Change of plans

Well the DWR quilt is now on the back burner. The lady that owns the quilt didn't like any of the backings and she wants the quilt finished like the other one she has. I didn't know anything about another quilt and all she told me is that she wanted the quilt fixed. I told it that if the other one is hand quilted I won't be doing that because 1. don't have the time to hand quilt it 2. the quilt is so poorly constructed it would be difficult to hand quilt and 3. the solid rose colored fabric is polyester or polyester blend.

So until I hear back from her it is on to the next project. I have a bunch of strips cut and they were hanging together on a clothes hanger. I wonder what I had planned to make with these? Since I can't remember, I will come up with a new plan! I think I will be making one or two zig zag quilts with these strips as my stash of baby quilts had dwindled down to nothing.

Next project - DWR - it never ends!

My next project is to finished this DWR quilt for an acquaintance. Someone in her family had it "finished" and oh what an awful job they did. Remember these pictures with the back rolled over the front and zig zagged for the binding? What the heck?

My friend, Stephanie, took the backing off and pulled out the horrible quilting in trade with me that I quilted a quilt for her. I think I got the better end of that deal! So last night I was looking the quilt over and it needs some repair work done. The quilt is hand pieced, not very well, and it was coming apart in places. On top of that the person that finished it had use a very sticky basting spray so it was hard to stitch the repairs. The other thing they did was use too hot of an iron and they melted some of the fabric. That pink fabric is polyester blend. I have most of the repairs done. I think I am going to have to wash the top to try and get rid of the sticky residue so I can press the top before I quilt it.

I looked in my stash for some yardage for the backing. I emailed the owner of the quilt with these choices to see if any of them would work for her.

I also asked her about the quilting. I would like to do an overall design so I can nail down the top because the hand piecing is not very good and I could work in the excess fabric.

There is plenty to do until I hear from her.

16th finish for 2015 - Binding. What was I thinking?

I worked hard this weekend and managed to get this t-shirt quilt done. It took me 2.5 hours just to sew all those patches back on the quilt.

The quilt had taken some hard abuse over the years and here is a reminder of what my son's dog had done to it

I was able to salvage the binding from three sides. What was I thinking when I made this honking 1" wide binding?

The outside edge of the binding was very worn. Here you can see holes in the fabric.

Since I was going to cut the new binding only 3" wide it worked out perfect! The worn part was cut away so I could reuse the binding!

The fabric was very limp so I pressed it with some Best Press and that was enough body to help the hand of the fabric. I did have enough left over fabric from when I made this quilt in the late 1990's to replace the binding the dog had ruined with the same fabric! I also had plenty of length as back then I folded the binding corners under and not miter them like I now do. As my Mom would say "that's a good job done!". I thought I had taken a picture of the back, but I only had a close up. I also forgot to measure it. The pasta fabric with the white background was left over from the original backing I had used. The white print is the crib sheet I found at my parent's house. All that zig zag stitching was to hold together a shirt that was coming apart, but I wanted to save it. Yes, the quilting on this quilt would not win any prizes, but I was happy that I could salvage most of the quilt and save my son's memories.

I also made flatbread this weekend from a recipe I saw Martha Stewart make on her baking show. I did change it a bit and added Italian seasoning that Glen of Quiltswissy had sent me and I used Feta Cheese and parmesan cheese instead of onions (yuck), and tomatoes. I didn't want to bake all the dough, so I took the leftover pieces, wrapped them individually in plastic and put them in the refrigerator. I let the dough warm up a bit then rolled and baked it Sunday morning and this morning before work. It baked up just like fresh. It was yummy!

I received an early birthday present from my sister. It is a beautiful olivewood salt box! I will use it to keep my special Himalayan pink salt in.

Getting there

I am almost at the half way point of having the sashing quilted. This is my project for the weekend. I wonder how much I can get done? I have no plans to do much of anything else except maybe make a quick run to the grocery store and getting my walking in, so I have no excuses for not making major progress on this quilt.

What to you see how I am going to salvage the binding!


Have a great weekend!

Making progress on quilting the t-shirt quilt

I now have the sashing around the first row of t-shirts quilted. I think for this quilt I will quilt all the sashing first then quilt the t-shirts.

Next project

Over this past weekend I managed to get my son's repaired t-shirt quilt top pin basted.

I made a change to the already made backing. I did a lot of cleaning this past weekend because I was looking for three missing items which I found all three items - yeah! When cleaning I came across a crib sheet that I used on my son's bed when he was a baby. I had found the sheet at my parent's house this summer when my siblings were helping to clean up their house. I must have given the sheet to my Mom to use for one of her grandkids. I can't believe it was still at their house all these years later. I decided I had to use it so I took the back partially apart and sewed the sheet into the backing.

I got started on the quilting and I will be using a meander design throughout the quilt. When I originally quilted it I had stitched next to the ditch for the sashing and there was minimal quilting in the t-shirts that made it easy to take apart. Now I am quilting the heck out of it! This t-shirt that my Mom had brought back from China was in rough shape and I thought I was going to have to replace it. I ironed on new interfacing and it ended up being salvageable! I made sure I quilted over the couple of areas that were worn through to help nail them down. Meandering over the entire shirt will hold it together for years to come.

My son gave me this quilt a number of years ago to fix and I know he will be happy to get it back. It won't take me too long to quilt it as it is not a huge quilt. I will be very happy to get this one done.

15th finish for 2015 - two more items off the UFO list

Here is the 15th finish for 2015. I used Sulky rayon to quilt the blues and greens and Aurfil to quilt the black.

This was also on my UFO list so this is like killing two birds with one stone. It turned out 31 1/2" x 50 1/4". The blues and greens plus the shibori back were fabrics that I dyed.

The blues and green were scraps leftover from making this quilt.

I also knocked one more item off my UFO list which was mending the holes in this pile of socks. That is my grandmother daring egg. It came in quite handy!

I fixed this tote bag that had a hole in one side and the top of the seams for the sides were coming apart.

My order from Connecting Threads came too. They were having a sale and I needed a variety of fun colors for the baby quilts I need to make. My stash of baby quilts is very low right now.

I have more to show tomorrow of what I accomplished over the last three days. Take care!