Day 18 and I’m halfway through the Star Studded BOM.  I have another 4 of the 12 inch blocks in my possession.  Nothing crossed off my list, but forward progress none the less.

• A customer’s quilt – binding needs to be pressed, then can be attached and stitched down 6/6/2020
• Allietaire – plan do do both scallops and a 2 color binding.
• Narragansett Blues 6/11/2020
• Sister Swap # 3 – The binding is made just needs to be attached and stitched down 6/6/2020
• Then & Now 6/7/2020
• Baby 4-Patch Stacked Posies
• Tablerunner – Finally figured out what I am going to use – 6/7/2020
• The quilt with the striped backing needs a label and delivered
• I’m behind on my Star Studded BOM. I have fabric for 7 12-inch blocks and 23 6-inch blocks as of 6/12/2020
  • 5 6-inch blocks made 6/13/2020
  • 2 12-inch blocks made 6/14/2020
  • 6 6-inch blocks made on 6/16/2020
  • 12 6-inch blocks made on 6/20/2020
  • 2 12-inch blocks made on 6/21/2020
• The log cabin quilt needs to be quilted, bound and labeled.
• The blue, black and white quilt is my Frolic the goal is to finish the top.
• Although not quilting, there are 8 pair of pants which need to be shortened.
  • 2 pair hemmed 6/8/2020
  • 2 pair hemmed 6/9/2020
  • 1 pair hemmed 6/12/2020
  • 3 pair hemmed 6/13/2020
• Bonus #1 – Pillowcases:
  • the customer quilt 6/6/2020
  • Allietare
  • Narragansett Blues
  • Log cabin quilt (2)
• Bonus #2: Pillowcases for quilts already completed
  • Christmas Crazy 8s
  • On Ringo Lake 6/16/2020
  • En Provence (2)
  • Carolina Chain
  • Good Fortune 6/16/2020
• Bonus #3: Quilt, bind, label and make pillowcase (2) for Frolic.

Saturday, I drove down to Centerview, Missouri to Hunters Quilt Mart. It was their customer appreciation day sale.  The big draw?  A 30 yard roll of 96-inch wide Legacy Batting for $89.  Backing was 30% off and 45″ Moda fabric was only $5.99 a yard.  Then because I bought the bag, I got another 10% off my entire purchase. Needless to say I think I showed great restraint.  I went in with a shopping list – batting, backing for 3 quilts, 1 yard of Grunge Basics in Berry, a list of thread that my sister is low on, a thread color card, and maybe something to help keep the thread from tangling in my drawer.

The impulse buys were the long arm side clamps and the cleaning brush.  My sister-in-law asked me to purchase Row-by-Row kit.

The green backing is for the BOM I worked on a number of years ago.

The orange Grunge Dot will be the backing of “Candy Sunflower Seeds”.

The Berry Gunge Basics will be pillowcase cuffs to go with my Good Fortune quilt — I miscalculated when I bought the fabric for the borders.

I didn’t find a backing for my swap quilt, but that’s OK. I have backings for all of my other (20 +/-) finished quilt tops (and some of my unfinished tops) which have been waiting patiently for me to get around to quilting them. I’m sure I’ll find the perfect backing for this quilt when it’s time to quilt it.

This week will be busy.  Monday, I need to finish moving my office from the sewing room to the guest bedroom. This will require running cables for the internet and taking apart my desk or removing the door to the room to get my desk into the room.  Tuesday, I have family coming in to pick up family furniture that I’m giving to my niece and nephew, not to mention I have to work a go-live. Wednesday is my small quilt guild meeting, Thursday I have a quilt class for a BOM I’m starting, Friday is the last chance to prep my sewing room before the longarm arrives on Saturday.

Yes, I’m getting my own longarm quilting machine.  It’s a 26″ Innova with Lightning Stitch and Mach 3.  I hope to be able to clear out some of those quilt tops I mentioned earlier — and possibly quilt the occasional quilt for hire.

The past few days I’ve been working on the binding of my Tumbler quilt. This was the 2015-2016 Leader & Ender Challenge over at Quiltville.com. The instructions can be found HERE.  I’ve had “help”.    The first obstacle I had to over come was whether or not there was enough fabric in my husband’s red shirt for the binding.  As you can see from the above picture I did.  Cut at 2-1/4″ wide, it took the back of the shirt plus half of one sleeve.

The next obstacle was getting my cats off the quilt long enough for me to sew the binding on.

I’m hand stitching the binding down so it will be a week or so before this quilt is finished.

I started this blog to have a place to record my quilting adventures, and anything else which stuck my fancy.But I haven’t kept up with it.  I’m going to give it another stab. Who knows how well it will go.

Last week I turned in two quilts to hang in my Quilt Guild’s Show.  If you are in the Kansas City area Friday or Saturday, stop by the quilt show. The show is open 10 AM – 5 PM at the Abdallah Shrine Temple, 5300 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.

There was such a response to the call for quilts, they then had to ask those of us who turned in more than on to prioritize them. I had 3 registered – Carolina Chain

On Ringo Lake

and Good Fortune

I quilted the first two quilts I guess in early August – I took them to the Old Man River Quilt Fest where I took yet another class from Bonnie Hunter.  They were not bound though.  I got them bound about 2 weeks ago, and have not had a chance to hang them on the line.  Good Fortune I quilted Saturday with the intent of getting it bound so I could deliver it to the hanging crew Thursday. Given the request to prioritize for space, I’ve withdrawn this quilt so I’m not under so much pressure.

Then today I quilted the Leader/Ender Tumblers quilt.

My plan it to get these bound by mid-October. I’ll have my show quilts back by then, so I’ll try get them hung on the line for good pictures.

Turns out I missed a requirement on the Block Swap — no Christmas elements so the resulting quilt can be used longer.  So, out with the holly and in with a cardinal.  Last night I cut out all of the cardinals I needed using the AccuQuilt.

Saturday I spent the morning at a couple of quilt shops.  At  First City Quilts in Leavenworth, Kansas I picked up the pattern on the left – Baubles ‘n Beads. I purchased it during their Monday night Facebook Live event. The pattern on the right – Atomic Starburst I picked  up at the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival.  I fell in love with both of these patterns.

Also on Facebook, Stitch On Needlework in Lawrence, Kansas posted a picture of Quilting Treasures Radiance they received in.  When I saw the whole collection I knew I wanted to make these two quilts with those fabrics. Stitch On only has 13 of the 35 fabrics of the collection. I bought the background fabric, the inner border fabric for Baubles ‘n Beads as  well as the “solids” for Atomic Starburst from them, and the FQ bundle from Shabby Fabrics.  The colors are off on the first picture. The second picture is a truer representation of the colors.

There may have been a couple of other pieces purchased as well.  I think I’m good on fabric for a while.

That evening I went to my storage locker to get the empty crates to sort into. I decided since I was there I should bring a few boxes home.

I have not gone through them yet because the next morning I got up to find that the storm damaged one of my trees.

This picture was taken after I worked on it.  What you can’t see from this view is the limb in the top left corner is still partially attached to the tree!

Well the weather is cool – when compared the heat wave we had last week, so I guess I’m heading out to go through some of those boxes!

I’m a member of 2 quilt guilds. This past week the smaller group had their meeting and a spontaneous block swap was announced.  We are doing snowmen. The blocks will be due at our February meeting.  The guidelines are pretty simple:

• the blocks must be 12 1/2″ to finish at 12″
• any technique
• all blocks must be identical

We had been talking about using Crayons to color quilts so I plan to incorporate that in my block.  I went on line and looked for coloring book pages and found a snowman face with a top hat that I’m using for inspiration.

I plan to use crayons to color the nose. I’m not sure if I’ll embroider or paint the head, smile and eyes.  I have access to an Accuquilt system with a die for holly and berries and plan to cut those out next week.

I thought I  had more bowling trophies. I found them this morning when I went to my storage unit to retrieve a couple of chairs I was selling.  And look, the missing plaque! These were boxed back up and put in the car. I dropped them off at the thrift shop this afternoon.

Today I spent most of the day going through boxes of stuff – mostly old school records my husband kept.  I’m rather certain I do not need 20 year old practice records from his former students. I loaded up 5 boxes of paper to haul to the recyling center along with a couple of broken folding chairs.  I’ve also been posting stuff to sell on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.  It’s true — one persons trash is another’s treasure.  This today I sold a couple of sand chairs, a couple of nice chairs Ted and I planning to recover but never got around to doing, and a lawn mower. Additionally, I was able to give away a plotter that I had picked up off of Craigslist a few years ago.

Next month I think I’m going to take some of my smaller stuff to a “Junk in the Trunk” event next month.

Back when I was in high school I bowled and my teams won a few trophies. Excuse the mess behind the trophies. I’ve been cleaning the garage. These are the ones that were up in the attic until last summer when I got a new roof.  I’ve not bowled in years, have no place to display the trophies (or desire), and I’m trying to clean out 33 years of accumulated stuff.  I decided these were going out, so I took a picture of them, and close-ups of the plaques.

According to the note on the box the 5th plaque read  “King Louie West The Bowling Bunch 1981 Champs”. The plaque was not in the box.

I decided I needed to keep one of the trophies. So I kept this one:

“King Louie West” Valentine Jr-Maj Tour. 1981 Champs”.    I cleaned it up and for the moment it’s on the desk in the second bedroom.

Ironically today I saw this posting on Facebook.

I wasn’t part of the Clinton Band, but my husband was.  I’m going to ask my sister-in-law to see if there is a trophy from 1977-1980 and get it for me. Not that I know where I’ll put it either.

This past weekend I took 4 quilt tops out to my sister’s to quilt. Turns out that was a bit ambitious given that it’s been over 8 months since I used the long arm — and I was on my own. My sister was at work.

First up was Carolina Chain.  I took the class from Bonnie Hunter at the Mississippi Quilt Association June Gathering last June. I want to take it FINISHED with me when I take a class in August with her.

I used the panto Overlapping Crop Circles by Urban Elementz and Strawberry  Blond Glide in both the top and the bottom.

At this point I called it quits for the night, choosing not to load the next quilt on the frame in case I didn’t make it back out there.  But I did.  Day 2 was much better.  This is On Ringo Lake. I used the same Strawberry Blond Glide in the top, but Zaffee in the bobbin. The E2E design is Dragonfly Dance by Christy Dillon at mycreativestitches (I resized it to 13″ tall).  There were absolutely no tension issues.  I started loading the quilt around 1:40 and this picture was taken at 7:30.

I considered loading another quilt, but decided, I really should get home, but it’s ready to go another day when my sister’s and my schedules align (she’s not using the machine and I’m off work).  Now, to get these bound and labeled.