Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A finish!!


WAHOO!!! The 5+ year project is quilted! All that I have left to do is the binding-actually FIND the fabric that will become the binding. At the beginning of the year I make a list of things to do this year-this was a huge one on that list. I don't really remember what is on it-uh oh. I will have to go back and check it out.

While quilting this I was using King Tutt brand thread and ran out 2 passes from the end! I had purchased the thread while on vacation in North Carolina so there was no way to "run" any where and get another spool. I found a place online and of course I am not going to order just 1 spool of thread for a $6 shipping fee-No I ordered 5! $52 later I had what I needed to finish my 2 passes and then some!

The BSA Fabric quilt is almost a top-I have the borders to put on but an not sure what I want to do there....not much time to decide since I want this on the frame Friday night and off Saturday afternoon for binding and ready to go Sunday at noon....yeah I don't think I will make it either but you always have to be ambitious. Keep you posted!


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Friday, June 12, 2009

No fancy blog titles-that part kills me. I can sit here and have at it with the key board but to come up with a catchy title is beyond my blogging ability.

I didn't realize that there was such a lack of posts-a whole month! I have been quilting so it has not been because of nothing to show.

This past month I decided to make some special Boy Scouts their own special Boy Scout quilts. I had seen things made from the fabric line in numerous magazines but have limited access locally to see something like that in a quilt store. So I bought a fat quarter bundle online and thought a turning twenty was in the works. Really what else is there for 20 fat quarters.....While in NC at Easter I visited a JoAnn's Super Craft Center-those stores are awesome! They sell furniture for Pete's sake. While there I saw some of the Kauffman fabric at Joann's (OF ALL THE PLACES!). So I bought a couple yards of the blue with the numbers down the side and the piece that has all the merit badges on it-actually after searching for a SPECIFIC merit badge on it I have discovered that they are NOT all represented.

Once back I decided that I didn't want to do a turning twenty-just not exciting enough for the fabric. So I flipped through some books and magazines, you know we all have them in piles and piles, and found a Floating Square block that is in a Layer Cake book I have bought during my Atlanta trip.

So off I go with my 20 fat quarters and my floating square block pattern. I needed 35 blocks for each quilt (x2) and could get about 4 out of each fat quarter-SWEET! So the adventure began....I cut and cut and cut, then I sewed and sewed and sewed, then ironed, ironed and ironed, the sewed and sewed and sewed.....you get the picture. What I left out is cutting apart my chain piecing each morning while waiting with Zach for the bus. He was great at sorting them back into coordinator fabric piles for me.

Finally last weekend I completed all the blocks and am ready to put them into rows and so forth. But the internal deal with my self is that I can get nothing done beyond the ROW stage until my brother's 6 year old wedding quilt is quilted and off the frame-mind you no mention of when the binding will go on.....

Production on the BSA quilts ceased on Saturday and quilting began on the 6 year old. I bought a spool of King Tutt thread in NC because I had heard great things about it online and was having trouble with looping and thread breaks. So I loaded the Tutt on the machine and away we went-AMAZING the difference the thread made-no broken threads and if I didn't move the machine down the frame too fast, there are no loops! So back and forth I went-it is a queen size so there were quite a few trips. I can see the leader cloths coming around the roll bars when suddenly no thread-literally 2 passes left to finish and I ran out of thread! UGH!

Once again the 6 year old is just sitting waiting for the postman to deliver the thread.

The update on my MBIII is that there isn't one. The one I made arrived safe and sound to it's new owner but the one I should have gotten is no where to be found and no word on what happens next. I have emailed the moderator of the swap but have not heard anything back-very not like her so life must be very busy which is understandable-to a point.

I guess the swaps are cool in theory but how to make adults follow through with their commitment to a perfect stranger? I deal with people not full filling their commitments every day and they are not even strangers! Oh well.

We are in Chicago this weekend doing the touristy thing-take care!
Shelly