I've seen bloggers all over the place doing quilt journals. It's sometimes done with fabrics in book size. Where they actually create a tiny quilt each day. It's sometimes done on paper in self made books. I'm fascinated that the people can keep up with quilting, blogging, and journals while making it look so easy.

I do my own sort of journal that looks like this.....

I use wax paper to audition designs on the quilts I do. I come up with several designs then choose the one that I feel works best.

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I keep most of the pieces of wax paper for future reference. But........ how can I keep them in a book without re drawing? I have a ton of wax paper pieces with drawings on them. The problem is that I tend to fold the paper drawings up in bunches and stash them away. Then forget I have the drawings when I'm looking for ideas.

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This is one of the projects I'm planning for after the rush season when I start my annual reorganizing. I want to come up with a way to save all my wax paper drawings and make them more accessible and easy to view. I'm not sure how just yet but there has to be a way.

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Then there are the designs I just seem to do on a quilt without any auditioning. The designs that just kind of pop into my thoughts. I would like to keep those for future reference too. There has to be an easy way to record those for future inspiration without redrawing them?

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Oh well, this is something I can think about as I keep working on the current quilt. I hope to finish it today.

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A sure sign of winter on the way.... fog and trees changing colors.

I worked all day to finish the t-shirt quilt yesterday. It was supposed to be a double size but when all sewn together it was only a twin. I miss figured somehow. Now I need to take it apart to make it larger. I sure don't like frog stitching and simply adding a border won't do. After realizing that I'd made a big boo boo; I decided it best to put that work aside to do something else. I started cutting the pieces for the next pieced top that must be finished before xmas.

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It feels like months since I've worked with my quilting machine when it's really only been a few days.... only a week. Surprising how attached that machine and I have become over the years. My reason for stopping the machine quilting and concentrating on the piecing is like this.... if I run short on time; a customer can give an unquilted top as a gift then bring it back to me later to quilt it. They would be able to see what the gift really is; but, the recipient wouldn't understand a bunch of cut up clothing fabrics in a box.

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I like to get the hardest work finished before I get tired from the rush, rush, rush of the season. If the quilts requiring the most work are done; the rest is smooth sailing. Although I do try to balance my time between a concentration quilt and a mindless quilt so I'm not burned out mid-way through the season.

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I've another busy day ahead of me........ later.

Yesterday I finished the purple photo quilt top. It's now waiting it's turn on the machine. I then started on a t-shirt quilt and worked on it until about 11 last night. I did stop long enough to make a big pot of chili for supper. Most of it went into the freezer to be used for quick meals as the xmas rush advances. I ate a very small bowl of it... very cautiously. I wasn't sure it would stay down. That; along with a glass of orange juice, gave me some strength. I feel much better today.

I hope to finish the t-shirt quilt top today. I may have to call the owner since it's finishing up much smaller than she wants it to be. It's possible I will have to take it apart and space the t-shirts out more. Or I could add a border.... I'll have to think about it some more.

As I sat last night working; I happen to turn the tv to cspan. I thought it would be just boring enough to keep me from stopping to watch. Movies or evening shows have me stopping to watch and I didn't want to stop working. I never thought cspan would have me glued to the tv like it did last night. No, I didn't watch.... I just listened while I worked; but, my attention was fully on what was being said.

There was some type of economic panel discussion going on in washington. I'm not sure what it was exactly because I tuned in after it had started. Very interesting thoughts were presented by some top advisors on economics and the bail out plan. I learned a lot more from listening to this discussion than all the news reports put together over the last weeks. I'm hoping it will be repeated so I can hear the whole thing.

I'm getting a late start this morning so I won't type-talk more. Work must get done.

Ok, Saturday my computer leaves home to visit with a friend who worked on it to make it better. On Sunday morning my computer comes back. It is soooooo much better!!

Saturday, I looked through the quilting work to be finished by xmas and decided to finish piecing the remaining three tops I have left to do. I'm thinking if I get those finished it will greatly reduce the stress of staying on deadline. There won't be anything except staying on the machine to finish out the xmas rush season.

On Sunday afternoon this is where I am on the first top. The squares are almost completed..... when my stomach starts to feel queezzzy..... ugh. I had just finished drinking a milk shake from a fast food place.

Maybe that was it.... bad milk shake... OR someone had been around me that was sick. Either way by the end of Sunday I'm in bed with a bucket beside it. Nothing will stay down, not even water and I feel extremely thirsty. That's where I remained until yesterday afternoon. Geeze..... more days behind schedule. I'm finally able to keep something in my stomach although it's still just clear soups and juices.

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Today I'm going to pick up where I left off with the purple picture quilt. I'm planning to finish it then see what is best to do next. I'm taking it one step at a time. If I feel weak... I will lay back down. This seems to be the hardest year I've had for a long, long time. I look forward to finishing the season and moving on. Hopefully, next year will be much better.

It's been a quiet few days for me. I've been working but not quickly. I've also had to deal with these little creatures. There are about 4 or 5 of them hanging out on my porch lately. Bright colors usually mean poison. The bright blue tail keeps me away. They're very quick moving little things!

My batting order finally arrived on Wednesday. I got started on this quilt and had lots of breaking thread problems. I couldn't work on Thursday because I went to the dentist. Another tooth pulled. I'll get this quilt finished today.... somehow. The breaking thread is always a puzzle of finding the problem.


When I win the lottery I'm gonna get myself one of these! Click the word to see what I'm talking about.

Wow! To be able to lay out a whole quilt and watch the designs being stitched. Just imagine how creative I could be with customer quilts. Hmm... I wonder how they deal with constantly breaking thread and tension issues. I wonder if I can do McTavishing or Rickydoodles on it too? What size bobbins would it use?

Ok, I gotta stop dreaming and get to work this morning.

My last post was pretty obvious. I was showing Sherry her quilt before I put it into the mail. I started to put the photos into my web shots.... oops! The web shots software wasn't there. I haven't taken the time to reinstall it yet. I gotta do that really soon. I'm running out of room on my camera.

Well anyway I quickly loaded some of the photos onto the blog so she could take a quick peek before she had to leave for her guild meeting.

Today I'm putting a few more pictures here to show the finished quilt.

This is the left side....



This is the right side....

This top "had" to have black thread for the quilting. A guild rule, not mine. My challenge was to use the black thread without overwhelming the colors and design of the top.

The theme of the top was friends quilting together. So what do friends do when together? All the things from the words Sherry sent me to put into the quilting.

Quilting usually means lots of thread and needles all over the place. In this case meandering seemed appropriate to represent thread.

and there is coffee mugs, pin cushions, scissors,

and of course even more needles and thread....

I've got another top on the machine. I was going along really nicely quilting it yesterday. I got the quilt stabilized almost to the end without any problems. Then I started getting skipped stitches. I was able to backtrack a couple of stitches to fix where it skipped. As I kept quilting the problem got worse. So I had no choice but to stop quilting to track down the problem.

I dusted and I oiled.... still skipping. I tweaked tensions and tweaked the bobbin case..... still skipping. I shut off the air conditioner in case it was drawing current from the machine..... still skipping... thank goodness cause it was hot in the studio. I checked stitch regulator wheels.... still skipping.

The only thing left to check is the thread. The thread I use will be fine until I get about half way through the cone then it starts to act up. I think its a terrible waste to only be able to use half a cone before opening another.

Anyway, I pulled thread with one hand while watching it move through all the guides.... it seemed to pull unevenly to me. Yes, it must be the thread. So I go to find a new cone of that color.... you guessed it..... don't have anymore. I decided to call the store to ask if they have another cone in that color. Oops! The store is out of business. They closed last week.... I remember that... it was on the news.

I have no other choice. I must finish this top with the thread I have. It means I will be spending lots of extra time fixing spots where there are skipped stitches. One or two... now and then... would be fine with this customer.... but the skips happen much too often. It looks half quilted.

OK, enough blogging and procrastinating.... time to face the problem.

I still have this one on the machine.




As you can see it's getting lots of quilting on it.







I figured it would take me all week to finish it and I seem to have been right. I hope to get it all done by the end of today or at the latest on Monday. I looked at my waiting list yesterday. Due to all the events happening in my life the last few months, I'm about 2 months behind schedule. My Christmas rush season officially starts in July.... geeze, it sure does feel like the rush... more than ever before.


I had to laugh yesterday. A customer called me to get onto my waiting list. I explained that I'm booked up through the end of the year. She replies.... that's ok, I don't need it until November. I gotta change the way I tell people I'm not taking anymore names for this year.

I stopped working a little early yesterday in order to search my stash for some fabrics. I need the fabrics for a class I'm taking on Saturday at a LQS. I really shouldn't be taking the time away from my machine right now. I couldn't resist taking this class though. In order to take the class I've set aside one of my fair entry quilts. It won't get finished for this year.

The class is about creating photos in fabric. The teacher is Julianne Kravetz from Lexington. Just about everyone knows by now that I want to create portrait quilts more than anything. I want to create them so much that's its very hard to concentrate on other things like eating or cleaning or quilting customer quilts. No way would I miss taking a class that comes here instead of me having to travel out of town.


I will also get to see one of the girls from the Nice Ladies group again. She's taking the class too. I'm looking forward to that.


I had the strangest dream last night about the class I'm taking Saturday. I dreamed I made a mask from a paper bag. You know the kind kids do by cutting holes for eyes then putting it over their head? Well, I used fabric to make stringy hair on my mask. I drew eyebrows and rosey cheeks and a big goofy grin. Then put it on to go to the class. I also had a big floppy hat and big clown sized sun glasses. On my chest was a sign that said.... "This is not Anita. I'm her twin sister. She's still at home quilting your quilt."

I can't figure out what's up with blogger lately. It keeps changing the spacing between the paragraphs. Adds bunches of extra lines in some places and takes them all out in other places.

Time for me to get to work....

Geeze, when will I get a break!

I was down to the last 5 inches of design on todays quilt when the storms hit. I lost electricity for the rest of the night and most of this morning. The wind yesterday was something! I lost this little tree in the front of the house. It wasn't a big concern though because it was pretty much dead anyway.


Sometimes the fabrics used in a quilt give me pause. I can't figure out how to quilt it. If I use a design then the pictures of the fabric is lost. Yet, it must be quilted. This is an example of what I mean. I'm not sure the designer of this fabric considered how it would be quilted and keep the beauty of the pictures.


After the power came back on again this morning; I finished the last small area; then loaded the next one on the machine; then came to my computer to make a post. This is the finished quilt.


I did baby rattles on the inside border. It was one single baby rattle that didn't get done when the storm happened. I did line dancing on the center pieced area.


Another view of the line dancing.


A view from the back showing the line dancing.


And a view from the back of how I quilted the outside border with the pictures. I used clear thread on the front and pink on the back. A simple outline along the top and bottom of the characters.


I'm not sure how much of the quilt on the machine will get finished today. I have another project that will take priority over working on a customer quilt. If I get the other project finished then I will get back to working at the machine.

What's the project? Paperwork..... yuck! It's some organizing I should have done weeks ago but couldn't get to it because of other circumstances. I have one simple paper to find among bunches and bunches of papers. A very necessary paper for the annual renewal of my mother's nursing home care.

I do have everything necessary for keeping papers filed..... I just didn't use them as I should have. When I'm extremely busy and running behind on the waiting list; or when I'm not feeling my best; I tend to stack up papers believing that I will get to those later.... only later get pushed back time and time again. So today I'm going to setup and test a solution to my paperwork problem.

Why work on this instead of a customer quilt? Simple really, if I'm not organized..... I can't quilt on schedule. I will spend far too much time looking for something than is reasonable. If I'm organized I should be able to find it, deal with it, then get back to work. Ok, what I mean is..... the less time I spend on other projects like locating papers for renewals, the more time I have for quilting.

I don't have any pictures of finished quilts today. I did get one quilt done on Thursday but it left here before I could take one of it.

The baby was sick on Friday. She has a virus infection with a fever and stuffy nose. She's too little to blow her nose so I stayed close enough to help her when she had trouble breathing. Needless to say I didn't get any work finished. She was more important.

Yesterday I let the machine sit idle while I tackled this room.... AGAIN! This is where everything lands until I have time to sort it all out.


There is more in this room than just fabrics. There is clothes someone gave me that fit. I still need to clean out the clothes from my closet that don't fit anymore before these can go in there. I think I've lost about 70 lbs. I also have some Christmas toys for the grands, a bin full of family photos and stuff, a couple of small tables I want to paint, some boxes I save for sending customers their quilt or to turn into nice storage boxes, etc, etc.

There is plenty of things under my design walls too.


Here it is. This is looking into the closet.


Here's a view of the room after I sorted it all out. The view into the closet.


And the view into the room.



The clothes that were too big have gone to the thrift store and new smaller ones took their place in my bedroom closet. Christmas gifts are wrapped and stored in another room. Boxes are either broken down and stored or setting in the kitchen waiting for me to make them prettier. Fabrics are sorted and folded. WIPs and PIGs are back in the right place. Batting scraps and some scrap fabrics were picked up by a charity group. Tshirt backs have been sorted into colors and stored ready for making into rugs. The tables are on the porch waiting for me to paint. So, everything is cleaned out and ready for me to start tossing things in there again because I don't take the time to sort.

On another note.... just about everyone who knows me personally can tell you that I am a very giving person. It's the main reason I do so much for charity and share by posting to my helpful hints blog. I will share new techniques I'm creating or let people see what quilt I am working on for myself. Last week my giving nature decided to bite me on the butt. What happened is very personal and definitely not something I plan to tell all over the internet or talk about with customers or friends. It's happened before and believe me... those bites on the butt are very painful.

I have decided it will be best if I keep my WIPs, PIGs, and new techniques hidden from view until after they have been finished. If it be a contest quilt I'm working on it will not be shown until it's actually in the contest. If I'm working on a new piecing technique I will not let it be seen until I've had a chance to perfect it. I'd like to be the one teaching it.

I moved all my current quilt projects out of my studio and into another room so they can't be seen by anyone coming into my home. I will only take them out when no one will be here but me. I'm keeping all posts to the helpful hints blogs as drafts until I've had the chance to get the most use out of them before sharing.

If anyone is tempted to email and ask what happened..... DON'T. I will not answer. If you want to send a note of encouragement..... PLEASE DO! Happy notes are most welcome right now.

Today's finished quilt. The customer brought me the pattern directions for me to quilt just like it was in the instructions. It has meandering in the background behind the flower appliqué.

1 1/2 inch cross hatching on the border.

There wasn't any stitching done on the flower centers before it was brought to me so I did a tiny serpentine line around those and a stitch in the ditch around the petals like was in the directions.


I worked on this quilt instead of doing the binding on the Friday deadline quilt. I'll have to finish that one today for sure. I also have a very large pre marked top on the machine ready to go. My best guess it that it will take me about a week to get it quilted if I work at least 10 hours a day. It's very hard to stay on schedule when I get so many of these very large time consuming quilts in a row.

Maybe I should re work my waiting list and only put one quilt a week on it instead of 3 a week. It will mean a lot less income and a lot less to pay bills with.... but.... also a lot less deadline stress.

This is what I've been busy working on all week. A whole cloth quilt. This is the front.


The color is very vivid!


It's easier to see the design from the back. I used verigated thread on both the front and back. Quilted it upside down because it was easier to see a drawn design on the white than on the color of the top.





To see more pictures of this quilt you can click on my webshots link on the top of the side bar. Go to the April 2008 album.

The customer did not want any overall freehand type design nor did he want any "froo-froo" such as feathers. I learned a valuable lesson from doing this quilt. I will not do another one! Unless it is already marked and ready to go onto the machine. It's too time consuming to actually earn a living.

This quilt has put me way behind on the other tops waiting to be quilted. Hopefully this week I can get more accomplished. The bills need to get paid.

Ok, a few days ago I was sitting and dreaming of what my studio would look like if I managed to buy the empty lot next door. I've been keeping it mowed and cleaned of junk and saving my pennies for several years just waiting for it to come up on the city auction block. See... I can money along with the vegetables every year.


All of a sudden I feel the whole house shake and vibrate.... earthquake!? I run outside... to find that it was only the old Phillip Morris plant being imploded..... or was it? As the day progressed I realized it was my dreams tumbling down in an avalanche of boulders in my path. I found out that my dream of getting the lot next door will never happen. The city didn't even give me a chance to buy the lot.... no auction at all..... they sold it to a rich person. A house is going to be built there.

Ummm.... I guess I should explain what I mean by a rich person. There is a very big difference between a rich person and a wealthy person. A rich person is someone with money and doesn't care who they trample on in the quest to get even more rich. Donald Trump is one example. A rich person also flaunts their money to those with less. You know who I mean.... the ones who have flashy expensive cars and 2000 dollar shoes. They treat store clerks and hotel janitors like it is their lot in life to be servants to the rich.

A wealthy person is sooo much different. A wealthy person has money but you would never know it by talking or working with them. Wealthy people are the ones with the biggest hearts. These are the people who give anonymously to a needy person featured in a news broadcast about tragedy. Wealthy people drive 15 year old cars and shop thrift stores for college kid furniture. In other words, this is how they stay wealthy.... by not spending foolishly.

I am neither rich nor wealthy.... although I do my best to live frugal and do what I can to give to charity. Well anyway, my dreams of having a studio next door have come crashing down... never to be seen again. The boulders in my path are too many to step around. I have to turn back and find another path..... this time I'm not sure I want to find another path.

In this particular case.... the wealthy person just happens to be a church. It uses tithe money to buy cheap land to build houses to rent so it can buy even more cheap land to develop. Why would a church need sooo much money but doesn't help the needy? Yes, you read right.... it doesn't help the needy. No food pantry and no help center office but the church does own many, many rental buildings, land, restaurants, businesses and such in the west end.

Ok, enough of my grumbling.... I'll set those thoughts aside and show you what I did while I was without a computer.... There was this issues quilt. I sometimes call these my challenge quilts. The quilts challenge me to make them flat. The maker is such a sweet old lady. As you can see... plenty of issues.


Plenty of fullness.... and loose threads....



Also has very friendly borders..... this one waves at me plenty... A tuck here and there helps.


An open design tames much of the fullness....


Can't stitch in the ditch when I can't find the ditch.... serpentine lines help stabilize it so a design can be done in the blocks....


A quilt with issues benefits from a really nice design.... the owner will be so busy looking at the roses she won't even notice the fullness anymore... besides, this quilt is for a special grandchild.... the owner's grand-daughter.... Victoria Rose.


And here it is.... as flat as I could make it... time and a few washings will flatten more of it. Pat myself on the back... no wonder they call me the quilt fix all fairy... (wink, wink, smile)


The next one to be quilted.... a quilt by an appliqué artist.


Woodgrain design on the frame...


Couldn't quilt on the arms or legs... it's padded... but I could contour the dress.


And the glass just seemed to need close diagonal lines to indicate it was solid.


Then on to this quilt....


Cross hatching in the center.....


Fish on the outside border to go with the fish in some of the fabrics...


Next was this one....


It was full of flower fabrics so flowers were the design in the blocks and the inside border....


More flowers on the border..... this time it gets a leaf vine instead.


A view of the leaf vine from the back.


Ok, I also worked at changing this room's color from this....


To this.... I have plenty more work to do in here before I can actually get started moving stuff back. Lots of trim to finish and the closet office to paint.


Decided I better find a better place for the travel baby bed.... thank goodness it's small... I decided the best place would be here in the corner.... so it got cleaned out....


The baby bed finally has a place of its own... looks like Jewell appreciates the new spot.



And finally.... I worked on these.... I'm supposed to have these wall hangings finished by the 10th of April. They are supposed to be in a gift shop before the Derby season starts. I hope I manage to finish in time.... if not.... oh well, its a head start on next year.



So that's what I did while I was without a computer..... when I'm not spending a few hours a day reading and typing.... I get more work done.