Football, Food, Dogs, Kids, Work... Quilt?

Did I say I was back? I did, didn't I? Okay, maybe I should re-iterate so I can believe it myself.

I am back.

While I haven't been posting much, I am squeezing in some quilting with my daily activities and this week, especially, now that I've gotten in the groove of a schedule.

I quilted and am now binding a charity quilt. It's slow going b/c I keep it in the back of the car and bind while I'm at my son's football practice. However, I'm also dropping off and picking up 2 other kids at 2 other activities during that time so... there's a smal window to bind. However, it is getting done whereas at home, it wasn't.

It wasn't being completed at home because I've already loaded another quilt on the frame & started quilting and I'm getting ready to start cutting that baby airplane quilt from a few posts ago. I'm trying to be productive whenever I can and the only way I can do that is to have these things set to go when I am.

Pictures will be coming soon, I promise.

The rest of the title? Kids started school a couple weeks ago along with all their activities. We are enjoying all our time together, though even if the days disappear fast. Dogs are same as always but I've started getting their hunt training going again. This, too, is slow moving considering the short days but it's not being ignored so I'm happy. Work has also been unusually busy for this time of year/month. I am surprised I hvae enough minutes to spare today to post this.

Finally, FOOD. I want to devote a little time to writing about food today. I've been experimenting again. DH hunted some wild boar and tagged one last winter. 350lbs of pork. Some of it didn't come home, but at least 1/2 did. My freezer is full of pork. I have been exerimenting with various recipes since I typically think pork is B-O-R-I-N-G. (Seriously, he could have gone out and killed a big Hereford Bull and I'd not be scrambling to find interesting ways to eat it. Red meat is good to me as is.)

I have found a couple keepers and one that wasn't so good. I will be posting these over the next couple weeks so I wanted to warn you in advance. In the meantime, I'm going to leave you with 3 links to recipes I saw today on the Food Network which I've decided I must try (only 1 relates to pork.)

Garlic Cheese Biscuits
Short Ribs with Tagliatelle
Lobster Pot Pie

Enjoy and check back soon for quilt pictures.

I'm ba-aack!

YES! Finally, after a nearly month-long hiatus, I've started sewing and quilting again. I have also started fabric cutting for the airplane baby quilt I designed (a couple posts back). The kids start school tomorrow. The new house is primarily unpacked and most odds and ends purchased and put away.

I am looking forward to getting back into a grooving schedule really soon! :D

In the meantime, here's a few pictures of the dogs enjoying their new backyard for your entertainment. Quilting pictures coming soon.

Cheers!

The Quilting Goddesses DO like me!

Sort of.

I still wasn't thrilled with DD's (K's) quilting design but I was mustering through. I finished it and removed it from the frame. Then, on a trip to JoAnn's to pick up some interfacing for another project, I came acrosse some 2" wide ribbon rolls on sale 2 for $5. LIGHTBULB moment. Bought 2, took them home and used them as the binding.

I was very happy and could tell it finished it all off nicely. Pulled the varigated thread and design from the quilting together with the fabrics. Looked very good.

I felt the Quilting Goddesses were feeling generous towards me.

One quick question, though... I used chalk to mark the quilt design and in some places, the orange didn't rinse or wash out like usual. I never had this problem before.

What do you do? Just keep washing until it goes away? It's not terrible but really, I don't want to leave it.

Cheers! Beck

Amidst the move

I am packing and clearing of junk for the move to TN, I managed to make a couple items for DD. Sewed up a pair of torn capris to be shorts (not pictured) and then made this skirt... not that happy with it but DD is and that's what counts. Got the idea from this site but deviated from the tute (which is probably why I don't like it).

I also made a couple shrugs (instructions here) from old t-shirts and ribbon. DD loves them. One is pictured below.

(ps please ignore the grey t-shirt, these photos were for modeling purposes only.)

Finally, I bought some material from JoAnn's and made 2 of these dresses, 1 for DD and 1 for her friend. They LOVE them. Can I tell you? Bias tape makes fantastic ties for sundresses. Holds together when tied much better than ribbon.

Tonight I will be sewing ribbon on DD's quilt as binding and packing up my bedroom.

Tomorrow, hopefully, pictures of DD's quilt for you and then no more updates for several days as sewing machines all get packed up once DD's quilt is finished.

PHEW!

I often wonder

at myself. You veteran quilters might best understand this post. Based on what little I've read, heard and supposedly learned, you should have a quilting design prior to starting to quilt.


Now I've posted about this before, I've been guilty of not doing this but it's come out alright in the end. Still, for my kids' quilts, we planned. We had a design.


Let's talk ability and the Quilting Godesses' other plans. Ability, adv. beginner. Some days, less than beginner, some days and a couple glasses of wine and I dare say I'm intermediate! But on this morning, with only 1 cup of coffee, adv. beginner.


Let's talk Quilting Godesses' other plans. Those ladies just love to laugh at unsuspecting adv. beginner quilters who think they have things under control. (I'd say they laugh at all levels of quilters but cannot speak with any authority on that so I haven't.)


So, I had to change the quilting design of P's quilt while the quilt was on the frame due to my ability and more specifically, how my ability was able to rise (okay, FAIL) the QGs' challenges. Took a while but both P and I love the result.


Next came J's quilt. I started quilting along and quickly realized why people use rulers. Just b/c you draw a straight line on your quilt doesn't mean you can quilt it that way. Bought a fat foot, used a ruler and YES! I've got the hang of this quilting thing. Finished J's quilt pretty quickly.


Moving on to K's quilt. 3rd of 4. (Although S' quilt will be quite a while getting done since I've taken a hiatus.) It's on the frame. It had a couple simple motifs. Yep, I said it "had". I felt like the quilting was too simplistic, and truthfully, it was. What did I do? I changed the motif a bit. Instead of trying to vine leaves in the 1" sashing and 2.5" borders like originally planned, I started swirls in the borders. This pulled fabric patterns out. I put swirls in the simple arced squares quilted inside a regular square piece of fabric. In some other squares, she wanted a simple flower. I spiraled in the middle of the flower and echoed the petal outlines. In the small sashing, I'm quilting small little flowers. And all of this, with varigated thread.


And that second to last one, my friends, is the one I think is a bad, bad idea. I'm forging ahead, however. She's 12, going on 13 and will like it with the flowers even if teal varigated thread on white is a bit much. She's in the middle of the "throw it all in there and that's what makes it good," artistic phase.


The picture is from my phone and tiny but I wanted to show you what I think looks so scary.


I could be wrong and when I get it off the frame, maybe it will all come together. Maybe if I didn't use the varigated thread for those flowers, it'd be better but I'm not at the point of changing threads (or even wanting to) in the middle of quilting.


But don't you see? This is probably what will make me change thread colors in one of my next quilts. I don't learn from others... I learn from my screw ups.


And so today, I wondered at myself and I thought about all the veteran quilters out there and wondered about you. How many of you can read today's post and think of an, "Ahh, I remember when..." story.