longarm week!

With the hubby away, the quilter must play!

After posting last week, I got busy with the butterflies.  I got so busy I forgot to take a photo of anything until all nine (I was working on the last 5 all at once) were done and in a layout for the top...

Well, that got big fast.  Of course, 24" blocks makes things get big fast, but I didn't really think about it much.

I decided on just 1" sashings and a 1" border to make things all look framed in nicely (and not make it any bigger than necessary) and was off and running to the long seams.

And boy were those seams long!

It's so big, there's not enough room in my sewing room to lay the whole thing out flat, so I just kinda tossed it and let it wrinkle up a little for the photo.  Then promptly picked it up because wrinkles when longarming are a pain in the behind.

That was a late night, but it's all good.  No shifts at work to accommodate, no hubby asking for meals...I can eat dinner at 9pm if I want to and who is gonna know?

The following day I only pieced quilt backs.  Freddie had a vet appointment (just yearly vaccinations and a checkup - he's fat, but we all knew that) and I went out to lunch with friends (first time in a while thanks to working a lot).  I read between and after, but generally had a little lazier of a day.  I'm on vacation.  It's okay.

Tuesday, though.  Up and at 'em!

I had ordered a new roll of batting on Sunday, so I was less worried about running out (though this is the only quilt that has a deadline I might want that batting for sooner rather than later), but had plenty after I prepped this quilt.

I wracked my brain, searched the interwebs and generally couldn't find any motif I wanted to do or I thought would be good or would not require lots of marking and careful stitching to look good.  (Nothing against those, but for a utility quilt being given to someone who doesn't know the first thing about it, and me being rather lazy, I didn't see the point in show-quality quilting.)  So I opted for "the Katie" - swirls overall.  They're fairly quick and easy.

I took no in-process photos.  It did, in fact, go fast.  I think I even sewed the binding on the same day.  The machine side.  The hand side I put off a few more days.

But I did get a decent photo of the back fabric:

It's still not the perfect color here, but nothing seems to quite capture it.  It's an orangey-brown.  More brown than any of the orange fabrics on the front, but definitely more orange than brown.  So I thought it a good choice.

(And you can kinda see my swirls, so you know I didn't take the photo until after I was done quilting AND binding it - note the binding is done?)

I still need to label it, but am not sure of the guy's name.  I'm debating who to ask - if I ask the coworker she might figure out something is up.  If I ask another coworker (he shops regularly at the store), they might wonder why I'm not asking the daughter-in-law coworker...and then they'll wonder what's up.

But I'll get it done today.  Because I'm back to work tomorrow and want this in hand when I go.  So I can pass it along as soon as possible.  (But not today because I'm still officially "on vacation" and no one needs to be the wiser.)

Wednesday I got up and did my normal clean-the-house routine that is usually done on Wednesday mornings, but had planned to get the butterfly quilt on the longarm.  Since the stars didn't take too long, and the butterflies aren't THAT much bigger, it shouldn't be too long, right?

Hahahahahahahahaha.

First, do I have enough batting?

Yes.  With about 6" to spare.

Whew!  Because though this isn't due to be given till Christmas, I would have been really mad to have to postpone at this point.  I'm psyched up for it and everything.

I decided to do swirls in the background and a paisley-kind-of motif in the butterflies themselves.  Both are fairly dense patterns, but I can do this.

I also decided to match thread colors to the front, which meant five colors (background, black, blue, purple and red-purple) and thread changes.  So do I want to change colors every pass or do one color all the way and another on a second rolling, etc?

I ended up opting for doing each color and rolling the quilt back and forth a few times.

All of the swirls done and getting ready for butterfly bodies here.  The swirls took a while, but I had to stop and start a few more times than I would like because the butterflies are so big I couldn't continuously quilt around them without moving the quilt on the frame with the needle in it.  And while I could do that, I chose not to.  That's scary!

I thought here I was halfway done.

Hahahahahahaha.

HOURS later I took this photo where I was nearly done with the red-purple butterflies.  I still had five to go.  And again, because of their size, I couldn't quilt a whole butterfly in one go.  So each butterfly was quilted in the four quadrants that are wings.

But I persevered.  My right elbow started to ache - I use my right arm to guide and my left is on the handlebar, but doing little except to steady my nerves...

Many more hours later, I was finally done.  I texted my mom at 8:50 that night that I was finally done quilting.  I still had to get it off the frame and clean up after myself, but I was done quilting.

Originally I had thought I'd be done quilting early enough to keep going and sew the binding on, but nope.  It was late and I hadn't eaten dinner.  I had eaten a later lunch and wasn't really hungry, but still.

Regardless of the achy elbow (which is still a little angry, though that may be for another reason that I'll get to in a minute), I'm VERY glad to have these done.  There is one more waiting - the quilt for my nephew - but it can wait a bit.

My batting did show up - originally scheduled to arrive Wednesday, that was quickly changed to Thursday, and it did arrive then.  Thankfully when I was home because you just never know any more about people and the delivery guys don't seem to give any care to where they put things (computers in puddles in the rain, batting in plain sight of the road, etc).  (I get that they have a difficult job, but if you're already all the way up on the porch with the thing, how hard is it to put it another 2 feet to the left so every car driving by can't see it?)

Anyways.  Quilting completed!

Thursday my mom came down to spend part of the day with me.  We have a few shifty thrift stores here that she loves, though they don't contain the multitude of good finds the nicer stores have, she is in it for the thrill of the hunt.  I also took her to a new quilt shop that's just a little south of me and out to lunch.

(Aw, crap, I got two new quilt books I forgot to take photos of.  Oh well, next week?)

Friday I had a doctor appointment.  Yearly physical and, after hearing that the shingles vaccine has a positive correlation with decreasing the chances of dementia, particularly in women, I decided to get that.

Since I was up earlier enough for that to have some time to kill, binding went on the butterflies.  Because that was better than sitting here worrying about what poking and prodding the doc was going to do and wondering how I'd react to the vaccine.

The appointment was fine.  The receptionists, the medical assistant/nurses and the doc are all so friendly and kind.  Something you just don't find a lot of places, and that made the whole thing so much easier.

The vaccine was fine.  I got it in my dominant arm, figuring when I arrived home and started hand-binding two quilts, it would help work it in and hurt less.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I got a tetanus shot a few years ago and my arm hurt for a few days.  This?  Maybe I just didn't do enough work with that arm, but it is now three days later and it still hurts.  Like just sitting here typing its a little achy (the whole arm got into the act that first night, which is maybe why the elbow is still angry) and I slept poorly that first night because I couldn't quite get comfortable.

But the next day with a little ice pack action and some Advil, it started feeling better, and with a nap, I was on my way back to myself.

But this is, in no way, a reason to not get this vaccine.  Everyone needs to make their own choices about this one, but I've seen a couple of friends get shingles before they were eligible for this and I DO NOT want what they had.  (Also, if my chances of dementia decrease, all the better.)

I'll have to get a second one in the 2 to 6 months range, so I'll know better what to expect, but on the grand scheme of things, this is really nothing.  I'm old enough to have had chicken pox as a kid and this is not as bad.  It's just my arm.  (Picturing the Monty Python knight saying "it's just a scratch"!)  And other vaccines have hit me harder.

On to happier things:

Reading!

Again just one this week, but it was more than 500 pages, so I have good reason.  (Also, quilting.)

Set in the 1600's in Paris, a young woman discovers she can see the future in water.  At the time, this sort of business for women was...common?  An older woman recognizes her talent and takes her on to train and add to her network.  Since she had the skill legitimately (it seems a number in the network were charlatans who used powders of whatever for whatever thing they decided it worked for), the training was more to create the environment and intrigue necessary to be respected.

She is a success - so much so that the king requests her to do a reading for him.  And since such shenanigans are the height of fashion, the king requesting her is good for business.

But she lives a dangerous life.  If she displeases her benefactor, the woman knows how to poison her.  And she must pay a portion of her earnings to this woman.  A woman who has spies everywhere and seems to know everything (as a good fortune-teller with no actual gift should).  She has few people she can actually trust and it's a wonder to me how she didn't just become a paranoid insomniac from it all.

So most of the book is building her up and following her growth as a medium.  But then things start to fall apart and an exit seems necessary (as one might expect), so we see that develop.

It was interesting (I didn't realize coffee drinking and police forces were already established so many years ago!) and moved at a good pace.  My biggest complaint is people who have similar-sounding names (sometimes I take notes, but this time I didn't and should have) and some phrases in French that were not translated that left me hoping I wasn't missing much (because I could have looked them up, but didn't want to - I'm reading a paper book, for goodness sakes!).

I'm midway through the next book, but enjoying it and trying not to rush it.  Non-fiction has a way of doing that to you.  And it's okay.  I hit my yearly goal of 52 books (one per week) a few weeks back, so now I'm just coasting.  Maybe I'll read more than last year, maybe not.  But with a sale at my local library the end of September, I'd better clear off a little more space on my cart if I want to attend and acquire a few more books without (too much) guilt!

Happy quilting!
Katie

...but once I get started...

Last week I shared what it took to get me started quilting again (a very dire diagnosis) and this week it seems I can't stop!

First I worked on the quilt for Chuck's dad...

Laying out a few blocks just to get my mojo flowing before I started sewing.  (And trimming a bazillion geese...)

Matching things up as I go...

AAAHHHH!!!

(Just kidding.)

Starting to look like something now!

You can't do much around here without help...  I wish they'd learn how to trim blocks instead, but I suppose contributing extra loves counts as something.

Was this the end of day two or day three?  I think three.  Whatever.  Blocks are in thirds and this feels like almost done.  (Please don't remind me about the upcoming long seams, okay?)

And they're done!

Seems the same block ends up on top most of the time, but that just means I kept everything in order.  No seams ripped!

I got the blocks on the floor and Salem wanted to pose.  She does look nice with those colors, doesn't she?  (I may be biased - she looks good on everything.)

I also have a couple of scratches on my wrist from where Lily (looking so sweet above) was "helping" and when I tried to move her so I could rearrange blocks, she ninja kicked me.  She literally came up off the floor from lying on her side and was a foot off the ground before I knew what was happening.  She does NOT like to be told what to do.

And then she knocked this off the bin it's next to (it was up there from when I vacuumed a few days earlier) and thought it was great fun this way.  Right-side-up?  Nope.  She and Salem love it this way.  Of course, she stole one of the balls out of it and I think that's now downstairs behind the litterbox in the bathroom, but...well...I'll dig it out if she figures out how to liberate the other two in there.

With Lily occupied, I was able to cut sashings and borders and get things going together.  The dreaded long seams are coming, but there are no corners to match at this point, and I'm looking for silver linings here.

Woo hoo!  It's a top!

(Not sure if that's Salem or Freddie, but looking kinda round, so probably Freddie.)

I've been to my local quilt shop for a back and that's been washed but not pieced.  If I remember, I'll get a photo and insert it, but it's a pain to get it from my phone to the big computer, so I'm not doing it right now.  You'll see it eventually either way, I promise.

And with that, I was left wondering what to do next.

The hubby is up north fishing.  His annual trip.  Last year I went and this year I asked for the week off, debating whether or not to go.  I ended up deciding not and it's for the best since my mom, our cat-sitter, ended up planning something out of town that overlaps.  (Shhh...don't tell the boss.  She thinks I'm out of town!)

So I'm off work for the week and home alone.  It's so quiet!

I decided to give up on finding an alternate block that I like for the butterfly quilt and just raid the stash and make more butterflies.  I can always hit the local quilt shop (again - twice in a week?!) if I need it, but let's see what the stash gives.

Well..

I had hoped to make two more red-purple, two purple-purple and one turquoise, but the stash did not provide.  So I lost a purple-purple and gained a turquoise.  My stash of blues is biggest, but that encompasses everything from navy to barely light blue to blue-green to green-blue and everything between.

Every one will be a little different, unlike the first four that are two sets of matching fabrics.  Each butterfly will have matching wings - I didn't get THAT crazy - but as I was cutting, I realized I didn't have enough of some fabrics.  This pattern wastes a lot with lost corners, but I'll play with those later.  Other than the smallest ones, they're not going to be wasted.

So above are all the parts.  There are four fabrics in each, so these are sorted by fabric 1, 2, 3, and 4, to make it easier on me when sewing.  (For previous blocks, I didn't do this and it resulted in some ripping.)

After a LONG stretch cutting four bazillion pieces (I swear the star quilt took less time), I got to start sewing!

The top halves of the upper wings are together.  This feels like the hardest part - maybe because of that big background triangle at the top where you lose a fair amount of print - but I'm on the way.

Today will be more butterfly sewing.

I did some chores this morning (not the least of which was washing the quilt that Salem used as a furball presentation surface shortly after I went to bed last night) and now I'm just about ready to really start the day.

When this is done I suppose I'm going to have to buckle down and start quilting and binding some things!  I hope to have enough batting on my roll to do both quilts I'm working on here, but at least I'll have enough for the star quilt.  And then I'll have to order more - a pricey task I'm not excited about.

As for reading, it's only been a week, but it's been a fairly busy one - obviously!  But I still manage to sneak some in every day.

With all those apples on the cover, who could be surprised when Johnny Appleseed makes an appearance?

A family moves west from Connecticut to settle in Ohio.  50 fruit-bearing trees are part of the deal to claim the land for their own, so the father brings a few branches from the family orchard back home, intending to graft them in the new place.  He also purchases trees from Johnny Appleseed.

They also clear the land and build a home and begin farming, but it's a hard life and many of the children die from "swamp fever" (I think it's malaria).  The family is fairly dysfunctional as well, making everything harder.

After a tragedy, the youngest son leaves.  He's always been the quiet odd-duck, but his father taught him about the apple trees and nature in a way.  He travels west and west and west, eventually landing in California and finds the sequoias and redwoods and ends up with a job working with them

The story jumps around time-wise, and is told from multiple perspectives (something this author likes to do), but it's not too jarring once you figure out who is who.  I enjoyed seeing the gold rush and the general push west from this perspective.

The end felt rushed (as in the last book),  but maybe it needed to be.  A lot happened all at the end, but it felt like I needed to just finish the story so the people could get on with their newly complicated lives without my prying into them.

I'm nearly through the next book and it's another good one.  I should finish it today!

Happy quilting and reading!
Katie

what it takes to get me quilting...

I'm back in the sewing room, but it seems deadlines and emergencies are what gets me there.

First up, I'm finally sewing down the binding on Tara's wedding quilt.

Lily is NOT helping.  She was growling and hissing and bit me.  She wanted the quilt all for herself and was absolutely offended that I would need to move it or "use" it when she wanted it.  Eventually she settled in and looked sweet, but don't let that fool you.  She is a GOBLIN.

Why the urgency to finish?  The marriage is likely to happen this week.  In a hospital chapel.  Because the father of the groom has been handed some really awful health news and no one is expecting a good outcome.  They want to be married before he's gone.

I don't know the dad really well, but he is a customer at my work and always friendly and happy and kind.  And I know the family is devastated.

So as I was scrolling through Pinterest Saturday, doing that instead of many other productive things, I came across this quilt, in the orange and blue colorway I hope the link shows you first, and it made me think of him.  No idea why, but it did.  I kept telling myself I don't know him that well, this would be weird and all sorts of other excuses, but it stuck with me.  I pondered through the evening and it just wouldn't leave me alone.

I told myself I'd check the stash in the morning and see what I had.  If I still remembered it.

I did.

I never thought I'd have enough.  There are 18 different fabrics (plus the sashing) in the quilt - made from fat quarters.  I had more than enough, though it took some time to add and subtract until I had what I thought was a good mix.  (And I did swap out some for what you see here as I was going too!)

Well.  I guess that settles that.

Time to cut.  And mix and match.

Freddie helped here some, but grew bored before I finished - and thankfully before he made much of a mess.  Each plate contains the makings for one star.

Time to sew!

I tried to remember to take photos periodically.  So here is one with the geese about half done.

Soon after this I realized I needed 144 geese.  This is why I don't do this kind of quilt math before I get started.  It's daunting!

And by dinnertime:

All of the geese are made.  I have to press them and add them back to the plates (I have a system - don't worry!) and then begin assembling stars.  There are only 36 stars, but a fair number of seams to go before they get there.

I had hoped to get these pressed before I was done last night, but after about 8 hours working on this quilt, I figured I could take a break and read.

I'm pretty excited to have this much done.  And only two shifts at work this week (that's a whole other debacle, but we'll just leave it there), so I should have plenty of time to get this top done.  I'll need to visit the LQS for a back, but considering the entire top will come from the stash, I'm not going to complain!

(And this made me realize that my stash isn't that bad.  I just have to stop procrastinating and get busy again.  I don't have a lot of larger pieces, but lately controlled scrappy has been my go-to anyways.)

As I was sewing, I realized, too, that I'd made another quilt for a coworker's mom when she was handed a terrible diagnosis.  And that sealed the deal, making the project settle nicely into my head.

I'd say that's it for quilting, but it seems like a fair amount even if it was all done in one day!  (Well, two if you count the binding.)

Lots of reading still.

Set mostly in New York, the story of a woman who flees Paris when it falls to the Nazis and makes her way into the world of fashion.  It spans most of her life, but deals more with personal drama than sewing and the fashion world, which was kind of disappointing.  (Even some of the sewing info seems off - she sewed an entire couture dress in a few hours, including cutting fabric from a sketch?)

Anyways, the drama part of the story was interesting and had you guessing about things till near the end.  There were a lot of characters and time jumps (the current timeline could probably have been eliminated without losing much, in my humble opinion), so it was hard to get sorted out at first, but eventually it settled into my brain.

Set in current times, this follows a woman who is struggling to run a fancy shoe company that her grandparents started many years ago.  She makes shoes by hand in her workshop, but also has some that are made in a factory.  As is the case with business (or life), things go wrong, the business plan must pivot, and she finds her way through.  Family plays a huge part in her life and the business.

She also has recently found the perfect guy and so we learn a lot about him and how he adds into the business as well as her personal life.  Thankfully there is enough about the business that it's not too much of a romance.

And the title comes from a factory building they purchase - it's the previous name and they keep it.  Sorry if that's a spoiler, but it seems a little odd that a book with macaroni in the title is about shoes, so I thought I'd help.

Unbeknownst to me, this is considered a classic.  It just sounded interesting when I read the blurb.  It's also considered literary fiction.

There is an introduction, written by another author 50 years after the first publication, that talks of literary fiction.  Of course she gives a dictionary definition, but summarizes it as "literature is classier than fiction."  Which makes sense.  But she went further and has a "semiserious consensus" from people in the book business to define it as "if an editor has to look up three words while reading the manuscript, it's literature."  That tracks from my reading.  And finally, her stepbrother provides the quote that puts a nice spin on it: "Literature changes you.  When you're done reading, you're a different person."  So yep.  Those all seem to track and sum up what I often feel when reading something listed as "literary."

Anyways, this is a dystopian style story in three parts, each taking place a thousand or two years after the previous one.  The first, we are introduced to a few men in a monastery who are keepers of knowledge.  They are copying books they find in the rubble after a nuclear war that occurred nearly 2000 years before.  There are few people, but they're starting to discover things.  The Catholic church (or some version of it) rules things, but they want the knowledge that is being discovered.

The second part things are looking like our society again - cars and nuclear weapons again.  (The cars drive themselves, which made me giggle since this was published in 1959 and we are just now starting to get those!)  Groups of people are unhappy with each other and getting ready to blow everyone else up.  And then they do.

The third part is back about where the first part was.  Rebuilding, surviving, and noticing that the past keeps repeating itself.

As I went on, it seemed to get harder to read.  I don't think the language changed, so I can't exactly pinpoint what happened, but it did.  It wasn't a bad book, but I don't think it's one I'll read again - despite the introduction telling me reading it multiple times brings about different meanings.

And finally, finished just last night:

My reading tracker app tells me this is a slow read, but I blew through it in three days.

Set at the turn of the last century, when women's suffrage was catching on in England, two girls meet in a cemetery after the queen has passed away.  They become friends and we hear the story through their voices (each chapter is another voice), but also from their parents and a few friends as well.  The girls are different as could be, but get along well and represent both sides of the suffrage movement, though it's not done in an obvious way.

There are many side stories, as the suffrage part of things isn't the main story, but it's an interesting part of it.  And I enjoyed reading it.  It wasn't preachy or too fact-filled, which made it easy to read.

The random book chooser has chosen another book by the same author for my next read, which is pretty crazy considering how many books are in the stash right now, but since I enjoyed this one, I decided to give the same author another go instead of vetoing it.  (I have that power, thankyouverymuch!)

And now it's time to get a label on that quilt and get it ready for presentation.  I'm not sure exactly when the wedding will happen, but I want to have it done to give to them soon after the event.

Happy quilting!
Katie

PS  I hit a milestone in my reading last week:

I have read at least one page of a book every single day for 1,300 days.  Woo hoo!

four and two and strawberries

I can't say my sewing room saw a lot of sewing this week, but...

The remaining two butterflies have been put together!

Now I need to decide if I want to make five more and do a 3x3 layout (which seems kinda busy and these are 24" square), or figure out something to do for the center and corner blocks.  Remember, this is the original:

And the top left arrangement was chosen (hence the ginormous blocks), but I worry that the those flower blocks will be lost when they get so big.  The center will probably be okay, but again, it's large, so...  I've been perusing the interwebs, but haven't settled on anything yet.

If anyone has suggestions (that do not include applique), I'll take them into consideration!

And then there's the reading, which I often do in the comfy chair in the sewing room.  So I see the room, just don't sew much lately...ugh...

A dystopian young adult (but I didn't realize that part) dealing with the "after the detonation" of what I think is probably nuclear.  There is a protective dome that a select few were allowed into before the bomb(s) were set off and they are now awaiting the fallout and whatever to settle and they will recolonize.  But people were fused to their surroundings - and not all died.  The main character has a doll fused where her arm once was, as she was carrying it with her when the blast hit her.  She teams up with a guy who has his younger brother fused to his back - they were riding a dirtbike together, so I guess it could have been worse.  

Anyways, the people in the dome are referred to as "Pure" and they are undamaged and undergoing genetic enhancement (well, at least the boys, as they're afraid to screw up the reproductive systems of the girls) while they wait for the all-clear.  But of course, these people in the dome are elitist jerks and of course there is a resistance.

The story is really about a Pure who escapes and the doll-head girl and the people they accumulate to go on their quest.  He wants to find his mother.  She is resisting the training to become a part of the kind-of police force among the damaged.  They think the mother has a key to fixing things...or something along those lines, but it's a bit murky...

But the story is good, it moves along quickly, and it gives you hope for humanity.  I mean, it's fiction, but still.  There is still good among those who are left.

It left a lot of loose ends, though, as it's part of a trilogy.  And while I understand you have to leave something for the next book, I'm not a fan of those that leave you with so much hanging that you feel you must go read the next book.  Because with the way I get books?  Finding it will be unlikely.  (I suppose, though, that's not how publishers work...)  

Categorized as a romance in my reading tracker app, this one isn't as romantic as you might expect.  Yes, there's a romance, but it's not obnoxious.

A 13-year-old boy and his mom go to a department store for school clothes and the boy encounters a bleeding man who asks for his help.  He gives it, and his mother, who has not been right for many many years (we find out why near the end, so I won't spoil it), accepts the strange man and brings him home with them.  Turns out he's a prisoner who escaped the hospital where he was taken for an appendectomy.

So what do they do?  Hide him.

The mother rarely goes out, so things don't seem as odd as they might, I guess.  And he's a kind man, despite the authorities saying he's armed and dangerous (what he's armed with after falling out a hospital window is beyond me, but whatever), who cooks delicious foods, repairs small things around the house and patiently teaches the boy how to play baseball.  The mother also falls in love with him, though that's seen through the eyes of the boy, so its not entirely obvious until they start nighttime activities in a bed that shares a wall with his bedroom...

It was a quick read.  Some suspense, but things do work out in the end, as you'd expect.  I thought it would be cool if this one came up for Labor Day, but the random number jar did not agree.

I'm mostly through the next book, which is not listed as a romance, but good Lord it is.  I'll share more in my next post when I'm finished.

And today my house smells of strawberries...

They were on a good sale at the grocery store, but to get the deal you had to buy quite a few.  So about half went into my dehydrator (that I often forget I have because it hasn't been used much) this morning and within seconds of the fan turning on, my kitchen started smelling heavenly.  It's spreading through the house and I can't think of anything better to scent my home!

We'll see how they turn out.  I'm still quite new at this, but these required no prep other than rinsing and slicing, which was nice.  And if they go well, we'll see what other fruits come up on a good sale as they come into season!

Off to do a few more chores.

Happy quilting and reading!
Katie

PS  Thanks to Cathy who mentioned in a comment that the show based on the book from last week was called "Manifest."  I do remember seeing that one advertised and thinking it looked interesting.  I never got around to watching it, but apparently it's still my jam because I bought the book!  It's not exactly the same story, but a similar event.