Challenges? - Bring 'em on!!!!

Yesterday was an interesting day. More interesting than most because it seemed that whatever I touched - it was a challenge.

First off - we had a "major" snow storm. It wasn't a huge amount of snow, but it was significant and severely affected traffic.  It was Thursday Therapy (sewing day) and I wasn't going to miss it!!!!   So after a detour to the GO station to drop off DH, I was on my way to the church. Yep - those two trips took almost 1 1/2 hours!!!!   But I was calm, I was relaxed!!!!


I arrived safely at the church - so challenge number one of the day DONE!!!!   I had no idea who else would show up at the church and if I ended up there by myself - well that would be fine by me since I never seem to get much done at home.

Show outside the church yesterday morning

Snow in my backyard this morning!!!!

It wasn't long before I had company!  Maria arrived and shortly after that Susan arrived.  THREE troopers or are we just certified crazy????   I had to take this picture because we EACH had our Chubby Charmer bags.  That we were using - not making!!!!

Chubby Charmer bags - mine, Maria's, Susan's

By the way - if you want to make your own Chubby Charmer bag - the pattern is by QuiltsIllustrated, Inc. It really is a fabulous bag and I have several more to make. Yikes - supposed to be making one TODAY. I will be teaching the Chubby Charmer at Sew Sisters.  I have the date - just not handy.

Time to get to work. I decided that I have TONS of quilts that are almost complete and I should start getting them done. I took TWO quilts with me that needed borders, binding and backing or some combination thereof.  (And when I am done those two - there are two tubs and two laundry baskets more of quilts in the same state!!!!  Need I say more!)

I had this I Spy quilt - it needed TWO borders.   I grabbed the red fabric and OH MY - the strips for the border are already cut!!!   This is easy. Get that border on and grab the next fabric.  Yep - even with two squares cut out of the piece, I should be able to cut 6 1/2" strips and have enough for the border.  Cut, measure, sew - three sides on. Measure the fourth - ACK - NOT long enough!!!!!!!   Now what??????

I looked at what was left for scraps and well - I managed to eek out enough to finish off the border. I had to "make up" about 12 inches of fabric.

Finished quilt top

Close up of the PIECED corner. There are about 6 seams in that corner - can you see them?????

This is the reverse side. Do you see the seams?????

Nope - that was a PERFECT fabric to do that with!!!!!

And what did I have left????

Six triangles from piecing the border strips (OK - if I had of done the math - I would not have joined them on the diagonal) and this little square.  But where would the fun be in having ENOUGH fabric????   NO fun - much more fun to have a challenge. I am very happy with the results!!!!!

Then onto the backing. I had two pieces and had to join them width wise to get started. When I laid it out - NO NO NO - this won't do!!!!   See that seam right in the middle?????   That row of dinosaurs is VIBRATING!!!!

Vibrating dinosaurs!!!!

 Ripped out that seam and matched the dinosaurs - more or less. And now it is much better.

Much better seam join!!!!

I did have to piece the backing fabric one more time and I didn't have enough to mess with matching the join - but that is OK. It is a kids quilt after all.

And hours later - the darn thing was done - the backing, the two borders AND the binding (which isn't in the picture below) But was made out of the red of which there was about a half a meter left.

Backing, borders and binding - DONE

Time to move to the next project. This one needed borders and the binding done. The backing will be plush which is on the bolt and I will cut when it goes on the long arm.  Hmmm - maybe I should cut it now????

Well - I had a piece of blue and I measured, did some calculations (with the calculator no less) and then cut, measure, sew and got the border on!!!!   I love it!!! Thanks to the Northern Lights class at Sew Sisters for helping me with the fabric choices. I think they did a BRILLIANT job at choosing the fabrics!!!

Northern Lights quilt (pattern by Marti Michelle) Taught at Sew Sisters

Then onto the binding. CRUD!!!!   I am short by about 20 inches!!!!!!!!!   I guess I was supposed to cut the borders 4 inches - NOT four 1/2".   DUH!!!!!   What to do - what to do??????   I decided to piece the scraps that I had left over and added on the pieced section to the binding and NOW - there is enough!!!

Pieced section of the binding!!!!

And this is all that was left - two small strips!!!!!

To keep me company, Susan was having a challenge with this tree skirt. The directions were not the best. Let's just leave it at that!!!!

Susan's tree skirt - very cool colour combo!!!!!

 Maria (as usual because she comes with everything PRE-CUT) was zooming through her projects!!!

She was making these cute little snap bags to go with the duffle bags she finished on Monday.  Notice how they all match!!!!!

Maria's snap bags

The matching duffle bags!!!!!

Don't you just want to be on her Christmas list!!!!

Hmmm - if I had my stuff pre-cut would I have encountered the same problem???  I know that if I were doing that at home - I probably wouldn't have finished both of those quilts so I was glad I did it there.  No - I like having the challenge!  Makes it way more fun!!!!

Anyway - in the even that you want to know about the pattern for the Snap Bags - it is by Stitchin Sisters.

Snap Happy bags. 

We all stayed until the normal time to leave.  Yes - we are die hards. We were hoping the snow would have stopped by then - it was supposed to, but NO it was still snowing when we left although the roads were not as bad as the morning. There was supposed to be a guild meeting, but I was so tired from the day that I didn't want to venture out again knowing that it would take over one hour to get to the meeting. So I stayed home and tackled yet another challenge.

I had a customer quilt to finish and YES - it is done.

Customer quilt

However it had fleece for the backing so that had to be carefully loaded (I loaded it the night before)

Not only was it fleece, but it was DOUBLE fleece - orange on one side, red on the other. Very heavy

And then it had a big flange on it that I will NOT quilt over flanges any more. 

And it had a white cotton bat so there was white batting fluff everywhere!!!!!!

Plus at one point - there was a seam in that double fleece!!!!!

However despite all that - the quilt is done and ready for the customer to pick up!!!!!


Let's just say that I was happy to sit down with  my knitting which wasn't a challenge despite the fact that I had to look up how to do a M1 purlwise.   Oh yes - that was easy!!!!!

On that note - I have a bit of stuff to do before knit club this morning.


Have a great day!!!!!!!!


Ciao!!!!!!!!!!!!!