Merry Christmas...almost!

Well Christmas is definitely coming soon! I've been driving my family absolutely crazy playing Christmas music (loudly) for the past week or so. Last night the kids had their first movie night with some of the old Christmas movies. I've spent the entire day working on the stockings for our family Christmas gathering at Amanda and Korey's house.

Those stockings are going to get me in the end! So far, I have invested over 30 hours into their construction, quilting and the piecing. I'm only making 10, so I really didn't expect it to take me this long. I'm about half way through the construction stage, then I have to find a way to put everyone's name on the cuff. I had originally thought about having he cuffs embroidered, but now I don't know.

I originally had visions of making some to sell at the Crepe Myrtle Festival next June, but I really doubt anyone would pay what I have invested just in time, much less in fabric. I really like the way they are turning out, but I'm not so sure I will ever do this again! At this point, I'm hoping my family will appreciate all the time that has gone into this little project of mine!

I made some table runners and I was able to knock them out in about two hours, not including the binding. So I doubt I'll be selling many of them either.

Currently only the quilts are remaining cost effective, but not many of them will sell at the craft festival. Most people will want a quilt that has their specific colors or a specific pattern. Making them without a buyer in mind is kinda dicey. I was hoping to have them to showcase my work and then take orders for exactly what the customer wanted. I had really thought the majority of my sales that day would be from the smaller quilted items. Now I'm not so sure. I'm beginning to think I will not be able to justify the booth charge, much less the materials for what I've already purchased.

I have a few other Christmas projects that I want to get finished in the next week or so, but have had to put everything on hold for a while. I RAN OUT OF BATTING!!! I can't believe it. I thought I had enough to finish up all the projects I have started, but I see I was wrong, very wrong!

I'm also making a Birthday quilt for Logan (like the one I made for my Grand daughter Alyssa, except in blue) and need to get it quilted so I can have it ready before his first birthday. Darlene's baby shower is next Saturday, and at least her baby quilt is finished, but am still working on a matching pillow for it.

With all the stuff I still have to do it is a wonder I am still on this computer instead of working on them! I guess this week I am using my computer as my excuse to get things done! ( Sorry Amanda!)

Nini

Ramblings on Piecing

I have come to the conclusion that I am a terrible piecer! And I am OK with that!

My daughter, Amanda is a fantastically accurate piecer. She is and always has been a perfectionist in everything she does. (maybe a bit of OCD as well, but in a good way!) The quilt she is making for Christmas has EVERY seam match up PERFECTLY! Each and every 4-patch has a perfect intersection.

I have found that MY quilts rarely have perfect intersections, and somehow I'm OK with that notion. I've always heard that once you start machine quilting,you become a better piecer, but I have found the opposite to be true for me. I've actually gotten worse in my piecing since I've been longarming! My quilts are less square and my borders are more 'friendly' than ever.

But, yet I don't have any problems quilting them...makes me wonder. Am I destined to be the quilter that people use when their piecing is quite a bit less than perfect? Or is my quilting also mediocre and no one notices how bad it really is...maybe like not having something to compare it to?

As I finished piecing two quilts last night while watching the election results (one was actually started while watching the results and finished in the same hour) I wondered is the quilting going to be up to snuff? I've discovered that I am pleased with my quilting if I can complete a quilt without too many thread issues, but is my quilting any better on those quilts than on the ones that I have multiple thread issues?

As I enter another phase of my quilting, I will be paying very close attention to that thought. I really hope to have some actual customer quilts by the middle of next year. Between now and then I need to re-evaluate my skills and mindset.

I guess I have always thought of my quilts as things to keep my family warm as opposed to pieces of art. While I know others think of them as pieces of art I also know those people are not the ones that will be asking me to complete their masterpieces. I guess I will be more of a utilitarian quilter. That's IT! I've found my niche! I will become the UQ extraordinaire!

Halloween!

Halloween has come and gone without too much incident! The kids were a bit upset...they had gotten into the candy (two gigantic bags from Sam's!) and I told them as punishment they couldn't go out trick or treating... but those who know me know I am an old softie at times, so they did get to go around the neighborhood with Dad.

We didn't have too many little trickers out. Maybe less than 50. It was a little strange. Usually we have hundreds. I'm not sure if it was the economy keeping the kids home or the fact that it was Friday night and lots of churches had parties going on and lots of parents had parties going on.

We took a short trip to the north Georgia Mountains on Saturday to look at the leaves. They were spectacular! I didn't get any pictures (much to my husband's dismay) but you will just have to trust me! At one point a huge wild turkey flew in front of the car! We barely missed it. Was in SUCH a hurry to get to the other side of the highway, and yes, that sparked about a half hour of jokes about why did the TURKEY cross the road. And Damien couldn't resign himself to the fact that it wasn't a cooked turkey!

Now, I'm back to getting all the Christmas stuff made and quilted. Brianna wants to make some of her gifts this year, and we have seen a couple of patterns that make quick and easy gifts. At this point I'm not 100% sure we will have TIME to get them all done in time for Christmas...we'll see!

I've started decorating for Thanksgiving, but have a couple more boxes of stuff that I can't get to, so I will have to wait until my hubby has some time to get them for me...he doesn't understand why we have to decorate if we aren't having the family Thanksgiving dinner at our house...MEN!!


Well, I have to apologize...I went to get the camera to put in a picture of the kids and realized Rex took it to work with him today...after all it IS his camera and I did have all weekend to get my pictures off!

Nini

All's quiet on the Home Front!

This past week has been kind of quiet. Almost strangely quiet! No quilting is getting done, no sewing is getting done. Nothing.

Part of the reason is my lovely daughter (Amanda) has decided she wants to make a quilt for her guestroom bed for Christmas. She is hosting our family get-together this year and wants to have it finished by Dec 20.

Now, you have to know that she has never sewed much of anything before. Earlier this year she and I made a Roman shade for her living room French door, but we both have to admit, I did much more of the work than I had intended to do!

She decided to go for it and called me about three times while she was shopping for the fabric, even sent me a picture of some of the fabric she was thinking of purchasing.

I have been over to her house twice now to help her with the mechanics of piecing the quilt. And, yes, I am making her do all the work! I showed her how to cut the strips and then turned it over to her. I showed her how to press the sewn together strips and then turned it over to her. I showed her how to cut the sewn together strips apart with the rotary cutter and then turned it over to her, and yes, you guessed it I showed her how to sew together the basic 4-patch block and turned it over to her to sew them together.

She is using a very basic pattern that we kind of made up as we went along. A basic 4 patch with alternating fussy cut patches of either a Santa or Snowman print. She is using a Christmas Tree stripe as a sashing between rows. I think it will be kind of cute when finished.

I know I could have made it much faster, but I really want her to feel the excitement of watching your hand work become an actual quilt. I can honestly say it has worked! She has been bitten by the quilting bug! She has done all the fussy cutting without me being there and has sent me another picture of the 'quilt' with the 4-patch and fussy cut patches laid out together with the sashing in between.

So, why am I using Amanda as my excuse to not get any of my own quilting done for the holidays? Well, it seems like a reasonable excuse to me! Seriously, my quilting/sewing time is severely limited, and each time I have planned on getting something done, someone has needed me to be something else for them, something like wife or mother or teacher or grandma!

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT complaining. I find it very exciting that Amanda is getting interested in quilting, and I love being needed by my family. I just feel I need to justify not having anything new to post on here!

Keep Quilting!

Nini

What a Weekend!

I am so glad this past weekend is finally over and things are back to normal!

On Friday I did not have Alyssa, so we got the kids a new movie and I went up to the studio to quilt. I finished Kaylin Marie Alley's quilt (my nephew's soon to be born daughter) and started to work on some of the Christmas stockings. I finished one and the quilting looked good from the front, but the back looked like a bird nest.

OK, so back to the machine to de-thread the bobbin area (what a mess!) and work on the tension a bit. I put a practice sandwich (two pieces of fabric and some batting in between) on to see if the stitch was right and poof! The machine locked up! After spending a few minutes trying to get every last piece of thread out, I decided to turn off the lights and go back downstairs.

Saturday I spent about 4 hours trying to get the bobbin area cleaned. I thought if I was able to get all the last bits and pieces of thread out it would work again...or at least that is what I hoped! I used canned air, WD40 and sewing machine oil. Nothing was working. I finally soaked everything down in oil and tried to go online to see if there was any help for me.

I was able to get in touch with a few online 'friends' who basically had good news for me and thought I was on the right track. But still I was one scared little girl. (maybe not so little) Sunday, after church, we went to Walmart and bought a small pair of tweezers to help in getting out the small bits of fuzz that was still where it didn't belong, but I wasn't having any luck.

Monday morning, I called KenQuilt, and after a brief discussion, discovered all I had to do was to manhandle my machine to get it working again. They told me where would be the best place to use a screwdriver for leverage to get it moving and how to best go about it. Rex was out at the range, so I decided I would have him work on it when he got back around lunch.

Because I can never leave anything alone once my mind is set to do something, I decided to make sure every oiling spot on my machine was oiled...with 3 times the amount that would normally be used. I got my small screwdriver I use on my machine and actually got it to budge ...just a bit. That was enough to keep me going , so I found the largest screwdriver we had in the house and went to work.

It only took me a few tries to get it moving. The right leverage in the right place made all the difference in the world! I let it run a few minutes to get the oil everyplace it should be....now I just have to clean up all the oily mess!

What a weekend!!

Update

It has been a while since I have posted...so much has happened!

First, I finished my second QOV quilt. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would. It was specifically for the Navy, so I used a 'wave-y thing' for the majority of it and did pebbles (or bubbles...it IS for Navy after all!) on the solid blue background. I was really surprised at how much control I had gained by the time I finished the quilt. I guess the old adage of 'practice, practice, practice' is REALLY true after all!

I'm still working on the Christmas stockings for my family, and they are really turning out better than I thought they would. And I made a table runner for Tasha in fall colors and it is so much better than I thought it would be! I am really proud of they way it looks! Now I have to get some more brown to finish up some to sell...

We did get the wood floors finished and now we are working on the tile for the kitchen. Shawn moved all the appliances out and tiled the main portion of the kitchen a week or so ago. Now that that part is put back together I have to say i LOVE the way it looks! Now he is working on the breakfast room and then he will finish up the laundry room. Right now it looks like we might have enough tile left to do the kids bathroom, but that will probably wait until after the holidays. It is really looking great, and I am starting to love my house again!

Alyssa is getting cuter every day. Her little personality is getting stronger and stronger. She has already shown that she is not going to be a weak person and has her own definite ideas about how things should be! One of those things is her walking...or lack there of. She turned 13 months a week ago and she still would not walk. It wasn't that she could not it was that she would not! I think she knew that everyone was a little anxious because of the surgeries and the casting, so she chose to keep us in suspense. Whenever you try to stand her up, she would just buckle her legs up and smile. She definitely was cruising around the furniture, and she could stand up in the middle of the floor whenever she wanted. It wasn't a matter of balance or ability, it was a matter of not wanting to.

Well, last night she decided to put us out of our misery and walked! Momma got a video of it and will be posting it to her blog. When she does, I'll add a link to it here!

Damien had his seventh birthday last week... while we know that was a momentous event, there was a time that we could not even dream of him having another birthday, we really didn't have a big celebration. Just a family dinner at his favorite Chinese restaurant, came back to our house for cake and ice cream and a few gifts.

The weather is finally starting to feel like fall around here, at least for the next week. We are going today to look for the kids' Halloween costumes and to pick out pumpkins. They are really excited!

I promise to try and post not so many tidbits and more often!

September 11

I couldn't let today go by without at least saying something about September 11. This date brings back so many bad memories of the actual events of the day unfolding. From watching it on the tv in the conference room, to being let go home at lunch time because we were in a high rise building that was on a 'list' in Atlanta that might be a target.

I remember we took turns to go into the conference room to watch the tv. The picture quality was bad, but there was no mistaking what I saw. I saw one of the towers crash down to the ground.

I remember the lack of traffic as I made my way home. It was almost like I was in a different reality. No matter what time of day I had never seen the interstates so devoid of traffic.

I remember feeling the patriotic pride that came upon us in the following weeks. Finding a US flag in any stores anywhere was practically impossible.

I wonder, as we look back on that terrible anniversary, what happened to that patriotism? It seems that bashing the US is in vogue lately. We are polarized along party lines...our candidate is best and the other one is going to rip apart the nation.

On this anniversary I hope that everyone stops and thinks, not only about the people and events that changed forever on that day, but about what happened to US since then.

Nini