Fly, fly, away........................

The good news is that we're still here! We survived with no furnace for over 24 hours. The bad news - it was a simple switch that needed to be turned on. It appears that the inspection team turned the power off to the furnace which shuts down everything including the thermostat. When the service tech came in last night and looked at the dead thermostat, he knew right away what the problem was. So we could have fixed it, but who knew that this darn switch powers everything???

THE switch

You'd think there would be a big red button on the furnace or something, instead of this innocent little light switch. Who would think that a simple light switch is what turns the darn thing on? I swear at one point yesterday that I heard the fan run. When this switch is off so is the furnace and the thermostat. That needs a label!

When the thermostat did get back up, the temperature in the house was 15.5. A tad cool since we normally keep it at 21. It didn't take that long and we were back in business. Just the sound of the furnace made me feel warmer! But I shall be harassing the sales guy when he's back on Monday or Tuesday!

The temperature when the thermostat got back up

I also asked the service tech if he would light the pilot light in the fireplace. Nope - can't do it because of liability or some crazy story. So the homeowner with little or no knowledge about this stuff should light the pilot light? Seriously??? What a bunch of crock that is! I'll find someone to light the damn thing! I just think it's silly since it would have taken this guy two minutes to do what needs to be done and me? It'll take an hour while I figure it out. And then who knows - what if I blow up the house.

Today it's all about flying geese. Not just any flying geese, but DIMENSIONAL flying geese.

Many, many, many, many years ago, I volunteered to quilt two group projects for an organization. While the organization is still in existence, a few of the members who worked on the project are no longer around. I've put off quilting these projects for several reasons. Not enough skill (OK - can't use that excuse any longer), not enough time (well, things are up-to-date) so that's not really an excuse either. OK - it's the damn DIMENSIONAL flying geese.

OH - and if you want to know if basting spray lasts?? Oh yes. One of the items was basted and since I was now going to quilt it on the long arm, I decided to take it apart. OH BOY! That was a terrible job. They must have used an entire can of spray on the wall hanging. It was stuck. Even when I washed the backing, there were gobs of batting stuck to it. So much for being water-soluble!!!

Anyway, after I finally pulled the three layers apart, there was still loads of batting stuck to the top and the backing. As mentioned, I washed the backing and still had to pull off batting. Here are the bits that I pulled from the top alone!! Yikes - I just couldn't get the stuff off.

Bits of batting from a quilt top

I'm not putting blame on anyone for this mess except ME. I decided to do some stitch in the ditch quilting on the piece. Anyway - it's now quilted. I forget how big it is, but it's a wall hanging size.

Quilt - DONE

The dimensional flying geese are on the outside row. Of course, they are! So I had to be careful how the binding was sewn on. I left an extra 1/8" beyond the quilt top when I trimmed so my slightly wider binding seam wouldn't catch the tips of the flying geese. The flying geese are still dimensional. They were a total pain in the butt to deal with. But the piece is done except for a label and a sleeve and I'm leaving that up to the organization should they choose. All the paperwork of the group project is still with the quilt.

The outer border is made up of dimensional flying geese

Here's a better picture without my finger sticking in the way of the final border of dimensional flying geese with the binding attached.

The binding is now on and the piece is complete

Guess what? The SECOND piece for the same organization also had DIMENSIONAL flying geese. What's with that???

More dimensional flying geese

I wanted to do an overall pattern on this piece and dimensional flying geese are the kiss of death for that. SO  - I loaded invisible thread on the sewing machine and regular piecing thread in the bobbin and I stitched each of those flying geese shut! I believe there are 46 of the darn things. What a waste of time, but it needed to be done.

The dimensional flying geese are stitched down

See - I can't poke my finger in there!!!!

Stitched down with invisible thread

If you didn't know I did that, you couldn't tell. I used a 1.5 wide zigzag stitch and about 3 or 4 in length.

Invisible stitching

The good news?? The piece is NOW quilted. It took almost as much time to stitch down those dimensional flying geese as it did to quilt it!

Quilt - QUILTED

This was a round-robin group project of which I was part of - I checked and my name was on the list. I had a wee panic moment when I was stitching those flying geese down - did I make the flying geese? But NO - I made the brown row on the bottom - with the flowers and the bird. Here's the thing - why did the people after me, add rows to the left and right, instead of along the top and bottom? If you use this as a wall hanging (it's 70 inches wide), then OK, but if you use it as a quilt, all the directions things are sideways. Oh well, not my problem.

If there was backing for it - I couldn't find it so I found some pieces in my stash and pieced the backing. And I had to piece batting for it. Let's just say that I was thrilled when it came off the machine (and all stitching was just fine!)

The pieced backing 

I don't think there's any binding fabric for it either, but I bet in my binding scrap tin that I can find something that'll work. That's a job for today as today is community project sewing day - a personal day for me to make pet mats, cut pillowcases, etc. And to work on completing a couple of quilts.

Also in the pile of quilts to be quilted was another quilt from a different organization that I took to be quilted. I had no idea when I took the quilt what it was. I opened it up and OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!  More DAMNED (excuse my language) dimensional flying geese.

More dimensional flying geese

This quilt top is HUGE. There are twenty blocks and each block has EIGHT dimensional flying geese. Yeah - you do the math on that one! I've no intention of doing a custom quilt job on this quilt.

The quilt is HUGE

 So I loaded invisible thread on the sewing machine and regular piecing thread in the bobbin. I'm stitching all the dimensional flying geese shut. I've got ¼ of the quilt done. And I'll work on it today and hope to get it quilted by the end of this coming week. I might not have access to the long arm on Monday and Tuesday as they are going to be working on the new furnace and electrical and the ceiling above the long arm so I may have to take a break from quilting for two days.

Let's just say that this task (going to take several hours to make it happen) is also a waste of time, but the quilting will be so much easier. And that is a HUGE quilt top to put under the sewing machine.

Huge quilt to work on stitching down the dimensional flying geese

And while I love invisible thread, I hate working with it!! You can't see it!!!

Invisible thread is hard to see

I'm not sure if there is binding fabric with this one. If not, I'll see what I can do so that when I finally return it (it's been years, but not too many), the quilt will be totally completed.

When I started this clean-up thing, it was to also get rid of some of this stuff that's been hanging around for a long time. Especially those things that don't belong to me. You know - you were going to do it as a favor. I've made huge strides this year, but I'm not out of the woods yet. There are a few more things that need to be done and those will happen (at least some of them) this coming year. The list is small now and that's a good thing. Some of it is going to require some research as I may have lost touch with the owners of an item or two. Not responsible of me - I know - let's not go there. I already feel very guilty!

Back to the dimensional flying geese. I tested a pattern for a designer a while back and guess what? Yep - it had dimensional flying geese on it. What's the deal with these dimensional flying geese? They're a total pain to make and a TOTAL pain to quilt!

I quilted my quilt freehand and I wasn't sure how to deal with the flying geese. Then this came to me and I'm happy as a clam. I stitched down the flying geese as part of my quilting design.

Flying geese are stitched down during the quilting process

You can see a bit better in this picture. I wanted a design that was continuous so that's why there's a line down the center of the flying geese.

Flying geese quilting design

This is what it looks like from the back. It worked perfectly. I was happy and NO MORE dimensional flying geese.

The back of the flying geese dimensional quilting pattern

Here's the thing - if you want to make dimensional flying geese - go ahead. BUT if you want someone else to quilt that quilt for you - think TWICE. I will REFUSE to quilt any more quilts that have dimensional flying geese on them. Oh - let me rephrase that - I'll quilt it for you, but it's going to cost a LOT of money. Keep in mind, those first three quilts in today's post? I did those for free as part of the organization's community projects. Obviously, someone made that large quilt and didn't want to quilt is so they donated it. Most of the quilters in a guild don't want to quilt large things for the community projects, so the large ones come to those of us with long arms.

Anyway - you get the idea. Think twice about what you put on the quilt - how and who will quilt it? That's pretty key to any kind of DIMENSIONAL embellishment/design on any quilt. Think dimension - think big dollars to get it quilted.

I've almost got my entire class schedule from now until June all organized. I'll be posting all that information in the next day or so. I've got classes at two different quilt stores, I've got classes that I'm teaching here and there's a couple of online ones as well - you should already know about those. I'm in the process of putting together requirements and even starting to write out the homework assignments. Oh yes - I'm going to try and stay on top of the game. And I've got the fabrics for three out of five quilts chosen! That's amazing!!!!

On that note, I'm out of here!!!

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!