To-Do List Tuesday

I always have a long to-do list, but I’m prioritizing the top four or five for this week. First is a customer quilt I need to get finished this week. I got it loaded and basted, so I can hopefully get the quilting done tomorrow.

I also have a couple of quilts to make that will be gifts. They are both Villa Rosa patterns so the won’t take long. One is this one:

I only have the top and bottom borders to add, and then I can quilt it. The other one still needs to be cut out. 

If I can find time to cut it out, it won’t take long to sew—at least I don’t think it will. 

I also need to work on my May UFO. Since I decided to finish April before progressing to May, my Jacob’s Ladder quilt has been neglected. That’s okay, May isn’t over yet…

I pulled it out to see what had been done, and I think I have misplaced some of the hst’s. No worries—I can get busy and make some more.

If I can get these four things done this week, I will be happy. Of course, I need to clean up my sewing room and get some things put away. I think I will add that to the “to do” list.

Sunday Reruns

 Not a quilt……it’s a dress I made for one of my Playpal dolls. 

They are a lot of fun to sew for, and they don’t complain about the fittings.

TGIF

I was busy all morning with laundry—I changed the beds and dried the sheets and the comforter on the clothesline. Is there any better smell than sheets dried in the sunshine? So I got a late start on sewing, but I got the borders put on the top we made at the quilt guild workday:

It stills looks a little washed out in the picture; it’s a tad bit more vibrant in person. I also finished the Mario quilt.

Can you see the little Mario’s and Luigi’s?

Both quilts are the same pattern—one of the three-yard quilt patterns. It’s from the Pretty Darn Quick book. Both of these will be added to the quilt queue.

Nothing much else happening here. We went downtown for Mexican food and margaritas, and now we’re vegging on the couches with the dogs. 

Charity Sewing

 We had our quilt guild workday today……sewing tops for Joseph’s Warriors. We also had our salad lunch, and I’m sorry to say I brought home way too much of what I took. I will take some to my neighbors later. 

We are lucky to have such a roomy space for our meetings. It is the Art League’s building, and I will try to remember to take a picture of it next time I go.

I took this picture, but it is not even a quarter of the space in the main room. The black featherweight is my 1934 model. It is the oldest of my fleet and actually sews the best. Here’s a picture of some of the ladies working on their tops:

We are doing the three-yard quilts, and someone had already kitted up three yards of fabric with a pattern in a ziploc. Confession time: I wasn’t thrilled with the combos and did a little switching. We worked in a team of two or three ladies, and here’s the one Jean, Sam, and I did:

It’s hard to see with the light from the windows behind it; I took it home to add the borders and will post better pictures tomorrow.

Working Wednesday

I got a pretty late start this morning. We had a thunderstorm last night--I woke up when the power went off and eventually fell back asleep. I was sure we had gotten a significant amount of rain (we need it!), but I checked the gauge this morning and it was only 3/8". I guess we actually got a significant amount of wind. 

We went to the farmers market this morning, but there were only about four vendors there.

I guess the low turnout was because of the weather. I was looking for tomatoes, but there weren't any. We ended up with a loaf of bread, some blueberry muffins, and some sweet corn.

I will go back when they have it on Saturday and see if I can get some tomatoes. Too bad we didn't have the corn last night when Bill grilled chicken, but I can cook it in the Instant Pot.

We have a working meeting tomorrow for quilt guild. We are supposed to be piecing tops for Joseph's Warriors. I'm happy about that as it is one of the charities I have made quilts for before. They give quilts (and other things) to children in the hospital for cancer treatment. It is specific to the Texas Gulf Coast, so that makes me happy too. The guild is doing a salad lunch tomorrow, and I signed up to bring a vegetable salad. That is one of the things I was working on this morning. 

I like to make it a day ahead of time so it has time to marinate before serving. I had to go to the store and get the ingredients. I don't typically have canned vegetables on hand (other than canned tomatoes).

I tripled the recipe. It serves 8-10 people normally, and we generally have about 30 or so attendance. If I come home with a bunch of leftovers, I will pass it out to family and neighbors. Guess what I ate for lunch after I finished cleaning up the kitchen?

I spent the afternoon working on Mario. I have three rows done as of now, and have a few more hours to sew.

I've been having to make myself work on this. I really don't like the feel of the fabric......it all feels coarse and rough......but, it was about my only hope of finding Mario fabric. The other thing I don't like: the blue is directional. I see in the picture above, I got one of the blue and red blocks turned wrong. I'm off to fix that now.

My Favorite Tool

I have a lot of favorite tools, but today it is the thread pick. I was trying to get finished on the QOV I have been working on, and noticed some darker threads that were behind the white fabric.

Of course, I had already completed two rows before I noticed it. On of the requirements for my longarm frame was having the ability to raise the bar the top is pinned to. My old frame didn't have that feature, and when I was an inexperienced beginner I had stray threads showing through sometimes. It is also helpful to make sure there aren't any folds or puckers in the batting, because, yes, that does happen too. Well, I was in a hurry today and didn't bother lifting up the bar to check underneath. 

My trusty tool to the rescue!

It is really just a tiny crochet hook, but it works!

Once I get it through the top of the fabric, I can just grab hold of it with my fingernails and snip it off. The good news is that I did get the quilt finished; I just need to trim it and arrange for the lady who does the binding to pick it up. 

I haven't done much else. We went out to breakfast before church Sunday, and then to Sams after church. Monday we went to Corpus to drop Bill's car off for new tires and alignment. It was a long day, but we got to have lunch at Johnny Carino's. I really thought there were no more of those restaurants as I never see them anymore. The one in Victoria closed several years ago. It was always my favorite of the chain Italian restaurants. We also did some shopping and wondering around before his car was ready to be picked up.

I have done only a little sewing. Sunday afternoon, I cut up a jelly roll and some white strips for this:

I'm using the Basket of Blooms jelly roll for this one. I forgot to take a picture before I cut it up but it has these fabrics:

It should look nice when it is finished.

Another One Ready to Quilt

I know I was working on this one sometime in the fall. 

The last post I can find on it is here. I didn't finish it, but was waiting to get all my stash unpacked to see if I had something that work for the borders. I still feel like I should have something that would work, but I couldn't locate enough of any one thing. The top without borders is 81' x 81", so I would need around a yard and a half do a reasonable size border.

I found a red and gold batik at the LQS, and I think it is perfect.

I also did a 1-1/2" inner border, and will most likely use the rest of that for the binding. Here's a shot or two of the whole thing:

It's now around 94" x 94", so it can be used as a comforter on a queen bed. It has a Christmas vibe to it without being overly Christmasy. Other than the batik I bought for the border, this was all just stuff that was hanging around not getting used. I still have a couple of the dessert rolls left; I kind of want to pick another pattern from the book, and see what I can get done.

I am through sewing for the day though. Tomorrow I need to work on my grandson's Mario quilt......we'll see. 

This and That

Not much sewing going on here…..I got the pieces cut out and some strip sets sewn for my grandson’s Mario quilt. I found some  fabric at Joanne, but my goodness, it feels like burlap or something. I’m not happy with the quality, but a promise is a promise.

I did get another QOV quilt loaded, but my motivation to start it is lacking.

This is what the top looks like. Someone in Longview, Texas pieced it, and it will look great once it’s quilted. I just need to get my quilting mojo back.

I cooked Bill’s favorite: beans and weiners for supper. It’s a good thing I am not a gourmet cook, as that is not how my husband prefers to eat. I did cook the pork and beans from scratch. That way I can control the sugar content. I cooked navy beans in the instant pot with some ham, then I diced the ham up with the beans and added sugar free syrup, ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce.

I also added some crumbled bacon. Of course, the ketchup has plenty of sugar, but it still is a lot less sweet than the pork and beans in a can.

I also fried some potatoes and cooked some cream spinach.

Bill was happy!

Done!

I had to get groceries this morning--talk about sticker shock! Food prices have gone up so much. There are just the two of us, but what are single moms with several kids doing? It is concerning. 

After putting away groceries, I started on the binding I had promised myself I would get done. 

The last one I did by hand took me way too long, so I decided to do a machine binding. I'm definitely getting better at it.......but......I got finished and turned it over and saw it wasn't perfect.

Drat! Well, remind me next time to maybe use a binding that matches the back. LOL. I ripped it out and fixed it. 

And the finished quilt:

Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I love it! It's a free pattern from QT fabrics.

UFO Progress

I did manage to get the Panel Plaid quilt off the frame and trimmed. I had saved the fabric for the binding in a little ziploc and had written on it what it was for.

By some miracle, I was actually able to locate it pretty quickly. I now have a few yards of binding done, and the goal for tomorrow will be to get it sewn on.

I also got the borders (finally) put on this one:

It's a Villa Rosa pattern, and they typically aren't very big, so I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I will get it quilted and see what happens.

Monday Review

 In all honesty, I mostly piddled all day. I just couldn't focus for a long length of time on any one thing. I walked the dogs in the morning--we are up to a little over two miles a day--and then I gave the kitchen a good scrubbing, vacuumed, started to dust but lost interest in that.

I got the little cross stitch I bought last week reframed.

I turned it sideways and tried to center it as best I could. Remember how it looked before?

I do like it better now, but unfortunately, turning the frame means there is not a way to hang it.

By the way, notice on the left it says "made in USA". That makes me wonder how old it is. I'm thinking it was the 1960's since I saw that printed on plastic items.

Anyway, I think I can glue a picture hanger to the edge. Maybe with some E6000 or some such glue. I will probably have to make a trip to Hobby Lobby, but I was planning to go there anyway and see about getting a new frame for my flamingo cross stitch. Looks like this little $2 rose cross stitch is going to cost me a little more that I figured on too. Oh well.

Sunday Reruns

 

I originally posted this one on January 8th.....I had gotten it out the other day and hung it up so I can enjoy it for a little while. It has a nice spring look to it.

Opinions Please

I need a little help figuring out what to use for the border on my charm square quilt. I have three options.

Option 1 is the fabric I originally planned to use:

Then I misplaced it and bought option 2:

When I was looking through my stash, I found another, option 3 which also might work:

I really can’t decide, and I would like to get a border on this and get it quilted. The charm squares are the painted garden fabric line. I think it came out last year or maybe the year before. 

Feel free to leave a comment if you have an opinion on these options.

Progress on Different Projects

My goal for today was to get another quilt of valor quilted so the lady doing the binding can pick up two of them when she comes tomorrow to drop off a top she needs quilted. She's really fast so I hated to just send one with her. The one I chose:

An eagle panel with solid colored accents. It's very dramatic, but I felt really indecisive about what design and thread color would complement all of this contrast. I finally decided to use a design that is a very unobtrusive swirl design and a medium gray thread that wouldn't be too stark against the black or the white.

I had loaded the quilt sideways, and once I got about half way done, I felt like I was happy with the choices. I really didn't want the design to detract from the eagle, and I could see that it was fine. I got it quilted and trimmed, so it is ready for the binding.

When we were antique shopping yesterday, I found this little cross stitch that was only a couple of dollars.

I like it, but I don't like how off center it is the frame. The crease down the middle bothers me too, but the work is lovely, and I like the aqua background. I looked at the way it was framed, and I think I have enough extra fabric to move it down a little.

In fact, I have already taken it out and soaked it a little soapy water, rinsed it, and it is drying now. I stretched it and pinned it to dry; if the crease is still there I will try ironing it. It was a good opportunity to give the little frame a good scrubbing too.

I worked in my flowers a little this morning too. My Angelonia is blooming:

Well, one out of six is blooming, but I am counting that as a win. My tomato plants still haven't bloomed. I know I planted late; I just hope it wasn't too late.