Archive for August, 2008
I was nervous but it was fun
I’m not sure how those of you who give presentations to guilds do it. I gave a presentation to a local guild, the Quilting Queens this evening – my first ever and they were SO nice to me. I spoke a little about my quilting and about HeartStrings and took a lot of quilts with me both mine and many of the HeartStrings tops I’ve been finishing up this last few weeks.
I was completely surprised when they each held up HeartStrings blocks they’d made and presented them to me – I had to come home, lay them out quickly and snap a photo to share.
Isn’t this the cutest fabric? They used this heart print for their centers and Cynthia gave me the rest of the fabric to use in finishing the quilt.
Cynthia, who contacted me about speaking was wonderful and made me feel very comfortable. As I watched their meeting, I was really impressed with how organized they are and how much education they do. I saw some feather star blocks from a class, a beautiful mystery quilt, a quilted bag, and several other really pretty quilts during their show and tell.
RWB Rails
I did manage to get the RWB wonky rails trimmed and bound yesterday. I stitch all my bindings down by hand after machine stitching them to the front of the quilt and this one went pretty quick last night while I was watching more of the Olympics. This quilt will head to CO as part of Alycia‘s 400 Quilts of Valor for 2009 project.
You can find instructions for this quilt at my MaryQuilts.com site.
For some reason, the horizontal lines are more prominent in the photo above but in person…you see both the vertical and horizontal lines equally like in this photo below.
Just one more small quilt to be bound so I’ll have to get some more quilted. I was going to load my string heart top today that will be donated to someone battling Leukemia via Clare’s Quilts for Leukemia program but I want to take it with me today when I speak to the Quilting Queens’ guild in Roseville so I’ll load it tomorrow.
Yesterday was a productive day!
In addition to quilting the Wonky RWB Rails that I showed yesterday, I finished the binding on two quilts and got another two quilts washed, dried and ready for donation. This first top was pieced by Deb in AZ and sent to me to quilt and donate.
This HeartStrings top was pieced by Barbara in FL.
I took Chesty to get his stitches out this morning and he’s doing pretty good. Still trying to bite/lick the incision so he’s been in the e-collar whenever he’s not sitting with me. I’m hoping that having the stitches out will decrease the itching and he’ll leave it alone.
I have to gather up some quilts to take for a talk I’m giving at a local guild tomorrow so I probably won’t get much work done today – if I have time, I’ll put the binding on the Wonky RWB Rails. I’ve finished the binding on 4 out 5 quilts I had waiting and there’s still a lot more to Olympics to watch.
Weight-loss Wednesday – Week 2
- Gain of 0.6 lbs = total weight loss of 6 lbs
- Met exercise goal for the week
- Met water goal of 64 oz on 6 out of 7 days.
I think some of last week’s loss was just water weight so although I have a gain of 0.6 pounds this week – I’m happy with a total loss of 6 pounds for two weeks.
How did YOU do this week?
Top #7 of 10 quilted
I decided my Wonky Rails needed a wonky grid so I quilted the first pass and ran upstairs to even my sides up to reload the quilt…and promptly started trimming like I was getting ready to bind.
Since I needed an edge to attach to the leaders, I decided to try using safety pins – and it worked. I also shorted myself on the side there – couldn’t clamp it so I had to hold it with my hand as I started each pass.
This is why I wasn’t paying attention. I have a wallhanging to quilt for my younger sister that needs a background fill. Deb does this one so well that I asked her to draw out how she quilts it and used the leftover backing from the above quilt to see if I could quilt it. I have a few little issues with spacing but I think with a matching thread and a little more practice, I can probably manage to quilt this.
I did manage to reload and finish quilting the Wonky Rails – here’s a front view of my uneven grid…
and a back view. Only 3 more tops to meet my goal of 10 quilted before the end of August.
A social event
I’ve been cleaning and preparing all weekend to have the sales managers from Keith’s company here tonight – 12 people in all but luckily just a couple hours for drinks and appetizers. We ended up going out to dinner with all of them and then to another bar for drinks after dinner with 5 of them. That’s quite social for me but I had a good time.
We did catch a bit of the Olympic swimming in the bar but I didn’t get any quilting done today. Back to work tomorrow!
Are you watching?
Keith was out running some errands this morning and brought back some additional items for my decor – don’t the flags put you in the mood to watch the Olympics and cheer for the Americans! (or YOUR national team?)
I’ve got the 3rd quilt out and am working on the binding but I don’t think I’ll get this one done to show you in the morning – we’ll see.
Here’s last night’s finish
Another HeartStrings quilt pieced by Sue Frank’s mother from blocks donated by other HeartStrings members finished last night during the Olympics. Swimming is one of my favorite events to watch, men’s gymnastics not so much but all of it made for good stitching!
I’m not getting any quilting done the last couple days but I’ve picked out the last 4 tops I need to quilt. Three of them are ready to be loaded at any time, backing pieced and even batting for one of them and the 4th I have to put borders on and piece the backing – it’s one of Mom’s tops – aren’t I nice?
Sunday’s Progress Report
I made good progress on my goal to quilt 10 tops by the end of August. Six have been completed – three of them this week AND I’ve got two of five waiting for binding done too.
I pulled binding for 3 of the quilts from stash and pieced a backing for one of the tops that will be quilted this coming week. I even carted the bin with batting leftovers up to the sewing room and pieced a batting for another small top that will be quilted this week. So a little fabric being used but only 1 yard added to the official count since I only count fabric once the quilt is finished.
I did fall off the wagon this weekend. Suzanne Earley opened her new store and online shop and I found some fabric there that I needed. Some background beige/tans and a couple border fabrics.
You can checkout Suzanne’s fabric and yarn online shop here: Knots and Bolts
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