A day without a quilt is like a day without sunshine!

My plan for today was to make a quilt for my friend who I am going to see at the class reunion. She recently lost her husband, and I thought a quilt would be a nice sympathy gesture. I had already cut the strips for a quilt at the last retreat, but didn't get to sew it together there, so I decided to make it today.
I got all the blocks made and assembled into the quilt body by lunchtime.

After lunch, I added a small inner border and an outer border to make it a nice couch sized quilt, 62 x 73.
I got the back made and then it was off to the quilting races.

Borders on! Ready for quilting.

All quilted, binding made and applied. Ready for hand sewing and its only 5:30!
I think that's a new record for me; made the whole quilt and quilted it, added binding, too...seven hours of work.

I had the panto Primrose swirl already on the table, so I used it again.

I bought the fabric for the backing for the horse blanket I did for a customer  few months ago.
This quilt was just right for the leftover pieces.

During the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, I did the hand sewing and finished the quilt! Tomorrow, I'll get a label on it.

Done!!

Here's a recap of the last two weeks charity work. The customer quilts are all back with their happy owners. I change gears tomorrow and get the car ready, pack and do a little last minute shopping for Mr Wazoo's food.

Homeless shelter quilts

Comfort quilts

More sewing, more quilting, more excavation.

After a couple of days messing about sewing I figured I had better get back to serious quilting. Before going to Wisconsin, I needed to quilt a very large quilt. It is too large for Mr Wazoo's machine, so it fell to me to quilt it. I have to say, for a giant quilt, it was perfect!! Square at all corners, flat as a pancake and all blocks perfectly sewn. Wow. And it is beautiful, too.

Panto: Featherize

Mr Wazoo spent the entire day either moving rocks, or watching the dirt man move them with the bobcat. The surface for the shed is level and ready, the rip-rap has been distributed along the drainage ditch next to the driveway, and the driveway has had a smoothing. So far, so good! I'll be gone when the shed actually comes, so it will be a surprise when I get back.

They got straight to work at 9:00

You can just see Mr Wazoo in his red shirt at the far end of the driveway.
Most of the rip-rap is in place, and he is cleaning out the culvert.

Gee, the house looks nice from here1

All level and ready for the shed.

Drainage ditch complete!

I had an hour free at the end of the day, so I made a backing for another of my sister's quilt tops and got it quilted. I had the African fabric for the backing  which was perfect for the quilt! The binding is a basket weave patterned fabric from my stash.

Here is a peek at the African ladies backing.

Now, all I have to do is the hand sewing! Miss Marple is on tonight, and I will be stitching while I figure out 'who-dunnit'!

Some sewing, some quilting, some dirt.

I started the day finishing the borders and sewing them on the quilt from yesterday. I stopped there,

because I really needed to do some customer quilting!

                                         

I'm starting to really like this quilt!

   Mr Wazoo spent the day outside in a supervisory position and getting filthy doing it. More later on this. Meanwhile, I quilted a customer project with a panto that is too big to be done on his machine.
The colors are more vibrant than the photos, more turquoise than what shows up here.

Pretty delectable mountains in shades of turquoise.
Some of the fabrics have metallic bits, too.

Panto: Primrose swirl

The back is black with gold flecks. There are a couple of blocks in the center, too.
I forgot to take that picture. My bad.

  Then there was dirt. Loads and loads of dirt. Mr Wazoo has bought a shed (got a great bargain on the shed), and he had to get the area for it filled with dirt since it is on such a steep slope. Trucks came and went all day, dumping dirt  and tamping it down. Then they smoothed it out and leveled it. There is at least a three foot drop from the dirt to the driveway on the down slope. That's a lot of dirt!! Mr Wazoo was shoveling and taking out rocks all morning before the dirt men came, so he is filthy with the red clay soil we have here.

I heard the rumble outside and stuck my head out of the studio to see what was happening.
They had dropped off the Bobcat and one load of dirt.

Mr Wazoo had cut all the low limbs before they got here. The workmen took down two small trees, too.

I didn't take the picture sideways...that's how steep the slope of the driveway is. This was load number 4. 

Mr Wazoo 'supervising' load number 5.

Six loads later, it is done! The Bobcat man leveled the dirt
while Tim and the dirt man watched. (He's behind the truck)
I took the pictures from the deck.

      Tomorrow, they will be moving rocks around and grading. All for a bargain of a shed. Sigh...                            

Oh dear...I sewed again, and I liked it.

Oh well, I guess I needed another day of sewing to get my mojo back. I already had some of the blocks made for the next part of the pattern, so I figured I would go ahead and assemble them before starting work. I never got to work...sewing took over and I was in the groove.

By lunch time, I was here

Three o'clock...here

Believe it or not, it took another hour to get here.
I auditioned eight different fabrics before settling on this one for the inner border.

Six o'clock, and I had all the flying geese done and started planning the next border.

I ran out of room for these on the design wall.

I would have had the geese sewn together and sewn to the quilt top, but I had a customer come with a quilt. Not just any quilt, but the most fascinating, intricate and wonderful quilt I have ever had in the studio!! I am drooling over this one. Here's just a sneak peek at what's waiting for me in the studio
.

You know I'll be at work tomorrow, don't you?!

Teaching a friend and making more blocks

I had such a nice day today! My friend Debbie came over and had a good time learning how to load a quilt, set up a pantograph and stitch it out on the quilt! Kind of like Tom Sawyer, I let her do all the work while I 'supervised'. She was a fast learner, and finished the lap sized quilt by lunchtime!

The quilt was pieced by my sister. Remember?, she gave me a load of quilts to finish for charity.

I made the binding from a red and white checked fabric.

Panto: Quirky.
Doesn't it look good!?

After lunch, I worked on the quilt I started yesterday, making blocks for two of the corners. I have a lot more to do, but it will probably have to wait. One day playing hooky is okay...two days playing hooky; well, that would be downright sinful!

More blocks for the corner sections.

Squaring up the 3 colored blocks was tedious, but worth it.

Center and two corners done!

I don't have all the bits made for the other 2 corners,
but I'm working on them!

I wanted to show you something interesting from Tim's garden today. The butterfly bush has been quite active and showy with butterflies. They are so difficult to photograph with my little point and shoot camera because they never stop flitting about! Can't say I didn't try!

These two are the early bird butterflies.
They came in the morning.

These are the night owl butterflies.
They came in the evening.

Late summer afternoon on the mountain

Mr Wazoo, taking a breather before cleaning up for supper.
He says he's glad the walkway is finished!
All that's left is to get rid of the leftover gravel.

Lazy Sunday sewing

There wasn't a flurry of activity today...I felt a bit lazy. Looking at patterns and books, trying to get an idea of what I wanted to do took up a couple of hours, and then, I decided to start a happy project. Something to make me feel good. You see, my mom died a year ago today, and I am in a blue funk. The best thing for that is a happy quilt. With 30s reproduction fabrics. The pattern was a block-of -the-month thing, but I will try to do a little every Sunday sewing day, and think of her while I sew.

This is the pattern, and I had already made some blocks when I took the picture.

Over at the machine, the pieces-parts are waiting to be assembled

Another set of blocks done

This is as far as I got with the sewing today.
I feel better already.