Time to prepare for classes!

It's been a great week here and we have gotten loads of work done. I have two classes coming up and have to get my samples ready, so in the odd hours, I have been sewing up a storm. The first class is for beginners in my evening guild, so the quilt is very simple, but pretty. I'm calling it 'One Dozen Donuts'. I am making the second quilt, for a project class at my day guild in July. I have decided to make my sample from my stash of Liberty of London. Today I made the 9 patches, and when I get time, I will finish the blocks and get the setting started. I hope to have it finished by Friday to take to guild. Aren't the fabrics nice!? I hope you like the pictures.

Customer quilt I did earlier this week

Detail

More detail

Another customer quilt finished yesterday

some detail

My Wisconsin quilt, all finished

the pieced back

One Dozen Donuts

48 Liberty 9 patches

the stack ready for the next step

Three quilt finishes!

I did finish the project quilt for the last retreat, a baby quilt for a friend in Wisconsin, as well as the quilt my Mom started in 1944 for my older brother. It is needle turn applique and hand quilted. Then I soaked it to get the yellow-brown age out of it. I can't wait until July to show it to her in person!

The kit baby quilt my Mom started all those years ago.

Baby quilt for a friend

Project quilt for the May retreat, 'Dottie' from Moda Bakeshop

May 2014 retreat in Sebring, Florida was a blast!

We just got home from another fun time in Sebring, and I am already back at work on customer quilts. Our friend, Donna, had a nasty fall and cut her knee quite badly, so I hope everyone will keep her in their thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.
We had a fun time sewing, chatting and snacking in the Kenilworth Lodge, and here is the slide show to prove it! Enjoy!

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My sister's quilt, and what's up today

Sometimes, I have the honor of quilting for my sister who lives in Texas. She makes really wonderful, colorful quilts that are fun to look at while I quilt. The added bonus is that they are always square and flat!! If only I were as precise as she is...
I have done a quilt like the peacock one before, so I decided to do this one a little differently. The quilted part is rolled up, but I will post a photo of it when I finish quilting it.
Ta for now!

My sister's king sized Irish chain quilt

Pantograph, Splat

Lovely turquoise backing

Peacock and pinwheel quilt in progress

Un-quilting, re-quilting, and Mr Wazoo's beard

Today will be a rip-it day. I finished the interior portion of a customer quilt and began feathering the border, but the thread choice was really wrong and looked bad, in my opinion. Now, I will be taking out a feather that covers half the top border. Rats! I figure it's better than giving the customer a quilt with a glaring error on it. Should take a few hours, but with some lively bluegrass and folk music playing, it shouldn't be too painful. I will take a picture of it and another after I fix the problem. For now, I will be in 'un-quilting' mode.
Stay tuned!

Oh rats... I don't like this at all.

The design and thread  just aren't nice. So I took it all out.

Here is the quilt all done

This looks waaaay better! Brown thread and a swirly feather border treatment.

One month beard on Mr Wazoo. Looking good!

Back to work!

With the repairs done and a sample quilt done without a problem, I am back to work. The sample was from my unfinished stash of tops I've finished at various retreats. Some blue binding on and it is almost done! Miss Marple and I will pass the time while I sew down the binding.
I have loaded a king size customer custom quilt, so it will be a couple of days before I'm finished with it. She has a diagram of how she wants it done, so I will be charting new territory; lots of straight lines. Oh well, get out the rulers and quilt!
Later gators!

quilting sample piece all finished

Pantograph is called Quirky

A bit of the back. Nice even stitches. Yippee!!

Hooray for Mr Wazoo!!

Well, he got the quilt done for me, but my machine has been quiet today. I sewed a quilt top for Love Quilts at my evening guild, made the back and binding, and then hung it up with the other 30 or so quilt tops waiting to be quilted. At least the retreat sample is almost done. I'll get the binding sewn down tonight after I do a customer binding. Deadliest Catch starts tonight, and then a Miss Marple on Netflix and I should be finished!
Time to make supper. The man needs some pampering after his last couple of days.

Retreat sample all quilted, with it's binding on

Pantograph, Splat!

Soft plaid backing. See the cool striped binding?

Leftover bits made it to the back, too.

The binding will be totally cool after I sew it down. The entire quilt is from my stash.

Limping along with the quilting machine

Good old Mr Wazoo fixed my machine enough to try it out on another of my own quilts. There was a lot of thread breakage, but that could be due to me re-adjusting my tensions. Once you mess with the longarm, you have to re-set everything again and tweak it for optimum quilting. I think we're getting there.
After finishing the first one,(orange and green) I put the retreat sample quilt back on with not so good results. I am so frustrated with this I could scream, but what good would screaming do? Today, we will make more adjustments and I will be un-sewing the quilting I put in the blue and white quilt. I am going to try a different backing and see if that helps. My seams are nice and flat, and all the fabrics are regular cotton fabric, so I don't have an idea what could be the problem with this quilt!
At least one of us has a machine in good working order.

Practice quilt

The quilting went along pretty well, except for some thread breakage

I do like the backing fabric

Here it is with it's black and white stripe binding on and finished.

I also got the binding done on this one. (note the blue and white quilt still waiting on the frame)

2 wild and crazy quilts!

and their backings

Ready for some kids to enjoy.

Mr Wazoo (with the beard getting fuzzier by the day) hard at work while I take pictures and blog. Poor fellow.

Trouble in Paradise...

I finished the quilt top this morning and made a lovely pieced backing. Things were going swimmingly; quilt loaded, pattern chosen and bobbins wound. Off to the races! Clickety, clickety, whackety, BANG!! Titanium needle broke, tore the top and backing, left a trail of tiny blue dots of backing fabric thread, and stopped all quilting for the duration. Rats.
Mr Wazoo leapt into action, leaving his quilt to languish on the frame, while he doctored my machine...all day. Everything he tried didn't work out the problem. He had the repair video going on the laptop and went through all the steps over and over. Around 6 o'clock, I made him stop and have dinner. Tomorrow we'll start again and, hopefully, get the machine humming again.
On the bright side, I did get the binding made and sewn on my cheddar and Guatemalan fabric quilt, paid the bills, changed the sheets and did two loads of wash. I watched the first two lessons of this year's Craftsy block of the month. They are all about color; right down my alley. I also cut the sashing pieces for my Z's quilt for sewing on Wednesday.
My day just wasn't right without quilting. I sure hope the repairs go well tomorrow...
Stay tuned for up-dates.

Quilt all ready to go...until

Yikes! This rip was made by the needle break on the front and the back. I picked out the same motif twice before unloading the quilt and loading up muslin to try quilting after each repair.

These dots are broken threads pulled to the top from the backing fabric. The machine runs so fast, it was a second before I could turn it off when quilting. The damage was done.

Prep for the next retreat

After work each day I have been making blocks for the next retreat sample quilt. I have 22 made and 8 more to go! The quilt will be really cute finished, so I can only blog for a minute before getting back to the sewing machine for today's addition of blocks. I was gifted a blues jelly roll, so I used 17 of them with 13 strips from my stash blues to do the blocks. Some white Kona for background, and I was in business!
Also today, we were treated to a talk and demonstration by Pat Knoechel (Eleanor Burns' sister) She showed us the latest of the Quilt In A Day patterns and tools, as well as a huge trunk show of quilts! Fun and wonderful. After that, a quick lunch with friends at Panera, a pit stop at the grocery store, and now, I am ready to get busy sewing.
Mr Wazoo is into week three of the beard growing. I have a photo of that, too.
The other pic is of a gizmo a quilting friend gave me for cutting the threads between units when chain piecing. Her husband made it from wood, two tiny brass screws, and a single edge razor blade. It works great and I have used it every time I'm making blocks. I think he's onto something here.
Back to the studio for me! Stay tuned for the quilt top finish...hopefully tomorrow.

pretty blues all sewn up!

the whole stack of 22

My nifty thread cutter

the last of the strip sets ready to cut and sew

Fuzzy Wuzzy