Getting Close to the End

I got a late start this morning because I overdid it yesterday ( 7 hours quilting) and couldn't get to sleep until about 1:30 this morning.  Apparently, when I did finally fall asleep, it wasn't a restful one because I had to lay down for a nap at noon.  Set my alarm for 2 p.m. but shut it off and continued sleeping until a little after 3.

Had a bit of problems when I did get started today... had to adjust tension, not a real biggie, but then, later on, all of a sudden, Mo'e started skipping stitches... not just one or two here and there but an inch at a time.  I have no idea what was happening.  I checked the bobbin and corrected it ( thread had slipped a bit from the holders); it still skipped.  Got a scrap of fabric out and started testing on it - worked just fine, so back I went to working on the quilt - and without any more thread problems.  

I can see pokies here and there, but think they might disappear once the quilt is washed.   Did have some control issues in one spot - maybe there's a thread on the rail in that area... will clean them before I start on the end of the quilt.... Just have the row of plant pots and then the bottom border to do.  

I also ran out of bobbin thread about 1/2 way through the quilt... it was a brand new pre-wound.  I had thought for sure that I had gotten more 'mileage' out of pre-wounds than I did this time.  I'm just hoping there's enough left on this second bobbin to finish the quilt - it's the last of my only two pink pre-wounds.

Once I get this one done - probably Friday, I'll go back to working on my BOMs and MAYBE get them caught up enough so that I can start on the July ones the following weekend.  I won't be doing the second one of these Garden Quilts right away - want to work on something quicker and easier before first.

TTYL

Back to business

After spending about 3 1/2 weeks working on a secret project, I'm backing working on the 'usual'.
Sunday, I thought I would start getting caught up on my BOMs beginning with my Amish with a Twist.. ran into trouble ( fabric shortage) right off the bat.  Put it aside and started working on my Christmas Row by Row and managed to get 8 gnomes completed and ready to place on the background - and there they sit, still waiting.

 I'll get them glued  and appliqued onto the background sometime in the next day or so.

I went down to The Hen House yesterday to find out what went wrong with my AWAT... had even Carolyn confused for a little bit... it measured right one way but not another.  Elise was brought in to 'figure' it out - what happened was that I needed 6 strips cut at 3 1/4" x 21"; I was trying to cut them across the width of the fabric provided but it was only a little over 13" wide -- 6 times 3.25" equals 18.75".  It wasn't working ----until Elise literally pointed out that the fabric was folded in half and that I only had to cut THREE strips and then cut them in half to get the 21" strips.  Such a simple thing that just wasn't getting through my math challenged head.

In the meantime, I loaded a quilt onto Mo'e and yesterday, started quilting.

first, just right next to the appliques, then 1/4" away...then, onto the 'fun' part....

I had to stop for the night before I got to the star in the upper left corner - that's where I'll start today.

Ok, I think I'm all caught up on my 'news'... well, except to say that the secret project won't be revealed until sometime next month.  You'll just have to wait and watch for it.

TTYL

Still Playing

The square on the left is the one that I sprinkled with salt... not crazy about this process... I can't see any difference in the paint/texture and I couldn't just brush the salt off like I heard you should be able to.

The one on the right is the one I scrunched up... LOVE IT!  Can't wait to try it on a bigger piece of fabric... might have to come up with a project that I can use it in.... would have been great to use on Linda G's block and/or that baby quilt I just did.  Will definitely have to do again.

Today, I'm trying another technique'.  I had asked Dale ( guild member) how I could block off areas of fabric that I didn't want painted or paint running into.  She told me to use blue Elmer's Glue.  The problem with that would be that I would have to wash the fabric to remove the glue when I was ready to move on and that just doesn't sound like a good idea for the project I had in mind.

I got to thinking and wondered "Why can't I use a white crayon?"

Well, it worked!  Here is the pic to prove it... 

OOPS!  forgot that I was in the middle of writing this....  

It's now at least half an hour later.... tried the painting on a larger piece of fabric... the crayon didn't work as well on this one, but it worked enough.  Where the paint bled through will most likely be covered with something else, so we're ok, I think.

TTYL

Play day

Stupid weather has been playing havoc with my sinus' and I'm not getting as much done as I'd like because I have to keep taking naps.  Hopefully, the weather will change for the better SOON and the headaches will quit.

The other day I went down to one of our neighbors and asked permission to take some pics of some of her flowers.  I need one ( or more) for our guild's class in Oct.  These are the ones I took...

Then, today, when coming back from the $ store, I noticed that Joyce across the street had some flowers that I'd like pics of.  She wasn't home ( I'll have to tell her later) but I took the pics anyway; I'm sure she won't care.  Here's what I got today.

yes, the top flower is just like the previous ones, but that's ok... it gives me another option.  I don't think I want to try the red ones, but I may print up a couple of copies incase someone else in the guild wants to try them.

Finally got around to playing with the paints.... Using white Kona cotton squares and Pebeo Setacolor paints, I tried these first... spraying generously with water before applying the paint with a sponge brush.

Upper left corner... just paint ( cobalt blue)... upper right corner... just paint but scrunched to see if I get texture ( hills and valleys)... lower right corner was sprinkled with table salt and then sea salt after the paint was applied - just to see what it does.  I tried these with blue right out of the bottle and then tried with watering down the paint in a bowl before applying to the wet fabric.  The blue is darker than I want - going to have to figure out how to lighten it ( no white Pebeo).

The brown block is also Kona cotton with just a tiny TINY amount of velvet brown paint.   I sprinkled a teeny tiny amount of table salt on this one, too.

Then I grabbed a piece of green Grunge fabric and tried shading with the brown ...

I don't think it looks like much in the pic, but it's looking exactly like I want.   

Now, letting everything sit to dry - Why did I ever get rid of ALL of my hairdryers!?!?!  Oh well, that's ok - it's giving me time to do this blog and to watch Sister Wives :).

Will post tomorrow about how the samples look after dried.   Oh... Thanks to TheQuiltShow.com and Cindy Walter... cindywalter.com  for showing me painting on fabrics :).

TTYL

Done and Delivered

After my last post, I made a quick trip into JoAnn's and found blue fabric that matched the blue I was using in the airplane quilt, and six days later, I THINK it was on sale.  Of course, I picked up a few other 'steals'... oh yeah, I found one bolt of fabric on the clearance rack marked down to $4 a yard, but that day, the clearance prices were marked down again to 50% off the sale price... I got six yards (and 14" inches) for $12 and some change... and I got a couple of fat quarter bundles in shades of textured tans... can't remember if there was anything else I bought or not.

Got home and put the final border onto the airplane quilt; loaded it onto Mo'e and then waited til the next day to start the quilting.  All in all, I think it took about 5 hours over a couple of days for the quilting... lots of slow going around the appliques and stitching in the ditch around the airplane blocks.  Since I couldn't find a print for the outer border and was going with a solid, I had to come up with some sort of quilting design... got the idea to do outlines of the airplanes.. had to shrink them down a little bit so they would fit, but it wasn't hard, just a little time consuming since each one was stitch individually.  I also wanted to put something in the red inner border ... came up with doing 'waves' but decided that wasn't good enough... hit on the idea of block lettering the word ZOOM here and there with the 'waves' in between.  Finished the quilting, trimmed it up and put the binding on that evening and hand stitched the mitered corners down ( something I NEVER do) the next morning ( Tuesday).  I called the customer and arranged to deliver it on either Thurs or Fri. ( today).  I wanted to take it for 'show & tell' at guild meeting last night, so delivered it today.

The customer LOVES it... she rushed right to the store next door to show the employees over there, then came back and took pics to send to the baby's mother (apparently the store manager) who texted back that she loves it ... then the customer put the quilt on a hanger and hung it behind the service desk while telling a woman who was in the store about it.  Unfortunately, the customer thought that I was going to call her before delivery and since I didn't, she didn't have the money with her.  She said that she & her husband are going to Eaton Rapids right after she gets out of work tonight and she will drop off the money to me on her way there.

Before dropping off the baby quilt today, I did a quick stop at JoAnn's... had a coupon for 50% off any cut of fabric that wasn't on sale and I needed backing for that HUGE MSQC quilt that I did a couple of months ago.. forgot to check on batting, though.  I may have to piece a twin and a queen together because I don't think a queen will be big enough and I don't think I have a king size batt in my stash.  I also picked up another 5 yards of paper backed fusible - going to need it when I start working on Kathee's nativity wall hanging... which I stopped at FedEx and had the patterns enlarged 200% for.    I've done this wall hanging before, but did the enlarging myself ( what a PIA that was) - maybe I didn't do it at 200% then because I don't remember the pieces being this big.  I already have the background fabric and the rest will be made from my scrap stash.

I collected a few more blocks for Linda G's going away at the meeting last night.  I think we're up to 12 of 14 if you count the two smaller ones that were my first attempt.  Found out Judy got the 'smaller' pattern, too :(... and a couple of the quilters did applique' instead of paper piecing.  Personally, I don't care and I'm pretty sure that Linda won't either.  Just grabbed my label signing pen and stuck it in my purse to take to next week's meeting since SOME people didn't sign their blocks ( and I think one of them reads this blog).  :(

Ok, off to do something - probably housework --YUCK.

TTYL