Part 2 of this past weekend and more

With taking that half day on Friday and getting the I Spy quilt done, I had time to start quilting on one of the two pink and brown quilts that were pin basted. I used the pink quilting thread I had come in that great deal I got on thread recently. I found this cute polka dot fabric for the binding. I cut enough binding for both quilts.

Last night I went ahead and put on the binding and tonight I will do the hand sewing. I finally am starting to build up the callus on my finger where I push the needle when hand sewing. It went away when I had surgery since I wasn't sewing.

I need to get my sewing room cleaned up this week as I have a project coming up this weekend or early next week. My brother who tours with major rock bands wants me to make an amp cover like the ones I made when he was out with R.E.M. on their last major tour. They loved them because during outdoor shows it kept the equipment dry if there was blowing rain and clean from blowing dust. For those he had bought car covers which I cut apart. This time I found a source for the car cover fabric. It was a time consuming job to cut the car covers apart and flatten the fabric so yardage will be easier to work with. I went ahead and ordered some fabric and the elastic I will need for at least two smaller covers or one big cover. He wants one cover just to show and once the band sees them he figures they will want more and that is when I will get paid. Heck, I don't mind throwing in the labor - most of the time I get comp tickets and/or VIP backstage passes. Here is the colors that the fabric comes in:

Then there are those pesky alterations. Gosh, I just don't want to do those anymore. Oh well, I will buckle down, get the ones I have on hand done and then move on to what I want to do.

5th finish of 2012 and more

Work was slow Friday so I took the afternoon off. I wanted to make sure I finished the I Spy quilt and I did.

The kid was great and so was the rest of the Jammin' Paul Band -JPB- Friday night. The JPB had a different drummer and he came up to Michael afterward and asked about playing with him all the time. The drummer is a fellow, probably in his late 40's and had played with a lot of different tribute bands. My brother taked to him and thinks that maybe Michael will use him for this summer when The Michael Weber Show opens for a national act at the Streetsboro Family Days Festival. The festival will draw 2 - 4 thousand people so it will be a great opportunity for exposure. Here he is during the playing of "Maggott Brain".

My brother and I tromped thru this on Saturday

to go pick up the mattress for Peg's room. Snappy yellow bed!

Guess how long it took me to start putting to do quilts on it?

As I am writing this "I will always love you" started playing on my iPod. So sad about Whitney Houston. I heard she was trying to get her self together. Early reports said she fell asleep in bathtub. I feel so sorry for her daughter and the rest of her family. I took this picture off of last night's Grammy broadcast. I only saw a bit of the Grammy's and I taped the rest to watch tonight.

I ended up going to my son's on Sunday instead of Saturday because of the weather. I dropped off the I Spy quilt and came back with two projects. I need to finish a purse that my sister made in a class, but needs me to finish the top edge. My sister had dropped this off at my son's place last week.

Then my son's wife has a quilt made by a family member that needs some TLC. The edges were just whipped stitched together and are starting to come apart.

I went into my stash of vintage fabric and found this flowered fabric that I will make binding and bind the edges.

I have a lot of stuff going on this week - I think I need to make a list! Tomorrow I will show more about what I got done this weekend and what is on my list.

Moving right along on the I Spy quilt

I ended up getting farther along on this quilt than I thought. I am just past the halfway point with the quilting. I will have about a hour and a half before I head out to see my nephew play tonight so I will put my nose to the grindstone. If I can get most of the quilting done tonight, I think I can get the binding on Saturday without any problem.

I was taking the mail to the mail box yesterday afternoon and the blimp was out flying around.

Saturday my brother is comming over and we are going to pickup the twin mattress I bought for the gray room/Peg's room. I still need to bring in the side rails that I painted - they are in the garage - and get a few more items out of the room. Gosh, I guess I will squeeze that in between the quilting and binding! After we unload the mattress I will head down to visit my son.

Sunday will be all about relaxing, getting started on quilting one of the brown and pink quilts, and making some cut out cookies for Valentine's Day. I have a feeling the weekend is going to go by quick!

Have a great one!

I Spy quilt progress

I got the backing sewn together and the quilt is now pin basted and ready to quilt. I even have the sewing machine threaded with light yellow thread and ready to go! It is going to be tough getting this done by Saturday afternoon. I will quilt tonight, but Friday night my nephew is playing at a local watering hole so I won't get much done Friday. Saturday I will be tired from staying out late so ..humm. Well, we will just see how it goes.

The back is almost done

I sewed together the letters and added some fabric to the ends to make it long enough - now I just need to add some fabric to the sides to make it wide enought. I plan on getting this quilt pin basted tonight. I have the batting all ready cut so unless I get distracted or lazy this quilt will be ready for quilting by bedtime tonight. The I Spy quilt is hanging to the right.

Replaced the "y"

Here is the new letter y I made. I like it much better than the y shown in yesterday's post. Tonight I will finish sewing the letters together into a backing for the I Spy quilt. I would like to get this done by Saturday so I can hand it off to my son so he can pass it on to his buddy's daughter.

I managed to get the tutorial done for loading a quilt on a frame.

Here is some recently acquired fabric. The b&w stripe was a sale fabric from Hancock's, the Moda Grunge was an ebay score - 6.33 yards for $23.63, and the wine stain fabric came from a friend who is trying to start a business.

Busy weekend

I did end up getting another project to do this weekend. I needed to get a tutorial made up for how to install a quilt on a quilt frame. My quilt frame - which I have not used for over 15 years - is going to California to the woman who is the bass player for a band my brother has done work for. She is learning to quilt and needs a frame. I found a quilt that I want to hand quilt (I do this without a frame - crazy as that sounds!) so I could show how to baste the quilt together and how to installed it on the frame. So after I took all the photos, all I had to do was take out the stitching holding the quilt onto the pole fabric. I took lots of pictures and next will be printing those out and adding written instructions. That will keep me busy at lunch the rest of this week. The truck picking up the frame with be thru Akron either the 10th or the 13th so I have to get the instructions done. I have the frame packed and ready to go.

I started working on the baby quilt backings next. I got a good start on them until I went to see my nephew play Saturday night at a local watering hole. He did a real good job as usual.

Here is one quilt pin basted

and another one pin basted

For the third quilt, which is an I Spy quilt for the daughter of a friend of my son's, I wanted to piece the little girl's name on the back. I have most of it done, but I am not crazy about the letter y that I pieced. I think I will change it.

I scored a great deal on 120 spools of my favorite sewing thread that is no longer manufactured. I also ended up with 42 spools of quilting thread. I I paid about $.67 a spool! I don't think I will have to buy any sewing thread for a long time!