The McQuilts, piecing tip, walking, and an update on the wedding quilt

I got the first McQuilt top pieced last night.

Then I got a two rows of patches for the next one sewn.

My piecing tip is that at any seam that is going to be on an outside edge, I stitch a few shorter stitches. This help keep the seam from coming apart when handling the top. I do this when sewing together the patches for the top and botton rows and when I sew the rows together.

Yesterday I did part of my walk in the opposite direction I ususally walk. This section of the towpath connects the downtown area to the more wooded city area. There are lots of bridges and funky paths meandering between the buildings along the locks.

And then I spotted a deer on the towpath. He was walking away from me so I caught his backside.

One of my readers said I should post about two of the fabrics I used in the wedding quilt. My brother toured with Jimmy Buffet for three years. During that time I met everyone including the wardrobe lady. We would get together and talk sewing. I was working at the bakeware plant and I use to take boxes and boxes of pans for my brother to give to the crew and the band. The guys loved them! They had something to take home for their wives. Then the wardrobe lady was into making felt hats and was looking for some old wood hat forms. My dad and I found a few and gave those to her. She was thrilled. Well, the wardrobe lady told my brother she had a bunch of fabric she had no use for and gave it to him to give to me. There was lots of good stuff! I ended up making her and Jimmy a quilt using some of the cotton fabrics she gave me. I was told that Jimmy takes his quilt with him on tour! The only picture I have is not digital, but I will try and take a picture of it and post it tomorrow for all you parrot heads out there! Some of the fabric was leftover yardage for the custom printed fabric by Hoffman of California she used to make shirts for the band. Here are two of those prints I used in the wedding quilt.

I mailed the quilt yesterday and I will be on pins and needles until it is safely in my furture sister-in-law's hands.

Hazards everywhere and the McQuilts

Last Friday when I went walking down at the towpath there was a paving crew. They had nothing barricaded off and people just passed threw the small section where they were working. On my way back I crossed from one side of the path to the other and almost walked into this.

That is a lit blow tourch sitting right next to the path! The flame doesn't show - it was very blue. There was no one watching it, no barricades, no nothing! Talk about an accident waiting to happen! I made several phone calls and finally got a hold of someone at the metro parks to come down and supervise the paving crew. The one crew member I did see and express my concern for the danger just looked at me and smiled. After I bitched enough he finally turned it off. I now have OSHA's 800 number in my phone and next time I will just call them. I am sure they would love to come and discuss the asphalt company's safety procedures!

I sewed together the first of many McQuilts as I am calling them. After I layed the sewn rows out I realized I am one row short. No problem I have plenty of patches!

I got two more McQuilts laid out on the design wall.

Here is the original pile of patches

and after using 138 patches the pile doesn't look much smaller!

What a weekend

Saturday night I worked at the art museum. They were having a retirement dinner for the CEO. My job - coat check. It was 65 degrees on Saturday so we only had about 20 coats/wraps to deal with. The two and a half hours standing on a concrete floor totally wore me out so I didn't stay to pass out the coats after the dinner was over. We had lots of help so it wouldn't be an issue. Here are some pictures from the event.

Artist Kristen Cliffel donated a ceramic piece to the museum in honor of the CEO's retirement. The cupcake theme reflects the desert of the evening. The sculpture was very cool and about 3 feet tall.

The had a lovely dinner for the volunteers also. Chicken, salad, cupcakes, bread sticks, and a mixed roasted root veggie selection which included sweet potatoes, small white potatoes, carrots, and butternut squash. I have never had butternut squash before, but I loved it! Now I have to find out how to cook a butternut squash and go get some.

I spent a lot of time this weekend cleaning out the garage. It was like a junk yard exploded in there! I wanted to move all my tools that I had sitting in the downstairs foyer

and hang them back on the pegboard in the garage

where they belong and so I can find something when I am needing a screwdriver or a hammer. Before I could hang the tools up I had to clean up all the stuff that was sitting in front of the peg board. So about 5 - 6 hours later including dong a few other jobs along the way, the garage has been tamed. Here is the after shot of the peg board. The plastic tub in front of the peg board has tools that can't be hung up.

And now the foyer is nice and open

Before - the left side

after - the left side

before - back of the garage

after - back of the garage

before - right side

after - right side

The other reason to work on the garage before winter was to fill in an opening that formed from the slab settling away from the foundation at the back of the garage. Filling in will hopefully keep any critters out.

On the right side of the garage there was a crack between the slab and the wall so I filled it with caulk and then sprayed on waterproofing to keep the moisture from seeping inside the wall to the house. The slab slopes toward the right side and so in the winter the snow and rain off the car will run to the right instead of out the garage overhead door.

I did spend some time stitching out some of the designs from Angela Walter's book.

Then my next project is to take this pile of blocks I made from my scraps

and turn them into as many of these small quilts as I can to donate to the Ronald McDonald house which is my company's xmas charity project this year. I wonder how many quilts this pile of blocks will make?

Free motion quilting

I put together some fabric and batting (I hate the term quilt sandwich)for practicing the free motion quilting in the Angela Waters' book. I will jump into this project this weekend.

I am working at the art museum Saturday night. They are having a farewell dinner for the CEO who is retiring after heading up the museum for 26 years. I am not sure what I will be doing.

The weather is suppose to be warm this weekend so I am going to try and get the garage cleaned up and maybe some more yardwork done.

Soft wrapping

I got an e-mail from my future sister-in-law about the quilt. She was debating whether to open it before or after the wedding - yes, I am scratching my head with that one. But the word she used was open so I guess I just couldn't throw the quilt in a box and mail it. So last night I made a drawstring bag for it to serve as the wrapping.

Thanks to Vicki, Glen, and BeckyK for your lovely comments on the wedding quilt. I will try to get a picture of the bride and groom with the quilt if I can.

Feeling in the dumps today

Why? The local school levy passed. My real estate taxes will be increasing by 18 percent! Yes, 18 percent!!!!! They barely make a C grade with the state. Throwing good money after bad. Now I have to figure out where I am going to get that much extra money so it can be wasted. I just know they put language in there that makes this retroactive to the beginning of 2012 - yes, they had done that in the past. I need to get the heck out of this town.

If that wasn't bad enough the water/sewer bills will be increasing by at least 4 times the amount they are now with the EPA pushing to have the city do something about the combined sewers. This battle has been going on for 20 years and nobody did anything about it, much less save any money in a fund for when the city finally lost the battle to the EPA. I guess the people in charge think we are all made of money.

I did go for a walk yesterday and saw that the metro parks was regrading some of the path. It will be interesting to see how they do this.

Thanks for all your nice comments on the wedding quilt. I guess I really better enjoy my time on this trip since I won't be able to afford another vacation ever.

24th finish of 2012

The wedding quilt is finally done! It turned out to be 85" x 99". I used Sulky rayon for the top and different brands of cotton for the back - Essential, Star, Mettler. I am very happy with the way it came out. The inspiration was the beach.

The sun is shining this morning! It is cold - 30 degree - but it will be a nice walk at lunch today with the sun out.