting the curved top pouches, make some thread beds, and get that t-shirt quilt shipped. Have a great weekend!

Pin basting, chicken, and a new calendar

Quilt is pin basted, bobbins are wound, and the sewing machine is all oiled so I am ready to start quilting the green zig zag quilt.

I needed put the last two packages of chicken in the crockpot to cook yesterday before I went to work. I deboned the chicken and will pack it tonight to vacuum seal it before freezing.

Yesterday the General Superintendent passed out calendars to us that featured pictures of the bridge job. Here is December 2025 showing on the upper right the SB new bridge which is for both north and south bound traffic until the north bound bridge is built. The other bridge is the existing bridge which is being demolished and the new north bound bridge will be built close to same place.

Ready to pin baste

I was not feeling great yesterday. I have this heaviness in my chest and I'm still coughing so I didn't get much done last evening. The baby zig zag is ready for pin basting.

I had my monthly wellness appointment with my chiropractor/kinesiologist/functional nutritionist and told him about how I was feeling. He ran out of the room and brought back this herbal elixir. I started taking it as soon as I got home. I mix a teaspoon with water and I need to take it 3 to 4 times a day. It is some nasty tasting stuff, but if it helps me get rid of this lingering cold I don't care! I learned real quick that if I get something else to drink after I take it, the taste subsides quickly.

When I went to check the mailbox last evening I saw the daffodils are already coming up.

The green zig zag quilt progress

No messing about last evening! The top is sewn together! I have enough of one of the green fabrics that I will use it for the backing.

Tonight I will trim the top and hopefully start pin basting it.

1st quilt finish for 2026

The t-shirt quilt is finally done! It finished 64" x 77".

I had made a trip to the store Friday after work and chicken breasts were on sale for $1.99 a pound! What a deal! They had the skin and bones, but the regular price is at least $3.50 a pound these days. To say the least, I stocked up. Sunday I spent a lot of time cooking and deboning chicken. I still have two packages of chicken to cook. There are 3 very large half breasts in each package. Tonight I will vacuum pack the cooked chicken into two pound packages and freeze them so it will be quick to put meals together. In between processing chicken I sewed the binding. I have a question, do any of you press the binding toward the raw edge after you machine sew it on? I don't remember when I started doing this, but I like the crisp look it gives to the binding on the front.

I also got a few rows of blocks sewn together on the green baby quilt. I would like to get this done by the first of March because I will be over at the home office and I will be seeing the lady I am making this for.

Quilting done but not without a goober

Yes the t-shirt quilt is finally quilted! I even found the black Kona I will be using for the binding. My goal is to get it bound and shipped this weekend.

So I finished the quilting, turned the quilt over to trim threads and found this goober of lint and thread! What the what?

So I had to carefully mess around, clean that up and requilt the area.

Have a great weekend!

Getting so close!

One more t-shirt is quilted so I am now 97.4% done with the quilting; that is how the math works out! LOL!! I did the smaller shirt last night. I was having a hard time seeing since there wasn't any natural light.

I only have this shirt to finish quilting and then I will be on to the binding!

T- shirt quilt almost quilted, a thank you card, and an old movie

The t-shirt quilt is now 95% quilted. I quilted this shirt which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be

Then I got the top area of this shirt quilted

This is the last shirt to quilt

I found a lovely thank you card on my desk yesterday. This was a card with a token in it for fixing those ski pants. The lady wrote a lovely note inside and was very happy with the job I did.

Since football season was almost done except for the Super Bowl, last Saturday I flipped on TCM to have whatever movies they were playing to keep me company while I sewed. The movie "Door-to-Door Maniac" was on; it was in black and white. I had never seen or heard of this movie. I didn't even see the beginning of it, but I looked at the guy on the screen and it was Johnny Cash. He was playing a bad guy. So as I would glance at the movie there was a lady that was calling her child for breakfast. Who pops up on the screen but little Opie Taylor aka Ron Howard! He had to be all of six years old and just as cute as ever! I wonder if Ron remembers anything about being on set with Johnny Cash?

T- shirt quilt - more progress and pecan bites

I worked real hard last evening and managed to get three more shirts quilted. I now have 90% of this quilt done with only the three black shirts to quilt.

Before I sat down to quilt, I made a batch of pecan pie mini muffins. These are so easy to make. Not too sweet, and nice and chewy.

Here is the recipe. I got this from blog Crafting Memories with Molly, but I added vanilla and salt which were not in the original recipe.  Don't fill the mini muffin cups to the top.  Leave about a 1/4" space for the muffins to rise.  Let them cool a few minutes in the pan then knock them out to cool completely on a rack if you can wait that long.  So far at work I have gotten a very good from everyone who had eaten one ... or two!

T-shirt quilt progress and the green baby quilt top

I am still not feeling great, but I did manage to get some work done. The T-shirt quilt is now 83% quilted. I outlined the shirts that still need quilted.

All of the green strips have been sewn and cut to size. The blocks are now arranged on the design wall. I changed out the fabric for the final row at the top from a very bold print to something more subtle.

I have more than enough blocks left over to make another baby quilt.

I ended up with a stack of the end pieces that I will sew together and make 4-patches out of them.

My goal this week is to get the quilting done on the t-shirt quilt, get it bound, and mailed.

Strips cut, caps arrived, weekend plans, soothing lotion, and allergy pills?

The white strips are cut for the green zig zag quilt.

The caps with the longer spikes arrived. That was fast! I ordered these on Monday and I saw the package sitting on my mailbox this morning. The mailman must have showed up last evening when I fell asleep about 5 pm while I was watching the news and sitting in front of the space heater.

I also bought these little scissor charms

They included a little freebie which was this sewing machine charm. Nice!

My weekend plans are to get back to working on the t-shirt quilt when I have good daytime lighting. I will then work on sewing the strips together for the green baby quilt in the evenings. I just want to get the t-shirt quilt done.

I also need to figure out how many curved topped pouches I need to make per month and week in order to make my deadline. I have them all sorted by what color of quilting thread I will be using.

I am trying to ween myself off of using the steroid cream the dermatologist prescribed for my eczema. I had a sample from her of this itch relief cream and tried it out the other day. It worked pretty good. One of the drug stores had it on sale this week so I stopped and bought two bottles. I am liking it so far. It absorbs easily and is not sticky or greasy. On sale it was $14.99, but it is worth every penny if I am not scratching!

I had been using this other cream and it was like rubbing crisco on my skin. It didn't absorb and seemed to just lay on top of my skin. I was still using the steroid cream along with it. I didn't want to waste it, but I don't like it so goodbye!  I have a tube of Eucerin cream that is not thick like this stuff, and it is fine on my hands at night.  I probability won't buy anymore, but I think I will head back to the drug store and get some regular CeraVe for my nighttime hand cream.

A woman I work with suggested I try allergy medicine for my cold. I had some already so I started taking that. It seems to work better than the Coriceden. My nose is not nearly as runny and my ears are not clogged up any more. That is a win-win as far as I am concerned!

There was freezing rain all the way to work this morning. I saw the salt trucks out. I can't tell if it has stopped or not. It is just ugly looking outside right now. Snow is coming shortly; I hope no accumulation. Have a great weekend!

Green strips cut

The green strips are cut for the next baby quilt I want to get made for a woman at work. It will be a zig zag. She is not due until June so I have some time. Tonight I will cut the white strips

The time will blow by quick because I have a heck of a list!

Quilt labeled and bills paid

My friend at work picked this quilt

I made a label and got it sewed on so I could give it to her today. I had some bills that needed checks written, so I got those done and dropped them in the mailbox this morning. I was kind of tired last evening so I didn't get much done.

Productive evening

Well, I guess I am feeling much better since I was busy last evening. Did some more dishes, made some cornbread muffins, washed sheets, and dug around to find green fabric for a baby quilt. One of the women at work is having a boy and avocado green is the main color. I pulled out my bin of 3" wide strips to see what I could find. I need to color sort these!

Then I dug thru what green fabrics I had on the shelf.  I even dove into my scrap bin and found a couple pieces. I plan on making a zig zag quilt with a white or off white fabric between each color. Here is what I found.

Then I got an email from another lady I work with that needed a boy quilt. I sent her pictures of what I had on hand. Zig zag

Courthouse steps

Improv

16 patch

Log cabin

She picked the courthouse steps quilt. I will get a label on it tonight since I will see her tomorrow at the meeting I need to go to at the home office. I ordered the longer spike caps for the snap closures and they are already on their way to me. This is the first time I have ordered from this company so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to get product.