Back on track!

We spent another 6 hours texting and fiddling with APQS, and in the end, we prevailed. Mr Wazoo managed to fix the latest snafu with Millie, and I am back in business. Did I ever mention  how much I hate that machine? Yes?...okay.

From this...

...to this. You can see where I tested every time Mr W made an adjustment.

Today is a new day, and we both started in quilting with a good attitude. Mr Wazoo in the man cave and me in the studio.

Mr W did this pretty strip quilt

We thought it looked like the Gulf Stream, so he chose Ebb and Flow for the panto.

Dark teal backing.

I reloaded the quilt that had the quilting trouble, and found it none the worse for wear! Does it look familiar? It is the same pattern as the Aboriginal quilt from the other day.

Panto: Popcorn. I changed the thread color and pattern  from my original pick. Bad karma with that selection.

The quilt has a pretty pieced back and the entire project is soft and cuddly.

Outside, the rains have stopped for now, and the sun came peeking through. Things are really starting to grow and soon the yard will look beautiful.

Lilly of the valley

Roses just beginning to bud.

I swear this hosta grew overnight!

The honeysuckle vine is in it's full glory.

I'm back t6o the studio where I am putting my cobbled together borders on the citron quilt. Maybe I'll have the flimsy finished today!

Frustrating afternoon, rainy night

Well, after lunch I returned to the studio and loaded the next quilt. The machine went haywire and quilted a jerky mess. It took me about an hour and a half to pick it out. I don't know how much more I can take with APQS. Did I mention I hate this machine? Yes? Okay. Mr Wazoo says he'll look into it tomorrow.
I got the last blocks done and sewn onto the citron flimsy. Now I need to work out if I want a border or not. I auditioned many fabrics but I'm not in love with any of them. There is one batik I like, but I only have a yard of it which would make for a narrow  border. That would look stupid on a quilt this size. I'm going to sleep on it and decide in the morning.

The aboriginal quilt is done.

All the fabrics are so colorful and interesting!

Panto: African Storm

Citron quilt sewn and waiting for me to make up my mind what to do next 

This is the batik I like but don't have enough of.

I could just stop here. 

And then this. It looks like a three year old did this quilting! Oh no, it was done by a $10,000 computer!! **sigh...**

At 6:00, Molly and I walked upstairs and just missed being soaked by another downpour. All evening we have had blasts of heavy rain followed by wind. The power went off  for a bit (just enough to make me have to re-set all the digital appliance clocks) and gave the generator a brief workout. It is quiet now, so I think sleeping will be okay. I'll say good night and show you the sky before the storm. Tomorrow has to be better.

The good thing is, it is still light at 6 pm.

Here comes the rain!!

More quilting, more bad weather

Last night tornadoes went through the states west of us again. Weatherman says the bad weather is coming here, too. We battened down the chimes, flag and deck furniture and went to work in the studio and man cave. So far, we have had some violent wind and spotty rain showers. I hope that will be all there is!
Yesterday, I finished up a couple of quilts and did one block from the citron quilt. I have been working on it again this morning, and am now taking my break for some lunch.

This is the customer's first quilt! I love it, and she did a really nice job of keeping it square and flat.

The panto is Butterfly swirl, one of the customer favorites lately.

Interesting back.

I started the border on the colorful quilt.

I mimic the appliqué to start, and will fill the background later

I am using dark purple thread. It looks better than black, and is easier for me to see where I'm going!

This is what I am using for my plan.

Molly keeps an eye on things when she isn't laying on the batting.

Time to go back to work. I only have one row to go on the citron quilt. Maybe I'll get the borders on, too. I finished the aboriginal quilt just before lunch, so I'll get some pictures and show you that later. I'm hoofing it down to the studio before it starts raining again!

A little bit of quilting

I have been busy in the studio, but I'm taking a break for lunch and thought I would catch you up on what's happening. Yesterday I quilted two customer quilts and worked on my citron quilt a bit.

I had to sew the backing for this bed runner before starting the quilting. Once again, a too small  back required some artistic finagling. Once quilted, I also made and applied the binding.

I used the panto: rounded squares, and think it looks really nice.

The customer provided this batik, so I used some black solid to fix the backing.

This is what I decided to do.

This quilt featured an oriental theme. 

I used a panto called Willow the Wisp that looks like Japanese style clouds.

The backing was this interesting combination  of batiks.

Here is where I left off on Sunday with the citron quilt.

By noon yesterday, I had these rows done

By six o'clock, I had another row done.

This much left to do. I can only sew in short spurts because I am also doing longarm quilting at the same time.  It is like a little choreographed dance!

Oh yeah,  this is the latest addition to my studio. A giant, ugly Radon mitigation pipe. And a big hole in the ceiling. The guy put it right next to the big, ugly water filter tank. At least it is in the bathroom and not out in the public area.

If the blue line ever equalizes itself, we have to call and have it looked at. Because I am the one most exposed to the Radon, I guess I'm okay with this eyesore.

It just fits between the dog bathing station and the water tank.

The yard looked so lovely this morning. It sure pays to be married to a yard-man!

New blooms! Tickseed.

Pretty pinks.

Honeysuckle.

I had better get back to work!  I'll show you what I did today  in my next post.
Stay calm and quilt on!

$39

That's right...I finished doing our taxes yesterday and we are getting a REFUND of $39. Ha! There is a first time for everything, isn't there?
Down to there studio today.

I'll be here!

Sunday, Fun Day...Monday, taxes!

Sunday has always been my slow day, and yesterday was no exception. I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, thinking we would have them a couple of days in a row. No way! We managed to eat the entire batch over a couple of hours watching our Sunday morning shows. Oops!
The sewing didn't start until almost noon, so not a lot was accomplished. I dug around in my pre-cut stash and found a set of 2 1/2 inch strips I got at a quilt show years ago, and decided to make something out of them. Of course, I got totally sidetracked looking at books for a pattern I liked and finally decided to make something a bit out of my usual box, For some reason, I bought yards of a citron colored linen at a show, and haven't had the guts to use it as a background in a quilt. It is really a strange color, and that must be why I was first attracted to it. Anyhoo, I cut up two yards of the stuff and started making blocks.
The pattern has three templates (yikes! The 'T' word...) so the first task was making them out of template plastic. Here is what transpired over the remaining five hours of sewing time.

The entire thing had to be on the design wall since the blocks have four different stripped  'wings' to them. I only finished piecing the top row, and the next ones should be easier because they are big squares. The strips had an ethnic feel to them, so I made the corner blocks out of Aussie fabrics from my stash. It's weird, but I like it so far.

I started on another customer quilt, making her pieced back (once again, not a big enough piece of fabric to make the back...sigh) and loading it up on Millie. It is a bed runner, according to the customer, but is pretty big for that, 60x80. Whatever. I like the design and the sparkly white fabrics.

I should have it finished tomorrow, because today I have to finish up the taxes...yuk.

My son took this picture of Dechen and Chikako on their Sunday outing, doing a bit of meditation en   pleine air. That kid cracks me up! Later, they made chocolate chip cookies. Great plan!

A four year old doing meditation? Isn't that cute?

Well, I have procrastinated enough. Time to warm up the calculator and get the taxes done and out of here. See you later...