Hello from Alabama!

Leah emailed me last night to make sure I was still alive. Yes I am still here. Just not much quilting going on and way too much other stuff going on.

After we returned from Tennessee a few weeks ago, school started. Ian has had a rough time adjusting but I think we might be over the hump. Maddie is loving her teacher.


Last week I made myself drag out Hannah's quilt. They moved to Missouri in July. She had the top put together and just needed to put the final borders on. I told her I would quilt it for her. So I got the borders put on and got it loaded onto the machine. Oh, the importance of quarter inch seams and a good ironing job. I had told her she needed to square everything up before she tried to add the borders. When she gave me the quilt before she left town, she said she was surprised at how wild the edges were! I think she finally understood what I was trying to say about being accurate. Anyway, as usual, the quilting really helped the quilt! It lays nice and flat now. I think it turned out great for her very first attempt at quilting! I hope she will keep it up. Her hubby is in medical school so I am guessing that she will have a lot of free time on her hands.

I have now returned to working on the bed-sized pink and brown pineapple quilt I am making for a little girl from church. I had the middle of the top pieced a few weeks ago and took it to show the mommy and the little girl. I mentioned something about laying it out on Maddie's full size bed to make sure it was big enough. Amy then says "Oh, did I forget to tell you that Taylor now has a queen size bed?" That is a important little fact that she had forgotten to share! I ordered a few more fat quarters of pinks (Pink is NOT a color found in my stash!) and now I am back in business.

Another Quilt of Valor

Saturday evening I got my QOV loaded on the machine. I am going to Nashville on Wednesday and want to be able to hand deliver the quilt to my friend Jim. Mom gave Jim her QOV quilt for his friend, Jeramy, and she said Jim got a little teary eyed. I am already worried what will happen when the quilt is for him! (Yes, I will make sure someone is taking pictures.)

Anyway, Sunday I got one pass quilted - loopy-loops and free-hand stars. This morning I finished it up. Then I had a very attractive offer to help me unpin the quilt. I can't refuse an offer like that!

This is the label from Jim's quilt. The quote is from the song "Hail Columbia" which was written to be performed at George Washington's inauguration in 1789.

I really like the flag fabric. Me and Nines found it at Hobby Lobby in Tennessee.

Ready to go..

Last night, for some unknown reason, I had the house to myself for about two hours! DH was next store fixing some things in the spec house and the kiddies were outside playing. What's a girl to do? I made myself drag out the flannel and the blanket binding and work on the blankie for my coming niece/nephew. She/He is due to arrive in about two weeks!!! Yes, I have already made this baby a quilt - the yellow one, but what is an over excited auntie to do? Sew!

The blankie is a nice size - 35 inches by 44 inches. The reason I was putting off making this blankie is the HUGE amount of satin stitching around the inside edge of the binding. Takes forever to do. I did one side at a time and then took a short break.
Since I had to drag out the newer Singer to do the satin stitch, I thought I might as well do the hooded towel too. After all, it takes all of two minutes to do. Yes, two minutes...if you go really slowly. Sew the washcloth to the towel, centered of course. Then sew the top of the washcloth together (on the inside). Done! Yes - this is for the same baby. Too much? Naaah!

I get all of this done - it is about 7:30 pm and still no family! No dinner either but no one seemed to care.

All that is left to do is sew the label on the baby quilt. Yes I wimped out and did it on the machine.

Several people have asked how I make labels on a ink jet printer. I used to use the chemical stuff you soak the fabric in but my bottle got old and the ink would not set. So now I buy the pre-treated sheets at Walmart. These sheets work great but they are made of a heavy fabric and are kind of hard to hand stitch thru. I have done it by hand but end up with some very sore finger tips!

Today I am mailing off the box of goodies to my SIL. Hope she likes it!

A label for the yellow and white baby quilt

This morning after another practice session on the machine, it was time to make the label for the baby quilt. I could not figure out how to line up a whole row of letters correctly. The machine will only do one word at a time. So I decided I would have to do the label part on the inkjet printer and do the decoration on the embroidery machine. I think it turned out cute!

New (borrowed) toys!

I have been notified (again!) by several members of my family that my blog has not been updated since Friday. Sorry! Friday and Saturday were spent giving the house a very thorough house cleaning in order to have the new preacher and his family over for dinner Sunday night. Monday I cleaned up the dinner mess, read for a while, and spent the afternoon shopping for an armoire for the TV. Finally gave in and ordered the one I really liked from Rooms-to-go. We had gone there last Friday and seen it in person. The only thing is I now have to wait until August 30th for it to be delivered. Do I have that much patience? We also ordered a mission style leather chair from JCPenney. Hopefully that should arrive this week.

I managed to get the binding and the label on my dad's quilt. Wanted to get it and my mom's QOV in the mail to them today. The quilting really helped this quilt out. Maybe it would be more interesting if you used pieced blocks for the nine inch squares.





Tonight I went over and borrowed my friend Christie's embroidery machine. She assured me I could figure it out without her there holding my hand. After speed reading thru the manual, I gave it a whirl. I broke a needle because the white thread I was using for the star centers got caught on the edge of the spool. But we got the needle replaced and was able to start over and make it thru with no further excitement. Ian thought it was interesting that the machine would go by itself. The first time he came in, he looked under the table and saw no foot pedal so he started asking questions. Later he came back while I had gone out of the room for a moment and he just stood there in amazement. Tomorrow I am going to try and make a couple of quilt labels with this machine. We shall see!

A lovely Friday despite the nasty heat

It is a small comfort to know that it seems to be the whole country is sweltering together in this nasty heat wave. It was in the high 90's today with the usual oppressive humidity. When does fall start again?

This afternoon we piled the kids into the car and drove to Montgomery to hit four more furniture stores. We were still wavering on whether we wanted a leather sofa (mucho dinero but very cool!) or some sort of reasonably priced upholstered sofa. At the fourth store we both agreed that we could live with fabric sofa we found. Only $500! Not too bad. It looks kind of olive green under the store's very dim fluorescent lights but when I took a pillow outside it looked more brown. So I guess I will have to be surprised when I see what color it looks like in my living room. I get ALOT of natural light so I am hoping it looks more brown. Now we still have to find an entertainment armoire for the TV junk. It needs to be at least 6 feet tall because our living room ceiling are 12 foot and it would be going against a huge empty wall.

When we got back home we found the Nintendo Gamecube my DH had ordered "for the kids" waiting on the front porch. Guess who has been playing the most? That's right, the DH! We have ordered some more kid friendly games off of e-bay and half.com that should be arriving soon.

While the rest of family was huddled around the gamecube, I went and sewed on the binding to the yellow baby quilt. It looks so cute! Nice and neutral! Now to get the label done. And the hooded towel. And the flannel blankie. Can you tell I want to spoil this child before it even arrives?

Almost done ...for...

Yesterday I decided to get Papa's quilt done so that I could mail it to him along with mom's quilt of valor. (Plus his b-day was this week and I didn't even get a card mailed!) So I pieced the backing, pinned the top and backing onto the machine, and went in search of some batting. I had two good sized pieces leftover from the yellow and white baby quilt. Got out the iron-on interfacing and fused the pieces together. I made sure the piece ended up being wide enough but didn't actually measure the length. Surely it was long enough because it was longer than it was wider by a good amount.

I am quilting along, getting close to the bottom. Two more passes and I will be done. Then I look down.

Oops! It is going to be close!

After I was done quilting and unpinned the top from the roller, this is what I was left with. In certain places, the top comes exactly to the edge of the batting! Very close call!


Several of the fabrics had leaves on them - so I did a loopy-loops with leaves scattered throughout. I think the quilting definitely helped this quilt! Now to find some dark green fabric to make the binding out of. All of the pictures should be clickable.