The last 2010 quilt

This quilt is finished even though the owner gave me permission to not quilt it if I had other priorities.  I decided to go ahead and quilt it to call an end to the 2010 quilting schedule.  Now I'm all set to do the end of year paperwork with an empty slate for 2011. 

It's a dog theme quilt so I did paw prints on the outside border.  I did a swag design on the inside border to jazz it up a bit. 

I did dog biscuits on the setting triangles.

This person prefers minimal quilting on her quilts.  I did line dancing on the pieces and simple outline around the dogs of the solid squares.   I can always add more quilting but it's very hard to take away quilting if it's too much.

December 2nd would have been my son Derek's 47th birthday.  He committed suicide when he was 40.  I spent a good deal of time thinking of him on his day.   

I mentioned that I had mice (or maybe rats) in my house.  Living in a poorer section of the city means we get these critters regularly.  Every time there is a house torn down or set on fire the rats scatter to near by homes.  It always creeps me out!  It makes me feel like my house is filthy.  Also, lately I've been feeling like I'm a borderline hoarder.  Yes, as pointed out to me, I am a collector not a hoarder.  But I still feel as if my collecting could get totally out of control if I don't do something about it.

I'm also a clean cook.  I scrub and clean my kitchen counters every weekend.  I scrub and clean before I start cooking or preparing foods to be eaten the coming week.  Well, the past weekend as I started cleaning I found this behind the stuff on my kitchen counter.  Yikes!!  Double yikes!! 

This set me into a panic big time.  Immediately I felt dirty.  My house felt dirty.  Everything in sight felt dirty, including my quilting and craft stuff.  Right away I got out my cleaning supply stash and started scrubbing.  First with bleach, a second time with peroxide, and twice more with disinfectant soap.  I scrubbed cabinets, appliances, dishes, pot & pans, silverware, counters, floors..... everything in the kitchen except the refrigerator.  I'm going to clean it today.  I'm tired of take out foods. 

The kitchen still feels dirty even though I know it's not.  I went through a whole bottle of bleach, peroxide, and soap on the kitchen alone.  This weekend and in the next couple of weeks I'll be cleaning the studio, the bathroom, and everything else I can get done.  I hope all the mice (or rats) are dead.  I'll know their not if I find anymore traces left behind. 

Thankfully, my foods were in glass jars.  The jars got a good scrubbing and nothing will be stored on the counters anymore.   If there's nothing on the counter then the varmints can't hide there.  Inside the cabinets is a different matter.  The counter is where I prepare foods.   I want to know it's absolutely clean before I ever do any food preparation.

Well now that I've let you know the dirty side of my life, I'm also starting to work on the 6 charity quilts I want to finish by the 12th.  

Two more quilted

This one got finished first.  I had a bit of trouble thinking of what to quilt on it.  It's golf themed so I tried doing golf balls and tees.  Those didn't come out looking like what they were supposed to be.  I switched to tried and true designs for masculine quilts. 

Flying geese on the inside border and line dancing on the pieced squares.

Loops can pass for golf balls flying around all over the place on the snow ball blocks.

Repeat the design on the inside border to carry the design.  More flying geese on the outside border to also carry the design through the quilt.

This one is also finished.  It was a tough one.  It has never seen an iron.  I had to fight with it a bit until I got it conquered and somewhat square.  I'm glad I'm not the one going to be putting a binding on it.  Whew.

The customer wanted stars on it.  The loops were to help me tame it.

View of another section. 

This quilt started out like this. 

It has more than it's fair share of issues which is why it needed the loops.  Loops mean I can skip around the difficult issues without damaging it or my machine.... or my dignity. 

The star centers are not pieced, they are very loosely appliqued.  Many were coming loose or were not sewn in the first place.  Hmm.... I mean sewn but did not get attached as the needle went through.

Majority of the stars looked like this one.  I've said it before and it bears repeating as many times as required...... to improve your piecing, learn to iron.  Every time a seam is sewn, iron it before sewing the next seam.  Pressing the seams show where there is a problem.  Don't just continue to sew and compound the errors.  If you start off right, press at every step, and fix problems as they occur, you can make a perfect quilt every time.  So let me repeat it again..... if you want to create a perfect quilt, learn to iron every seam as it is sewn. 

I have one more quilt to finish for this year.  Yippie!  This means I still have time for some ME projects.  I'm going to work on the one remaining quilt starting Monday.  The rest of today and tomorrow is for some major house keeping in the studio.  The dust bunnies have been very frolicked lately.  They've multiplied just like bunnies do.   It's time to weed out the dust bunny herd and donate a few to the land fill. 

I'm still working on improving my helpful hints blog.  I've gone through over half of them and chosen which page to list the links.  Now if only I could get the computer to cooperate with me.  I think it's my mouse gone bad.   What can I do with a rougue mouse?  I'll deal with him until I can get a replacement. 

More quilting done

I finished quilting these two pillow covers.  I was taking them off the machine when the owner knocked on my door.  That was cutting it really close on finishing.  If they weren't finished the customer would not have minded.... but I would.  I like to keep my promises.  No pictures of the quilting but it was the same designs as the quilt. 

I loaded the next quilt on the machine ready for stabilizing it today.  Then I tried working on my helpful hints blog for awhile.  I'm creating "pages" with links on them for the different step by step posts and making those into printable pages.  I kept getting this message.... over and over and over again.  It got frustrating enough that I just quit.  Decided some house cleaning and laundry might be a little less stressful than dealing with a cranky internet. 

Later I sat on the porch and looked at the fall colors for a while.  In just a few days the trees will be naked again and really cold weather is just around the corner. I cleaned out the square foot garden on the side of my house.  Nothing but lots of tomato vines left so it wasn't a really big chore.  I think my garden was successful enough for not having done any for a very long time.  I will add a couple more small beds for next year. 

Today will be filled with cooking bread, cleaning the kitchen, mopping floors, and making lists of what I want to accomplish during my holiday break..... whenever it starts.  For the first time in many years, this time of year is 'quilting stress' free.  I'm not working 16 hours a day and I'm not rushing around like a mad woman.  I'm actually cooking instead of popping something into the microwave to eat a bite in between rows of quilting.  I do miss the quilting income because paying bills is much harder; but, the freedom from stress is worth more than all the money I could have earned. 

Whew, it's done

I was gone shopping all day Friday.  Saturday and Sunday I worked to get this finished.  This is the quilt laying on the intake table.  The quilt hangs off the other end.

The border design.

The design on the blocks.

A view from the back.

A leafy design on the inside borders.

I have two pillow covers to quilt that go with this quilt.  Only three more tops to get quilted before my holiday break can start. 

I took a few minutes yesterday to work on link pages for my hints blog.  Something is going on with my computer and it's very irritating.  Maybe someone knows what it is and can tell me how to fix it?  Here's what happens.  You know how you can click on the X to get out of a program?  Just click and zap the program is closed.  Ok, imagine working on the computer, I click a link and I am zapped off the internet.  Any kind of random link like going from edit post to view blog, or click on a photo to load to the blog, or to check a link I've added or clicking on an email to reply to it.  This happens randomly, not every time on the same links.  Get the idea?  I click on things and my internet randomly instantly shuts down. 

This would be irritating by itself.  But, the computer freezes up when I try to get back on the internet.  The only way I can get back on the internet is to shut off the computer and then turn it back on again.  Another thing that happens is sometimes when writing an email or writing a blog post if I backspace to correct spelling then try to start typing, the computer tells me there is a problem and it must shut down.  No choice but to click ok.  Which freezes when I try getting back on again. 

I've run spybot and AVG free to check for problems but nothing shows up as a problem.  Does anyone know what this problem might be?  It's taken almost three hours just to create this post because of the number of times I've been zapped off the internet.  I gave up over the weekend trying to answer emails.  Reading  was fine but clicking on reply zapped the internet off except for a couple I managed to send.  Hmm... if those actually got sent.  Any help appreciated.

Two quilts pieced

This one is waiting on the owner to give approval before I quilt it.  It doesn't look like it in the photo but the squares are different sizes so the sashing is different sizes too. 

This one has been taken home and will return the first week of January to be quilted.  There is one square for each grandchild plus some blank squares for future grandchildren. 

The next quilt is on the machine and stabilized.  I'm guessing it will take about 4 days to complete.  I'm a long way from my goal of finishing all the quilts by the first week of November.  That's ok though because it was only a personal goal and not a customer deadline. 

Thank you everyone for the advice on the vitamin D.  I didn't explain myself right.  Must have been after effects of the illness.  I wasn't planning to take as much iron as I was given as a child.  I know that would be too much iron.  Back when I was a child iron was different.  It wasn't concentrated in pills like it is today.  I was planning to take a vitamin that says plus iron.  Something for seniors like maybe centrum silver or a similar one.  I'll add vitamin D too.

One of the things I really want to do over the holidays is make my hints blog a little easier to search.  I'm going to use blogger pages feature to set up some links for the different topics.  For example if someone wants to read only the posts about quilting they can find them all on the quilting page.  Or if a reader is only interested in frugal recipes those can be found on the recipes page.  It will take quite a bit of time to look at 300 posts, decide on which page it should be found, and then write 300 links.   

Actually, I have quite a few goals for things I want to accomplish over the holiday break.  All of them are organizing and cleaning goals.  Everything around me seems to have gotten out of control.  From the stuff on my computer to the stuff in my kitchen to the stuff for crafts.  I want to start the new year off with a clean and organized life..... again.  How much I get accomplished isn't as important as just getting done what I can.  Each day delayed starting is simply a day less to accomplish the goals. 

Another one finished

This quilt didn't take as long as I thought it would after getting it stabilized. 

I did simple meandering on all the blocks and a loop design on the sashing around the outside.  The reason I didn't do a design on the inside sashing is because of really large hard knots from the intersection of the squares.  Hitting one of those knots would have broken a needle.

The reason for the meandering is because of this on some of the blocks.  Padded, thick, and very cute.

No way to quilt over these and too small an area to quilt a design around them. 

My mother is not doing too well.  I believe she is slipping into the next phase of the dementia.  There are 7 phases.  After the anger phase comes a time when the person is confused and becomes more feeble.  Yesterday she called me, with the help of the nursing staff, to ask if I had talked with Mama and Papa lately.  Mama and Papa are what we both call my grandparents.  Mom in her confusion didn't understand that they had died several years ago.  Mom also asked if I knew her baby brother and sister had died.  She doesn't,  didn't have a baby sister and brother that died.  Well, at least to my knowledge she didn't.  Maybe she is remembering something I was never told. 

Later in the day Mom was helped to call me again.  The nurse said Mom had asked how many rings to crank the phone to call her Mama.  Our first phone was the kind like you see in movies with a crank on the side to turn to make a ring on the line.  Cities had phones that sat on a table and you talked with an operator to get through to who you were calling but we were in the backwoods where we still used wall crank phones.  I guess the pay phone in the nursing home does sort of look like an old time crank phone if you use your imagination. 

This next time Mom believed I was her Mama and asked how Papa was doing getting the fields plowed.  Mom also asked me about someone I'm not sure I had ever heard of before.  I can't remember the name right now but it was supposedly a friend that shared a house with my mother.  Both ladies had husbands away in the war so they helped each other.  My grandparents owned the house they shared.  It was in walking distance of the house my grandparents lived in. 

The nursing staff said Mom has been going around asking people if they had seen her Mama because she couldn't find her.  I talked with the doctor about Mom's condition.  It may be a possibility of an infection making her confused.  With her other medical problems an infection will sometimes cause Mom to revert back to memories of her younger days.  Some blood tests were taken and I'll know more after the results come back. 

I'll be piecing together the two memory quilts today if there aren't any complications with my mother.  I also have an appointment later today.  I'm hoping to get those two quilt tops finished so the owners can see them in the next few days.  It's their last chance to make changes before the quilting is done. 

Another one finished

I have this quilt finished.  I forgot to take a full view of it laying on the intake table. 

This is the design from the corner triangles.

I did le lace on the sashing around the pieced blocks.

I did line dancing on the pieced squares.

Another of the pieced squares with the line dancing. 

Remember when I couldn't decided which feather to put on the setting triangles?  Well, I used a combination of both just like you saw on the sketch.

Here's the solid squares which look like snow ball blocks.

The triangles on the corners of the solid blocks have a tri-leaf design.

Remember the area of the extra fullness?  I went back and did a stitch in the ditch around the inside sashing.  No tucks at all.  What looks like tucks in the photo is actually extra fullness.  When the quilt is washed those areas will relax. 

I have the next quilt ready for the machine.  I'm waiting for the batting before I can start on it.  I may do a smaller quilt if the UPS truck doesn't come today.  I could have sworn I had ordered the batting at least a month ago.  I looked all over the house for a wandering batting but it was no where to be found.  Then I realized I had used it for making my largest window quilts thinking it was just an extra batting.  DUH!   My mistake.  I keep a supply of packaged batting.  I usually write the customer's name on the package so I know it's taken.  For some reason I hadn't done that for this batting.   No name meant it was an extra.  My memory is slipping.  Have to be careful with that from now on.

Wild knitted socks

Has anyone seen the wild color socks on Melody's blog?  (Tuesday, October 12) The mis-matched ones, (with orange and purple at the foot) look just like my kind of socks!  She's making knitted items and giving them away to her readers. I would love to have those socks but I'm too shy to ask for them. 

I got the borders of the current quilt finished.  This is how it looked a few days ago.

This is after I did the feathers on the two sides.

This is after I did the lines between the two feathers.

This is after the first inside border is done and I'm working on the second inside border.  Notice the little fullness spot on the left next to the setting triangle?  That was my target spot for taking all the pictures.

After the second inside border is done.  See how the fullness is being worked in so far?  Those are not pleats or tucks, they are just extra fullness.

Before the third inside border is done. 

After I got it finished.  There is only one tiny tuck at the target spot.

Here is how it all looks now.  I didn't do a stitch in the ditch between the inside borders when I was stabilizing the quilt.  I only did beside the widest outside border and next to the setting triangles.  Now that the quilting is done I'll go back and stitch in the ditch between those borders which will smooth out the last of the extra fullness.  The part that looks like tucks in the photo but really aren't. 

This is the design I've chosen for the large open areas of the quilt.

One of these feathers will be on the setting triangles.  I haven't decided which one yet.  It will be V shaped though.

I won't be quilting today.  I've got two bushel of greens to clean, cut up, blanch, and put into the freezer before Ladybug arrives later today.