String Quilt

For those of you that like to use up scraps making string quilts here is a picture of one I quilted this week for a customer. I loved the yellow Carol used to set off the string pinwheels.



It has been one of those crazy weeks. Arn't things suppose to be slower in the summer!!! I keep asking myself that anyway. I had a couple of rush quilting jobs (large quilts) that I did manage to get done along with a couple of other projects, tried to do a few things around the house and have been taking my daughter to life guarding classes once or twice a day.

After all that was done I didn't have the time or energy to work on any of my projects until last night when I finally put the binding on a runner that I had quilted more than a week ago and got the border on another runner. It felt good to sit down and sew for awhile, standing at the frame can get tiring after awhile.

A customer asked me if it took 3 or 4 hours to quilt a quilt on the longarm? I knew it was substantially longer than that but decided to keep track of every minute that I put into the next quilt I did. The quilt I finished yesterday was 90 x 96 inches, it was made mostly out of panels so very few seams involved. Between loading the quilt, winding bobbins, quilting, unloading, trimming, invoicing etc. it took me about 7 hours to do the quilt. Of course this varies greatly with what kind of quilting it being done, the shape the quilt top is in (is there tons of seams so you need to go slower), if there is any problem loading the backing (not square) etc.

Kathie

Hospice #21

At quilt guild last night this quilt was donated for our hospice effort. It was made by Shirley and I quilted it a couple of weeks ago. Love the colors she used on this.

Kathie

Goals

Well I did get #1 and #2 done from last weeks goals. I quilted the queen customer quilt and in addition got two more customer quilts done. In between I quilted a hospice quilt and passed that off to Jane to bind and even got the borders on a couple of runners I was working on.

This week is going to be very busy with taking my daughter to life guard classes every day (sometimes twice a day) and several other things I need to do. It is great that I am not working in an office this summer so that she is able to do things like that. It wouldn't have worked out otherwise.

I don't think I am going to set specific goals for this week other than to finally get the customer wall hanging on the frame and finished and hopefully one more quilt by friday.

Kathie

Shes Growing Up

You wonder if your teenagers will ever mature and "grow up" and then they surprise you. Don't get me wrong I have a very good kid and she is a great student but typical teenager usually only thinks past the next day or two.

Mandy is going to be a Sophmore in high school the end of next month. She has surprised me the last couple of weeks. She has been researching colleges and majors though it will be three more years before she is off to college. In addtion today she is starting a life saving/CPR/Life Guard training at a near by pool. She says if she passes and gets certified she could get a job next summer after she turns 16 as a Life Guard.

Now "working" has been the farthest thing from her mind ever so this is very surprising. I don't know if she has the upper body strength to do CPR or if she is a strong enough swimmer to pass all the tests but I am so proud that she wants to try and sure wish her a lot of luck.

On a sewing note I did get the large customer quilt done and a hospice quilt also quilted. I am going to suspend the rest of my weekly "to do" list for awhile as I received several customer quilts in the last couple of days and those will come before anymore of my projects.

kathie

Hospice Update and Weekly Goals

Last week I only set 3 goals and I met all of them. I finished quilting the twin customer quilt, quilted and bound two table runners and finished the Christmas quilt top. In addition to those specific goals I made two additional runners and started on a couple more.

This week I would like to accomplish the following:

1. Quilt r/w/b queen sized customer quilt.
2. Quilt hospice quilt
3. Quilt customer wall hanging
4. Get at least one border on my daughters quilt.


HOSPICE UPDATE

I was in contact with hospice yesterday and they will be coming to our August quilt guild meeting so that we can formally present them with the hospice house quilts. We currently have twenty quilts completed, one with the "binding fairy" and I have 3 tops still to quilt. In addition I know that several other ladies are working on quilts so we will have a nice number to present.

Kathie

Four Square Christmas Quilt

I put the borders on the Four Square Christmas quilt today. I will get some binding cut and then put the top away until I get a backing made and time to quilt it.

This quilt was made with left over binding and other 2 1/2 inch strips of Christmas Fabric.

As usual when I am not using a specific pattern I made way to many 4 patch blocks. I decided instead of putting them away for now I was going to use them up so made two Christmas table runners out of the left overs.



Kathie

On the Frame Tips

There are many types of quilting, panographs, custom quilting where there is lots of stitch in the ditch and every block/border quilted differently and free hand all over designs. The last is what I do.

This is a customer quilt that has been on the frame this week. She wanted an all over design but didn't want the appliques quilted over. I was afraid I would get on a roll and start quilting over them so each time I rolled the quilt I would mark the applique with a piece of paper. That way as I got close it would alert me to NOT quilt over those shapes.

I am sure there is a better way to do it but this worked for me just fine.

Kathie