Shiny and bright

Some days you have a lot to show for what you did and some days you don't. While I'm getting work done, those worktables do not appear to be getting cleaned off in any way. I'm OK with that. I know it's going to take time and I'm working on one thing at a time. Focus! That's what I keep telling Murphy when we go for a walk. Focus!

No tidying needed to be done yesterday as things are looking good on the sewing station tables. I completely forgot about the cutting table. I fired up the embroidery machine. Actually, that happened on Sunday!

I started out by hooping a stitch and tear stabilizer.

Starting to embroidery on a stabilizer

 Then I added sone very BRIGHT and SHINY stretchy fabric. I had to very carefully babysit this design, mostly because it was very stretchy and slippery fabric. But after staring at that bright fabric in the brilliant lights of the Designer EPIC 2, I was seeing stars whenever I took my eyes off the fabric. Yikes - that was hard. How does anyone sew with this stuff all day?

Adding bright and shiny fabric

And slowly from that bright shiny fabric, a GECKO was born.

A gecko is being born

 Someone gave me some Quilter's Dream batting that she no longer wanted and when I asked what she wanted in return, she asked for a gecko. OK - I can do that. The color request was blue and green. I've got lots of green and scraps of blue. So this is what we got.

I was going to stuff it on Monday but forgot to take the stuffing tools that I had found so I just got him cut out and now he's ready to stuff.

The gecko is cut out and ready to stuff

Here's a better picture of the gecko. He sort of gets lost in the fabric in that photo above. I just realized that while I unpacked my bag from Monday sewing, I hadn't processed anything in the bag. It's still all over half of the cutting table. Oopsy - a job for later today.

The gecko 

I know this gecko is going to be loved and he's going to get a name. I wonder what they'll call him?

No - I didn't have time to clean up the stuff on the cutting table because I was busy. I started the day off by getting one more block done for the paper-pieced mini quilt. This is a birdhouse made of three sections. They are not trimmed and therefore not sewn together. That doesn't matter - progress is being made. Two more blocks (four more sections) to go.

One more paper-pieced block

Then it was onto quilting. That little orange board with the list of quilts was saying, "you have a job to do TODAY or you'll get behind".

That meant that I had to get the top together for the Dresden Plate quilt. The top got sewn together and I did NOT rearrange any of the blocks. I left them as they were. I had originally placed them because of the light and dark of the background and that's how they stayed.

I had to make the backing fabric and I was careful with how much I took off that big hunk of fabric. That was one thing that I used off the table. But it wasn't taking much room.

I found three pieces of batting that I could join to get the size needed for this quilt and then all three pieces got loaded on the long arm and I was away. Except that I wanted this quilt custom quilted so it took a long time.

With the rainy day outside and no chance to take a walk, it seemed to take forever and I was tempted at one point to finish it today. However, there's another quilt on the list for today so I persevered.

The quilting in the background

As I got started in the background, I thought I should have used a slightly lighter color thread, but that's OK.

No robot quilting this time - it was all me

I don't think I should leave it so long for the next freehand quilting job. I felt a bit rusty! That's not good. But I soon warmed up and I was good to go.

I wasn't sure that I was going to like what I had done, but once I got going, I was happy! And when I took it off the long arm - I was ecstatic with how it turned out. I was even tempted to NOT give it back to my Mom. But I'll make sure I get it back when she doesn't "need" it any longer.

Dresden Plate quilt

Some of those fabrics are pretty old. For the life of me, I can't remember who she said made the darn thing. I'm pretty sure it wasn't her. My grandmother??? 

Anyway - I'll get all the info next week. I dare not ask her on the phone as I want it to be a surprise. I think for freehand, I did a pretty good job on all those curves. Like I said, once I got going, I was good and had fun as well. I think I'm going to wash the quilt before I give it to her. It'll soften up that dense quilting in the background and make it look more vintage. It's not stiff, but the washing will soften it a lot.

Quilting on the Dresden Plate quilt

I also had time to trim the quilt last night and guess what? There should be enough of the backing leftovers to make the binding. I cut the backing about three inches larger on the sides and some extra along the bottom edge. Loads to make the binding. That's a job for later today.

The backing leftovers

And that will be one project done for next week. I have three more that I would like to get done. I'm working on them and I don't see why I can't get them done. Two need to be finished, one is OK if it's a work in progress. You'll see what I mean when I get there.

So here's a blog that I want you to follow and I want you to share with ALL your friends. It's for the NEW OUTDOOR quilt show at Black Creek Pioneer Village called Quilts in the Village. Just go to the bottom of that first post and HIT the FOLLOW button. Then whenever a new post is posted, you'll get a notification. Yes - I'm helping them out with some publicity. For now - follow the blog and the rest of the information is coming. Registration for putting a quilt in the show is coming next month. Get involved!!!!

And here's an interesting article on sewing machine maintenance. Take a look at the pictures of the needles in the article. HOLY -- that's why you need to change your needle regularly. Thre are some other good tips as well. BUT DO NOT touch the tension on the bobbin case unless you know what you're doing!!! I'll have more comments about this article tomorrow. I don't have time this morning. It's spin class day and the blog gets written before the class.

The rain finally stopped and we managed to get out for our second walk just after dinner. The girls were so happy. They didn't understand why we couldn't go out in the pouring rain. Silly girls!!!

On that note, it's time to get moving.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!