Another finish!!

Watch out…I’m on a roll, lol. After (finally) finishing the commissioned t-shirt quilt I decided to pull out a UFO that I basted many months ago. To my surprise the spray baste was still holding so after a quick ironing I jumped into quilting it.

I did big loops in a meander across the top

I finished it up today, binding and all…woot woot. It measures 47×60

I have one more quilt waiting in the basted pile…maybe I can get that one done too 😉

ttfn…

 

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It’s done! It’s done! It’s done!

Posting off my normal Sunday schedule because I’m so happy to report I F.I.N.A.L.L.Y finished the t-shirt memory quilt!!! Can I get a Hallelujah and an AMEN!!!

Here’s the finished quilt laying on my bedroom floor in all it’s glory! This puppy measures 72×90!

I used the same fabric for backing and binding…

Here’s a close up of that fabric

Last but not least, there’s a surprise on the back…three more t-shirts! Thanks to a suggestion from Quiltmouse I removed them from the front because the quilt was far too long. Now when the quilt is folded down, there are more memories to see.

I am so stinkin relieved to have this quilt finished I can’t even put it into words!!

I’ll call the ‘owner’ tomorrow and make arrangements to take it to her – I’m sure she’s going to be just as happy to finally have a finished quilt 🙂

ttfn…

I’m getting there

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and I finally started quilting the t-shirt memory quilt…but…there was an issue, of course!

Because this quilt is so big and heavy, I moved my sewing machine to the dining room table so I could use it to help support the weight of the quilt. I got everything setup and I started doing my meander pattern. I was humming along and got about 1/3 through when I stopped to check the back… cue the ‘dun, dun, dun’ music!

Omg, there were ripples and tucks everywhere!!! I just about cried 😦  Actually, the very first section I quilted was fine but everything else was a mess. I let it sit for a few days trying to think of a way to salvage the quilting but I finally faced the truth – there’s no way to salvage it. I didn’t even have the stomach take a picture of it!

I reached out to a quilting friend to ask for tips or tricks for ripping it out and she said to ‘work from the back’. Cut the thread in one spot, move a few inches away and cut again and use the seam ripper to lift the thread out. After I got the hang of it, the ripping went pretty fast but I was still grumbling about it the whole time. I was also trying to figure out how I was going to prevent it from happening again!

I laid the quilt out face down on my bedroom floor and smoothed out the backing…the only choice to keep it from moving again was to pin it – UGH, I hate pinning! But that’s what I did, I pinned it from the back which in hindsight was not the smartest thing to do if you’re quilting from the top!! LOL Will this torture ever end? LOL

I got it back to the dining room and started quilting again…this time it worked fine! I’m over halfway done and will finish the quilting today – whoop whoop!

I looked back in my posts to see when I started this puppy –  September!! Oh my…I’m so embarrassed it’s taken me this long to get to this point…but it is what it is.

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In other news…we still haven’t moved to Myrtle Beach yet. DH has been dragging his feet but we finally figured out what was wrong. Here’s a classic case of what NOT to do when taking pills:

DH takes four B12 vitamins every morning as instructed by his doctor (he’s deficient). I order them from Amazon and last month he asked me to reorder because he was getting low. When the new shipment came in, he commented they look different from last time. I told him I ordered the same thing as last time so we started investigating.

Last Feb, he asked me to buy him a new non-habit forming sleep aid from Unisom called Sleep Mini’s. As I always do, I checked Amazon and they had a 6-pk on sale so we got them (that adds up to 360 pills). When they came in, DH removed them from their original packaging and put them in an  empty B12 bottle – I think you can see where this is going.

When his B12 supply started getting low last year, he refilled it with the Sleep Mini’s without even giving it another thought. Bottom Line: for about 3 months he was mistakenly taking 4 Sleep Mini’s every morning instead of B12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder he was so lethargic and out of it!

DH learned a HUGE lesson – do not take pills out of their original packing!! He’s been off those pills for almost a month now and he’s feeling more like his old self every day – whew!

We have made some progress in Myrtle Beach – we had internet installed and we got CPI to install the alarm system with all the new bells & whistles. I can do everything from my smart phone: arm/disarm, open/close the garage door, see who’s at the front door with the door bell cam. It’s pretty neat. We also got the fence installed so Sammie can run free in the back yard. And last week, DH drove down for the delivery of our new mattresses. Next up is getting DirecTV.

Right now the planned move date is early March.

I’ll end it there…have a great rest of the weekend.

Moving the needle

Ah yes, that title is an intended pun! I don’t have a lot of progress to share but I did at least get the commissioned quilt iron basted…meaning after spray basting it outside a few weeks ago it sat draped over my ironing board waiting to be ironed to ‘really’ set the spray basting.

I finally got around to doing that yesterday – and I should’ve kept that momentum going but I’m still not sure how I want to quilt this monster. Part of me says to do straight line quilting down and across to create a ‘box’ effect but I’ve had issues in the past with the backing getting rippled and tucked when I do that. My go-to quilting motif is a random meander which will take quite a bit of time on a quilt this size but I’ve had much success with that on t-shirt quilts. So…I guess I just answered my own question!!! Ha!

Now that that’s settled, I’ll load up 4 bobbins, change my needle and HOPEFULLY get started 😉

Have a great rest of the weekend…ttfn!!

 

 

Still procrastinating

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I’m still procrastinating on that commissioned t-shirt quilt. Needless to say I won’t be taking on another one of these any time soon. I’m seriously burnt out on this type of project 😦

Over the past two weeks, I did actually finish re-working the top by pulling out one of the sections and moving it to the back…and last weekend DH helped me get the monster basted but… since then it’s been hanging over the ironing board in my sewing room untouched. Even though I’ve put it on my To-do list every day for the last week, I’ve just ‘ignored’ it 😦 Grrrr, I can be so frustrating – LOL!

We are still planning our move to Myrtle Beach and have F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. picked a date – Feb 9th – so I’ve REALLY got to get a move on this quilt if I have any hope of finishing it before I have to pack up my sewing room – YIKES!

Speaking of moving – I’ve contacted Penske to get a quote for the truck rental, I’ve contacted a local moving/hauling company to get a quote for the manpower to load said truck. Once we make the reservation for the loading they’ll work with their franchise in Myrtle Beach to reserve manpower on the other end to unload said truck. It’s all starting to come together and we’ll be in serious packing mode very soon.

That’s about all for now…if you have any spare motivation, send it my way so I can get that quilt done!

ttfn 😉

 

Lazy Holidays

It’s been pretty low key around here for the last week. I was sick with a stomach bug on Christmas day – ugh!! I woke up at 3:30am with diarrhea, chills and a very sour stomach. I was able to go back to sleep for a little while but was back up before 7am again. I moved to the couch and around 10am finally ‘tossed my cookies’…sorry if this is too much information. I suffered through the rest of the day feeling like I’d been hit by 17 buses (no clue where that saying came from !?).

Needless to say, Christmas was postponed in our house until the next day. I felt a little better so we exchanged gifts and just hung out on the couch most of the day. Later, I fixed dinner but I couldn’t eat any of it 😦  I feel much better now so all’s well that ends well.

There was no sewing this past week – ugh – but I did talk with my neighbor about making changes to her commission quilt. As you may recall, in it’s current state it’s about 30 inches longer than it is wide and it will be too long for the full-size bed she plans to display it on so, we’re going to move one of the rows of shirts to the back side and position it at the top so if the quilt is folded down there is a little surprise of more shirts! (A big Thanks to Quilt Mouse for the suggestion!)

That will be my mission this week – unpick and resew the top and piece the backing.

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Let’s hope the new year brings lots of good health, joy and adventure!

 

It’s been a while…

I’ve been in a funk for the last few months – I’m attributing it to the overwhelm that comes with moving. I haven’t done much sewing & quilting since my last post in early November so there hasn’t been much to share…until now.

I knew I needed to spend some quality time in my sewing room to relax and stop obsessing over every little moving detail so I broke into my Vintage Holiday charm packs and followed Jenny Doan’s tutorial for charms on point. It’s a pretty neat trick and I love the result.

Here are a few in process shots and the finished quilt:

Believe it or not, I STILL haven’t finished the commissioned memory quilt for my neighbor (uuuuuuugh!) that monster keeps haunting me!!! I think my issue is I don’t like the final size cuz it’s MUCH longer than it is wider (74×106). I keep telling myself to just push through and finish but the other voice says “fix it”…so I’m stuck until I decide what I’m going to do.

That’s all I have for now…

I hope you have a Very Merry Christmas and a Blessed and Happy New Year 🙂