Festival of the Trees

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was nice but quiet with just the three of us, then I worked friday and yesterday participated as a vendor at our counties Hospice Festival of the Trees.

My sales were not as good as last year but it was good to be part of such a great function.

These first two trees are the two that our guild members made all the ornaments and then decorated. I think they look very pretty.




This last tree is a picture of my husband's favorite. I love all the bright colors and theme of the tree.




I hope hospice raised lots of money for their Hospice House yesterday.

kathie

Recent Quilts

Here are pictures of the last couple of quilts I quilted. Both of these are Carol's quilts. She is official scrap quilt queen of our guild. The first one I quilted with my version of an all over flower and the second with my version of The Pajama Quilter's Dwirling.




The dwirling one I just took off the frame. Time for a rest and then see which quilt is next on my list. I am afraid it is the monster quilt!! Not the quilter piecing or anything like that, it is just going to be the biggest quilt I have ever quilted and I am not looking forward to that.

Kathie

Hospice Quilt 2

Have received the second quilt for the next hospice quilt delivery. This pretty quilt (don't you love the fairy fabric) was made by Chris and I quilted it a few weeks ago.



Yesterday was my first craft show of the season. I had no idea what to expect. The economy still isn't good but the unemployment rate in this area is pretty low compared to other areas.

My sales were good and I was very happy with the way the day turned out. I sold several lap/baby quilts, lots of Christmas table runners and a couple of my fall runners. Nice day but busy and I was glad to get home.

Today I need to get the next quilt on the frame and get busy and run a couple of pre-Thanksgiving errands.

Kathie

Craft show

Between customer quilts I managed to get this last craft show Christmas quilt on the frame wednesday. I put the binding on yesterday afternoon and sat watching TV and hand stitching it down last night. I didn't think I would have it done for my first show on sunday but it is now all complete and ready to put with the other quilts.

I am going to try and get my last two table runners on the frame today and then get the next customer one loaded. I did a fairly large quilt yesterday so am happy to see that the next three customer quilts are all small ones.

Kathie

Quilts for Hospice

A few months ago our guild delivered close to 30 quilts for our counties new Hospice House. We are not sure how long those quilts will last.

I have approximately 10 tops waiting for me to quilt once the holidays are over. This little pink strip quilt was made by Jane and I quilted it a month or so ago. Jane did the binding and just returned it to me so we have one completed quilt for the next delivery.

Makes me motivated to get on the others as soon as I can.

Kathie

On the Design Wall

After a few days of trying to dry out the downstairs with the shop vac, fans and purchasing a de-humidifier I am back in the swing of working on customer quilts and also a few projects of my own.

This is a table runner top that I made on sunday. Fused on the ornaments after tracing them from a quilt pattern. I then used a Christmas stripe print that I had for awhile and didn't know what to do with as the border. I love the look it gives it.



Since saturday I have also quilted two lap quilts and an oversized wall hanging and pieced the backing for my last Christmas quilt.

No wonder I am tired!!!

Kathie

Nothing

So much for setting goals, life happens and nothing gets done.

Here in Southern Maryland we have had a lot of rain lately so the ground was pretty wet. Then we get INCHES of rain over the last two days. Small streams were coming over roadways and my neighborhood had ponds where no ponds exist. This all resulted in a lot of water in half of my downstairs. Luckily there was no water on the side where my long arm and sewing machines are.

I spent a good portion of the day using the shop vac to get up all the water. It is heavy and hard to handle and now my lower back is killing me. Think it will be Alieve and going to bed early tonight.

Needless to say I didn't get any sewing or quilting done today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Kathie

Time for planning

It has been a busy week so far. I have managed to get both a queen and a full sized quilt quilted and a couple of table runners bound.

I used to post a weekly list of goals and it would help keep me on track getting things done but I have not done that in a long time.

Since it is now my busy season and craft shows are coming up real quickly I thought I better start again with my list of things that need to be done.

I work today at the crafters co-op where I have some space but over the next few days I want to accomplish the following:

1. Quilt customer lap quilt and wall hanging
2. Finish piecing backing for Christmas quilt
3. Bind at least three more runners
4. Cut out chevron table runners

Lets see if I can get all this accomplished by sunday.

Kathie

Christmas Rush

I guess I am officially in my Christmas rush season now. At quilt guild last night I picked up 6 quilts to quilt. Five of them are real small and won't take a lot of time, the other is just about a full sized one. I am also going to be getting another queen quilt later in the week in addition to a few I already have here.

I have a feeling I will be spending as many hours a day at the frame that my back/legs will allow. Thats great though, need to do a lot now as January and February are usually pretty slow.

I intend on taking some time off after Christmas and get some projects done around the house and then hope in January to be able to get some of the charity quilt tops quilted.

Just finished a quilt I started yesterday and in the process of getting another one loaded on the frame.

Kathie

A Few Ornaments

I have slowly been working on a few Christmas ornaments. These three are finally completed and I have 3 more in process. I will take these down to the mill where I have some of my quilting for sale. I don't think I will make anymore after these six are finished. They are fun to make but take to much time vs. what I can sell them for.



I quilted up five additional table runners on saturday and got the bindings sewn on them yesterday. I will try to get one of the bindings done every night while watching TV.

Today I am loading a queen sized customer quilt and will then go off to run a couple of errands and then back to start on the quilting. I figure with other things going on it will take me today and tomorrow to get this quilt done.

Kathie

A Finish

I quilted this quilt a few weeks ago but had not got around to finishing the binding. I took it to quilt guild with me yesterday and sat under it nice and warm and stitched the binding down while a lot of the other ladies were working on large one block quilts. I am going to make the one block pattern eventually, just didn't want to start another project this time of year.




For this snowman quilt I used a pattern off of Quilters Cache called Squares in Squares 2, love the pattern. It is quick and easy and always turns out looking nice.

Back to the doctor today, my eye isn't improving. I sure hope he doesn't have to send me to a specialist but am ready for it to feel and look better. Between sinus/cold problems and now the eye thing I have been going on about half speed for the last couple of weeks. I am definitely ready to feel back to 100%.

kathie

Six Inch Square Swap

We are having a 6 inch fabric swap at our quilt guild for several months. I am trying to think up possibilities of quick and easy scrap quilts that can be made with these. Couple of initial thoughts are to have all the squares on point, make them all into half square triangles and set in various log cabin type of settings or use them to make giant 4 patch blocks and put sashing between.

Any other quick and easy ideas are appreciated.

I had to go to the doctor yesterday with an eye infection so that took up a good part of the morning.

I did manage to get a small customer quilt done and worked on several Christmas table runners last night.

I am off to my quilt guild this morning and then my daughter has early dismissal from school today and early dance class tonight. Somewhere in there I need to find time to at least get the next customer quilt loaded on the frame.

Kathie

One Year Later
One year ago I quit my office job. It was scary and exciting all at once. I was going to try and expand my little machine quilting business and possibly do some volunteer work.

I have had a steady amount of work for my machine quilting. I don’t do anything fancy, just all over freehand patterns. I really need to learn how to do more things but I have no desire to learn or do fancy custom quilting. I will leave that for the quilt shops that charge the big bucks. I am finding that there are a lot of people that just want their quilt done with a nice looking texture and don’t want to spend a fortune to get it done.

My volunteer/charity worked turned out to be quilting also. Our local hospice was opening a hospice house so I organized an effort to make lap quilts for their facility. We delivered around 28 of them this summer with many more tops waiting to be quilted.

What I enjoy about not working in the office is that:
I can work in casual clothes
I can set my own schedule
I am doing something I enjoy
I don’t have to go out if the weather is nasty
I can multi-task by having laundry going while I am quilting or dinner in the oven

The down side is:

I don’t get as much done around the house as I thought I would. Standing at the frame is very tiring so at the end of the day I don’t feel like doing anything else.

I miss the chatter of the office discussing current events, TV programs or just day to day life. Some days the only people I seem to talk to are on-line. When my daughter gets home from school she is busy texting and doing homework and by the time my husband gets home from work he unwinds it is getting late and there is always something that needs to be done.

Of course the biggest thing is the difference in paycheck. I am probably making 1/10th of my former salary. I am getting used to spending less. ( Hey I am saving a fortune not wearing panty hose!!!). Most of the time that doesn’t bother me as there is not a lot that I actually NEED but there have been a few times I would have liked to do something that I just don’t feel justified in spending the money anymore.

I know my daughter likes me being home as “Mom’s Taxi” is more available. She has had the opportunity to go to after school games and some other activities that I wouldn’t have been able to get her to.

I know my husband is jealous when he goes off to work in the morning and I stay home but as long as I am busy I don't think he minds to much.

Kathie