Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Goals

I have tried to set monthly goals for myself in the past but my focus can change so quickly with what is going on at work, home life and also how many customer quilts I have at any time so I am finding that weekly goals work best for me.

What I hope to have done by Sunday evening is the following:

1. Quilt two small customer quilts
2. Quilt 2 more craft show runners
3. Load Carol’s quilt
4. Piece backing for baby quilt
5. Put binding on 2 runners (#2 above)
6. Finish hand stitching binding on 2 runners (1 is half done)
7. If I finish all of the above start making some heart blocks for Project Linus

Monday, September 29, 2008

Panographs and Weekend Progress


A couple of people asked me if my quilting is using a pano or freehand. I hate to admit but I have never tried to use a pano and wouldn't know where to start or even how to install my lazer pointer. It is one of those things I would LOVE to learn how to do but feel I need someone to show me. The dealer I bought my machine from didn't do panos so I never learned.

I accomplished everything on my quilting to do list for the weekend plus spent a little time straightening my batting pieces. I labeled the size on anything big enough for a lap quilt, put pieces big enough for table runners in another stack and put the smaller pieces in a bag to take to quilt guild to see if anyone wants them for rag quilts. One thing in the sewing room straightened up anyway so maybe I don't knock the stack of batting over every time I walk to the iron.

Here is a pictures of some of the Christmas blocks I was working on saturday. It probably won't be a finished quilt till next year but need to take a break from customer quilts and craft show items for a day. This is also stash busting because I am using left over binding pieces for these blocks.

Kathie

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Charity Quilting


In January I made a committment to myself that I wanted to quilt at least 12 charity quilts this year, an average of one per month. I quilted this chinese coins quilt last night that will be donated through my guild. This makes number 12 for the year, 10 quilts for the guild, 1 for project linus and a raffle quilt for the Save the Bay Foundation.

There is one blog I read fairly often that Mary J has been quilting 10 quilts for charity A MONTH for the past couple of months so 12 for the year is not a huge accomplishment but I feel great setting a goal for myself and actually hitting it.

I hope that I will get a couple more done this calendar year but if I get to busy with craft shows and customer quilts at least I know that I have made my goal.

Kathie

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Wednesday Weigh In

Yes I know it is really thursday but I have been messed up on what day it is all week and intended on posting this yesterday. Three months into my Life Style Change (not calling it a diet because this has to be a permanent change) I have now lost 18 1/2 pounds and most importantly when I went to the doctor on tuesday to discuss my latest blood work found that my cholesteral has gone down by 30 POINTS which made me very happy.

I set several quilting goals for myself for the week and though my primary time to quilt is friday - sunday I have already made some progress this week. My goals for the week are:
Quilt small customer quilt - DONE
Machine applique on 3 table runners - 1 done
Bind 2 table runners - 1 done
Quilt two more runners - COMPLETED last night
Quilt charity quilt

Hopefully I can get these all completed by sunday.

kathie

Monday, September 22, 2008

Now this is a car wash!!!!


My daughters dance studio held a car wash and bake sale. They washed cars for about 2 1/2 hours and were getting ready to pack everything up when they got one last vehicle to wash. You should have heard the commotion when this pulled up.

Kathie

Sunday, September 21, 2008

County Fair


I picked my quilts back up from the county fair this evening. Three entries and three ribbons, a first and two second place ribbons. I was thrilled.

Kathie

Weekend


It has been a busy weekend as usual. We went to the county fair, ran errands, I delivered a couple of quilts and of course the endless laundry etc. that magically appears.

I have also managed to get time for my quilting. There is a fairly new chapter of Project Linus in our area and I went friday and hung out with the ladies to see what it is all about. A couple of them were working on bindings and several others were cutting out fabric to make pink and red heart blocks. The coordinator of the meeting brings handouts every month and the ladies can work on that pattern or a pattern of their choice. I think I am going to make some of the heart blocks when I get a chance but think I will keep mine scrappy to not only use some of my stash but also so that the recipient could be either a boy or a girl that way.

Yesterday I was playing around with some of the donated half blocks pictured here and got them sewn together into 12 1/2 blocks. Will probably be awhile before I get back to them but at least it is that much done.

Kathie

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

County Fair

I was going through all my quilts last night to see what I might want to enter in the county fair this weekend. I ended up pulling out a Christmas quilt just finished, a pink baby quilt with little bunnies on it and one of my poinsettia table runners to enter. I will be dropping those off tonight after work. I am not expecting any ribbons but would be nice to get one anyway.

One of the ladies in our guild donated a couple of huge bags of fabric for philanthropy charity sewing and I was going through some of it with the lady in charge of the effort. So many nice fabrics it was like Christmas. Also in the one bag were some blocks partially put together so I took those home last night to play with. I had all of them laid out on the floor to match up sections I thought would go together. Ends up being that there are enough pieces to make up 12 blocks so with sashing should be a nice size donation quilt.

Mary M. had also received an email about a serviceman that had received a QOV and how much it meant to him. I don't remember his words but he talked about what a comfort it was, and how it brightened up his trip home. Not only providing color and warmth on his trip home in a drab grey aircraft but also what it represented, it was a little bit of home on his trip with him. It about brought tears to my eyes but it really reminded me why we make donation quilts. Most of us will never meet a recipient of one of the donation quilts, or hear the story of what it meant to the person, never know if it was appreciated or tossed aside, but when you hear an occasional story like this it makes all the effort definitely worth it.

Kathie

Monday, September 15, 2008

Empty Spools



You know how when you are doing a project it seems like you always run out of bobbin thread six inches from the end of what you are sewing!!! Well last night I was quilting these two table runners with gold So Fine thread and I kept watching the cone of thread as it gradually became less and less. It would not have been a problem if I had run out. Since I use the color so much I had another cone ready, it is just that I was hoping to get it done without stops and starts.

I don't know if this picture will show up or not but when I finished the second runnre I had about two feet of thread still on the cone. That is calling it close.

As for the tree runners. After getting the binding done hopefully later this week I intend on decorating them with crystals. I order them from Sue's Sparklers and they have a wonderful assortments of colors, types and styles. I ran into them at the Houston Quilt festival 4 or 5 years ago and have ordered from them ever since.

Kathie

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Still Sunday


I don't feel like I have accomplished all that much over the past few days but I guess I have been doing ok.

I went to a philanthropy sew in the guild was having yesterday and I did manage to get the red and blue backing together. Turned out pretty good considering the featherweight I was using didn't have a 1/4 inch foot on it and I had to eye ball the seams I wouldn't want to do that actually piecing blocks but for the backing it worked out ok.

I also finished a customer quilt this morning that I have been working on the last couple of days so I have finished most of what I wanted to accomplish this weekend.

I guess I was just wishing to have a lot more energy and get so many more things done. You know how that goes, you don't get a good nights sleep and are extra tired and hard to get in gear. But at least it is still sunday so hope to accomplish a little more this afternoon.


kathie

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Mid Week

Hey its wednesday already thats great.

As for my goals or accomplishments for the week not much to report. I went to our quilt guild meeting monday night and they are talking about doing a Hospice Tree this year so have been trying to come up with some ideas for that. I hope the guild decides to do it. Hospice is always my charity of choice as we had hospice assistance for my dad many years ago and for my mom just last year. I can't say enough good about the people and volunteers that work with hospice.

I received several customer quilts at the meeting so loaded the first one on the frame last night and started quilting a little bit but it was late before I started so didn't get much done.

We are having a philanthropy sew in on saturday so I am hoping be be able to make the time to go to that even for an hour or so. I have squares all cut out to make a backing for a chairty r/w/b chinese coins quilt I made in July/August so hope maybe I can get that pieced together on saturday.

So I guess my goals for the upcoming weekend will be to get a couple of the customer quilts done, the charity backing pieced together and maybe a couple of my table runners quilted.

Kathie

Sunday, September 7, 2008

No Pattern?


I recently saw a quilt that was done using the Orange Squeeze fabric line and loved the quilt. It look very easy to do as it used jelly rolls so only 2 1/2 wide strips. After studying it a bit I decided that I could make it without a pattern and jotted down the idea for later use.

Yesterday with the wind gusts I didn't want to turn on the long arm so decided to get out my left over Christmas binding pieces, iron them back open and try to make this block. Her is a picture of one big block made up (18 inch square). Think I will make a few of these units from time to time and eventually put it all together, probably for Christmas next year.

Kathie

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Another UFO Almost Done



We had lots of rain today and some pretty good wind gusts as the tail end of Tropical Storm Hanna. I was trying to get things done that required electricity just in case so have all my laundry, ironing etc. done for the weekend. Now I should be able to spend most of the remainder of the weekend in the sewing room.

Here is a picture of the little frog quilt I quilted this week (just a meander) for project linus.

Last night I also finished quilting this Christmas Quilt which is UFO #6 for the year. I started these 16 patch blocks out of left over binding pieces from various Christmas projects last December. I finished the top about six months ago and finally got around to quilting it. I put the binding on today so will have several evenings worth of hand work to do on this to finish it up.

Kathie

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Accomplishments and Goals

Over my long weekend I quilted two quilts, one of them a baby quilt and the other a 70 x 70 lap quilt. Also got a couple more table runners quilted, borders put on a couple more and bindings hand stitched down while watching TV. I also cut some fabric into 10 1/2 squares that will end up being a backing for a charity quilt once I have time to piece it together

Last night after work I quilted a small Project Linus quilt that was all cute little green frogs. Would have worked on something else also but since it was my "monday" back to work I was beat and was glad to have accomplished as much as I did.

Mary J's blog that I read just about every day has a wednesday weigh in report as she is trying to lose weight. Since I started my own weight reduction campaign a couple of months ago thought I would also have a wednesday report this week. So far I have lost 15 1/2 pounds. I have a lot still to lose but I actually had to buy a pair of jeans this weekend that were a size smaller and boy was that a good feeling.

I am not on a specific diet, or even weight watchers this time (tho I have had a lot of success with them in the past). I am trying to not snack on anything but fruits and veggies (mostly successful) and the biggest thing is to try and get a handle on portion control.

I know if I was counting calories etc. I would probably be losing faster but then knowing me I would just gain it all back (been there done that many times). I am trying to set goals of 5 pounds at a time, or being able to fit into a blouse I have not worn in a year or things like that and not look at the big picture of how much I ultimately want to lose. I am really hoping that this new way of looking at it will help me not only continue to lose weight but to get into the HABIT of eating healthier.

I am not going to say that I am never going to have pizza or french fries again, it just needs to be the exception and not the "usual".

kathie