I love to share my Quilting projects with other Quilters. My goal is to share my progress on projects that I am working on. I would love for you to follow along with me during my endeavors. I hope you enjoy watching me tackle new techniques and projects. Hopefully you can learn from my "hiccups" and mistakes and make your journey easier.
I am still around but I have been unable to work on any quilting. Clay came down with SOMETHING but we did not know where it came from because we do not socialize and had not been anywhere to pick up the BUG.
it seem to start for him after spending the day mowing and edging the yard. We figured it was allergies. But he kept getting sicker. After 11 days he is over it but tired.
Now for me! Last Wednesday it got me. I thought I was getting over it quicker than he but no such luck!
I am 6 days into it and it appears I have a few more days. I am miserable. This is not a normal Allergy problem but more like a Virus.
So I will not be blogging for another week as I have no desire to do anything.
Right now nothing is getting done as far as binding quilts. Hopefully I will get better soon
Greetings to everyone. I will be so happy when winter gets here this year – we have not had one for 3 years. Yesterday it was 96-98 and today it will be in the 70’s. This week will be much cooler and more fun to walk in, but then we just HAD to go to DST! UGH. I have made a full 7 days of walking! YEA – It has been awhile since I did not have to take a day off! Maybe I can continue the steady daily walk. I did hear that La Niña died! YEA Come on down El Niño and send us lots of rain!
I spent a few hours on my Moda Holiday SAL embroidery project this week. Here is where I was on 18 Dec 2022! (not much to see).
Here is where I finished last night. WOW wonder what happened that caused me to be so slow on the project! LOL
Now to a “little” update on the start of the 10 quilts that need trimming, binding, then sewing the binding on the quilt for hand stitching,
I intended to start adding the binding on Irish Mist around 27 February and my GOAL (remind me to never make goals again) was to be finished with the 10 quilts that needed bindings by 14 March 2023 (which is not the Ides of March it is the 15th)!
Well, needless to say Unforeseen Requirements caused a delay (stupid people in Doctor’s office.) I did not get to start on the binding for Irish Mist on Tuesday (7 March). When I did start, I had this nutty idea to do bias binding. That was the beginning of the end of ever thinking I would reach my 14/15 March imposed deadline (stupid me).Ah ready to get this one out of the way!
Nice set up – you would think!
I started stitching and had nothing but problems with the fabric slipping and the Sapphire not wanting to function correctly with the walking foot. I believe I finished it Thursday afternoon. It took me about 3 1/2 hours to do it, but all along for this quilt, I had a FEELING that things were not well with it and decided to wait until Friday morning to sew the ends together.
On Friday morning I started to sew the ends together and had a total disaster on my hands. I have a way to close the binding at the ends and when I was sewing a basting stitch on the one end, the Sapphire decided to eat that piece up! I literally threw the quilt on the floor never wanting to see it again!
One of the issues was trying to sew black fabric with black thread and trying to see what I was doing along with the quilt and binding slipping, causing me to not have a consistent 1/4″ seam allowance.
Clay came to my rescue as he always does, and we switched back to the D1 Husqvarna that had just been serviced with new feed dogs. He cut a piece of plastic and added special tape and BOOM, problem resolved with slipping fabric that prevented me from doing a straight 1/4″ seam allowance. It is a great guide for binding.
This quilt has had problems from the beginning when I had a problem with the star points, so I remade the quilt. This is a Twice Made quilt and I guess the binding was not going to be happy until I did it twice! UGH. On Friday I ripped the entire binding off, did a stay stitch around the quilt to prevent further problems, cut new binding from the same crummy black batik but this time I did WOF and cut my strips at 2 1/8″ I pressed the binding and was ready to go on Saturday morning to try again!
It was a success with the changes I made (and Clay’s). It took me over 2 hours to sew the binding, but this time the problems that I had experienced were not repeated and it is now ready for hand work. Preparing quilts for Show require more time and effort to get things perfect, but this was a total overkill time wise for me. Taking 3 days was not fun, but I do believe that the next 9 plus 3 more quilts will be so much easier to sew the binding on.
By now you are probably asking yourself if I am a real nut case worrying about the binding being so perfect. Well, this quilt and 3 others are entered into the Hill Country Quilters Guild Quilt Show in May. They are located in Kerrville, Texas. One of the first things I learned in 2005 when I started entering shows was how to do the bindings! The very first thing a Judge looks for is if the binding is consistent in size front and back, and filled in with the batting. They love to grab that binding and run their hand down the side to check it out. Since then I have always been particular with any binding that I do on a quilt,
I know how importing the binding is because I have scribed for Judges in the past and there have been some nice quilts that had rippled binding or binding that was not consistently full that have lost a chance to place.
Next on the list to work on is going to be Alexander Bean Pot. He is a quilt that is cotton – not batiks – and I should be able to breeze through it today with no problems. (whoops there I go again -making a goal!)
Well, have a wonderful week and Sunday and happy stitching! Maybe this week will be the week I can accomplish a lot more that I have done since the end of February 2023!
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below. Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, Connie
I woke up today and wondered where has the month of February had gone. We had three very busy weeks that consisted of a week of tree cutting, new fence construction, and going through absolute hell in switching Cardiologists for Clay (took over 7 days of very difficult multiple phone calls – that is where it went.
As I look back over the last 4 months when I started making backings for 12 quilts for Rebecca, identifying UFO projects that I would quilt and getting those backs prepared, along with ripping the binding off 4 quilts sewn on by the 2013 long arm quilter. In mid December and all of January I quilted 16 quilts and had all bindings done. I guess this is why I had some “quilt” burn out in February along with the other “things” in February. I also have had problems with my shoulders – HUMMM – guess I over did things. So now I am now wearing my Carpel Tunnel braces and living with Icy Hot patches. (Price of Quilting!)
This week I began looking for quilt shows in my area that I will be able to enter my quilts. It takes time to become familiar with changes that have taken place since I have not been able to show since 2014 and I had not joined a Guild since 2015. So the first thing was to join two Guilds, San Antonio Area Quilt Guild and Hill Country Quilters Guild in Kerrville, Texas. I would love to enter all 12 (now 13) of the quilts that Rebecca has quilted for me, but the Guilds limit each quilter to either 3 or 4 quilts. Sometimes as the show draws closer if they do have not reached their stated goal, the will allow quilts to enter more.
Entering a quilt in a show takes time as each organization has different rules and requirements for paperwork. I am glad I started working on which shows were available Monday because the deadline for Kerrville is 20 March for all entries. Entering a quilt in a Quilt Show not only requires making, quilting, binding, making hanging sleeves, labels and of course pictures and detailed paperwork. In short – there is a lot of work in participating in Quilt Shows.
Yesterday I worked on my Kerrville entries and by the end of the day (a few interruptions) I have my information ready to enter the information into their on-line database. This is the first year that both guilds have on-line capability to enter your information. I like the way Kerrville is doing theirs. You mail in your money for Guild membership and entry fees along with pictures of the quilts. Then you enter your information on-line and it automatically downloads the entries into their database, thus saving someone from having to manually enter it into a database! Love it.
Now San Antonio is different – one can pay for their dues on-line, but when you enter the information required for the quilt entries, it will take 3 separate submissions and 3 more credit card charges. I am hoping for no glitches. I will have to follow up to make sure that my input is received into their databases.
OK enough of that, as far as my goals for March, I am pleased (?????) to report that the Irish Mist is still waiting for me to make the binding for her and get another quilt in the Studio for binding. Progress is slow around here, but it will be better today as I plan on getting all paperwork completed today.
I have not the had time to sit down and read all of the Bloggers I follow and maybe now I will be able to do more commenting. AND I am late in responding to all comments I receive on my posts (the few that have been done). Things will be better from now on.
I also am missing making a new quilt, but for now putting binding on the 10 quilts from Rebecca will help me through that miss, and when my shoulders settle down more I will start the hand work on 4 quilts waiting for me to bind.
A word to the those who might be looking for a Doctor, or changing Doctors. Make sure that you are not in a GROUP of Specialists because it takes an act of God to be able to move to a different Doctor within the Group in case you get into the situation we were in.. The Corporations have now made our health system totally more like the Government (of whom probably encourages Groups to control our Doctor choices). But at least we are now back in the Methodist Hospital System and have Cardiologist Doctor we wanted since we pay for their service! Just be sure that you do research on any physician that you are hiring to take care of your health. It is a mad mad mad world out there now – no consideration for the Patient!
I am hoping that I will be posting on more fun things on my next post – like something about quilting.
Have a wonderful Sunday and the rest of the week – enjoy stitching.
Chopin - A Passionate Quilter From Texas 