Bit of a Check In

 Happy Saturday!

First week back from vacation was a mad house!  I didn't get much done on the sewing front and my "minimal overtime commitment" thing just did not work out.  So I ended up working very long days to try to help work get caught up.  I'm not sure how effective it was.  They need to just hire 2 more people and quit paying the rest of us over time.  That is far above my paygrade though so I don't have to worry about it. 😁 

We were up at Mt. Rainier today for a few hours.  It was very nice and quite relaxing.  We came home before it got to warm, only 86 degrees when we got back down here.  I got a bit of color on my cheeks and ... since I forgot my hat in my hair part. I aloe-ed it really well when we got home though so hopefully it will be fine by tomorrow.

 That picture is from a really bouncy bridge at Longmire.  

Once we got home and I got everyone fed and the kitchen clean I started working on the quilting for my friend's red/black/gray and white quilt and I'm making slow but sure progress.

I have discovered that I really enjoy free motion and I'm not at all fond of quilting with rulers.  I will take that into account on future projects.  I'll still use rulers when I can't get around it but I'm not going to specifically decide to quilt with rulers unless the quilt just really won't look good any other way.

 I also showed the friend I was with at Rainier the quilt "back" that I decided can't be a back and she really loved it so I told her "Great! It will go on the quilter once the 2 projects I'm trying to finish now are done and then it is yours!"  

I'm pretty happy with that outcome! 😁

I guess that's about all of the procrastinating of this ruler quilting I can do at the moment so I'm back to it for about another hour before bed time.

I hope everyone else is having a great weekend.

Bits of Progress

 Hello quilty friends!

I've made a bit of progress, a very little bit.  It's 3:30 on Sunday the 14th of July and I have to go back to work tomorrow.  I didn't get everything done that I wanted too, but I did get some of it done.

Tuesday evening hubby said he had made reservations for a couple of nights about 2 hours from home just so we could get out of the house and go somewhere while I was on vacation.  It was nice.  I didn't get to use the pool as there were way to many little people splashing around in it, but I did get to relax without cleaning and cooking for a couple of days so that was nice.

When we got home on Friday I got a little quilting done before we had to do some errands, by the time we got home it was late and time for bed.

Saturday we went to a morning wedding so we were done with that by 3 PM.  Very nice wedding between two very good friends of ours.  Relaxed, beachy theme and a very nice, relaxed reception afterward.  Small group of people and very low key, which was really nice.

After the wedding we went over to watch our grandson while his Mom and Dad went to a concert, so that was nice as well.  He's really into video games but he wants you to watch him play so he can explain the whole thing to you while he plays.  I have fun with that, except the VR (which I was watching on TV while he wore the headset and played) which made me a little motion sick when he was whipping his head around really fast. 😆

Today we had our morning meeting, went to lunch and then had to stop to get some thumb-drives for the spouse to transfer wedding pictures, he was the photographer yesterday since he has really nice camera gear.

Now I've got the rest of today to work on the quilt that is on the quilter, here's a look:

I hope everyone is staying cool, if you are where it's hot and warm, if you are where it's cold. 

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Quilters?

 Hello again!  

A couple of posts ago I was trying to figure out how I was going to back this:

I decided to piece a back, using all of the leftover fabric that I got for the front and the borders and what-all. 

So I pieced a back, about halfway into it my daughter, wise woman that she is, said "There is no way you are going to use that as the back unless you drastically change your plan."

Me, thinking I am smart said, "I'll just make it asymmetrical, then I will have to use it as the back." 

She says, "Ah yes, you do love symmetry.  Asymmetrical will probably work."  Her voice was doubtful.

Anyway, I finished piecing the back and it looked like this (ignore the bedside tables, no one sees them so we are allowed to be slobs in there):

  So, what do you think I did after I laid this out, saw what it looked like in all of its Asymmetrical glory?  You would be correct if you said I pulled out a 6 yard piece of high quality flannel I had and made it into a back instead since this will now be a quilt of it's own.

Note to self, don't piece backs ever again.  Every time I try to piece a back I end up going overboard and making it to pretty to be a back.  The problem I usually run into, and it happened with this one also is that I have to then figure out how to quilt the top so that the quilting will look good on the pieced back also and that would be IMPOSSIBLE with this one.  

I'm not upset about it at all.  The quilt that I've been working on for I don't even know how many years is now on the quilter and will be done and gifted hopefully by the end of this coming weekend, unless it is just to warm in my office/sewing room to stay in here any longer.  Going to hit 100 degrees today so they say. 🔥🌞🔥

Vacation! Yay!

 I am one week into a 2 week vacation.  As stated earlier, I had so much planned during my first week of vacation that it seemed almost like I was busier than when I work!

Last week I had a million things to get done, culminating in a 3 day convention over the weekend.

We are having temperatures in the upper 90s so I was very happy to be in air conditioning all weekend, along with all of the wonderful things I learned.

Today we will eventually be at 97, we're at 95 right now.  We have one window air-conditioning unit in the kitchen window which is the middle of the house and fans pushing the air to other areas.  I'm in the office/sewing room on one end of the house and it was tolerable earlier but I am pretty sure a move to the kitchen/living area is going to happen after I get this blog post done. 

So Wednesday we had a lot of errands to do and one of them was next to Quality Sew and Vac which is where I purchased my last/current sewing machine in February of 2012.  Violet, my Pfaff Ambition 1.5, has been a decent machine, and has helped me finish many projects.  Very few complaints with her, she had the features I wanted for what I could afford.

In 2013 I started contemplating high speed straight stitch machines and really wanted a Juki TL 2010Q but just could not justify (or afford to be honest) the price, when I had a machine that worked fine, and did basically what I wanted it to do.

Fast forward to last Wednesday and I finally got my Juki.  The one I settled on all those years ago still had excellent reviews and recommendations from many quilters.

I took Violet in to get her serviced at the same time, and she will become a gift for a friend of mine who really needs a sewing machine, but does not have one.  I also got myself a Brother (I have always been very partial to Brother and Singer machines) Innovis PS 500 that the lady at the store made me a very good deal on.  Both it and the Juki were on sale and were well within my budget. With the special no interest financing they were offering, and with full Spousal agreement, I got them both.  

I read the Juki manual when we got home and got it unboxed and tested but didn't have a chance to really sew with her.  Today spouse took pity on me and said he can take care of today's things so I could have some time in the sewing room.  I can not sing the praises of this Juki loudly enough.  It is SO fast and SO quiet and SO smooth.

The Brother will likely be set up once I need to stitch a binding on the current quilt in process, since I like to use decorative stitches around the binding.  The manual for the Brother is WAY thicker and more involved and the machine does a ton more things than my Pfaff ever dreamed of doing, so I definitely will need to devote some time to instruction reading, even though Kathy at the sewing store gave me a quick run through.

Anyway, it's been years since I have made a big purchase for myself and hubby is always telling me I am nearly impossible to buy for so we are calling these my anniversary present.