Day full of fun

If you haven't see The Green Book, you need to. I went yesterday with a friend, and thought it was a perfect reflection of our country in the early 60s. Well written and acted. A winner.
Before the matinee, I worked on the first border of the raffle quilt. I got it all glue-basted on and here is the result. I hope to get this one sewn today.

Close up of some of the elements. The bias stem is sewn down, the flowers not sewn down. All have turned edges.

Here is the whole shebang, berries and all.

What it will look like on the quilt.

The studio is a terrible mess, but it can't be helped. The fabrics need to be available for the next three borders.

More bias stem, waiting to be pressed and sewn.

The borders themselves, all pressed and ready for flowers.

My pressing area. I have the pattern for placement, the envelopes of freezer paper pieces to be applied to fabrics, and glue stick.

All the fabrics used for the first border. I will draw from these for the other side border.

Yesterday was also my only son's birthday. He celebrated with his family on a pizza outing and some yummy cake at home. I miss being with them and love the pictures and videos they send.

Papa and his peanut have some cake.

I have the Halloween quilt ditch-stitched, and need to get on with the quilting. It has languished on the frame for a couple of weeks while I did other things. I just can't figure out how to do all the things I need to do at the same time. Quilting, repairing quilts and making appliqué borders can only be accomplished one at a time. Frustrating!! So, it's time to go to work!

Brrrrrr!! Baby, it's cold outside!

I hear from my friends in Wisconsin that the temperatures have been brutal up there. I feel for them because it has been cold here, but in the 30s, not the minus 30s! The only good thing about the frigid weather is that I don't regret being indoors working. The best thing for me was quilting a sunny, happy quilt!!

If this were my quilt, I'd hang it in a room that doesn't get much sun during the day! It would brighten up a dark space and make anyone who entered feel warmly welcomed.

The panto is called Abbie. It is a happy addition to this already happy quilt.

The back is an eye popping lime green! This quilt was the perfect project for a winter day.

I worked 8 1/2 hours  yesterday, and made headway on the raffle quilt. It seems to be taking me forever to get this appliqué border prepped! Later today, I'll have one long border ready to show you.

Typical work day

The day started with taking in shirts for a tee shirt quilt. The customer came from Gainesville and said the fog on Blood Mountain was thick as pea soup! I'm glad I didn't have to go anywhere today. The wind was howling  and the sky was gray all day. A perfect day to get some serious work done.
I quilted and trimmed my Thicket quilt to have it for show and tell at guild. I meant to have it bound and sent to my son for his birthday on Friday, but it is still without binding, and waiting to be finished and sent.

I used the panto, Yodel, for a contemporary look.

Today, I quilted this very big quilt. It has a pieced backing that gave me a few problems with saggy bits, but came out nicely in the end.

The panel parts and text fabrics are in French. Ooh la la!

Panto: Adore

Here is the pieced backing.

While quilting the customer quilt, I cut out the appliqué bits for one border of the raffle quilt, picked the fabrics, pressed them on and glued the seam allowances to the back of each piece. I also made a really long piece of 3/8 inch bias stem. All this prep, and still nothing to show you!

I have been hand sewing the binding down on the customer quilt in the pictures, and will quit before I finish it. I am too tired to do it all tonight. With a break to eat supper, I have been working since 9:30 in the morning. It's midnight, and I'm going to bed!!

Fun day-Sunday

I had fun yesterday making the final two borders for my Thicket quilt. I loaded it on the machine before quitting for the day, and hope to get it finished today!

The challenge with the border was that I only had a yard of the black grunge dot to work with! I spent quite a bit of time sewing patches to insert into the borders to make them fit. There was about an inch of the dot fabric left when I was done!

Loaded up and ready to quilt. I found some gray swirly fabric for the back in my stash! Total coup.

While sewing away on the Thicket, I had the APQS chugging along on this beautiful log cabin quilt for a customer. I guess you could call it a palette cleanser, after the wonky one the day before. Perfectly square, perfectly flat. Woo hoo!

This is scrappy goodness! I loved the mix of blues and the reds just pop.

Panto: Alpine

The dark backing really shows off the quilting pattern.

Mr Wazoo helped out with tracing the pieces for the first border of the raffle quilt. Somebody smarter than I am could have used their Scan and Cut to do this, but I knew it would take hours for me to figure it out, so I opted for the low tech light box way. I cut the pieces out during Victoria on PBS and will pick fabrics today.

There's a lot of appliqué in my future. This is only ONE border...

Super blood wolf moon. That's what happened last night. I took a very bad picture of the giant full moon around 7 pm, and ventured out in the cold to see the total eclipse at 12:30 this morning. Brrrr!! It was freezing outside, and very dark! It was so weird to look at an orange full moon, and yet see millions of stars like the new moon phase. No picture of the blood moon...the phone saw only blackness.

That's not the sun through the trees, it is the huge fuel moon!

It was another cool moment of a lifetime that Mr W snored through. He had to get up early to go see his Mom  in SC. She is in the hospital, and he is going over to see what is being done and how she is doing. You may remember that his Mom is 97 years old, so every illness or fall is a scary moment for us.

Mr W's Mom at Christmas.

Snug in the studio

Why go outside when there is a nice warm room and quilts to be worked on? I'm not going to brave the cold weather when I can be inside with my fabric! Yesterday, it was blustery and cold, with rain on and off. Just a gray day. In the studio, I had the giant, wonky horse quilt to contend with. It almost beat me, but I persevered and got it quilted.

You have to zoom in to see them...the seams I put into the borders to get them to lay a bit flatter so I could quilt them. The quilt was baggy in some places and canted to the right the entire time I was quilting it. All this taken into consideration, it turned out pretty good!

Panto: Woven wind

Lucky for me, the back is this busy print that hides all the  places where I had to alter the front.

Mr Wazoo had quilted this bright quilt , but hadn't trimmed or photographed it. I was in the way with my own sewing project. Midway through the day, I cleared the cutting table and trimmed away on it.

The simple pattern works well with the bright fabrics

Panto: Alfresco

The backing was a plain white bedsheet.

While not manipulating the big horse quilt, I worked on the borders for my black and white Thicket quilt. Hopefully, I will get this flimsy done today and work on the raffle quilt borders. I'd really like to get that quilt finished ASAP and start selling tickets for our guild's show.

Cold weather be damned! Let's quilt something!!

I put this aside for a while, but felt the need to get it finished. Two borders are on, and I'm in the home stretch of the sewing part. Wouldn't it be something if I actually got it quilted, too?