Stopped At The Border

On Friday, I posted that the center section was done, except for the back seams and, as it turns out the top & bottom stop borders.

First the back seams - look close see the pins. 

Back seam pinned

Back seam hand sewn

The pattern of the backing fabric helps blend the back seams.

Need to add the missing stop borders before I could consider the outer border.

I needed to determine the border strip repeat - 7 3/4 inches so I could decide who wide the outer border would be  and make sure I had enough of the fabric to cut the strips from.

The outer border finished at approximately 5 inches wide. This picture shows the section I chose with the green/gold strips as the stop border and binding.

An outer border and backing attached to the bottom edge of the quilt.  Followed by the adjoining side, to create the first mitered corner.

Tomorrow - border quilting and binding!

Quilt Alliance AUCTION!!!

Quilt Alliance Auction starts tonight!!

Click to see and Bid on a Quilt 

At 9:00 pm US Eastern Time tonight, the first week's collection of 31 quilts go up for auction to benefit the Quilt Alliance.  There will be two more weeks each with 32 quilts to come.

I received an email notifying me that my 'Pink Pineapple' quilt will be in this week's auction. 

I hope it does well to help support this wonderful organization.

French Braid Center Section!!

WooHoo!!! 

The Center Section of the French Braid is Done!

Except for the back seam, that is. 

A little trimming and it's ready to be handstitched down.

That's the plan for my Friday night.

Which means Saturday morning,  I should be ready to plan out the borders and get them attached.  Fingers crossed that I stay on track with the timeline to get this quilt done.

Hope you have a great weekend...I'll be in the studio.

More Tidbits and Thread Snips!

More Tidbits and Thread Snips!

Progress on French Braid Quilt:

            In order to stay on schedule, I am getting up earlier in the morning and facing my machine long before the sun makes an appearance in the Eastern sky. 

The only way to do this is with a strong cup of tea and by turning on every light in the studio.  Drake promptly curls up under the sewing table and goes back to sleep, wondering, I’m sure, why on Earth we are even out of bed to begin with! He’s not a bit of help but great company.

            I am very close to having all the logs on the three center sections quilted. Only 12 more teal logs and 24 blue logs – each with two lines of stitching down each, but some of them are 4” and some are 8”.   Either way, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Once I get the logs all quilted, I can move on to assembling the three sections into the center of the quilt.

Sharing a Friend’s Good Fortune:

            I have a friend who did a dumb thing.  Friends shouldn’t let friends do dumb things.  She sold a loom. She sold a really nice loom earlier this year and regretted her action ever since.  

She got very, very lucky in the end, because the Weaving Goddess smiled down on her and she found the Loom of Her Dreams, within her budget!  Her new loom traveled from North Carolina, through wretched weather to Kentucky for the hand off and eventually home to Illinois. Some elbow grease, Murphy’s oil soap and perseverance has paid off – big time.  I am thrilled she has a new addition to her studio. 

            And she has promised to never, ever, ever again sell a loom she loves.  That way I won’t have to drive down there and beat her!  I’m making her add sewing machines to that same promise. Or else, I’ll just have to buy any sewing machines from her until she comes to her senses.  

And I’ll make her bake me a cherry pie from scratch before I sell it back to her.  Bwha-ha-ha!

Someone is starting to feel better:

            The meds are doing the trick, along with some jarred baby food and lots of Daddy’s attention. 

The hard part now is we still have 2 more days of pills to get down his throat. He’s not thrilled with that process. Neither are we and I have a Band-Aid on my thumb to prove it.

Tidbits and Thread Snips

Since I am working on Machine Quilting the French Braid quilt, there’s not a whole lot to show you. 

The extent of my current creative process goes like this:

            “Start thread, quilt along the marked line, stop, turn 45 degrees, quilt along the marked line, stop, turn 45 degrees, wrestle quilt section thru throat space, flatten, smooth, quilt along the marked line…”   Eventually, I get to “end thread, switch color and begin again.”  Not very action packed for pictures and certainly not great blog fodder to say the least!

And I CANNOT work on any other project until I get this done.

 Soooooo, what to write about??

Miscellaneous tidbits, it is!!

1. THREAD - I needed another spool of the Sulky 30wt Cotton Blendables thread (Color # 4044-Butterscotch) for this project so I *had* to stop in at a LQS on my way home from Michigan.  I love this color and the thread quilts beautifully, too.

2. FABRIC - Somehow, these two fat quarters ended up in my hot little hands. *GRIN* 

The one of the left is a fabric I pulled for the upcoming Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt – glad to have a bit more of it on hand. And the one on the right is for … absolutely no particular reason whatsoever – I just liked it.  They were running a ‘clear out the old to make room for the new’ sale over the weekend so I was lucky to make it out of there without blowing up the checkbook. 

3. CONTESTS - I’ve been checking out some quilt competitions for 2015.  I winced when I typed that.  I should clarify. No new challenges, just shows to maybe enter some of my existing work.  A started a spreadsheet and everything but no firm decisions yet.

4.  ZAPPA - Somebody is under the weather…

And he’s making his Daddy very worried.  I came home Sunday to discover that Zappa is off his food and having some tummy troubles.   He is still running around, tormenting his sisters.  The vet ran tests and nothing came back positive – good & bad news.  It appears he has a bug of some undetermined nature.  Lots of TLC, a little medicine and some time should do the trick.  If I can keep Sweet Man from climbing the walls with worry, we’ll be fine.

The French Braid Returns

Yes - It's Back!

I need to get this done this week.

I have no choice - I put it on the back burner for way too long and now I'm under the gun, hitting crunch time and VERY determined.

The body of the quilt is currently three pieces, being machine quilted-as-you-go. I have the center section quilted and the two center side pieces well underway.  

I took advantage of the Michigan house tile floor to get the center sides pinned into sandwiches. 

Once the three center sections are stitched together, it will be time to figure out the borders and get it done. 
Stay Tuned to see how close I cut this one to the deadline.

A Taste of Winter

 The day started much like any other day – waking up to the alarm, rolling out of bed and letting the dog out. DANG!  That’s when the sharp blast of cold air hit me, along with the damp which very shortly afterward became snow.  Yes, SNOW!  Snow stuck on geraniums, mum, pumpkins and my truck. GRR!!  Not making this Summer girl a happy camper in any way, shape or form.

Temps are hitting a high of 41° F, with wind gusts of 45 mph.  Oh joy – NOT!  The reason for my angst is not that I didn't know winter is on the way – I can read a calendar after all, though I don’t have to like it.   There are still a few bright pops of autumn color.

This weekend the Michigan house was closed for the season.  Temps hovering right above freezing are not ideal for this activity.  Thankfully, most all the outdoor items were safely (and warmly) stowed in the garage a few weeks ago by my sister & me. Having someone to help made that chore go fast and a little fun, not to mention – done! 

The actual closing involves packing up and schlepping out anything that can freeze or be damaged by the prolonged cold – cleaning supplies, electronic devices, food and beverages, etc.  And then, there’s the annual draining of the hot water heater and toilets.  This involves hoses, clamps, valves, buckets and water – none of which is fun in the colder temps we are supposed to have.  And to think, I had campaigned to close down a week later! Brrr!

Since it was only Mom and me this weekend, the packing up part went fairly quickly.  My method goes like this - Take a box, open a cabinet and sweep everything off the shelves into the box. No fuss, no muss – it all goes. Boxes are staged by the door closest to the vehicle they get loaded into on Sunday morning. 

Mom’s method is only slightly different but of the same mindset – Get It Done!  And get it done BEFORE the Notre Dame college football game on Saturday evening.  8:oo pm Eastern Time!! 

By 7:00, we were home from dinner, finishing up some of the packing, and making sure Mom's recliner was in place. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have played the Navy Midshipmen for 88 consecutive years and Saturday's game was expected to be a great match up.   

I set up in the opposite corner, on the dining room table for some machine quilting.  

Given Notre Dame scored on the second play of the game, with Mom cheering them one, I was glad I had  packed the laptop with the headphones!  

It was a long, well fought, high scoring game, with the Fighting Irish winning 49-39. I tuned into some archived episodes of Quilt Cam and stitched away, while also defrosting the freezer.

More on this project later this week.