Starts and finishes

We have been quilting busily here at Wazoo, and I have some fun quilts for you to enjoy. I'm not going to elaborate much because I have an early date with the foot specialist and need to go to bed!

Mr Wazoo quilted this reproduction quilt

The customer chose the panto Swirl and Twirl

Here's the back

I finally finished the custom quilt! Isn't it pretty?

A look at some of the quilting

The block quilting

Great backing, too.

This customer used a panel in a really cute way!

Panto: Bubbles

Here's the back.

I also finished the Quilt of Valor

Panto: Star in a lazy log

The patriotic backing. It will be on its way tomorrow.

After all the clearing out of the fabrics and other stuff, I got a bee in my bonnet to dig out the old quilt tops I have been given over the years. I like this one, and it is in pretty good shape. I starched it and pressed the daylights out of it to get it to lay flat. Then I trimmed the sides square and added a red inner border. I have the outer blue border sewn on two sides, but I'm not sure I'm happy with it. These old tops are hard to figure out when I'm finishing them because the colors will brighten up with washing. I'm hoping this one will look better quilted and washed. We'll see.

How the top looked right out of the box.

Pressed, trimmed and bordered.

Time for bed!!

Unloading day

My friend Kay and I got together yesterday to sort and re-box the stuff from the estate clean out, in preparation for deliveries today. We took 8 bins, one big box, a bunch of bags of fluff, and two large rolls of fleece to the Blairsville Senior Center, and the Coosa Methodist Church Crafters. Both places had very nice reactions to our contributions, and we felt the glow after dropping off the stuff. Then, we went for Mexican food. A fitting reward.

We started with just short of 50 bins and boxes of sewing and craft supplies

As well as 50 bags of fluff for stuffing.

And also 5 pristine rolls of fleece.

Here is what remains. The boxes have trash, one roll of fleece and the fluff is going to Texas to a guild there, and one other group.

Mr Wazoo will be happy when its all gone. He was off in South Carolina today, visiting his mother. So you can see, there wasn't much quilting going on.

I thought I would quilt the last Quilt of Valor and get it on its way, but I sure hit a snag there. The maker didn't sew the back together, and when I sewed it up, it was too small for the quilt top. Drat!

There was backing left over from QOV number one, so I used two 5" strips to make the new back big enough. I'm only three rows into it so far.

Upward and onward!!

By the time I got back from our outings, it was late afternoon. My foot was throbbing, but I was determined to get the third border done on the blue custom quilt. I'm about a third of the way through the piano keys, but just couldn't finish. I will go on quilting after guild tomorrow. One border left, and I want to get it finished.

Yesterday, I took the quilt off,  turned it, and re-pinned it, to make quilting the long borders go smoothly. Then, I marked the motifs and quilted all the arcs. I did the flowers today, but didn't finish the piano keys.

I finished the big red and white log cabin quilt, too, but not without a glitch. You'll understand why I am not fond of the APQS computerized machine when these things happen. Once again, it totally crashed right before the last row!! When I went to the saved pattern and it sewed over some of the preceding row. The pattern didn't nest like it was supposed to. The machine frustrates me no end.

Enough of that...the quilt is now finished.

This is a HUGE one! 110x120. 

Panto: Climbing roses

Soft, white backing.

Autumn is coming. It was a bit cooler today and the hydrangea only has one plume left with color. The sedum is full on red, too. Bring it on!! I am so ready.

One last bit of flowering beauty.

The pink is starting to appear.

Pretty soon, it will be crispy brown like this one.

I love sedum in the Fall!

The flower heads are much more intense color than in the picture.

Just for fun. This is how Molly left her favorite toy tonight. Yoga for lambs?

A Heavenly Walk Quilt Show in Franklin, NC

A small group of five traveled to Franklin, NC to attend the guild quilt show there. I love a quilt show, and arrived there eager to see some inspiring quilts. The show was staged in two lovely churches just across the street from one another. We parked at the Methodist church and began the quilty day.
I must say, I was disappointed to see the quilts draped over chairs placed on low tables. There were three or four quilts on a table, and it was impossible to see the entire quilt. Part of the experience is to see the quilt as a whole, how all the components work together and how the colors interact across the face of the quilt. There were some beautiful quilts that I really wanted to see hanging, because of the intricacy of their piecing and use of exciting fabric combinations. A real bummer for us quilt junkies.
A short walk away was the Presbyterian church, with quilts in two locations, as well as the vendors, boutique, silent auction and basket raffle. Here, the quilts were a little easier to see because they were draped over the pews in the sanctuary. Still not ideal, but impressive as we came through the doors and saw them all at once. I would have spent more time looking at my favorite quilts, but some were in the middle of the row and not readily accessible to see up close. One of the ones I would have loved to see hanging was draped over a chair...rats!
I guess the take-away from the show was 'make the best of your situation'. Maybe there isn't a venue in Franklin where the guild could hang all the quilts, or maybe they couldn't afford to make or rent display racks. Either way, the show would have been wonderful, if we could have really seen the quilts. I give it a 4 our of 10.
The slide show features my favorites. There were loads of quilts, but I didn't snap them all. Enjoy!

This slideshow created with Smilebox

Honeycomb, won't you be my baby...

If you remember that song, you're at least as old as I am!! A customer brought three baby quilts with the cutest Winnie the Pooh fabrics, and honeycomb fabric in the blocks. She wanted the quilting to be honeycomb, so that's what I did!!

Folded so they fit on the rail, here are the three quilts.

They are all like this

Here, you can see the honeycomb quilting pattern.

And this is the honeycomb backing!

While quilting the baby quilts on the computerized machine, I worked on the custom quilt some more.My stupid foot kept me from standing for longer than 20 minutes at a stretch, so it was slow going. I'm doing the appliqué blocks now, and using simple feathers and echo lines. The blocks are pretty, and don't need  gobs of frilly quilting. I hope to finish the last row and get on to the outer border by the weekend.

It's hard to take a good picture with the quilt flat on the machine. There will be better photos when  the quilt is off the rollers.

I hadn't taken a picture of the inner border quilting either, so here it is.

Now, I have to take Molly out and then go straight to bed.

A repair finish

I'm happy to say that the embroidered quilt is finished! Way before the deadline, too. After the appliqué and replacement of the worst block, I set in to do the hand quilting. The two blocks next to the ripped one needed to have their feathered hearts re-done, and the setting triangles had to be requilted, too. I also quilted the replacement block to match the others. A soak and wash, and voila!! Good as new.

This is where I started. Giant hole, and no quilting on any of the surrounding blocks.

The binding was completely gone all along the edge. Notice, no quilting in the setting triangles, either.

Ta-Da!! Clean and ready to go home.

The new block is in the center on the right side. I hand quilted the corners and setting triangles, and all the missing quilting from the surrounding blocks. 

The new block

One setting triangle

Another setting triangle

A better look at the new block.

New row at the bottom in this picture.

The fun never ends here at Wazoo. This is the next repair job...

Each grandchild got a quilt when Grandma died. 

My customer got this one. Simple utility quilt, but she told me of the fond memories of sleeping under this quilt on trips to Grandma's house as a youngster. She loves the feeling she has snuggling in this quilt, and wants it fixed.

The batting in the quilt is another quilt! I could see the 9 patch blocks under some of the larger holes.

This evening, I went to my guild in Blue Ridge for a wonderful meeting. There were loads of pretty show and tell projects, and a demo of making multiple half square triangle blocks at one time. Diane did a great job with the demo, and I can't wait to try making 54 -2 1/2 inch HSTs at a time from two fat quarters! My cookies, cupcakes, cheese and cracker platter and pico de gaillo with chips were all a hit. We had enough food for a group twice the size of ours. Pasta salad, veggies, fruit, mini eclairs, banana bread and more cookies from the other two ladies!! Quilters rarely go hungry.