And Two more ready

With making up these sets of items needed for each quilt, I have reduced the batting scraps quite a bit. I did find a couple of larger pieces that were not in the picture. Here is the original pile

and this is what it looks like now

I pulled out my stack of backing scraps and found a piece for the quilt top with the red. Here is what my backing scrap stack looks like.

So now with these six groups set up

this weekend I will start pin basting and getting some machine quilting done.

Two more ready

I managed to get the batting, backing, and binding ready for two more quilts. My batting scrap pile is dwindling!

My first 2015 fabric purchase and using up batting scraps

I didn't hold out very long before I made my first purchase! I have been trying to ignore all the sales everyone has been having, but for 50% off ... well, that is a hard sale to ignore! Here is what I bought

I have this pile of batting scraps

and some small UFO quilts that need quilted so last evening I sewed the batting together to make big enough pieces for two of the small quilts. The batting was wrinkled so I lightly pressed it.

I had a nice big piece that I needed to add a strip to the side and the bottom.

To do this I overlapped the pieces by a couple of inches and made sure they were the same length at the end where I would start sewing.

With the rotary cutter, I cut a gentle curvy wave thru both pieces then removed the trimmings.

I took the pieces to the sewing machine and set my stitch for a triple stitch zig zag 13a i.e. each zig has three little stitches in it. Using this stitch keeps the batting from forming a ridge. I also used the widest setting and set the length to a 2. The standard length on my machine is a 1.

Place both pieces under the foot with the edges butted up against each other. I started sewing keeping the butted edge in the middle of the foot so the zig zag would go back and forth catching both pieces.

I guess I should have used a different colored thread to show the seam so you could see it better, but it is what it is - a nice flat seam that will not be noticeable!

I managed to get the batting pieced for two quilts along with the backing pieced and binding cut. I will continue to make batting for the rest of my small UFO quilts and stack them up until I am ready to start the next step of pin basting them.

Before I went to work I made a lime coconut quick bread to take to the fellows at work. I didn't want to make it last night because I would have smelled it all night and that would drive me crazy! They fellows said it tasted good. I had to change the recipe since I didn't have any coconut oil or coconut milk. I used butter and skim milk instead. I did a calculation of the calories and if I cut it into 8 slices each slice would have 337 calories! Holy cow! It sure does smell good! Very limey!

1st finish of 2015

Yeah rah! I even got the label sewn on! So here it is. The quilt turned out 82 1/4 x 91 1/4. The patch on the detail picture was on one of the t-shirts so I sewed it on after I was done quilting.

Here is the back. The fabric with the white clouds has mortarboards on it so I had to buy it when I saw it on sale several years ago for this quilt. By the way, this quilt is very orange as it is my niece's favorite color. Even the label has orange polka dots!

I used a variety of threads to quilt this piece - Mettler, Signature, Connecting Threads Essentials, and Aurifil. The batting is Warm & Natural 80/20. Onward to the next project!

So close

Both Saturday and Sunday I didn't get into the studio until the afternoon. Saturday was a haircut appointment, a stop at the Earth Fare for a few groceries, and a stop at Goodwill to look for hard rock/heavy metal t-shirts. I didn't find any t-shirts but I found this nice hooded sweatshirt for $4.48.

On Sunday it was an early morning trip to the other side of town to do grocery shopping at Marc's and to visit the new Giant Eagle Market District store which is a stones throw from Marc's. The GE store is huge and I walked the entire store to get some of my walking in for the day. I ended up buying more than what I went in for, but it was stuff that was on sale. After that trip it was putting all the groceries away and washing a lot of dishes.

With all that being said, I am very close to getting the t-shirt quilt done. I have the binding hand sewn on one side and have about 2 feet on the next side done.

Since it is snowing and the roads are terrible, I think I will stay at work at lunch and work on sewing the binding. Maybe I will have this done today!

T-shirt quilt and snow/wind/cold

I was happy to get another section of the t-shirt quilt done last evening. This is the front and back of a t-shirt. I also got the orange improv pieced section quilted on the upper right. I outlined the large letters STATE BOUND and meandered the rest. It is hard to sew thru the rubbery stuff that the letters are made out of and it looks terrible to have quilting go thru those areas so I just outline them.

All I have left to quilt is this section

and the Joe's Crab Shack t-shirt

I am so excited about getting this quilt done, I went and pulled from my UFO pile a group of baby quilts that I want to work on this weekend to get ready to quilt.

I need the baby quilts for my stash of giveaway quilts and I want to have them ready to possibly try out some new all over quilting designs. I borrowed these DVD's from the library and plan on watching them this weekend.

The temperature has risen a bit

but the wind has been howling! It was hard to fall asleep last night between the wind and the house sounds. It was hard to tell how much snow we got overnight since it was drifting with the winds. I was up at 2 a.m. and it was snowing hard. Here is a view from the garage as I headed out to work.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

Progress on the t-shirt quilt

I improved pieced this quilt include the t-shirts. Yes, it takes longer, but I like the softer look of the quilt rather than if I had sashed the t-shirts. I made sewed together groups of shirts. To join the groups of shirts I needed to add some pieced units out of quilting cotton. This quilt is very orange as it has been my niece's favorite color her whole life.

I started quilting this piece by meander quilting the t-shirts and then next I would quilt any of those orange pieced units that were next to the quilted t-shirts. The last couple of evenings I needed to get caught up on quilting those orange pieced sections.

It is very cold here. I was outside shoveling yesterday at my house and at work and the cold almost took your breath away! Here is what came up for the temperature on the Weather Channel this morning.

The sun is shinning right now and I am grateful for that!