Quilting Outside the Box

My parents left Sunday and took both kids with them. They are in Louisiana now with my brother and then will travel on to New York this Sunday. My kids will be home around the 17th or so. It has been very quiet but I am trying to enjoy every minute! I have even made a "play date" for hubby to go do something next weekend so it will be just me and the dogs. Wow! They only want to be fed twice a day, given water when they run out and let in and out for bathroom and other duties. There is the occassional scratching and cuddling required. I can handle that!

So after my parents left I went to my friends house to sit and sew. Originally I was only planning to drop off my 12 Days quilt to be quilted but was invited to sew as well. I like the quilt I just cannot fully develop my quilting plan. I have plenty of ideas for some blocks just not all of them. I turned the quilt and my ideas over to her and she is going to see what sort of plan she can hatch. She and I are also in a Round Robin swap together. She had one ready for me when I arrived and completed her step on a second. So now I have advance time to work on these RR's.

Now to the topic of my post. While I was quilting my 7 Sisters my friend was prepping her square in a square quilt for her long arm. She was having issues with the backing and found she had cut it too small. I tried to help her hold it to see if it was just turned wrongly. No such luck. I started thinking what my solution would be. Cut off and piece the backing so it is wide enough or piece another backing. While these thoughts were running through my mind I heard a rip and looked to see what she was doing. This quilt has no borders and she decided to just tear a row off. I told her in a million years I would not have thought to do that. She admitted to running through the same ideas I had and arrived at this one.

I admire her and others that can "think outside the box". I would go so far as to say that I am usually intimidated by these folks that can work like this. I don't feel dumb but I do feel that I wish I were smarter. We sometimes get so stuck in what we are supposed to do and can't see other options. I do tend to follow directions to a "T" but I am learning to be more flexible in that area as well. My hat's off to you forward thinkers! I admire you all.

Personal Challenge If you remember my personal challenge to work only on my 7 Sisters until I am in the top 10 of the UFO Challenge on Stashbuster I want to update you. As of yesterday all the side setting triangles are quilted, my borders are mended and I am now quilting the borders. I am 14th on the list. It is taking forever to move above me! I do have a fast finish ready to be completed once I reach the top 10. I hope I am there next weekend while hubby is away. :D

Golfing

Here is a little video of us golfing.

Mom and Dad

Vacationing and Quilting

Still enjoying time with my parents here. We have eaten a lot both in and out. My hubby used to be the grill master but I had to try it out since he has a hard time walking in the yard due to his knee. I made some T-bones and they turned out great! I cooked nachos for Dad. He really likes them and was disappointed at the ones he got at the restaurant we went to.

My parents, son and I enjoyed a round of golf at the local par 3 course. I have not played in such a long time. I managed to step in a hole, twist my ankle and fall. Hurt for a good part of the day but by night I was fine. We are going out tomorrow for another round. I will watch out for those holes!

Can't think of much else of note. Just spending time together!

LOOK! I sewed 9 more stitches! Well, a few more than that. I updated the 7 Sisters progress box on the left side of my blog. I finished the side setting triangles on the third side and decided to go around to the fourth side and finish those triangles as well. Only 5 left to go. Maybe I will be done with them before the folks leave.

I will try to post some pics tomorrow of our golf outing.

I asked Mother to send some photos from when I was a baby

The Parents are coming, the Parents are coming!!!

Yes I knew this was coming. They left their house today and will be in Louisiana tomorrow to drop my nephew off at my brother's place. Then Saturday they will be up and on the road to come see me. I can't wait to see them! I can wait for them to see my house. So I am taking tomorrow off to get some cleaning and decluttering in. I am going to focus on the living areas and then if I have extra time I will attend to the sewing room overflow in the foyer. Ah well Mom and Dad...love me....love my mess.

So this means once I leave work today I will be on vacation and returning the 28th. I just hope I get some relaxation in. I hope work doesn't call me. I hope I get to sew my little brains out when my parents are snoozing!!

Lordy, lordy look who's 50??

Happy Birthday Mark! My hubby. Sort of snuck up on you huh? Hope you have a wonderful day.

I am Here! Lot's going on. I am sorry to be so quiet.

I am sewing away on my 7 Sisters. My friend teased that when you hand quilt the updates are rather boring...."Look I sewed 9 more stitches!" Yes, I get it! :p I am finishing up the second side. If I push I can get it done by tomorrow. Then on to the third side. I will be forced to do some repairs.

I will try to take some pics and post them soon. Please take a minute to say hello.

Rotating Projects If you read back on May 29th you will see that I set a challenge for myself. I said I would only work on my 7 Sisters UFO until I was either 10th on the UFO challenge list or I finished the 7 Sisters quilt.

I am 32nd and I am not done yet. I was putting every spare minute into that quilt to the point of burnout. I stopped a little over a week ago to work on round robins. Now that I have gotten the three that I had here out of the way I picked the 7 Sisters back up.

I was pleasantly surprised that I was refreshed and ready to get back into this quilt. I have the side setting triangles done on the next side so will be working on the 2 borders the rest of this week. I should be able to get that done this week then will move around the corner to the next side.

Let's see if I can get this quilt done this month!

Ugly Challenge

Did I ever share this? I took the piece of fabric sent to me and was allowed to add up to three more fabrics. Here is what I made.

Just Need to Baste It and Mail It

Help Me With The Sails.....

Are just outlines ok? Do I need to do a different stitch?

Sadie Helping

I mentioned that whenever I get my 7 Sisters out someone shows up to "help" . Note the dog slobber on the quilt.


When Sadie gets overly rambunctious we do doggy yoga. We lie her on our belly and rub hers.
She does calm down.



Here is some quilty content. Not my 7 Sisters. Karen don't look if you want to be surprised!!

One side completed I have completed one side of my 7 Sisters. I flipped the quilt around to look at the opposite side in preparation to start quilting it. I was not prepared to see that there are quite a few repairs that need to be made first. I have seams coming out, a blown piece of fabric that needs to be replaced and if you remember the dog incident, I have to piece batting back onto the original batt as the dogs tore too deeply when they got ahold of the quilt. I have become quite practiced at this so I will just fix it and go on.

Ok, ok are you buying that plan? I am going to check the three remaining sides and see if there are any that can be quilted right now and quilt that one! So there! If not then I will quilt what I can until I am forced to start fixing! LOL!

Look At What I Won!!

An adorable bag and some FQs from Andrea. Perfect timing. I really need a quilty hug these days. Too much work, too much family stuff.

On the quilting front....I have just one half block to complete on one side of the quilt and then the two border rows and I will have one side done. I plan to bind it once the two borders are quilted all around and then will finish all those setting triangles.

Someone at my house thinks this is her cuddle quilt and doesn't mind lying on it every chance she gets even if she pulls out the batting on the sides a little. I will try to capture a picture of her. She is a mess!

Progress.

This is a closeup of the side setting triangles next to the full blocks and the borders. You can see the quilting I did on the stars. I am then outlining all the setting triangles with 2 rows of quilting and echoing the HST border into the two pnk solid borders. I am not going to quilt the outer border until after it is bound so I don't lose my points. On the HST border I am just running a straight row of quilting along the top and bottom of the row. I like it. I am trying to control the poofiness and am getting better.

One Big Block To Go I am almost half way through the last big block. I think I over did it on my big push to get done with the quilt. I am getting tired of working on it and it has started to become a chore. I just sewed until I was tired and stopped rather than pushing through.

Once I have the big blocks done I will move onto RR's for a little while to get those out the door then go back to the 7 Sisters. This will still be my tv watching quilt. I will take a pic once I have done some quilting on setting triangles and borders.

All or Nothing Kinda Gal Hi all. I am here and have my head down on my 7 Sisters quilt. Are you watching the progress? I just passed the 2/3rds mark. I have every plan to get the big blocks all done this weekend. Wish me luck!

May Accomplishments/June Goals

I had planned the following in May:

• quilt Chain Events by end of May - not one stitch
• get to half way point on quilting 7 Sisters - I made it! I am near the 2/3rds point. Yeah!
• move round robins along a little more quickly - I got several out the door and have 2 at my house now to be done
• put final touches on ugly challenge tote bag - thought about it

June

• finish the 7 Sisters quilting
• find suitable binding for 7 Sisters
• get round robins done on time
• finish 2 small totes from last year

I think that is enough. I will be stitching into the night to get this done! Wish me luck.

7 Sisters Update I have really made some progress. Since Friday night I have finished 3 of the big blocks. When I first started quilting this it was taking me about 35 minutes for each star. I can now quilt on in about 15-20 minutes. Instead of it taking almost four hours I can now finish a block in just over 2. Dang I might finish this thing yet!

I did replace the two diamond pieces the dogs damaged. I will have to mend a few spots but will do those as I come to them.

Spencer Update He has been receiving treatment for three weeks now. I feel as though he has made an improvement. I need to get him to the vet for a weigh-in. He is still bony but nothing compared to what he was like 3 weeks ago!

7 Sisters Update I added details about my 7 Sisters quilt on my side bar. The number of full blocks, half blocks, connector triangles. As I finish quilting a part I will update my side bar. This has been motivating for me. I told Beth that I would not work on any of my other UFOs until I was 10th on the UFO challenger list or higher or it was the end of the 3rd quarter. She did give me permission to finish 2 little totes I have to get done as gifts, which are UFOs, and not consider it a deal breaker. Yes I can hear her giggling all the way from Maryland. I think she knows me a little too well and it will be hard for me to stay away from another finish on something else. This is the only way I am going to make any progress on this quilt. Wish me luck! Go tell Beth to be nice to me too!

My Sweet Boy Turned 15 Today!

Happy Birthday! Momma loves you!