Witches, demons and goblins - oh my!

ACK -- I'm late this morning. I had to help Miss Lexi with her blog and she's not feeling well so she was grumpy. Then we went to the dog park and I had some e-mails to answer and so here I am - LATE!

Lots of stuff happened yesterday and I can't wait to share it with you!

Here's the update on the UFO situation. I got the THIRD scrappy quilt top sewn together. While it's still on the design wall, trust me - it's completely sewn together. I love how the value of the squares keep your eyes moving around the top. They are mostly light/dark, but some of the darks are not really dark and some of the lights are not really light. It's pretty cool.

Third scrappy quilt top - DONE

This quilt is one row longer than the previous two that I made, but ALL the blocks are gone! Yeah!

And wouldn't you know it - look what happened in the border. I must have reversed one of the rows. Oh well - it's staying like that!

Oops - of course, this was bound to happen!

The binding for all three quilts is already made so it was time to tackle the backings. I had set aside the remainder of a large bolt of fabric. I like to go for the efficient use of fabric and so I joined three lengths of fabric together and that will be enough for the backings of the two same size quilts. I'll load the very large backing and ONE quilt top. When I'm done the first top, I'll load the second top.

The third top which is longer will have its own backing. There was a chunk of fabric left on the bolt. Not quite enough to make the backing, but I think with the leftovers from the backings from the first two, there might be enough to get the third backing. It will be pieced a LOT but that's OK - it's for a scrappy quilt after all.

One chunk left for the third backing

The best part? I emptied ONE bolt of fabric. Yeah! Now there are still MANY bolts of fabric hiding in that stash room. Baby steps!

The empty bolt

Here's the binding for all three quilts, the two similar sized quilts and the backing for those two quilts.

Two quilts ready to be quilted

Here's the whole thing - all three tops, the binding and the backings.

Three scrappy quilts to be quilted

I'm hesitant to take this off the UFO list because technically that third backing isn't together and it will require a wee bit of work to piece. So - I put the whole mess on the shelf of the next in line projects to be quilted. It won't get done this coming week as I have another one of mine to do, but it's on the list for the following week. I'll get these two quilted and then make the backing for the third - then I'll cross it off the list. Doesn't matter - HUGE progress got made with this one and I'm happy.


This is what my design wall looks like with NOTHING on it. It does happen from time to time.

Blank design wall

The other day when I was quilting, I decided to fire up the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC to do some more embroidery on the sashings for the Halloween Quilt. Then I thought to myself - I don't even know what this project is going to look like with sashings. I might not even like it. So I stopped and this is how the EPIC looks at the moment. The embroidery is frozen in time. I didn't even take that last piece out of the hoop.

Frozen in time embroidery

 But look at the other side of the design wall. Hey - a couple of blocks are missing. YES - I'm working on the Halloween quilt. I've got 6 weeks! Well, it would be better if it were finished sooner so I could enjoy it a bit. It's OK to have the quilt up weeks before the holiday, but probably not good if it's still hanging as we approach Christmas!

What happened to the missing blocks?

 I'm working on them.  See in the block below that there are jump stitches in the design. Those have to be trimmed out and then the block has to be trimmed down. After all the work to make each block, I was terrified to trim them down for fear of making a mistake.

Blocks have jump stitches to trim out

 Here's the block with the jump stitches gone!

Jump stitches are gone!

It's neat how the designs were digitized (This is called Halloween Town by AnitaGoodesigns).  You can position the blocks any way you like and the background still matches up. So this is a row WITHOUT sashing. OOps - each row is five blocks - I only have three trimmed so far.

The row without sashing

And here's the row WITH sashing.

Same blocks with sashing

Gosh - I'm torn. I like it both ways. It will be bigger with sashing. Crap - well - I might just go ahead and trim down everything I have stitched out and then I can make a decision. I have other stuff that I can be embroidering so its not the end of the world. And on the EPIC, those pieces do NOT take long to stitch out.


I manged to get three more of my HST ender/leader blocks sewn together. I was pressing them when my ironed timed out. Remember - it only goes for 45 minutes. I really should switch back to my Reliable iron. Too lazy! That's sad!!!!

Three more blocks of the HST project DONE!

I also got another customer quilt done!  Yeah! Let's just say that each quilt has something to teach me! I'll tell you about it some day.

Customer quilt

I thought I would share this picture with you. This is my sample quilt for curved piecing. No big deal but I needed a photo for a guild where I'll be teaching the class next year. The BIG DEAL is that I cropped this photo using the software and it WORKED!!!!!!  Notice that you ONLY see the quilt - no ugly background. I'm learning. It may not be the most efficient way to crop it, but I did it!!!!!

Curved piecing sample - CROPPED

There just isn't a moment in a day when I don't try to learn something. Never too old to learn and I have a good lesson about learning to tell you - it's all about that customer quilt. I'll share when I can get rid of the guilt. DO NOT worry - the customer quilt looks fine and was NOT damaged in any way. Just a wee bit of learning on my part.

On that note, I've a huge day ahead of me. First, I need to review the week to see what deadlines are looming, how much time I have in the studio and what can be realistically fit in. That's the key to getting a lot done. If you overschedule yourself, you're not going to be happy. If you underschedule, you'll not feel accompolished. I'm learning and I tell you - it's all about lists. There's nothing so satisfying as making a list, checking it twice and then crossing something off as it gets done!!!!

I can barely contain myself, but I'm NOT doing my UFO list for 2019 ........yet. I'm still contemplating what to put on that list.

And with that - I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!

Oh yes - if you want to read about Miss Lexi -here's the link. We could have had a disaster on our hands but thankfully no one was harmed in the incident.