Monday Meanderings 11 - 25 - 2019

Busy week.  Nothing new with that.  I know I'm not reading as much as I usually do.  But I've got a book due in 5 days and I haven't even started it!  Must get to it. Tuesday I spent part of the day working on Quilts of Valor with the Virginia Star Guild.  We are trying to get a bunch of quilts done and ready for giving to start 2020. I'm turning cut off triangles into 4.5" (unfinished) pinwheels.  I use them as leaders and enders, the Bonnie Hunter way. But I won't make much progress on them until after Christmas.

 I'm contemplating this pattern: 

I've got the Spotsylvanians concert coming up in  3 weeks.  I could use a new skirt that is a little  fuller.  In 4 weeks a subgroup is singing dressed as Victorian carolers.  Thus the cape makes some sense too.  (Sans the fur collar and muff.)  I've got a nice black wool hanging around that I could use for the cape.  I'd need to buy a black fabric that would be cooler for the skirt.  Decisions, decisions.  I haven't had much luck making clothing for me in years.... but how hard could a skirt be as long as it fits at the waist and has room for the hips? Yea, I know if could be a disaster. 

I made progress on three of my seven highly secret projects.  Unfortunately, none are finished because it dawned on me that I was going to help out with my grandkids on Tuesday.  And if I were smart I would get the embroidered shirts done to take up.  Well, yes, they are mostly done. 

Both of these designs are from Designs by JuJu.  The Mehndi Reindeer is from Mehndi Christmas.  It sewed up pretty fast although I did have some issue with various threads.  (I thought I put in a new needle but maybe I need to replace it before the next two.)  The truck is from Vintage Trucks Holidays also from Designs by Juju. I'm sorry to report this one gave me fits.  My thread shredded on several occasions and there were too many instances where the embroidery overlapped other parts of the embroidery and the machine had a hard time.  My last thought is I don't like how messy the back looks on these.  I think for the next group I'll turn off the automatic top thread cutter and do it manually.  It will make the back look much better.  I need to put a backing on the designs -- makes the kids itch without one. 

Here's what still needs to be done, oh rats, most are secret projects.  Hopefully, I'll get the three that are almost done finished up.  Each might take three or four hours at the most.  Then I can proceed to the next secret items.  And, also make two more Christmas shirts and decide on the skirt and cape. (Well not all this week, really.)

There is hope for most of the secret projects.  We'll be home by ourselves for T-Day which is fine as it gives us more time to do our projects. (Pat's got a secret one going too...) 

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday.  Last week I linked to these different sites but only linked back to mine on one.  Not the smartest move.   I did enjoy checking some blogs out and came away with a few too many good ideas.  Sigh. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie  

April OMG Finished

Yes!  I did finish my April OMG at least a week before the deadline.  My goal was to finish my customer's Alabama T-Shirt quilt.  I finished it over the weekend and my customer picked it up Tuesday.  She was thrilled.  I sent her this photo of it the day I let her know it was done.  She immediately posted it to her Facebook account and started getting all sorts of comments about it.  Her Alabama fans love it.  I have to admit I enjoyed these clever  t-shirts.  

I admit I didn't take as many pictures at the beginning as I did at the end.  Here's some of the process I went through.   First up I measured all the elements that were to go into the quilt.  These are mostly backs, but sleeves and small front icons were also included.  Deconstruction was mostly done with my rotary cutter and sometimes scissors.  One thing I was careful with was the shirts with large designs on the back.  I made sure they didn't get cut inadvertently.  I cut them bigger than I needed them to give me some room to change my mind.  

And between cutting, I was thinking.  I measured every element and recorded it based on the smallest it could go.  Once that was done I grabbed graph paper, pencil, and most importantly, an eraser.  I did the paper copy at least twice.  Then I wrote a big note to remind myself when I cut to add the seam allowances! 

Once the plan was figured out it was time to actually construct the top.  I recut to about the needed size and then added the woven stabilizer.  Then I recut to the correct size.  (Yea, three times handling the shirts was a little ridiculous.  Now that I've figured out how to go about this I'd probably only do a rough cut, stabilize and then a final cut.) Below it is beginning to take shape. Nope, the grey as filler doesn't look as good as black...

It was a challenge to get all the rows to end up the same length.  A little tighter seam here, a bigger piece of filler there and they all fit in. Here's the backing fabric. My customer found this houndstooth fabric that matches the hat.  How cool is that?  Except, it was directional.  Once I realized that it was easy to match the design while seaming it.  Lots of fabric! 

I used Classic Stipple by Apricot Moon.  Batting was Pellon 60/40 cotton poly.  I knew the quilt would be heavy so I wanted to lighten it a little using the higher content poly.  

Below is one of my favorite shirts. The top part says something about the schedule.  Read the part in black.  As a fan of University of Southern California football I understand that sentiment.  In fact one of my friends got married on a big game day (USC vs. Notre Dame at home.)  Needless to say a LOT of the guests were gathered round a big television at the reception site. 

Here are a couple of other shots of the quilt.  Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and rainy which made it hard to get a good picture of it.  Plus it is something like 65 by 75" and remember me saying heavy?  That too.

If you look at the right edge you can see that I used the houndstooth to do the binding.  The original plan was for the black but when I saw the houndstooth... well it just seemed right to me. 

I told my customer I'd have it done by May 1st and I succeeded.  I sometimes take my time making quilts or have other items sneak up that must be done.  So I was very happy to have this one finished in advance. I did not label this quilt but now I'm thinking I might want to get some of the printed labels that also have washing instructions to add to the quilt.  What do you think?  Would you add a small label with the quilt maker's info along with washing instructions?  

This post is proudly being linked with One Monthly Goal April Finish linky party, Midweek Makers, and Needle and Thread Thursday. (I'll be back to link up to tomorrow's linky party.)  Enjoy some time browsing the internet in between your sewing time.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie  

April One Monthly Goal

Here it is time to select a new goal.  This one is pretty much a no-brainer for me.  I need to have this quilt completed by May -- so why not add the pressure of OMG to it too.  Hum, that sounds weird.  But I do need to get this done even though I'll be out of town for half a week and we're almost a week into April.  So here it is: 

I started this quilt in early February.  This collection of t shirts came from Marlene. (Thanks Marlene for letting me share pictures with everyone.) It took me way too long to get them trimmed and backed and trimmed again. At the beginning of April the left large column and the middle large column were sewn together. My goal is to finish sewing the top together, quilt it and bind it. 

Truth be told over the weekend and Tuesday I've been working on it.  So the top is done.  Now it's time to sew the backing together and load it on Ruthie 2.  I know the pattern my customer wants but must consult on the thread color.  I'm thinking a nice crimson!  (Hey it goes with the whole Alabama mystic.)  I've had fun working on this great set of T shirts. But I'm ready to finish it off.

I'm linking up at Elm Street Quilt with the goal setting link-up.  And then I'm off to a quilting afternoon with friends. (I'll be working on Jamestown Landing -- specifically the string blocks.) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Weekly Goal Report

Last week had it's busy days but I still did pretty well on my goals. 

March 6, 2018

Work on T Shirt quilt – finish plan, start backing tees and trimming to correct sizes √ the plan is done (see below.) 

Make a pillowcase or two√ Actually, I got 3 more done and delivered.

Work on Jamestown Landing√ I'm still using this as my leader ender.

Load and quilt Taps quilt Nope, didn’t happen.

Attend USC Day of SCervice√ It was a busy but very fun day.  By Sunday I was totally worn out although I did spend a little time in the studio. 

Here's the plan for this week. 

March 13, 2018

Work on T Shirt quilt -- hopefully I'll get all of the shirts backed and start sewing them together.  My goal is to have this completely done by May 1. 

Enter quilts in Faithful Circle quilt show -- the deadline is March 19th!

Load and quilt Patriotic Dog quilt for Taps

Work on Jamestown Landing

Work on Braid Shuffle #2

Work on the little rail fence quilt I got with the fabrics from the estate last week.  This would make a nice quilt for the nursing home that Country Piecemakers support.  There are a lot of pieces already cut so I'm adding this to my list of what I'll do as leaders and enders. 

Below are 2 tee shirt quilts I wanted to share with you from the Mid Atlantic Quilt Show.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a close up of who made them.  I took pictures for inspiration.  

I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out how this one was put together.  I think it was done in horizontal chunks. I can definitely see two from the middle to the bottom.  But the top section or two?  Maybe using partial seams the quilter could get the sections together.  What do you think?

Another great example with a lot of tee shirts of all different sizes.  

The tee shirt I am making for my customer is a cool collection of University of Alabama shirts.  They are all different sizes and she wants everything that is printed used. She doesn't want them sashed.  It took a lot of thinking to come up with my plan but I finally succeeded. 

There will be three columns of shirts that are 15" wide separated by 2 columns  6" wide.  I'll have to add filler fabric to the smaller columns.  And, I'll cut the column 1 tees longer to make up the same size as the other two columns.  

You can't imagine how happy I was when I finally got this plan together. (Click on the photo to enlarge to make it easier to see the design.)  

Please visit the following linky parties to see what else is happening in studios across the world.  Visit To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers and WIPS on Wednesdays.  Ok, I totally forgot to link up with Midweek Makers last week. And again this week. Sorry all!   I will try to remember this week.  (note to self...put a reminder in the calendar!) 

Happy quilting all!  Bonnie 

Retreat Review

Within 24 hours of getting home from retreat we were off to the beach house -- the first time I've been there since May!  Here are some more photos and commentary about retreat.  It was a great time despite 4 days of rain.  At least the hurricane didn't add more excitement! 

Quilters are in the building! (mine is the one farthest away. But it didn't stay the last one as more were added.) 

Mary brought a finished scrap quilt to show to the group.  Yummy!  I love the half square triangle borders. Nice job Mary! 






And now some of the finishes folks had while at the 3 and a half day retreat. 

This is Michelle's quilt top.  I can't remember what she said the name of the block was.  I believe a lot of the units were done before she go here.  Nice job getting the whole quilt top together.  I wonder if she will put borders on it or not?   Behind to the left is Mary's quilt that we had hanging the entire weekend.

Michelle also finished her galaxy quilt top.  She made the medium size.  She doesn't live in state so she did this one on her own.  It looks great. (Can I say she is incredibly fast and she stays up really late?)

MaryBeth finished another t shirt quilt. You can see another one she made at the FCQ June retreat here. Scroll down to see it. 

Sharon got her FCQ Cuddly Critter Challenge quilt top done.  Anyone who wanted to participate was given a bag of fabric to use. The guild was given a lot of fabrics to put to use -- thus the challenge.  Sharon will get this quilted at home and then turn it in.  I need to check out my bag more thoroughly as I have hardly even looked at it since I got it in June.  The quilts will be donated to Project Linus after the FCQ Quilt Show in April. 

Here's my set up.  We have narrow tables that can get exceedingly messy.  Or, maybe that's just my table! I did a fairly good job keeping the mess more controlled this year.  Behind me you can see half of Dorothy, my Row by Row buddy, and Kay.  We get together every few months to embroider or sew.  Lots of fun. 

I'll end this with a photo I took the last night we were in Nags Head. There was a rocket launch from Wallops Island Wednesday night.  We had tried to watch an earlier one but the rocket blew up.  (Seems to me we actually saw the flash of the explosion.)  This time the launch went well but we sure didn't see much.  Just one dot of light traveling up really quickly.  I tried to get a picture of the dot but, hey, this is a cell phone camera... what did I expect?  

This is what is waiting for me.  It is time to unpack, put the sewing machine back in place, unpack the bags.  And, get back to work.  Halloween is creeping up on me and I have several shirts to make for some cute little girls!  I'll share more photos from Nags Head soon.  The ocean was amazing!  Food was fabulous, although I doubt if I took any food pictures.  And, best of all I did some cross stitch and sweater knitting. 

I'm connecting up with Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? and Let's Make Baby Quilts. 

Happy Quilting All!