This week I have been trying not to succumb to tiredness and lack of motivation. Not much success in that area. But I still made some progress. Last week's goals were:
- Sew star points on the sashing
- Work on assembling the start quilt top
- Put borders on the Christmas Lemonade quilt - done
- Make the back for the Christmas Lemonade Quilt - done
- Get the Christmas Lemonade quilt on Millie
So I decided to get the borders on the Christmas Lemonade Quilt first. That way I could move it out of my way. I started sewing them onto the quilt on Tuesday but didn't finish until Saturday. Which is okay. I am quite proud of myself with these borders. For the first time I actually mitered the corners of a quilt border. I am so pleased with how they turned out. The red color seems to make the other colors pop.
I started out with a wide border to add a little more size to the quilt. It was too big for a throw and too small for a twin. The borders made the size more bed worthy. Normally I would have sewed on the side borders trimmed them even with the top and then sewed on the top and bottom borders. This time I got bold. I had learned to sew mitered corners at a 4-H Master Sewers training. We had done them on aprons. (Which I still need to finish.) I applied the same principle to my quilt and it worked beautifully. Even if it was a little more cumbersome.
I especially like how the seam all but disappears. It is so much less noticeable than the way I was doing it. I expect I will be mitering borders more often now.
I had enough fabric from the borders to make the back as well. Both top and back are pressed and ready to go on Millie. I even made the binding and have it ready to go as well. Now I just need to quilt it and bind it. I am not sure how I want to quilt it yet.
I have found and purchased some digital quilting patterns to add to my Quilt Path. I think I will want to do one of those. They are edge to edge patterns. I down loaded them on my laptop. I will have to read up on how to transfer the patterns to Quilt Path. I am also considering doing a different pattern in the border than on the main quilt top. I am not sure I am ready to tackle that yet. But the wide border seems to beg for it's own pattern.
I also need to read up on changing my hopping foot. This quilt top has some thick seams and I have been told that the scoop foot is better for quilting tops with thick seams. So before I start quilting this quilt I have some planning to do.
In the mean time this week I found and purchased some really cool digital quilting patterns that I will use on future quilts, as well as the Christmas Lemonade quilt. It has me excited to plan out those quilts.
Speaking of planning. A few weeks back my husband and son installed a outside antennae for TV. With the installation of the new antennae, I was able to pick up a PBS station that has Fon's and Porter's Love of Quilting and Sewing with Nancy. It has been quite a while (3-4 years ago we gave up cable and satellite) since I had been able to watch these shows. I have missed them. It was good to be able to watch them again. Even better though was the sponsors section. They mentioned that Sew Blessed Quilting in Hahira GA was a sponsor. I had no idea where Hahira was. But this was a Tallahassee station (WFSU) so I figured it couldn't be too far away.
This past week I did a search for them. Hahira, GA is about 50 miles from me. On Saturday Perigrine (my artistic but non quilting daughter) and I went on a road trip. We made it to Hahira and found Sew Blessed easily enough. But it was the wrong one. There are two stores, one dedicated to sewing for children, the other dedicated to quilting. They are owned by the same people and we were happily directed to the other store but encouraged to look around there first. It was a cute little store.
We walked the block and a half to the other store and were pleased with what we found there. It isn't a big store but it does have a good bit of selection. They are a Handi -Quilter dealer and so have some accessories for long arming that I can use. They also had a good selection of quilting notions. I did keep to my resolution and not buy any fabric. But I did buy some bloc-loc rulers though. I have plans of doing some patterns with half square triangles
Another thing that we found in the store was a quilt that we liked. It was a basket lattice pattern. I asked for the pattern and the woman said they didn't have it but showed me where I could find it for free on line. I cam home and printed it out for future use.
At both stores, we were up front about why we were there. We came to check them out. We didn't have plans to buy anything. You see there used to be a quilt shop in Moultrie, GA. I head about it shortly after I started working in Bainbridge. I was always going to go there but never seemed to find the time. Then they announced they would be closing. My daughters and I went and realized what we had been missing out on. I was not going to make that same mistake twice.
The women in both Sew Blessed stores totally understood and really encouraged us to look around and sign up for the mailing lists. No pressure and a lot of time was spent getting to know us. It was a place where you felt wanted and not because you may spend money. It was the type of atmosphere that I want my store to be like some day.
They also made sure I knew about the quilt shop in Valdosta, GA. I had been there and it is a nice store. It is a little farther away than this one. It was not as welcoming as Sew Blessed but then I got there it was about 1/2 hour before closing. It may have been different if I had gotten there in the middle of the day. The woman at Sew Blessed talked about some retreats and quilt shows that she had been too. She mentioned one store in Trenton, FL that I want to go to now. That will be a road trip for another day.
To sum up this week.
Not as much progress as I would like but progress is progress.
Some successes - mitered borders, binding made, quilting patterns found.
Adventures - the quilt shop road trip.
All in all a good week.
How did yours go?
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