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