Commissioned Quilt

My new neighbor saw the quilt I made for my Granddaughter and she fell in love with it. According to her husband that is all she talked about for days was that quilt. He asked me if I could make one for their King sized bed. 

I ordered the backing and the sashing fabrics and a whole roll of batting. I have been cutting and sewing off and on for a couple months.

My husband got sick and the days of sewing were not coming as often. I had the 16-patches all sewn and started with the 2 inch strips around the 16-patches. I still have a few more to do, but wanted to be sure I was not over saturated with to many blues of reds so I stopped and started adding the red/pink strip which is 1.5 inches wide. 

Today I started cutting the backing and batting pieces and thought I might as well sew some off and on to get this farther along. 

I moved a sewing machine into the dining area because my husband has been sleeping a lot. I couldn't hear him is he needed me. 

It has worked out pretty good so far. I have until Christmas to complete this. I would like to get it done before that time if I could. 

I hope you are not in the real cold weather with snow. We had frost on the roofs this morning. Suppose to get colder tonight. 

Chris

FYI in the States

This week is fire prevention week. Sorry to say their are wildfires burning out of control in the Western States.

Back to why I am posting this. My son is a firefighter and part of his training and also continued education to others is that your clothes dryer can cause a house fire.

My stepson came and didn't think we would have an issue until he started working on our dryer vent. To qualify why we needed help. My husband spent 2 1/2 days in the hospital with a lung infection from COPD. He came home from the hospital with Oxygen 24/7. So his abilities are not functioning well.

The Fire Departments educate people who have either natural gas or electric fires to clean out the back of the dryer and the duct work at a minimum of once a year. We have a very long pipe going out because of where the dryer sits in the house.

It has been two years which was our fault, but it is clean now.


The lesson in this is the Chief of a Rural Fire department didn't do his dryer and his house caught on fire. 30 minutes of maintenance can say a house fire it is worth checking into it.

I wash our regular clothes and bedding and also the fabric I purchase. I clean the lint screen after every load to help with the build up. If your vent cover doesn't shut or your dryer takes longer to dry that is a good sign it is plugged.

Hope you all will be safe after doing this cleaning on your dryer. There are companies that can do the job for you. Duct cleaners they are called if you need help in doing this. Chris

i am here, but not to organized

 last t

The last time I posted I was making crazy/crumb blocks and QAYG method of quilting them. I have several of them done and did a lay out to see how many more blocks I need to get this into a quilt.

I started out with the connecting strips and decided on 4 in a row. Rechecked and decided on 5 in a row. So the rows are almost completed. This is going to be couch size for the girls to use in the bedroom on the twin air mattresses we have for them to sleep on when they are here.

I plan on borders to add to the length and the width of the 7X5 layout of the rows after they are connected together.

Fall is upon us. The trees are starting to change color here. The flowers are almost done for the season and soon the leaves will be falling. We have been cutting back flowers to get the beds ready for the Winter.

My Granddaughters will be starting school on Friday and the oldest started college yesterday.

The year is almost slipping away so fast that where has the time gone. I have three quilts on the go right now. My new neighbor asked if I would make a quilt for his wife for Christmas. So that is in the works and I will show you the progress on it in the near future.

Just a few more days to this month and then Labor Day. I hope you all have safe plans and the weather holds out for you. Chris

Way to long

I have  QAYG happening. I made crumb blocks and then I trimmed and sandwiched them and used the deco stitches to do the quilting. 

I decided I need twice the amount of them as I have finished to make a twin quilt.

Also have been fiddling with using up squares I have cut at 2.5 inches. I have 52 of the 16-patches stitched together. 

I had a request from my new neighbor to make his wife a quilt. I told it would take time and also money for fabric and labor. He didn't seem scared off. 

His wife saw the quilt I made for my Granddaughter and gave to her last month. He said that is all she has talked about was the quilt. So it will be a surprise. I think I need between 120-150 of these so just a dent in the overall picture. 

I have batting and the thread and the scraps so that is all paid for, but the backing is the next thing and sashing fabric. I am going to check out Quiltedtwins.com for backing. They have the best price and tons of variety. $8.49 a yard at 108" wide. Shipping is $6.00. They carry over 200 different prints in wide backings. 

To the reason it has been so long. Jeff my husband is going through another phase with his journey with Parkinson's disease. He is weaker and thinner. Each day gets harder for him. So we go with the flow. If he can do something great if not we put it off or I do it. 

I try and chisel out some time for me which is hard some days. I have pulled out some counted cross stitch to sit with him so he can not feel so alone in the evening. Plus it is therapy for me. 

Hope your days are going well in all this heat we had and the approaching days of Fall. Chris 

qayg

7 quilts done since October

This is the latest scrap quilt completed. It is a queen size.  9-patches surrounded with 1.5 inch strips then a strip of 1 inch cranberry solid and sashed with navy mini dot.

This is quilt as you go method I found on You Tube.  This is the back where I connected the quilted blocks. This is the 7th quilt since October.

This is for my 20 year old Granddaughter. She is married and she called and said her twin sized childhood quilt was in shreds. So I had this in the works with it being intended for her. 

I offered to mail it and she says she is coming home soon. So I will have it laundered and all clean when she does make it. She has seen a picture of it and she says she loves it. she is a blue freak so the Navy sashing and the navy backing all fall in her scheme of decorating. 

I have other piecing I am doing using scraps. Never can use them all up if you know what I mean.

Hope you have an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. Chris

Been a while

I have been sewing just not a lot of anything different. We wallpapered and it took time away from sewing also. The paper went up in my living room and hallway. 

These are 6 inch string blocks made with 1.5 inch strings cut from neutrals I bought. The online store is www.quiltedtwins.com. They have Kaffe and Grunge at reduce prices with $6 shipping. Great service. Plus they have close to 150 different 108inch wide backing fabrics at $8.49-$10 a yard.

I bought three separate half yard bundles and cut strips off of the pieces and started stitching

They will be used with colored string blocks to make stars with string blocks. More blocks need to be made.  

This is the blocks I had a stack of in the last post. I have been connecting them into rows and not the long rows are getting sewn together. I think you can see the QAYG method of stitching I did on the blocks for quilting them.

Here are the 4 of 10 rows sewn together with the long rows. This will be a queen sized quilt for my Granddaughter who turns 20 next month. I need to get this done because I have to mail it to KY. 

Hope your weather is warming up. Snow/rain mix is expected in a couple days. In the 70's today and the sun is out. Chris

I am here I guess....

No it isn't that bad. To qualify the statement we have been wallpapering our living room. So things are torn up and out of place.

I want to sew. but my husband needs help with doing the papering. He is doing the ladder work and I do the pasting and clean up. Which we move things and then paper and go behind to replace the furniture. Move to another section.

Off and on a few minutes here and there a few seams or cut some sashing pieces, but not a lot of sewing happening.

We have had some days finally of warming. The rains have started and flooding around our communities. We are not in a low lying area so we are ok unless a huge huge amount happens in a very short period of time.

I am still working on these blocks. It is a QAYG method. I have 100 of them quilted and trimmed and need to make 10 more for length. They are in the works.

I am starting to assemble the blocks into rows. So the few minutes here and there are connecting the blocks together with sashing pieces.

I have five rows of 10 blocks sewn together. It is grounding me with all the mess going on. As we get older the mess effects us more than before. Hopefully in a few more days we will be close to finished. 

There has been a debate on other blogs and Facebook about Joann's and their changes. Many like the Warm Companies products and Joann's has chosen to replace with other battings. I got an email on sales with Joann's yesterday and they are now carrying Pellon Battings and have them on sale online only for 3 days. 

I recently have used Pellon battings. They are close to The Warm Co.'s Warm and Natural products. I finished 4 quilts for Christmas gifts. It seemed to sew up great on my domestic machine. I have heard others with long arms do not like it. Have you heard any comments on the use of this product?

I think we all have a favorite product that works for our needs. Warm and Natural is still available through Walmart and online. 

I have use Hobbs 80/20 battings and like them, but they can be distorted with packaging. I am not every making any judge able quilts so I use what I can afford.

Let me know if you prefer a batting and why you do. Thanks. Chris