5th finish for 2017

I got the graduation t-shirt quilt done Friday night and sewed the label on Saturday morning. The mother of the soon to be graduate and the lady who takes care of my hair loved it. It turned out 62.5" x 88.5". I used warm and natural batting and a variety of quilting threads including King Tut, Connecting Threads Essentials, and Signature. The back is some of my African Dutch Wax fabric and a solid blue African fabric that has a design woven in it.

I spent Saturday and Sunday making mass quantities of wedding soup. It is a soup that takes two days to make. I had done my grocery shopping on my way home from getting my hair cut so I picked up a small piece of beef, two small whole chickens, and some ground sirloin for the soup. With the ground sirloin I made tiny meatballs for the soup. Yes, this soup is made with chicken and it's broth, beef and it's broth, tiny meatballs, greens - I used kale instead of endive, and a parmesan cheese egg mixture. When I cooked the chicken to make broth I threw in some celery and carrots. I saved the carrots and put them in the soup which my late x-MIL never did, but I wanted to add more vegetables to the soup. The carrots don't effect the flavor. The house smelled so good last night I could hardly go to sleep. Here are my two pots of soup.

Yesterday afternoon there were seven deer in the backyard. Here is a picture of some of them.

I worked on my Chinese Coin quilt too. I will post that tomorrow.

So close

Did you ever have one of those sewing sessions that was more of a battle than a fun experience? Last night was a battle - a battle with thread static and wrestling that quilt. I didn't get all the quilting done, but I am very close. I am now 95% done. I only have these two squares and a t-shirt and a half to finish. It was hard quilting on the t-shirts as the thread matched the color of the shirts so well. It was hard to see where I had been.

It is cold today, 24 degrees right now, but it is sunny. Since it is sunny I think at lunch I will try and get the navy t-shirts quilted. With all the great natural light I will be able to see where I am going. Tonight is binding and a label and it's done!

S this weekend I will go thru the R.E.M. t-shirts and figure out what I am going to use for my Akron Art Prize piece. Who knows what else I will get into!

Have a great weekend!

One monthly goal (OMG) challenge post and more progress

I am such a goof! I manage to go to Elm Street Quilts and post my OMG project, but miss posting reaching my goal or not. My goal for February was to get the graduation t-shirt done. Read below for it's status as of last night.

Well, I am going to try again to post my monthly goad and post if I made my goal for March! My goal for March is to get a start on my Akron Art Prize piece. Since I will probably put a lot of handwork on it, I want as much time as possible to work on it. It will be due in August. I need to go thru these two bins and a basket of t-shirts from my brother, and the hanger full of t-shirts of mine to pick out my materials. My theme this year will be the band R.E.M. My brother toured with them on every tour since 1988. I have had the opportunity to see them many times in concert and to meet them.

I worked on the t-shirt quilt last evening and I am now 88% done with the quilting. I got the pillowcase blocks quilted (the one with Dante's name was hard to quilt. The name was put on with a iron on transfer and the thread broke on me twice because the transfer was stiff and would grab the thread)

got this red block done and the red done in one of the sashings

I need to get the rest of the quilting done tonight and possibly get started on the binding. I know if I work hard I can get this done for delivery Saturday morning.

Winter showed up last night. It was windy! Rain/frozen rain/sleet and then a bit of snow came down. When I went for my walk this morning I slipped a bit on some black ice twice so I had to be careful.

Almost done

I am now done with 80% of the quilting on the graduation t-shirt quilt. My plan is to get as much done as I can tonight, finish up any quilting Thursday night and get started on the binding, and Friday night finish the binding and add a label. Delivery is on Saturday.

I have the binding strips already cut.

I now have to think what my next project is going to be so I don't have any downtime. I guess I really need to start on my piece for the Akron Art Prize.

AHIQ monthly post update

Here is the current state of my Chinese Coin quilt

I am debating on which fabric to use for the sashing piece between the main body and the borders. I have two vintage Marimekko pieces that I tried out. I think the one with the black background is a possibility

This Jay McCarroll - this is a no

This print - no

A spiderweb print - this is a maybe

Boo Crew - no - print is too small

Large skeleton print - not sure - maybe too bold

I plan on quilting this with different colors of thread so I don't want to add too much other color. I have a bit of red in a couple pieces of fabric already.

I made these most delicious chocolate sugar cookies last night for the guys at work. The recipe didn't even make 3 dozen cookies, but they were very easy to make and tasted so good!

It has been so warm that the daffodils are already forming flower heads! Crazy!

Major progress

I was at training on Friday - Confined Space and Silica Dust. Once I got home I got to work on the graduation t-shirt quilt. The fabric arrived Thursday and was washed, dried, and ready for me to cut it up. Here is what the quilt top looked like on the design wall for two weeks while I waited for the Essex fabric

At the end of Friday night this is what the top looked like. Lots of pieces and parts made and ready for sewing together

On Saturday I got the top made, pieced the back, pin basted the quilt together and started quilting. Here is what it looked like when I went to bed

On Sunday I quilted all day. I now have 66% of the quilting done. I never left the house all weekend and only took short breaks to get something to eat or drink. I am very comfortable with where I am at on this and it will be done so I can take it with me Saturday morning for gifting.

On Thursday while I was waiting for the Essex fabric to be laundered, I worked on the nine patch star quilt. I got two of the motifs quilted. All I have left to do on this is to quilt the other two motifs and the star block.

Plugging away

After I spent a half hour straightening up a section of the garage, I sat down and hand quilted. I had 5 steps short of 15,000 so I was good there. I quilted 2 plus hours and this is where I am at on this project.

I have all four of the nine patch blocks quilted

I have all the 1/4" away from the edge borders done on the stenciled squares. I still have all four motifs to quilt.

And I have the 1/4" border stitching done on the star block.

I had some leftovers from the last batch of soup I made so I threw them together. I had leftover chicken broth, chicken, and some kale. I dumped that in a big pot

The traditional wedding soup I learned how to make from my late x-MIL had beef in and used endive, but I am using what I have. I was surprised how the kale tasted so much like the endive. I have done this with spinach, but the spinach flavor is much stronger and takes over too much. To finish the soup off I used one egg since I didn't have that much soup and beat in graded parmesan cheese.

I then dripped the egg and cheese mixture in the hot soup while stirring. This distributes the egg and cheese throughout the soup. Here is what it looks like then

Usually I would cook some beef with the chicken to make broth and shred both to throw back in the broth. I would also make little bitty meatballs, cook them in a fry pan and then throw those in the soup. I was surprised that the soup was still very tasty with those two items. I am going to make more of this for sure.