Preparation

Today has been all about preparation for the weekend..............colder weather and girls' weekend!  But let's skip back to Tuesday, shall we?

I was up early, skipped the shower since I wasn't planning to see anyone all day, and was in the sewing room by 8 AM!!!!  The plan was to put a large quilt (for someone else) on the longarm and get it quilted.  There's quite a bit or prep work that goes into the quilting part.  I had already cut batting, so had the top, backing and batting all hanging in the TBQ (to be quilted) closet.  I discovered the backing needed to be pressed because all the edges were very wrinkled and I didn't have a good edge to pin to the leaders.  It was a nice wide backing, so I started pressing.  When I was about 18" from the bottom, I noticed a stain on the backing.

Why couldn't I have started at this end and discovered the stain before I had almost the whole piece pressed?

My supervisor convinced me that maybe I could just spot wash it and get the stain out and not ruin all that pressing by throwing the whole piece in the washing machine.............and delaying the project by another couple of hours.

 Well, she was correct in her assessment of the situation.  The stain came out, as did a couple of others I found.  

After a little work with the hair dryer to dry the spots and finish pressing, the pinning began, only an hour later than I had planned.

At one point, I heard a disturbance and peeked down the stairs to see the support team had given up their posts for a game of cat and mouse.

Esme returned later to resume her duties and inspect that the batting and quilt top were properly secured.

Of course inspectors need their rest.

This was a quilt pieced from a panel and made into star blocks.  

 

The colors were very pretty, and I selected military gold thread to quilt the West Winds edge to edge design in.  The thread stood out a little on the back to really show the quilting pattern and blended nicely on the front to let the piecing design be the "star" with the quilting design giving it motion.

Now I have had people tell me that all I really do is push buttons because I have a computer.  I DO push buttons, but I have to be smart enough to know which buttons to push and how to move the quilt through the machine.  And it does take quite a bit of time.  I stopped for a lunch break, and then had a break late in the afternoon when Sarah called to say her car had been broken into.  We spent about 45 minutes working with her and calling the insurance agent and dealing with issues.  It's a very long story, but not one I want to go into now.

I did a little more quilting and after a break for supper finished the quilting at 8:30 PM.  I left it on the machine to trim off on Wednesday.  It can be a pretty long process.

I did get the floors in the sewing room and Sarah's room swept while the machine was running.  And I intermittently did some piecing for other quilts.

I worked on Triple Treat, Bonnie Hunter's current leader/ender project.  I have several hundred 4 patches made from 1.5" squares and I am now sewing them into these blocks.  I laid a few out on the cutting table to see how they looked.  It's fun to see the design appear.

And I pieced some more blocks for Beach Cottage.  I think this will be a very pretty quilt, but sewing the blocks can get a little boring.  I try to set a goal of 10 blocks at a time and work them in between sewing a project with brighter colors.

I also made a couple more 64 patch blocks for the Scrap Happy quilt I am working on.

Wednesday was a mostly piano lesson day and then to see the high school production of "Once Upon a Mattress" in the evening.  

Today, in preparation for the weekend, I caught up the laundry, cleaned all the floors, dusted, finished church bookwork, and am working on packing.  It is supposed to turn cold and stay that way for at least 10 days, so I also cleaned up the hanging baskets I am going to try to winter over inside the house.  I brought 5 in, we'll see how it goes.  These 2 are hanging in the sewing room south window by the longarm.

Cici has never met a plant she didn't like to tear up and eat, so this could turn into a really big mess.

Sarah is coming in this evening.  She and David have an evening appointment to test drive possible new cars.  Then she and I are leaving early in the morning to pick up cousins in Columbia and travel to Galena, IL to meet up with my mom and sister for a girls shopping weekend.

So, this is probably the last blog for the week.  I imagine there will be much to share from girls weekend!

Christi