Thread and a Quilt

I got my new thread yesterday...

...and today I got this quilted.

Somehow I managed to order two spools of one color but I am sure I will use it up eventually. I also got 3 dozed prewound bobbins in three basic colors.

I was going to do the quilt using straight line meandering with some triangles in it but just didn't like how it was looking so I ripped it out and went back to my usual meander and got done in about an hour! Have I mentioned that I am liking my new toy?

I am still working on cutting out a quilt so my sewing table is busy so I will have to wait to trim this one and come up with binding until that project is done. I will probably go in there for a bit this afternoon.

The quilting on the wedding quilt is progressing. I just need to sit down and do it more often but I always come up with things I should be doing!

Yesterday I got the second quilt basted and managed to get it quilted too!
I used a sort of meandering vine/leaf pattern. It was fun getting a real chance to use my new toy. I am going to have a lot of fun getting good at it. The quilt didn't move really smoothly but then I realized the back was flannel so I think that was issue. I have the other quilt ready to go to test that theory (it doesn't have a flannel back) but I realized that I don't have a good thread for the quilting. I can use almost any thread on my regular sewing machine but with the new one I want to use only high quality quilting thread. At one of the shops on the shop hop they had King Tut large spools on sale so I bought several colors that I felt would be useful but none of them were appropriate so I headed to the computer and got some on order. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive!

In the meantime, I got a request for a quilt from my cousin in North Dakota so I picked out a pattern and tomorrow I will probably start work on cutting for that. It will be scrappy in greens, browns and tans. My sister will bring some greens for me to work with if I don't have enough in my stash.

Today I also got the binding ready for the quilt that is quilted so I can take that to the retreat to work on also.

Today I had an appointment with my doctor to have my warts refrozen so I am not sure how much I will be able to do tomorrow with one very angry finger on my right hand!

Crazy times!

Last week there was much going on though not much sewing. I spent three days outside working on fall clean-up type stuff and then the rain started so I did spend some time in the sewing room. I pulled out some leftover HSTs I got from someone else, added a few squares of fabric from my stash and created this little quilt. It still needs a border but it will make a nice little lap quilt for someone.

I finished that off on Thursday morning in the midst of preparing for a road trip with my hubby. We loaded up our utility trailer with the sewing cabinet/table I took out of my sewing room and various furniture and appliances for our daughter and her fiance. We drove about 7 hours to my sister's on Thursday and dropped off the sewing cabinet/table there and enjoyed the evening with my sister, BIL and my slave/niece.

In the morning after a bit more visiting and packing in a few things from them that needed transporting, we headed south to our daughter and almost SIL's little cabin on the lake to drop off furniture for them. They were very excited to almost have their little home furnished with what we brought. We met their landlords who are just the sweetest people you could meet. They were nice enough to let us leave the trailer there for the weekend.

We then headed further south to see our oldest daughter, SIL and grandkids. We had a few things for them also and they had some things for us to take back up to the little cabin. We took our son out for breakfast at the Old European in Pullman and also picked up our nephew who goes to neighboring University of Idaho. We did a little shopping and then dropped the boys back off at their respective housing and headed back to our daughter's. I was 'forced' to take a nap with the little one and then we went tail-gating at UofI with our daughter's co-workers.

Sunday morning we headed back north fairly early, dropped off some things and picked up the trailer and started heading home. We stopped at Cabela's on the way and while hubby looked at guy stuff I checked out the jackets since I needed one. I found one I liked and took it right out of the bag as we left the store, took off the tags and didn't have to worry about getting wet in the downpour on the way to the car. It was a long drive home with quite a few heavy rain/thunder showers towing the trailer but we made it safe and sound (physically anyway).

I hope today I will get the borders on that little quilt and I might just get a quilt sandwiched so I can play with my new toy.

Plugging Along

I continue to work on the wedding quilt. I finished enough quilting on the quilt to put on the binding this week. Now at least the edges are finished off. I have 6 more weeks to get the quilting finished and I might just get there if I keep focused.

Keeping focused on the wedding quilt keeps me from getting much else done but I can only sit so long each day so this week I got some cutting done on a project for my quilt retreat next month and I am thinking about what else I should bring along.

I did get these 4 blocks made for the Quilt Block Round Robin on flickr.

I hope this week to get some receiving blankets and quilt tops made for Lutheran World Relief.

Extreme Makeover: Sewing Room Edition

One of the activities around our house last week was my daughter and her fiance working on the little house. They got the skylight in and the roof on. Then, on Saturday, my husband hitched it up to the Suburban and towed it out by the 'barn' so if they decide to haul it to wherever they will be living after the wedding it will be accessible. You see, once the rain starts our field is impassable.

We also celebrated my niece's 30th birthday. Her request was a Pirate Barbie cake. After some resistance I caved and this is the result.

On Sunday, my husband, my niece and I took my sewing cabinet off the wall. My brother-in-law made it originally for my mother and when we sold her house I took it and have used it for about 10 years. Now it will go to my sister's house as she has room in her sewing room. It is heavy and huge so it is taking up space in the guest room until we load it in our trailer to take across the state along with some other furniture. You can see a picture of it here. In its place are two dressers we found at two garage sales a week or so ago.

You can see that I have some wall space above the dressers for something but I haven't decided what yet.

Here is a picture of all the stuff from the sewing cabinet all over my sewing table and various bins and boxes of fabric and projects on the floor in front of it.

This is an after picture of the same area. Most of the baskets on the table need to be integrated into the rest of the house over the next few weeks/months!

And here is a picture of the reason for all of this rearranging - my new quilting machine! I have tested it out but I haven't had time to quilt something but maybe later today or tomorrow morning.