A Finish At Last

Well, I did it, I finished that quilt despite the stumbling blocks. I call it Sails on the Horizon. Because it reminds me of the sails I could see out on Lake Ontario from the college library study room. Of course there weren't that many sails out on the lake it's just what the blocks looked like to me.

This is a house quilt. The top was pieced really well but I struggled with the quilting and with Quilt Path. I was a little discouraged by how it turned out. My son told me to knock it off because it is a beautiful quilt that has character.  I am sure the grandkids won't mind sleeping under a less than perfect quilt.

Since I wasn't going to give this one away I decided to try machine binding. I think it could be a very handy way of getting a quilt over the finish line. But I don't think my walmart machine is the one to use for it. Plus I need to get better at attaching the binding in the first place. I also think I could have picked a better decorative stitch. I may do machine binding again sometime. I just need to practice it and use a better machine. But I think I prefer the look of the hand stitched binding.

Do you ever machine bind?

Hiccups

This week most of my morning stitching was EPP. Which I am loving more and more. I even splurged on a few little blossom kits/bundles that were on sale this week. Of course they are a different size but that's okay. I have plans for them.

Since I am currently the "Queen of UFOs" in my facebook group, I have just a little bit of time to get a quilt finished. In fact I need to have one done by Friday or pay the penalty. So I grabbed a flimsy that was ready to be quilted. I made the back and got it pressed. I cut the batting and got it prepped. Then I started pressing the quilt top. I got to the very end and discovered a snip in one of the sashing pieces. I have only myself to blame. I allow my grandkids to use scissors and I even supply them with their own scissors.

It was a good reminder of why to always press your quilt top even if it isn't wrinkled. This is a practice I have done for a while, but to be honest, my flimsies are usually in need of a pressing.  Fortunately there is another practice I do that kept this from being a tragedy. I keep all the left over fabric and parts of the quilt until it is totally completed. As a result, I have extra sashing strips and cornerstones. I got out the seam ripper, took out, the damaged piece, and replaced it with a new sashing and cornerstone unit. Tragedy avoided.

I finally got the quilt on the long arm and set up my quilting design in the computer. But I tried to start too close to the take up leader. The thread cutter shield kept catching on the leader grip clip. Then I had a thread break about 2/3 of the way across the first row. I was going to live with the messed up top of the first row until the thread break. But after getting the machine re-threaded, I could not get it to line up again. I had only been quilting for about 5 minutes. I spent the next several hours taking out all of that 5 minutes of quilting. This particular design has a lot of back stitching.

This morning, I reset the quilt and got started again. the first row quilted out the wrong size. Rows 2 & 3 quilted out great. Rows 4 & 5 were a bit of a nightmare. I am using a variegated thread. One I have never used before. I like how it looks but I am not sure the machine likes it. Honestly it is probably operator error.

A good deal of my problem is that I go way too long between quilts. That is between putting quilts on the long arm. I forget what I learn in between the quilts. I need to get better at scheduling time to long arm. Since I have figured out zone quilting, I no longer need to do it all in one session. I am hoping to finish up tomorrow night so I can make the binding and get it on before Friday. But I am not very optimistic. 

I will say this though, I am very grateful for the women in the "Queen of UFOs" facebook group. They keep me motivated to get things done. Even when I am not the Queen, I am more likely to feel inspired to get things done. While I most likely will have to pay a fat quarter penalty to the winner of the 3rd quarter, I have plenty of fat quarters to spare. In fact I would gladly send one to each member. Being part of the group keeps me motivated to get things finished without making me feel guilty or lazy. It's a no pressure group with lots of encouragement and ideas. 

How do you stay motivated to finish up your UFOs?

Un-Motivated (looking for solutions/plans)

 I had so many plans for the weekend. I was going to come home from work early and make a back for one of the quilt tops I have sitting around.  I left work late and then napped when I got home.  I was going to get the sails on the horizon quilt on the long arm Saturday morning. I just cut up scraps. I also cleaned up a little bit. 

Try as I might I just couldn't get my mind on doing the quilt. the thing is I know what size to make the back. I know what size to cut the batt. I know the quilting design I want to use. But all I want to do is either cut scraps or EPP. 

I think this is partly because of the clutter in my house. I need to get things organized. I am beginning to see that the piles of clutter are indeed sapping my creative energy.  I also think that there are projects I want to do but am putting them off until I finish other projects. 

I need to start the 30-30-30 again. 30 minutes on house work. 30 minutes on organizing the studio. 30 minutes on a project. I may need to make a plan to alternate between a new project and an old project. Podcasts that I listen to have suggested that setting aside a day ot a time to work on old projects help you to get them done. Still haven't figured that out.

How do you get motivated to finish projects? 

How do you manage your old and new projects?

Scrap Processing

 Well, I managed to finish processing the 1/2# of scraps that I bought. Now I am back to processing the scraps that I have created. While doing this, I've come to realize that my stash is lacking in solids. At least colored solids. I tend to have white and black. I even have a little bit of gray. So going forward if I must buy fabric I will try to buy solid colors. That way I will have some solids to go with all of my prints.

I've cut up scraps the past 3 days and I have to say it hasn't put much of a dent in my scrap basket. But I am going to keep working on it. Eventually I will get it back to where I was 2 years ago. Only this time there won't be a bunch of scraps hiding in my yardage. I have a basket for scraps now and as I generate them they go into the basket. I am trying to process them on a regular basis. But after going through my yardage and making/finishing a bunch of quilts, I have gotten behind.

Not having started anything new or even finishing anything has meant, I've not generated more scraps. But that should be coming to an end this weekend. I am going to try and get a quilt on the machine and quilt it. I know it is Easter weekend but I have Friday off so my plan is to quilt. Of course my husband will be home so the husband factor my interfere with my plans.

What do you do with your scraps?

Where Did March Go?

I can't believe I missed blogging about quilting for 40 days. I have been so busy trying to blog for 31 days straight that I was only focused on my wellness blog. I have not made 31 days straight of blogging even after 3 months of trying. Still I am not giving up. However I am going to try and do better when it comes to blogging about quilting. I will shoot for at least every other week.

So a quick recap of what I did do the last month. I finished piecing the center part of Izora's quilt. I just need to add the borders and find fabric for the back. I have not managed to finish any UFOs. But I am planning on putting a quilt on this week. Of course I have been planning on putting a quilt on for a month and a half.

I did visit a cute quilt shop in Douglas, GA. It is called And Sew She Did. It was everything a quilt shop should be. Friendly staff that let you browse. Notions, patterns, and plenty of quilting fabric. Lots of pre-cuts as well as yardage. Collections were grouped together. It was a pleasant browsing experience. I ended up buying 4 layer cakes. All from Moda Designers.

I never paid attention to Designers or fabric manufacturers before I started listening to quilting podcasts. Now I am finding out that there are designers that I love everything they put out. Plus when I hear about a designer, I look for one of their collections. I want to see if I like their work.

I have done a lot of EPP this past month. It has been my go to stitching project for the past several weeks. Mostly because I don't have to think when doing it. I am afraid that I am in a bit of a rut when it come to quilting right now. I want to start new projects but and resisting util I get some of these others done. the EPP is a long term project so it is not expected to be finished any time soon.

I also have been working on Mt. Scrapmore. It didn't help that I bought someone else's scraps to add to my own. But that's okay. I am going to make that my morning quilting exercise for the next week or so and see if I can't make a dent in it. Not starting new projects is actually helping with that. Plus I have been using the scraps in my EPP project.

Last month Killian and I traveled to Temple, TX and learned how to repair sewing machines. We are now both certified sewing machine repair technicians. We are waiting for our lubricants to come in and then we will dig into the machines we have sitting around the house. Then a trip to Tatianna's to get her machines in order. we are also going to be looking at buying old machines at flea markets, thrift stores, and yard sales. We will fix them up and try to sell them.

It has been a busy month. even if I didn't get much done in the way of quilting. What have you been up to?