Tuesday To-Do Week 12: Starts & Finishes

Hello motivated do'ers and welcome to our weekly

Tuesday To Do party hosted by Quilt Schmilt

along with Sew & Tell by Melva Loves Scraps!

Gosh the Tuesdays just keep rollin' by!  With time

flying like that, I think I'll just to get right to it!

* * Week 11 Priority! * *

Start on West Point quilt #5

Lots of progress!

I'm needing a larger version of a previously-made

 WP quilt (pictured above).  I keep fabrics in these colors

on hand but bigger quilts = bigger amounts of fabric.

After runs to two LQS's, I'm now set with enough fabric to

 make at least one and perhaps a few more.

Oh, okay, I may have brought home a few other fabrics

as well, but don't get me off-topic!

I'm focused and currently working on making two of them.

2) Design and start challenge quilt for local charity

Still looking through ideas but I picked up some

coordinating fabrics while at the LQS's.

3) Start charity quilts for church sewing group.

Done.

(53x53)

Being fairly short on time, I really need all of these charity

quilts to be pretty simple so for this first one I chose

Jenny Doan's (MSQC) Charm Quilt On-Point tutorial.

It's an interesting (and quick!) construction but it left

a couple sets of same-fabric squares right next to 

each other.  I think with most charm packs, though,

there is more variety so that's less likely to happen.

These donated charm packs contained only 21

squares each.  I believe someone said they

thought they were from Big Lots?  They all required

straightening and/or trimming to size but for non-LQS

fabric, I thought the quality was decent enough

and prints were cute.

Most of this is from donated fabric but I added the

border and backing fabrics along with the batting

that I pieced together from a few large scraps.

If I hadn't first worked on something else and gotten an

earlier start on this, I could have actually made it entirely

in one day.  I finished the quilting by late afternoon but

had to put off the binding for the next day.

Still, not too bad at all!

One charity quilt down, several more to go..

4) Quilt MIL's second quilt

Done.

This one turned out really well

(I still need to get both quilts back to my MIL though!)

And for those other two side gigs: 

1) Edyta Sitar's QAL

No progress.

2) Second of "two baby quilts from one layer cake"

No progress.

Other things:

Tilled 2 beds in the garden and planted the early crops.

Cleaned asparagus patch and discovered spears shooting

up already!  Our fence is ready to be picked up already so

I've started tearing down the old wooden one.

I continue to deal with tech issues but I learned that

this latest was just a faulty pedal on my new Pfaff.

I just love the machine and it continues to save me

so much time in various ways (outside of two extra

trips to the store for diagnosing!) so I'm relieved that

it was such a simple fix.  However, I'm starting to feel

like simple days of sewing and quilting must only

exist in some sort of fantasy world.

The week ahead should shed a little light on that.

As of right now, most of my week is open for sewing

and quilting with a little garden work and golf thrown in

to get me out of the house so I made an aggressive list:

1) Finish WP quilt #'s 5 and 6

2) Settle on charity challenge quilt design

3) Catch up on Edyta's QAL

4) Piece 2nd layer-cake quilt (chain)

And if the weather just happens to cooperate:

5) Get pics of 3 finished quilts and list

That's a hefty list so I'd better get right on it.
See you all right back here next week.
Happy quilting!

Tuesday To-Do Week 11: A Week of Three Finishes! Er, Five!

Hello again motivated do'ers.  Welcome to another

Tuesday To Do party hosted by Quilt Schmilt!

Today I'm also linking up with Sew & Tell over

at Melva Loves Scraps!

How did everyone do this past week?

I had a pretty stressed one but, after more troubleshooting

with APQS, I think we've solved the problem I was having

with occasional wobbly stitches.  I feel like I wasted yet

another week, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm

really learning my way around the system.   Longarmers aren't

just quilters; they also become their machine's technician.

My regret is that I really didn't help hubs set everything up;

if I had, I would have learned a lot from the get-go.

Ah well, live and learn.  And learn and learn...

Let's move on to more fun things:

I have THREE big finishes today, and

a couple minis for icing on the finish cake!

My first finish to share today was accidentally omitted

from last week's list but I fully intended on completing

it along with the others.  I'll just start with it today.

Cascade (83x94)

Not only is it looking wrinkly while laying on the lawn,

the colors aren't looking right in this lighting.  If I can't

find a way to bring out the truth of this quilt in pics for

my shop, I am not gonna be happy.

(Research into photography is next on my To Learn list.)

Label making and sewing on binding are a

breeze on the new Pfaff!  I think I did all three

of my finishes in about half the usual time!

Feathers would have looked beautiful but I'd

like this quilt to work for a man as well.

It's a little hard to see in the pic above, but I chose

a nice neutral design that I feel works really well,

and perhaps brings just a touch of modern to it.

(When I take pics for my shop, I'll get better closeups

and share them here.)

Okay, moving on:

* * My Priority! * *

 Bind, label and finish both Meadow and Rosie.

(Shortened their names)

DONE.

Rosie (71x71)

I used the remaining red jelly strips for a

scrappy pieced binding on this one.

I always like using everything up!

Meadow (90X102)

This is another one that I just haven't been able to catch

in great lighting so I'll need to really work on this before

I can list it in the shop.  Above is about as close as I've

gotten but obviously it was too big for hubs to hold out

for a full view.

Terrible lighting but here is the full quilt.

A pieced back.

Nope, that light's not gonna do it either

but you can see the quilting at least.

2) Bind, label and finish the 2 minis

DONE.

These are from a little squirrel session last February ('22).

(post here)

By adding in a little extra background fabric, I was able

to squeeze two toppers (19x19) out of a kit for one.

This was right before moving everything into my new

studio so the finished tops were set aside until just

last week--a year later--when they were allowed to

 join the ranks of The Finished.  I'm still looking for

a good spot for them around the house though.

3) Make a form to receive quilts for quilting jobs

Made a start.

4) Start on next quilt

Nothing happened here.

Other notable things:

I waited over a month for this to show up and was about

to write it off for lost but over the weekend it finally found

its way into my mailbox.  No idea what happened but it's

here now so my Martingale collection is now complete.

I re-joined our sewing group at church.  Leave it to me to

show up when someone had just donated a ton of fabric.

You all know how much I need to focus on getting my Etsy

shop re-stocked with finishes, but what did I do?

First, I couldn't resist creating fabric pulls, and then once

 I had created them, I couldn't resist making something out

of them so they all came home with me.  And now I have

about 6 or so various projects to make for charity.

Good grief.

(Some hand-pieced blocks were included in the donated fabric)

But, I guess if God has seen fit to bless me with

such a studio, then I should be totally open to doing

any work that might be asked of me with my gifts.

And along that note:

MIL's first quilt (88x112)

My mother-in-law is not a quilter but about 5 or 6 years ago

she tried her hand at it, making a king and a lap quilt top.

I was very happy to get her to bring them over for me to

turn these WIP's into finishes.  Above is the king; the lap

will be quilted today.

It's now well into March so the garden is needing attention.

Hubs and I have been so indecisive on every aspect of our

garden upgrade project that we skipped it entirely last year.

This year, we had a row of ugly cedar trees pulled because

of the shadow they cast on a good portion of the garden

throughout the early spring--when I need the soil dry

and warm.  Plus they were ugly and we were tired of

spraying the bagworms, getting that poison near my

almost-completely organic garden.

Next we're adding a wrought iron fence and hopefully soon

hubs will find time soon to build up at least a few of the

beds so I can get some things planted.

Usually I have onions, potatoes and all kinds of greens

in by now but I haven't even tilled.  That soil is calling

 so I'm really hoping to get at least some onions in

later this week but rain is on the way.

The studio also calls but a person can't stay in there

all day, every day, right?  (Don't answer that!)

Besides, I have a helper now and with that in mind,

here's my list for the week ahead:

* * Week 11 Priority! * *

Start on West Point quilt #5

This is at the request of a customer.

2) Design and start challenge quilt

This is for a local charity.

3) Start on church group charity quilts

4) Quilt MIL's second quilt

Well, it's not like me to have so many quilts going

at once but I have some shopping to do soon and

I'd like to know where I'm at with some of these.

And just to keep a track of a things--because I can't

stand UFO's--I also have these two others started.

They're on semi-hold but I'm still hoping to get to

them here and there.

1) Edyta Sitar's QAL

2) Second of "two baby quilts from one layer cake"

One last fun note:

My collection of 2022's Emptied Spools.

25,821 yards of thread.  Or, 14.67 miles.

Happy quilting!

2023 Tuesday To Do Post Week 10: I Found An Assistant!

Hello again motivated do'ers.  Welcome to another

Tuesday To Do party hosted by Quilt Schmilt. 

How is your month shaping up so far!?

I'd like to kick off by checking in on what I

accomplished since we met last Tuesday:

Week 9

* * My Priority! * *

Finish blog hop quilt top and post

I worked like the dickens to get this quilt top

finished by Sunday afternoon for pictures.  

Autumn Color Cascade...or a different name?

Even with my fast 'n furious stitching, I had to pause

before the last border was on to take advantage

of the last bit of daylight outside for a photo.

Here is a good portion of it hanging on the design wall

later but at 81x94, it doesn't fit so still not a great pic.

But it was done, and so I set about finishing my post

to get it out in time...right until our power went out.

  LOL. The obstacles just kept coming up!  See #2 below, too.

(Our transformer by the street went bad).  But let no one say

that I failed to bring my hop post to the table! 

I set a hotspot with my phone and, by candle light, finished

it up late at night, in time for Monday/Day One of the hop.

Huzzah.

If you missed my post, please check it out here!

Kudos to the electric company for being here within

an hour and at 12:30am, it popped back on!

2) Work with Quilt Path

I finally started playing with it--yay!--but, and this

is the the short story, after a lot of texting, phone calls,

 emails and Facetimes, we've decided that my

thread [break] detector is defective.

A new one arrived just yesterday but in the meantime,

mine decided to work sporadically, and when it didn't,

 I just over-rode the error message.

Here are the things I've been learning on:

1) Two small mini's

These were my first to play on--and they look it.  LOL

I was more intent on playing than choosing a great design.

Plus, I hadn't found them all at that point.

2) A wall hanging for my sis (no pic)

3) A charity quilt for the guild (no pic)

4) Ring Around the Rosey--72x72

This quilt is a beautiful candidate for some specific block

quilting so it killed me to just do E2E--although I think this

modern design looks just fine.  Soon I'll learn to work with

all the bells and whistles.  I have lots of videos to watch!

5) Ohio Meadow--92x104

Sorry about the sun shining in and if you so the odd,

mismatched fabric along the edges, stay tuned...

 Another quickly chosen design.  I'm really looking forward

perusing the designs, and adding more to my collection.

(I might get out of hand there!)

In the past if I had done all of that in less than a week 

my back and shoulders would be screaming at me. 

But now that I'm-so-behind stress that I've had is

slowly diminishing.  For months I have wished there were

two of me, or if only I could somehow get an assistant.

If I could just get caught up!

But, oh ho!  My Assistant is now here and you should see the

pile of finishes I have looking at me, waiting on binding!

A few other things I have been able to accomplish

while my assistant worked away on my quilts:

Took care of the chickens

Did dishes

Gotten hours (HOURS!) of computer work done

Finished my Cascade quilt top (above)

Ate meals

Headed off to Mass (as she worked the last row!)

Tidied my studio

In short, she is the miracle I have prayed for.

3) Create a new Quilt Worksheet form

This has been a process of trial and error

but I think I'm there.

4) Start on next shop quilts

I won't have time for weeks but I'm just thinking ahead.

I really haven't decided yet but perhaps my next

West Point quilt--if I have all the fabrics.

Okay, now about that odd fabric on the back of Ohio Meadow.

As you know, when you plan to quilt by longarm, your backing

needs to have a good 4-5" of overhang on all edges.  When I

made the backing for this quilt, I was cutting it very short but,

in doing pantographs by hand, I'd always been able to

work carefully with this.  When I went to load Meadow, I

quickly saw there was a problem.  Going digital means you

really can't fudge that space much.  

Now I'm an impatient quilter and I didn't want to mess with

cutting some sort of extension strips out and all that but what

popped into my mind was to use scrap jelly roll strips.  I threw

those together and sewed them on in no time at all.

If you look closely again at my pulling-it-off-the-frame pic

you'll see it did the trick nicely.  And I used scraps that I

have no problem tossing into the trash.  Anyhoo, if you 

 you just need a couple more inches on each side, this

an do the trick nicely and quickly.

That's my helpful tip for the day!

It really has been a most productive week, even if it did

have its share of frustrations.  My happiness and relief with

Ms. Assistant has outshone the bumps along the way.

So what's in store for Week 10?

I'm afraid it's a bit busy with appointments and such

but I'm still hoping to accomplish the following:

* * My Priority! * *

 Bind, label and finish both Meadow and Rosey.  I made

the bindings weeks ago so there's a jump on this task.

2) Bind, label and finish the 2 minis

3) Make a form to receive quilts for quilting jobs

I have a sample already so it shouldn't take long.

4) Start on next quilt

Happy quilting!