Making some quilting progress!
Author: Wild Rose Quilter
I’m a simple woman…at least that what my DH (Dear Husband) used to say about me…I was a wife, I am now a widow, mother, step-mother & step-grandmother, quilter, and have a full time job in criminal justice. I lost my DH on May 22nd, 2011. I live in a small town in Texas. I love piecing quilts, I love quilting quilts. I have a serious addiction to fabric. I’ve been quilting since 1998, and purchased my first longarm, a Gammill Premier, in 2004. I upgraded to an A-1 Elite, named Corky, in March, 2007. I am in the process of rebuilding my life after losing my spouse. All photos and content in this blog are my own, and I request that you not download, copy or otherwise use anything here without my permission. I hope you enjoy visiting my blog and would love to hear your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
Stash Report, 1-18-09
This will be another short post. I’ve been busy, but just don’t have a lot to show for it. I used 3.25 yards of stash this week in my guild project. Year to date totals:
- Incoming Yardage to date: 0 yds.
- Outgoing Yardage to date: 12.25 yds.
- Total Stash Busted to date: 12.25 yds.
I’m still going in the right direction. Yay!
I was coming down with a head cold earlier this week. Friday and Saturday, I was not feeling so great. I did get a customer top loaded yesterday, and today, I got all the SID done. Joanna, these are scrumptious fabrics you chose. I love them! I’m going to enjoy looking at them while I quilt this. (Oh, don’t pay any attention to that snippett of football fabric you can see pinned to the leader…it’s not part of the quilt. It’s just there so I have enough extra backing to work with it on my machine. Thank you for adding that to make my job easier, Joanna!)
I said something about ordering some more thread yesterday, and my husband told me that he was planning on buying me thread for our anniversary, which is coming up March 1st. Yippee! A gift I will love and love using! A longarm quilter, or any machine quilter for that matter, can’t have too much thread, now can they?! I’m sure looking forward to that shopping spree.
Have a great week!
Dropping In For Another Quick Post
Wow, January is just busy, busy so far. This week I had quilt guild Tuesday night. I’ve also been working on end of year tax stuff. Fun, fun, fun. I typed all our W-2’s, only to discover I was checking a box I didn’t need to check, and now I am about to go retype them. I need to balance the company check book, and do the sales tax filing for December. Of course, we have to get everything together for our accountant.
My son has not had anymore hives breakout since Sunday. Yay! But now, I swear, I am coming down with something again. Sheesh, how many times can I catch this crap in a three month span. But the nasal stuffiness and scratchy throat feeling is back. I’m crossing my fingers it’s the crazy weather, and I’m not really getting sick again. Yesterday we were in the 50’s, today at 1:00 we had only reached 20. It’s FREEZING cold out. But, I think it’s supposed to be a short cold blast, and back to 50’s.
I finished the quilting on this one. Not the greatest pics. I couldn’t get really good light today.
It’s a cute, fun quilt, and I thought it needed fun, cute quilting. I sure hope you like it, Betty! 🙂 Thanks for letting me quilt for you!
Now, I’m off to redo W-2’s. 😦
Stash Report, January 11, 2009
My stash report is very boring this week. Nothing new in, nothing new out. As I stated in my previous post, it was a stressful week last week, between my son having hives, and getting caught up in some stupid drama at work. And tomorrow starts a new work week. I hope it’s a better one. I’m usually pretty good at keeping up walls, but occasionally let those down a bit. The events of last week have me feeling it’s time to reinforce walls again. I’m feeling in “retreat & retract mode”.
In the meantime, I’ll give you a sneak peek of how I spent 5.5 hours of my Saturday. This cutie also belongs to my friend Betty, the owner of the previously posted Pumpkin table runner.
A Quickie Post with Cute Pumpkins
What a week it has been. Getting back in the groove at work, and dealing with a 17 year old who came down with a severe outbreak of hives. I’m talking head to toe hives. This started Monday evening. Tuesday I tried to get him into the doctor, but they were booked. Ended up in the ER with him Tuesday night, only to find out I was already doing pretty much everything that could be done. They did give him some stronger antihistamine and a shot of steroid. Today has been the best one since, they were pretty much nonexistant til about 6:00 and a few popped back up. It’s a weird thing. I mean he was completely covered in them. I tried to get him to let me take a pic of his back for my blog, but that got an emphatic “no!” LOL. We have no idea at all what caused them. Very frustrating and unsettling. Many thanks to Jan for giving me advice and moral support!
Between that and a stressful week at work, especially yesterday, I haven’t taken a single stitch til today. I got off work at noon, and got to work on this adorable pumpkin table runner for my friend, Betty. I bought the same kit, only mine is still in the bag. At least I will know how to quilt it when I get it put together. 🙂
TGIF!!
The First Stash Report of 2009
- Incoming Yardage to date: 0 yds.
- Outgoing Yardage to date: 9 yds.
- Total Stash Busted to date: 9 yds.
And we’re off! A whole new year of busting that stash has begun. I’ve been working away on some new projects, and preparing to do some more work on some older WIPS.
Stash busted that I am counting for this week is as follows:
5.25 yards finishing up the commissioned memorial t-shirt top, preparing the backing, and the binding.
3.75 yard in 30’s repros. for the Boston Commons quilt.
I also got 4 more stars made for Gracie’s Star today. I am not going to add this to my totals til the stars are all made. This is a queen size top, but when I had the stars laid out on the bed today, I realized that I could easily make it big enough for my kingsize bed by adding a border. So, I may do just that. This one is going to use up some stash!
I got quite a lot of pressing done this weekend, too. In addition to pressing the fabric for the t-shirt top, and the fabric for my star blocks as I go along, I pressed 10 yards of backing for one of my 9P & stripes, I pressed 5 yards of Kona white for my Boston Commons, and I pressed the border fabric for the other 9P & stripe quilt.
The white is a fabric I will likely restock in my stash after I use it. It’s a good staple to have on hand, because when you need it, you need it now…and it’s not like I can just run out to a fabric shop and pick some more up. I try to keep some of both white and black.
I ended up with 15 finishes for 2008.
- Jill’s fleece blanket (customer job)
- Julie’s fleece blanket (customer job)
- Wild Onion Jacket for Mom
- Megan’s fleece blanket (wedding gift)
- Harold fleece blanket (thank you gift)
- Commissioned Full-size log cabin for Parkers
- Carrie’s Pillow Shams
- Ribbon Taffy
- Greg’s Courthouse Steps quilt
- Teresa & Rick’s fleece blanket (wedding gift)
- Betty’s fleece blanket for Doug (customer job)
- Commissioned memorial quilt #1 for the Martinez family
- Pillow cases for my aunt
- Betty’s bleece blanket for Howard (customer job)
- Daddy’s Log Cabin
And my final stash reporting for 2008 was:
- Incoming Yardage to date: 200 yds.
- Outgoing Yardage to date: 120 yds.
- Total Stash Busted to date: <80> yds.
I’m already having fun quilting away in 2009. I guess that’s it for this week. Can’t think of anything else! Tomorrow will start my first full week back at work since the holidays and my vacation started. It’s going to be hard to get back in the groove. Have a good one!
A New Backyard Visitor!
We have lived here just over eleven years and this is the first time we have seen a squirrel in the yard, or the neighborhood, for that matter. I quickly put some of Bunbun’s leftover food in the bird feeders for it, but as soon as it thought it was safe, it scampered away and over the fence next door. Darn! I wanted to watch it gobble up the goodies I put out for it.
21 more stars to go! I timed myself on the last two and it took me 35 minutes to get them done. I should have between 5 & 6 more hours of star sewing left to have all the blocks done. Then I can decide on the final layout and start getting those rows together.
Small Change = Big Difference
Ok, so I really like these fabrics together.
I really like the individual stars I’ve been making with them.
However, I wasn’t liking them together. It just wasn’t working for me. I was feeling like I was really messing up a lot of pretty fabric.
And then I rearranged them…again. But I used a different approach. Instead of trying to alternate lighter star/darker background blocks, I quit paying attention to that, and laid them out according to backgrounds only. Much better! Now, it’s working for me. 🙂
Only 29 more to go!
Happy New Year!
I did manage to get my Daddy’s Log Cabin quilt completely finished last night, by putting the final stitches into the label. I didn’t get as many projects finished as I had hoped, but all things consisdred, I think I had a good “quilty” year.
I have started my “2009” page, which you fill find under the “Quilting Projects 2009” tab at the top of this page. I’m ready to start getting some numbers going on my stash tracking page!
I just finished eating lunch. Blackeyed peas & cornbread, of course! Yummy! I will confess that I didn’t make the peas from “scratch”. I made my cornbread from scratch, but the peas came from a can. Bush’s Blackeyed Peas with Sugar Snaps. They are so good and so quick and easy. Speaking of quick and easy food, here is one of my favorite new products from 2008. Ore Ida Steam ‘n Mash ‘taters.
I was so excited when I saw the commercial for them on TV. This is a great time saver for me, and they are really good! Now my family gets mashed potatoes on weekdays again. When I get off of work at 5:00, and come home to start dinner, peeling and chopping up potatoes is not high on my list of things I want to do. These guys get two thumbs up from me. They also come in sweet ‘taters, and galic herb and some cheesy ones. I like the sweet and the regular russets the best.
Sometime today I have to do statements for the shop, but I am going to spend some more time working on my Gracie’s Star blocks, and my Oklahoma Backroads. My vacation was officially over yesterday and I went back to work. But today is another day off.
A few months ago, back in October, I had a mammogram scare. Turned out to be nothing at all, but for almost two weeks, we didn’t know. It made me think about scary words like mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, reconstruction, and fighting for survival. Well, I start this year with a great appreciation that I’m not facing any of those things. I’m thankful that my family is in tact, and I have more blessings than I can count. Every day is gift. Thank you for sharing this past year here with me!
Wednesday WIP
I really tried to make the most of my vacation days, as far as quilting goes. After I finished up the customer quilt with the pretty feather stencil, and had made good progress on the commissioned t-shirt quilt, I took some time for quilting for me. I was on vacation, after all. 🙂
I did some major piecing. I even worked out a system that would allow me to be working on three projects at once! I could have spent some time working on those 9P & stripe quilts I started in January, but decided to start some new projects, instead.
I started on this Gracie’s Star quilt. I’m not sure if my fabric choices are really working together, but I’m going to keep going, and make my mind up about that later.
I started on this Darlene Zimmerman Boston Commons, in 30’s repros. I have had all the fabrics for this for quite some time. It feels good to finally be started on it.
And, while working on these two former PIGS, I made some more progress on the Oklahoma Backroads scrap quilt, also a leaders/enders project. I g0t these blocks together, and did more piecing of pieces needed for additional blocks.
This is truly a scrap quilt, with a little of everything thrown in. It is stretching my ability to let go, and quit trying to put “just the right” piece here, and there, and just sew!
And I’m working on getting one final finish for 2008. I’m just about finished with the binding/labeling of my Dad’s log cabin. I will make it! Whew!
Oh, and I should probably report that I ordered 48 more yards of fabric from Thousands of Bolts, since I already blew it for 2008. Figured I might as well blow it big!
Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter 