Brrrrr!! Autumn is here and we're quilting

This Sunday morning it is colder here than in Minneapolis! There was a coating of frost on the truck and the rock garden. But the sun is out and it is expected to warm up into the high 50s, so I am not getting out the winter duds just yet!
Meanwhile, we have been warming up the quilting studio by running the machines and getting things accomplished. Tee shirt quilts were in the forefront the last couple of days. Tim finished quilting this one for our customer Maria, and I constructed and quilted another one for a customer from Blue Ridge.
There is always something fun about tee shirt quilts...they're a little peek into someone's life story. Think about your own tee shirts. They tell the story of where you have been and what you find interesting in your life.

Maria's tee shirt quilt for her son

panto: Stars and Stripes

This is how a tee shirt quilt starts...figuring out the placement
 of the shirts on the design wall after prepping them with stabilizer.

Here is the almost finished quilt , ready for the binding

This is the binding. I was too tired to get it on the quilt Friday night.

panto: Bayside

I had to add to the backing to make it big enough.
This flowery fabric was just right!

The quilt is all finished now. I watched a movie while hand sewing the colorful binding. 

Next, Tim quilted this pretty quilt for a brand new quilter who took a class locally. It wasn't perfect, but it is perfectly nice for her first effort!

Panto: Small Splat

Yesterday, I worked on very diverse projects. First, there were the three bed runners, started by the customer's grandma, and brought to me by the customer who had sewn the Dresden plates down and then got stuck. She didn't know where to go from there. She sewed the plates to the background, batting and backing all at the same time! Oops! My job was to figure out how to finish them without removing what she had done, and preserving the generational contributions to the quilts.

I sewed some fabric to all four sides of the backings, quilted them and then made and attached bindings. 

I love seeing the transformation from wonky quilt making efforts, to finished quilts! I am in the process of hand sewing the bindings now.

The original plate blades were made in the thirties, mostly from feed sacks.
The customer chose the backgrounds and centers and did the buttonhole stitching to attach them to the backgrounds. They are for her three daughters.

I fixed them, quilted them and added the binding.
Now, they are useful quilts, made from parts stored in a box for two generations!

When I finished up the three bed runners, I turned to the blocks I had started on Thursday for a second class sample quilt for my up-coming workshops. Both sets of blocks are finished and the blocks are arranged on the design wall ready for their final construction. I will finish the top today and get it quilted.

Squaring up blocks isn't fun...but it is a necessary part of making a nice flat quilt.

Ta-da! Finished blocks on the design wall and ready to be sewn into a quilt top.

I am so loving those chickens!

Yikes! I am getting quite a  pile of bindings to hand sew. I had better get going, don't you think?