A beautiful day for quilting

A few sprinkles, but otherwise a beautiful day here in North Georgia. Mr wazoo started the day with a trip to get a truck full of mulch. While he was away, one customer came to get her quilt and we had a nice chat about the joy of scrap quilting. She says she has a lot of scraps, but they are mostly too small to do much with. So what does a fabriholic do? Give her a huge bag of scraps! Everyone benefitted from that exchange. I have way too many scraps and love sharing with other quilters.
One I started working, there was no stopping. I was in the quilting zone. The giant Hawaiian quilt is coming along nicely, and by 4:30, I was ready to turn it so I could do the other two big borders. I am using some digital patterns as well as free motion which gives me some 'away-from-the-machine' time to finally get my April UFO assembled! Yippee!!

Mr W loaded this classy quilt named Medici. The fleur-de-lis are upside down so the pattern comes out right side up!

Meanwhile, I chugged along on the sashing motifs

This is how far Mr W got before quitting to go water his new grass seed.

The customer has a book that goes with the blocks in her quilt. She wants the blocks quilted like the pictures in the book, so that's what I am doing.

Hey!! Lookie, cookie! The top is done.

I used my blue and white check again...I'm almost out. Boo-hoo.

The quilt has been turned and re-loaded and about half of the sashings are quilted.
Time to make supper!!

On the way up to the kitchen, I snapped a few more pictures in the front yard. Mr W is so talented...I think he will have grass going in the dirt under the dogwood before too long.

Finally fully blooming! A little tree, but very pretty!

The fruits of two year's labor for the man. Looking wonderful.

Sweet William is really sweet this year!

The lone bloom on our baby pink dogwood.
We planted it last year and think it will do better next year.

One of the flame azaleas is full of flowers. The other, not so much.

I love our mountain home.

A fruitful day

Molly woke me up very early this morning, and it was useless trying to get back to sleep, so I got up...at 6:30!! I never get up that early unless it involves a trip somewhere. Mr Wazoo is an early riser and is always up and at 'em by 6 a.m.. I am a night owl, going to bed and reading until my Kindle hits me in the face, usually around 1 a.m.. Molly gets me up at 7:30 every morning, and then the day starts. So with an extra hour to do something with, I started quilting. By 11:30 I had the custom quilt on the frame finished and photographed.

Here is the finished project. I love the fabric!

Border treatment

More borders! More quilting.

The center scene is so folksy!

a peek at the back.

Mr W was working on a vintage quilt. Our customer saved the quilt top from being thrown away by the a family member. She removed a badly sewn and horribly stained border, added a new border and we quilted it for her, using the Baptist fan pantograph. Perfect!

The customer is calling this quilt 'Aunt Fanny' because of the fan blocks.

Her relative worked in a textile mill, and many of the fabrics came from that mill.

Even the backing is vintage! She had just enough for the top she rescued.
I told her how happy I was that we could bring an otherwise discarded quilt
back to a useful life.

In the afternoon, both Mr Wazoo and I loaded our second quilts of the day and pressed on with the quilting. I have another giant (96 x 111) custom quilt, and he had a lovely maple leaf quilt, all made from batiks. It took the same amount of time to do the stitch in the ditch on mine as it did for him to completely finish the leaf quilt! Oh well, I did get the echo quilting on the Hawaiian blocks done, and one cornerstone block.

Colorful batik scrappy leaves

I don't know if this started with a jelly roll, but the colors are sure nice.

Instead of backing and batting, the customer had us quilt the top to soft flannel.
We have done this for her before, making a lightweight blanket for reclining in the AC while watching TV. Great idea! Panto: Brocade

This is the hibiscus I will stitch in all the cornerstones of the Hawaiian quilt.
I like it!

I think the blocks are 16 inches or so. I had to be continually rolling the quilt up and back to do the
echo quilting without the carriage hitting the rollers. Tedious, but it came out just like she asked for.

Miss Molly was ready to go up and have some kibble, so I hung up the apron and quit for the day.
6 PM and time for some down time. I think its going to be an early night...I'm pooped already!

Fun day quilting and chatting with customers

It sure was a jam-packed day here at Wazoo. Mr Wazoo had some errands to run and spent most of the day on the road here and there, dropping off and picking up...a general 'gofer' of a guy. Meanwhile, I spent the day trying to finish the custom job on my frame. It has been slow going, but is turning out quite nice!

I'm down to the borders

I especially like this pattern

I had three fun visitors come to the studio, too. First, a quilter from south of Cleveland came and picked up the beautiful custom quilt from last week. I found out the pattern is called Joseph's Coat. She and I talked about quilts and fabric, and just had a grand time. She had photos of her studio on her phone that would make any quilter drool. I wish she lived closer!

In the afternoon, two ladies from guild dropped off a couple of quilt tops to be done, and we also had a nice chat. Quilters are such nice people, and I love visiting with them. It makes my job even better.

Mr Wazoo finished this class project, done for our guild's 'Quilt Camp project with the area schools. Students drew and colored the blocks, and our members helped them sew the blocks into this quilt. It will be hung at their school! Too cool!!

This quilt is truly special!

Panto: Popcorn

A peek at the back

My custom project will be finished tomorrow, and Mr W will finish the vintage quilt on his frame. The weather is lovely, and we are both sleeping like innocents, with the windows open and the breeze wafting in. Life is so good!

What a pleasant day!

We both had a wonderful day today here at Wazoo. I worked on my next custom project while
Mr Wazoo finished this bright, Spring quilt for one of our favorite customers.

The customer brought her dapper husband with her to pick up the quilt. He and Molly really hit it off! We all enjoyed conversation and a tour of the studio.

Panto: Rosie

I'm about 2/3 finished with this folksy quilt. The prints and piecing are really very pretty.

After work, I got one more row sewn and attached to the corner unit. Progress!

The sun going down and brats in beer on the stove, we headed up to the house for the evening. All around the mountains are greening up and the wildlife is stirring. Spring in the mountains makes all the hard work worthwhile.

The dogwood is fully open today. The 80 degree temperature and warm sun had something to do with that.

Yippee! After two years, the lilacs finally bloomed in earnest.

Our mountain view is greening up nicely.

                                      

                                                 Enjoy our baby squirrels having a lark!

Ducks in a row

We have been catching up on our workload and getting our many quilt-ducks in line! Mr Wazoo has been quilting most days, but he has also been waking up the gardens and cleaning up the yard. Here is what he has been up to...

This pretty-in-pink batik quilt was the first one he finished while our daughter was here.

Panto: Primrose swirl

I like this chain pattern

Panto: Rosie

This is the second quilt with this pattern this month!
This one is really pretty, too.

Panto: Alfresco

Ooh la la!! I love the colors in this sampler!!

The border fabric is the same beautiful one I chose for my last quilt!

Panto: Bubbles

There were two of these quilts. A sweet story;
The quilter's daughter is adopting a baby. There is a
quilt for the new baby, and one for the birth mother.

Panto: Popcorn

Here are both quilts, quilted and ready to go home.

Meanwhile, I was still quilting the geometric, colorful quilt. if you don't think it is a lot of work, just look at all the threads I used!! The bulk of the quilting was done with the Glide thread on the far left.

Glide, King Tut, So Fine, Signature, Omni and Perma Core.
I like them all!!

I finished the quilt around noon and was happy to see it trimmed and off the frame. I hope the customer likes it.

This is a stunning quilt.

A peek at the back. Even Mr Wazoo said, "Impressive" when I showed it to him.
Sweet!

After lunch, I had some time for my own sewing (on Sunday, I am usually sewing, not quilting) and set to work on the April UFO. I dreaded the month the moderator chose this one...Hummingbird, by Darlene Zimmerman. I took a class years ago and cut all the background pieces wrong. When the blocks are sewn together, the points of the 'birds' will be cut off. There is no way to fix the problem without cutting all new background bits. Not gonna happen. Besides, the quilt has so many small pieces, I didn't want to start over. Needless to say, the quilt is going to be much smaller than anticipated. I made the rest of the blocks that I had cut out, and started to arrange them on the design wall. The setting triangles have several parts, too. All this work for beakless birds!!

trim, trim, trim...

to get this.

Next session, I'll make the sashing and setting triangles.
Its getting there.

After work, I enjoyed some yard-time. The dogwood is opening up and the other plants are filling in. A sure sign of Spring is the neighbor's trail cam catch. Mr Bear enjoying himself during the night in their back yard! Eek! I hope he doesn't like to walk up steep slopes...he'd have to do that to get to our yard. I don't think Molly would be keen to meet a bear.

The dogwoods are appropriately blooming in time for Easter

Front yard

Back yard

Yogi. Chillin' in the night.

Time to move on.

This is the only wildlife I like to see!