A week of finishes

 I had a great week, finishing some customer quilts and working on some repairs and commissioned projects. It is nice to have a week every now and then, when I don't have meetings interrupting my day's work. Anyhoo, let's get to it!

Here is the finished quilt that I had to patch. The customer washed it and the dark red backing bled horribly until the top was fuchsia! It is such a beautiful quilt, so well done, that I decided to try the 'bleeding quilt' remedy. After three, twelve hour soaks, this is the result I was able to achieve. Slightly pink, but way better.

The thread stayed a pink color, making me wonder if it was a polyester product.

In case you forgot, here is the patch I applied over the big hole on the back.

Isn't this a lovely quilt? It is all soft quilter's flannel in colorful plaids. I think it may have been a jelly roll project. 

I used the diamonds pattern that looks so good on this type of quilt.

The color of the back is really much darker than this picture shows. A black and gray houndstooth pattern.

I love this Christmas quilt! It must be a panel that the customer cut and enhanced with more blocks.

The panto is Let it Snow, in shiny white Glide thread.

Beautiful chickadee and greenery backing. Perfect!

Another Christmas project was this elegant panel.

I used a more open pattern, Twinkling Stars, to keep from overwhelming the words on the panel.

I also used Glide thread on this in Military Gold color.

Here's the back.

This tee shirt quilt is a Christmas gift for one of the customer's family members.

Same diamond pattern for the quilting.

Watery looking backing.

This was a challenge to quilt! It is a huge memory quilt for the customer's daughter with tee shirts, embroideries, puff paint pictures, 3-D embellishments and some photo transfers. I couldn't use a panto without hitting things and breaking needles, and it is too giant for un-paid full custom quilting. I decided to meander most of it, missing the important motifs and adding some custom designs to other places.

My favorite block is this three generation photo of hands. Grandma, Mom and Daughter.

Embroidery, paint and plastic puff paint were just a few of the obstacles to the quilting.

I made a candle in the wreath block...

some outlining in the child's painting of a bird, and holly in the red bit.

The backing is this wonderful flannel, full of Christmas cheer and Santa Clause.

Here is the quilt made from the orphan blocks I hinted at last week. I used the blocks for my teaching samples in the Block-of-the-Month I did a couple of years ago.

The quilting is the panto Fork in the Road.

I love this backing. I got it from the sale room in Hayesville, NC

I made this little quilt with a fat quarter bundle of soft flannel for my niece, who is expecting a baby later this month. The baby is a girl, so I selected these cute, sleeping animals fabrics in melon and green.

Flower Power quilting

Biggest mistake I have made in a long time...I loaded and quilted the quilt with the backing up-side down. Well, crap!! I'm hoping they'll be okay with it. I am not taking all the quilting out...

These are the quilt-as-you-go blocks a customer brought to Hiawassee to see if the shop there could make them into a quilt. I just happened to be there at the same time, doing some fabric shopping. The shop owner called me over and asked if I had any ideas. Once again, I couldn't say no. I love helping people bring their unfinished projects from long gone relatives made into useful quilts. I took the project on, and have been working on it all week. Here it is with the sashings connecting it on the front and the back.

There were a couple of blocks too faded to use in the quilt, so I made this two sided pillow as a freebie.

I chose a solid lavender fabric and quilted it with piano keys before cutting it into four strips for the borders. Then, I applied them with the same technique I used for the sashing. The binding is also the solid fabric. I finished the quilt last night with the hand work.

All done!

Close up view. The sashings don't meet perfectly, but that was my fault...I should have made them bigger because they were a booger to sew!

This is the back, with the sashing.

The back looks better than the front! ha ha

I got Penny a flatter bed to lay on in the studio. She just couldn't stop dragging around the big, round, fluffy one. With a little coaxing, and some cookies, she took to the new bed and promptly had a nap. My hope is that she will use the bed and not lay right under my feet when I'm working. She has had her toes stepped on more than once! Ouch!!

Time to quilt lolly-gagging and get to the studio!

Fall back?! All it does is mess up my sleep schedule

 Penny is now getting me up at 6:00. She doesn't know about daylight savings...All I know is the dark walk to the upstairs at 6:00 every day is here. Oh well, my clocks and appliances got some exercise.

Last week was a choppy ride. We went to Gainesville for a visit to the pain doctor and Sams run. My back has been increasingly painful on the lower left side. I attribute this to the fall I had a while ago. We set up another appointment for an ablation on the left side, and hopefully that will take care of it. We also browsed at Best Buy for a new TV. Our big TV in the living room has developed ghost donuts on the screen. Donut shaped white patches are invading the screen. Mr Wazoo likes TV and was on a mission at Best Buy. We came home with a new TV that took me over an hour to set up and program. We're back in business!

I managed to finish a couple of customer quilts the next day, and then it was off to Gainesville again!

This customer doesn't want her quilts trimmed, so you get a good view of the batting as well as the colorful quilt.

I found a panto that mimicked the pattern in this fabric perfectly!

A peek at the back.

This is another vintage top to be quilted and finished. I love this quilt I studied it closely and figured out how it was made, and drafted myself a pattern, just in case I get a wild hair up my nose to try to make one. I probably never will, but it was a fun exercise.

I used a swirly panto to accent the bullseye motifs.

Very soft old sheet shows off the quilting nicely.

Twice in a week, I was off to Gainesville! The second time was to have lunch with my high school friend and her hosts for a couple of days. I hadn't seen her since she stopped in on her way to her new digs in Florida a couple of years ago. I had a wonderful time with her and the couple she stayed with. She was going to an Eagles concert with her sister later that night. I drove back over the mountain and settled in after supper to hand sew the binding to the circle quilt.

The next day, quilting room fun began anew!

The center of the orphan-block Kaffe quilt was sewn together and borders were added after this photo was taken.

Customer's Charlie Harper fabric quilt for her brother. Harper's art reminds me of the fifties with its clean lines and bold colors. The customer used the fabric perfectly, fussy cutting the birds, fish and plant life to their best advantage.

I used a new panto called Rosemary for the quilting.

You can see the fifties vibe here on the back.

Her second quilt was this baby quilt. The red fabric and bold tumbling blocks pattern are quite striking.

The panto is called Forest Friends. It has deer, foxes, cats, raccoon and even skunks! I chose it because of the backing fabric.

On the back is a black and white print of animals.

Look closely and you'll see the patch on this repair project. The red heart is an appliquéd patch. After appliquéing it on, I did some Boro stitching by hand to snazz it up a bit. I did a marathon "Save my Bleeding Quilt" session with this quilt. The customer had it stored in a barn (don't do that!!) and mice ate a hole through the quilt to get batting for their nests. They peed and pooed all over the quilt in the process and the customer washed it. The red backing bled all over the quilt, leaving it a dark shade of pink instead of the white background for the lovely Delectable Mountain pattern on the top. I did a three day soak in the bathtub, changing the water every 12 hours and agitating the quilt in the Dawn/hot water mixture. The top never went back to pure white, but it is now very light pink instead of the magenta color it was. I need to take a picture today before she comes to pick it up. I didn't tell her I was going to try to get the red out, so she should be surprised. We'll see.

I also finished two quilts for a customer coming from the Atlanta area to pick them up tomorrow. Her quilts are a joy to quilt because they are well made, squared and flat! These types of quilts move along quickly.

This is an interesting pattern. The bright pinwheels and small shoo-fly blocks keep the eye moving, and the 'plus' blocks ground the design. The small blocks are formed in the sashing, making them a secondary design...wonderful!!

I used a very modern straight line and squares panto, and I hope she likes it.

The back has a stripe of colorful blocks down the center.

The customer's second quilt is a traditional quilt of complex stars.

I used a lovely swirl and flower panto on this one.

Every bit of this quilt is perfect!

I am almost finished with the Kaffe quilt. I worked on the binding last night and will finish it up tonight. There will be pictures. 

Yesterday, I made a flannel baby quilt for my niece who is having a baby girl this month. I am almost done with the top and will get it quilted and bound soon. There will be more pictures.

This is a teaser of the quilt where I left it last night. Don't you love the bright yellow back?!

My youngest grandson turned eight yesterday. Totoro cake and bath towel make a cute picture. We did a face time to see the presents unwrapped. Lots of excitement over the big dragon and two Gundam figures.

Its hard to believe it has been eight year since he looked like this...

Awww, he was so cute!