Everyone quilts at Wazoo!

Mr Wazoo gets stronger every day, and he has taken his recovery seriously. He exercises every day, eats healthy foods and works on his balance. I wish I had the same zeal for healthy living that he has...
We were both in the studio this week (mostly because the weather wouldn't cooperate with being outside) and he finished his first customer quilt since the stroke. With just the one quilt finish, I think he deserves Employee of the Month for January!

This pretty little strip quilt was Mr W's first effort after the stroke.

Panto: Ribbon Roses

A peek at the back.

I finished the Gammill portion of the custom quilt ( the hand guided parts), and transferred the quilt to the Millie to work the computerized block patterns. I can't quilt roses that are perfect and beautiful, and I think this quilt deserved some perfection. I'm glad to have it finished and move on to the next custom project. This is a beautiful quilt!

The pattern is Nancy Mahoney's feathered star. I took the same class as the customer, but mine is languishing as a UFO for now.

The center medallion was quilted by the Millie, and is more perfect than I could ever do.

All the borders were hand guided quilting.

The backing is fun to look at, too.

After the feathered star was finished, I loaded this customer quilt. More the norm, the backing came as a long piece of fabric, and I had to cut, sew and press it before beginning the quilting. I really like this customer, but charged her a small fee anyway. Thirty extra minutes to fix something I shouldn't have to deserves to be compensated for. My time is as precious as yours. Enough soap box...here is the quilt.

This is an interesting pattern that I may make in the future. It would be a quick quilt for charity. I also made, applied and hand sewed the black, sparkly binding!

Panto: African Samba

The notorious backing.

Later in the afternoon, I decided to take a little 'me time' and play with some more of the orphan blocks. Someone gave me 18 small batik blocks and I got them out to play with. I made two more to have enough for a decent sized project, and began to ponder how to make the quilt large enough to use. I struck upon an idea, and spent an hour or so adding to the blocks and planning the quilt. Time well spent? I think so. I need to stretch my creative muscle every day to keep from becoming bored with my actual job. I hope to get the little top put together today (my sew-for-myself day) and show it to you. 

I also have a vintage top, acquired years ago, loaded on the Millie to quilt while I'm sewing. I love it when a forgotten top is resurrected and made into a useful bed cover. This is a large quilt, and will warm not only the user, but acknowledge the contribution of the maker. It is all hand pieced and must have taken a long time to stitch together. It is also perfectly sewn, square and flat. Wow. You'll see it later.

Off to the studio!!

A good day in the studio

Yesterday was quilt guild, and I had arranged a program of members who do other things besides quilting with their spare time. Wow! These are some talented ladies. There were basketmakers, a master knitter, crocheters, a ceramics painter, a rug hooker, a master seamstress, one who made hardanger embroidery, chair caners and a rush weaver, one who made beautiful gourd vessels, cross stitch wizards, a scrapbooker, and two enchanting pianists. The whole program was a bit longer than I expected, but it was worth it to see the lovely things they made. I am so humbled!

Today, I had to go back to work and get things done! Mr Wazoo also returned to his man cave and quilted a nice lilac quilt for one of our favorite customers. I'll get the pictures tomorrow. He forgot...

Hey! I didn't forget! In the morning, I quilted a really pretty scrap pinwheel quilt for a customer's granddaughter. It was a breath of fresh air to quilt a perfectly square and flat, well pressed and securely sewn quilt! The back was plenty big enough, too.

This is a sweet quilt for a little girl.

Panto: Popcorn. I love this pattern on kid's quilts.

It looks nice on backings, too.

After the girly quilt, I loaded a customer tee shirt quilt she made for her daughter. It was a twin sized quilt, so while Millie worked her magic, I quilted on the custom project. I think I will transfer it to the Millie tomorrow to do some fancier quilting than I can do freehand. We'll see.

I sewed the other teddy bear together and got him stuffed and sewn up. It was a productive day all around!

Here are both bears together. The first one has cloth eyes and embroidered nose and mouth. I found some kid-proof eyes and nose in my storage cabinet and used those on the second bear.

Here he is with his turquoise bow.

The tee shirt quilt had loads of cool shirts in it and I loved looking at them while quilting. In the bottom right corner are two from The Dragon, a hair raising road in Tennessee. I have been on it twice, once while I was driving. It was a wrong turn that took us there on the way home from a Pigeon Forge quilt show. My two friends and I drove it with our hearts in our throats, believe me! 318 hairpin curves in 11 miles. Motorcyclists come from all over to ride it. Egads! Never again for me.

My go to panto is rounded diamond for these.

The customer sent a soft flannel sheet for the backing. I have the red binding made and will get that on tomorrow.

What is it with the gargantuan quilts!!?

Just a short post today, as I need to get Mr Wazoo to his PT/OT appointment for some  fine tuning of his recovery. I did another giant quilt yesterday that had some wobbly bits on one side. The maker had some problem getting her flying geese to fit, and the blocks were a little puffy where she stretched them to fit. This led to minor ripples in the quilting, but I was able to avoid tucks by manipulating the quilt as it was being quilted. Standing in front and pressing down with my hands around the puffy areas kept tucks away, but there are some noticeable wrinkly areas, for sure.

Here is the quilt, fashioned around a panel of horses.

The panto is Rounded Diamonds

Here is the back.

The stitch in the ditch is finished on this beautiful (and perfectly sewn!) feathered star. After we get back from the PT, and a trip to the movies to see Little Women, I will be starting the quilting. Tomorrow is guild, so there won't be much quilting going on. I hope to finish it by the end of the week!

Vintage quilts and teddy bears

It has been a prosperous week here any Wazoo, and we are slowly getting the pace established for work. A few times a week, Mr W and I take a walk outside and enjoy nature and each other's company. He is getting stronger every day. Monday starts some PT and OT to fine tune his recovery.
Meanwhile, in the studio I have been quilting and sewing. A customer brought a vintage quilt for repair, and another she wants made into two baby quilts. The second one didn't have batting, just a thin layer of flannel. The maker didn't finish the quilt, and two edges were neither quilted nor finished. I cut the quilt into as big pieces as I could, found appropriate backings, and put in a layer of thin Quilters Dream batting. All quilted up and bound! They are really nice.

Two baby quilts!

Back number one.

Back number two. Both are quilted with a big meander since parts of them were already echo quilted by hand around the hexes. I added off white binding and they are done!

There was a big piece of the quilt left over, so I cut out a bear that will be a surprise for the owner. She saw the bear I did last week and thought it was really cool. I'm almost done with it, and will show it to you once he has his face on!

Here he is, sewn together, unstuffed and without a face.

I also did a giant customer quilt this week. I mean GIANT!! It took two days to quilt, but turned out lovely.

I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to shove all of this through the sewing machine when putting it together! It is planned but scrappy, and quite beautiful.

I couldn't fit it all in straight on! I couldn't get far enough away from the machine to take the picture...

Panto: Adore

Mottled blue backing.

While Millie chugged along, I finished my two orphan quilts. I used up quite a few 2-3-2 blocks in these, One is twin sized, the other a generous lap size.

This is the bigger quilt. It used 120 blocks.

I did a meander on both quilts.

The backing was a freebie from a customer's stash after she died. Her husband gave me quite a bit of fabric in exchange for finishing a couple of her quilts.

The smaller one used up another 80 blocks! Not bad. I set free 200 orphans blocks and made two useful quilts.

The backing was cobbled together from leftover pieces from another quilt's backing.

I bound both of them with a colorful striped fabric.

Al done!

We got up early and drove to Chattanooga to leave Big Bernina at the shop for cleaning and repair. She started making a ping-ping-ping noise every time I started sewing, and then the presser foot would shudder 10 seconds after stopping. sigh... The repair guy says it may take a while to get the parts, so I set up my Pfaff to sew with. Its light burned out. Rats!

When I got home, I finished the bear, and had enough leftover bits of the quilt to sew together and be able to cut out another bear! I think I will sew that tomorrow, as well as start the custom quilt I didn't get to today.

I hand stitched the nose and mouth with Pearle cotton.

The eyes are black fabric circles appliquéd on by hand.

I think he's pretty cute!

Here's the back.

I cut a wide strip of 30s reproduction fabric with pinking shears to make a nice bow.
Teddy is ready!

Hump day

We're churning along with Mr Wazoo's therapy and are making great strides. Yesterday, he drove for the first time! Everything went without incident and I breathed a sigh of relief. I have been spending time doing a repair of an 80 year old teddy bear, and continuing to repair a trip around the world quilt I have had for an embarrassingly long time. I hope to load a custom project today to work on while Millie helps me quilt another customer quilt. Here are a few pictures of what has been going on here at Wazoo.

I replaced 16 patches on the bear, as well as sewing two black dots under the shoe button eyes. They had pulled so much over the years that they were hanging precariously from his face. I took them off, repaired the holes and sewed them back on.

My patches, like the one under his arm here, are a little brighter, but historically accurate reproductions.

The entire rear end was a giant hole with fluff leaking out. I replaced the outside right arm, the left rear end and foot, and the far right side of his head.

Cheek, arm, chest and eyes are all new.

Believe it or not, this is a QOV from the national group.  It's pretty, but not their usual patriotic style or colors. Also, it is too small for their guidelines of being at least 60 x 70. This one is 63" square. My job is to quilt them. I hope someone does quality assurance and measures them before handing them out. I would hate to think I am being taken advantage of by a quilter who sees a free batting and quilting. I also pay the postage to mail this back to Virginia!

I tried out a new panto called Streamers and Stars.

The backing is patriotic. We'll see what happens. I generally don't hear from QOV again after the pairing of maker and quilter is made.

Meanwhile, I spent a couple of hours going through my orphan blocks and sorting out 2-3-2-6 remnants. I have made over 200 of these quilts, mostly for charity, and have loads of left over blocks. I sorted out 175 of them and sewed up 4 patches from them to make a larger quilt for charity.
The first two rows are here to be sewn together today.

Here are the rest of the blocks, ready to be joined together for a swell scrappy quilt. There are a bunch left over on the ironing board that I will make into a smaller quilt along with orphan 6" focus fabric blocks.

I have replaced  a hundred squares on the trip quilt, and probably have another 50 to go. Here is what I am replacing. There are also a few holes in the back that I need to patch.The customer must think I have fallen off the face of the earth because of the amount of time it is taking! I'll get there...

The blue floral squares have been done. The white/orange ones have not.

The blue squares need to be replaced, the yellow floral ones are done.

Pink stripes done, light blue...not.

Blue and white, done, as well as the far left floral ones. The multi colored floral, not done.

The white and pink squares are all done, as are the pink striped ones. The dark blue dots that have holes need to be done. I took the picture to take to fabric shops during the hunt for the appropriate fabrics for the repair. It has been an ongoing hunt!

Every time I work on the quilt, I see more things to repair. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever finish!