Monday, June 15, 2020

Make-A-List Monday - Slowly Getting Back to Normal...

Hi, all!

Last week flew by, didn't it? But I got lots and lots done and I'm finally starting to feel like things are beginning to get back to normal, just a little bit.  Are you starting to feel that way too, or are things still out of whack for you?  

Strange things happened last week - like my missing batting (ordered on May 9th!) finally turning up!


I won't bore you with the whole story, but suffice it to say I won't be ordering again from Joann.com any time soon!  I'm mainly just glad it's finally here - it's for church and we were on the very end of our last bolt of batting.

And not only the batting, but 100 yards of 1/4" elastic that I ordered  way back on May 4th arrived today!  I was totally shocked, but grateful.  

Now to my list from last week.  I needed to mail off the "thank you"s to all the H2H participants, and I'm happy to say I did!


And the new post office is awesome - they actually have a second worker who comes in at noon, which meant that I could do all my packages in one trip rather than spreading it out over several transactions.  


I also finished the t-shirt quilt!  It turned out amazing, and is already in the mail back to my customer.  


I did a couple of other fun things, too, like making a see-through mask for my daughter to use when taking the youngest grands to the dentist.  They can't wear their cochlear implants while the dentist or hygienist are working on them, so it's important that they be able to lip read - hard to do through a face mask!  This one took some creative thinking.  I had a pattern, but it was flat against the face and not very comfortable for speaking (or breathing!)  So I tried again, adding some pleats on each side to make it stand away from the lips.  I rubbed Dawn detergent on the vinyl inside, which worked well to keep it from fogging up.  Nancy said it worked great!

 And... I finished piecing my Moongate postage stamp quilt!  I started this a couple of weeks ago, before I began work on the t-shirt quilt, and after finishing that job, I decided to see if I could knock it out quickly.  This one came together this afternoon as I finished the last 25-patch block!  I can't wait to quilt it, but I've got to figure out a backing first....


And today, Nathanael came while his sisters were at the dentist.  He wanted to sew, so I showed him how to use the sewing machine and away he went!  He's actually very good at it - puts his hands on either side of the needle, just like you're supposed to, and never unthreaded the needle!  


And one more excellent thing happened this past weekend - my husband, who has been learning how to use his smoker for a while now, made an absolutely excellent Boston Butt roast!  This one was the best ever - five hours smoked, then wrapped in foil and put back on the smoker for another four hours.  It was awesome then - but tonight, I carmelized some crushed pineapple and added it to the barbecue meat.  We put it into tortillas with some delicious toppings for burritos de pastor - oh my so good!

And for this week, I'm going to try to find a backing for the Moongate quilt, and maybe get it quilted.  I've also got plans to go to church and work on getting the quilt room cleaned up so we can start meeting in there in the fall.  It's a huge mess at the moment and looks like a bunkhouse for COVID more than anything else!  Tomorrow I'll be pulling out the stuff that needs to go to Goodwill - something we do a couple of times a year with donations that aren't useful for us.  That should clear out a lot of space - we haven't done it in a while!  We'll need to wipe down all the tables and workspaces, and probably the sewing machines too.  And somehow we need to space the tables out more than they are now.  Wish us luck!


And if time allows, I really want to give this a try!  I've never heard of kwandi quilting before this, but it looks like a great way to use up scraps!  I found a tutorial for doing it with machine quilting rather than hand quilting, which is probably what I'll try first.  We'll see how it goes!

So now the question is - - - what are YOU working on this week?

Hugs!

Sarah

Friday, June 12, 2020

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? A Finish!!

Hi, all!

Here we are at Friday again!  No matter how confused I may be during the week about what day it is, I always make sure to remember when Friday rolls around, because it's the best day of the week - the day we get our whoop whoop on!  Are you ready?  Then let's get started!

*&*&*&*&*&*&*

Today I am tickled to death to have an honest-to-goodness finish!  I've been working on a t-shirt quilt for a while now, off and on in between other projects that needed to be done first.  It started off like this....


...an enormous box of t-shirts and memorabilia - sixty-five t-shirts, to be exact!  Well, that had to be whittled down, of course - there was no way to get that many shirts and other things into one 65" square quilt.  But I did manage to get parts of 46 shirts, plus other bits and bobs of memorabilia, into this quilt!


Allow me to take you on a guided tour!  This was a fun quilt to make, with lots of childhood and high school memories....


Beach trips, sports activities...


...and some fun fringe trim from a pillow!


The pocket from her high school backpack, which has a working zipper - it will be the perfect place to stash some M&Ms!


A bit of a hat (the duck), the monogram from a school uniform, a bit of a shirt from a production of The Aristocats....


A shirt from Wicked, with the words to one of my favorite songs - it rolled through my head the whole time I was working on this quilt!


This girl has a lot of running t-shirts for someone who hates running!  And how about that cute little mermaid?


A high school nickname - I had to recreate this one, because the shirt is still being worn!


So glad Taylor Swift put this cool design on a pocket, so I could include it in this quilt!


And this t-shirt was originally a lot larger - do you see Mary Poppins on the end?  So I guess you can bet what the whole shirt said on it!


Here you can see the well-loved sheet that became the back of the quilt, and another mermaid swimming merrily along! The mermaids were printed on a beloved childhood pillow, and I thought they would be cute superimposed over the shirts instead of having a block of their own.


And it's all finished off with a fun striped purple binding!  I had just enough of a chevron print to do all of the binding and the color is just perfect!

How about a tip for those of you thinking of making t-shirt quilts?  Some t-shirts are made with heavy ink that tends to drag on the bottom of the walking foot when I'm quilting.  I've learned that the easiest way to make the quilting go smoothly is to use tissue paper between the foot and the fabric for those sections.  I used to draw a line on my paper strip with pencil, that I could line up with the Hera marker crease where I marked my quilting line.  Even easier, though, is when I have striped tissue paper!  Then I can just line up one of the straight lines in the paper and voila!  It's done!  The paper tears away easy peasy after stitching.  Now I watch for striped tissue paper any time I'm in the dollar store...


And that's my finish for the week!  Can I get a whoop whoop?

*&*&*&*&*&*&*

And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?


What's making you do a little happy dance?

Share!  We want to dance right along with you,

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah

Monday, June 8, 2020

Make-A-List Monday - Lots To Do This Week!

Hi, all!

It's Monday after the end of this year's Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge, and I'm STILL counting quilts!  It is wonderful to keep seeing emails pop up in my inbox with more and more quilts - so keep them coming!  Here are the ones I've received pictures of since I wrote Sunday's post...

Laura K. made these two, plus six more, that were all sent to Little Lambs of Utah....




Mary O. just sent me a picture of her happy quilt, which will be going to Quilts of Compassion...


Selina K. sent these two tops to Victoria's Quilts Canada, a charity from previous years...




And Susan S. made this lovely, heart-filled quilt for a caregiver in her community!



And I'm pleased to let you all know that, as of the time I'm writing this post, we are up to 126 quilters and 557 quilts!!  


So I have a busy week ahead of me!  We received some great donations from fellow quilters this year that I will need to get out in the mail....

This batch of lovelies came from Karen M.!

Jo O. wanted to join in the thanking too!

And Trudie of Grammy's Fabric Studio sent these beautiful fabrics!

Not to mention the goodie bundles we received from Moda last year -
they sent so many we had 
leftovers!
Bernie Kringel of ThreadNeedleFoot is providing a $35 gift certificate to her shop!

Myra Barnes is giving away three $25 gift certificates for her shop!

Additionally, we had other quilters and fellow participants step up to donate who will be mailing out from their homes or offering PDF quilt patterns from their shops.  Many hugs and thanks to KatieQ, Cindy P., Rebecca, Sharon V., Sue B., Emily B., and Selina K.!

So the first thing on my list this week is to get packages in the mail and hook up donors with those who will be receiving their gifts!  I'll have to break in a new small rural post office - this should be interesting.  I know my last postmistress wished she could lock her doors when she saw me coming, although I think the extra business helped keep their doors open sometimes.  

I also need to finish the commission t-shirt quilt!  It's close - I need to do a little appliqué on the front, press the back, and quilt it.  Possibly do-able by Friday, if the rest of my week goes smoothly.

Does anyone know why time seems to be moving so much more quickly these days?  We should have more time, but it just seems to slip away.  It was called to my attention that July is fast coming upon us - and I haven't even begun to think about the 12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop!  So quick - if you are interested in being a stop on the hop, email me (salliesue57 (at) gmail (dot) com) and we'll see if there is enough interest to pull one together in a hurry!

So now the question is - - - what are YOU working on this week?

Hugs!

Sarah