Playing Catch-up

I have had the feeling for the past week that I am running behind and trying franticly to catch up.  I thought it might be because I had some quilts that were over-due for delivery.  There was one co-worker who was asking everyone when I would be working so she could get her quilt. Quilt finished and delivered, forgot to take a picture of it when finished. Here is is before binding is put on. .

 But even after I delivered it,  the feeling remained So I opened up my spreadsheet of quilts in progress and did some updating.  Sorted things around and added some that hadn’t gotten recorded. Then for fun I thought I’d sort by finished, date and total it up. Grand total: 17 quilts finished so far this year. DH says it should be more because I didn’t count the tops I sent to the Calgary drive but they were only pieced tops not quilted. And no drastically overdue requests or gifts.

So the unsettled feeling must be from the dinner party this coming weekend that I am so totally unprepared to host due to spending so much time sewing.  To help with this, I started putting the Scrappy Trips together.  And once it was off the wall, I put Easy Street up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much better. I can always clean house tomorrow, right?

A Sunny Sunday

and very little quilting going on.  It was so gorgeous out today, we spent the whole afternoon in the backyard. We got a lot of necessary yard work done.

And our reward for this? Eight bags of yard waste ready for pick up tomorrow.

 

 

And a rose garden all weeded and mulched.

 

And if that wasn’t good enough for a day’s work.  The deck in front of the roses used to hold a wood-pile. Not any longer. Relocated to the side of the shed.

 

And lest you think the rose garden was weedy enough for all eight bags,

 

 

The cedar hedge received a trim on  three sides ( well, two sides and the top if you want to get picky)

 

So all of that is why the Princess quilt is still waiting for binding even though I finished quilting it yesterday. (when it was rainy and yucky outside).

A brief garden interlude

I took my coffee out to the back deck this morning, something I haven`t done in a long while. The conditions were perfect for sitting there enjoying a moment of tranquility amidst the chaos that is our mornings now.  As a bonus I now have a beautiful view of my hostas in bloom.

Yesterday was taken up by a trip into Toronto for a family funeral so no machine sewing but some time to hand sew hexies during the drive.

Only four hexies left to finish the blocks for Collaboration Celebration. Yippee ! Progress made.

And some pondering time. We have a friend getting married in October and DH asked if I would have time to do a quilt to give them. I have been undecided on the pattern to do. Last week I was sure I wanted to do the Rectangle Wrangle from Bonnie`s book, so cut up a bunch of 2.5 strips and started sewing.

This is the block I have finished so far. Singular, one block, in a week. And it needs many, many more ( I think 72).  While pondering this on my design wall, I noticed the box of Scrappy Trips blocks that I have been accumulating and thought, why not.

It is a bigger block and goes together much faster than this one is taking.

 

I have this many blocks done already which will speed things up. Just have to find something to do with all the 2.5``by 10`` strips I have already cut.

Nothing finished yet

It has been 3 weeks and some since I finished a quilt. Not that I haven’t been sewing but nothing is finishing.  I’m still working on the hexie portion of the Collaboration Celebration quilt. Using it as a hand-work project while we are traveling. To get familiar with my new Janome, I dug out a deep down UFO.

 I had these blocks a quarter done so finished the edge stitching with a simple satin stitch and explored the needle up, thread cutting a various features new to me. Next I’ll sandwich this and use it to try out the quilting abilities of the machine.

Then I went on to trying other stiches and finished the daisies on the Shades of Black quilt top. It is now ready to sandwich and quilt.

 

 

 

 

We also spent a day driving back to Hamilton to get the extension table. And considered taking the custom Janome table but decided this one we found at Costco is working well enough. The last thing I need here is more furniture. The house is still in disarray from DD2’s move. We’re working on fitting things in but it’s taking time.

A tale of two machines..( or three, or four)

Back in 2009 when I embarked upon this quest to improve my quilting, I had a 20 yr. old Jamome.  That was it, it did everything, piecing, quilting, binding whatever.  I had taught myself to machine quilt on this little machine from Robbie Fanning ‘s book on machine quilting using the continuous quilting ala Ernest Haight. 
As I worked at improvement, I became convinced that I needed to improve my machine as well. So the search begain for the “better” machine.
This lead to:  1) the feather weight; 2) the 99; 3) the other 99; 4) the Necchi.  The Necchi has settled into the primary piecing machine with the featherweight as the secondary.









All along I was wanted one that would do free motion quilting in addition to the straight line/ walking foot style I was now doing.  So last spring my dear hubby (the enabler) found a Kenmore that would drop its feed dogs at a price we couldn’t pass up.  So 5) Kenmore.
Then the treadle bug bit and I wanted a treadle. We found a really fancy cabinet for dirt cheap and made plans to fix it up and get a treadle head for it. Easier said than done. It wasn’t a Singer and finding a head proved difficult. Plus DH didn’t get the refinishing done. I think, just like me, he would rather build new than repair.


So all the way home from NC I looked at every treadle in every antique mall we visited and took pictures of them, working out what we wanted and how much we would pay. Once home he got looking and for our anniversary bought me 6) Singer 66.
In addition to the treadle quest, DH has been urging me to upgrade to a long arm. I’ve been dragging my feet due to the cost and size. I can’t justify spending that kind of money on what is after all just a hobby for me. Hence 7)the new Janome 8200 that is now occupying my dining room table. A compromise machine that has a larger harp and lots of bells and whistles I didn’t know I wanted until I used them.



Honestly I was just trying to improve my quilting, I wasn’t trying to get on Hoarders.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

Sir Winston Churchill

I have been paralyzed by the curse of plenty more than stripped bare but this was the only quote I could find in the time I allowed myself to search.

I really wanted to do a good post about the wonderful trip we had coming home from North Carolina.  All the beautiful mountains, interesting things we saw, however I have almost 300 pictures and there is no way I can go through them all or post even half.

So here is a very, very brief synopsis :

We spent half a day walking around Biltmore Village in Asheville. Very quaint, they even made their playground equipment Tudor style.

 

 

 

We had great fun doing all the antique malls we could find. I took pictures of quilts I found and sewing machines. Didn’t buy any, but had lots of fun and saw some really interesting patterns and machines. Only saw two featherweights.

 

  I took lots of pictures of mountains. Mostly badly, as it was from a moving van. This was one of the few out of van, standing still photos. This is the view from Fancy Gap, Virginia. We went fabric and pottery shopping. I bought lots of fabric and should have bought two more pots than I did. The store smelled musty and the fabric too. After a day driving with the smell, DH triple bagged it all.

 

Driving under a mountain, how cool is that? Very cool. And going from Virginia to West Virginia you get to do it twice.

This is all the trip stuff for now, maybe I’ll do more on the quilt or machines but now the other plenty I am suffering.

Three days after we returned, DD2 moved out of her apartment and into a bedroom here. And the living room, and everywhere else we could find to put down a box. It took two days to clear enough boxes for me to get into my sewing room.  We are working at this but it’s going to take some time to sort it all out and find places for stuff. But we will because “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”
― Robert Frost

Things I didn’t know

about quilt retreats.

t Not everyone is worried about packing a light weight machine

t What cool accessories people bring

t How excited I would get. I squealed like a teen at a Bieber sighting when I won a prize.

t How wonderful it would feel to meet ladies who spoke the same language ( hst, flippy corners, hexies) .

t How quickly these ladies became friends and how much I would miss them now that we have parted.