An Update

I've been away from the blog for a bit.  So here's a quick update on life around here.

I rode on a Harley! First time on a motorcycle - I was given a ride by our friend, Sam.  

We had a goat on our boat - that's me holding Sadie as a goat leaped on our boat from Goat Island. He was looking for a handout. And we gave him one once he got off the boat.

We've been going to the lake about once per week to ride the boat and the Seadoos - we don't stay overnight because the house is still in a state of demolition due to our water leak.

I started a new hand pieced quilt - Jen Kingwell's Glitter. I've been stitching on block every day. Every Sunday I cut out block kits for the upcoming week. It's amazing how the blocks pile up only doing one per day. 

I'm using colors from my sewing closet wallpaper.

Dark photo - but I have a new addition to my sewing machine family. Meet my Bernina 480. She makes a nice companion to my much larger Bernina 750 QE.  The 480 will go on retreats with me, go around town when sewing with friends, and be my backup machine when the 750 is in embroidery mode. I love her already!

I had a little scare when I found a lump under my arm. A week of worry. We went to UAB and after imaging and meeting with a few folks, all is well. It was just a cyst. Whew!

I'm still walking every single day. I have to do it either first thing in the morning or just before the sun sets. The summer heat and humidity have set in, for sure.

Continue to stay safe!

Machine Embroidery End to End Quilting Update

 

I finally figured out the error message I was getting on my machine while doing the end to end quilting with my embroidery module! It was DRAG! When I got the error, there was a bit of quilt caught under the hoop. Okay! Now I can deal with this. I finally got the Winter Blues quilted. I still have some things to learn doing this - I need to work on lining up each hooping a little better, but I learn something each time.

Here's the final quilt, trimmed and ready for binding. I added navy binding and now I'm about halfway around with the hand sewing.

We took a break from life one morning last week and went to the lake to have FUN instead of all the work we've had to do after the water damage. Here I am on my new SeaDoo.

And here's Hubby on his.  We had fun zooming around the lake for and hour or so and then stopped on the way home for some lunch. How wonderful it is to go OUT to eat again!

I also put together this little soft book for Sadie last week - it was fun to do!

And another finish! Here's the half square triangle quilt. My long arm quilter friend did her thing quickly. I got the binding on over the weekend. It looks great in our living room.

Here's the minky on the backside. Love the modern quilting pattern! Today is our 37th wedding anniversary and I gave this quilt to Hubby as his gift. 

Demo is done at the lake house. We're supposed to get the estimate for repairs later this week and send it on to insurance. New flooring is scheduled to be installed at the end of June. Not sure how long the cabinetry for kitchen will take. But we can still enjoy the lake. We can use the bathrooms and even sleep there - just no kitchen or sofas, etc. 

Continue to stay safe!

Retreat!

I got back yesterday from our guild's yearly quilting retreat. It was fabulous! It made life feel normal again. Wonderful fun. Lots of laughing. Met some new friends. Enjoyed old friends. Drank wine. Sewed LOTS! 

I usually work on a few projects, but this time I focused on this quilt top. I arrived with all the half square triangles cut with my Accuquilt. 

I sewed one row at a time. Sunday morning I finished the quilt top! Marathon sewing. Last night when I got home, I ordered minky for the backing. When it comes in I'll let a longarm friend quilt it for me. Boom!

Today has been for unpacking. I took way too many projects to sew! And I took way too many snacks - haha! Almost all of the stuff is put away now. 

Today was also for catching up on laundry - not my favorite, but I'm done now.

Now I can go back to my regularly scheduled quilting.

Continue to stay safe!

 

Updates on Quilting and Lake House

I still haven't done much sewing since our lake home leak, so I thought I'd share some photos of the hand quilting on Marshal/Blessings.

This was all done pre LL (Lake Leak). 

Friday night we actually went out to eat INSIDE a restaurant. The restaurant is called Dough and they make amazing pizza. Mine (above) is the Farmer with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, fresh tomato, roasted onion, tomato sauce, mozzarella, arugula. Fabulous!

It felt so strange to be in a restaurant after more than a year, but we felt safe. All servers wore masks and the tables were spaced sufficiently apart.

Yesterday I was determined to sew, so I sat down at my Bernina with the embroidery module to start quilting Winter Blues. I was on my first hooping when I kept getting this message. UGH. I kept restarting and would get the message again and again. Then the embroidery module had sort of a seizure. Really. 

It was moving back and forth and making a weird noise. I shut everything down and quit for the day.

I'm about to go back in and try it again. Fingers crossed that the embroidery module is feeling better today after a good night's rest. 

Over the weekend I packed up the entire lake kitchen (insert sad face here!). ServPro provided us boxes, bubble wrap, and packing tape. Hubby has hauled everything from the crawl space that we want to discard. By the way, the crawl space is pretty tall - you can walk upright in most of it. 

ServPro will haul the pile away for us. Tomorrow (Tuesday) ServPro will tear out the kitchen cabinets and flooring. I'm hoping they can avoid pulling out the upper cabinets, but we'll see about that. After demo, they will continue to dry out everything and treat the mold. 

At this point our remodelers will come in and make a list of what they need to order to put it all back together. 

We were able to get the water on just to the bathrooms, so while we are there we'll have toilets and sinks. Hubby also scrubbed the screened porch free from pollen, so we'll have a spot to sit in the shade when we go for day trips this summer. 

Continue to stay safe!

 

A Long Week

 

Last Friday morning I spray basted Winter Blues in our driveway. I really don't enjoy spray basting, but since I'm planning on quilting this with my embroidery module for my machine, it had to be done.

 

Later that day...Daughter 2 graduated with her MBA from Auburn, achieved over the last 2 years while working full time. She has been BUSY! Unfortunately, Hubby had miss all this fun.

We found out mid day (from our lake neighbors) that water was pouring out of our lake home. Not good.

Hubby rushed there (it's about an hour away) with one of our son-in-laws. They shut the water off at the street, and surveyed the damage. There was a broken something in a pipe or fitting under the kitchen sink. The kitchen, dining, and living rooms were flooded. Ugh. We just remodeled this home a few years ago, as you may remember.

Long story made short....used a wet vac to remove the standing water. Set up fans and dehumidifiers. Serv Pro is now helping, or at least they will be soon. We know the hardwood floors will have to be replaced. Most likely the lower kitchen cabinets will have to be replaced also. We are hoping the subfloors can be saved. There is already mold growing in the crawl space - Serv Pro will take care of this. Luckily the furniture is fine, except for the living room rug. We have lost a few things stored in the crawl space. 

It could have been much worse. All bedrooms are fine. Once the mold is gone we could still stay there overnight, but there will be no kitchen for quite some time. 

Our view is still fantastic. So for now it will be day trips, but that's okay. It's life. Life happens.

So quilting....we've been so busy going back and forth to the lake to work...absolutely nothing has happing quilting-wise since I basted the quilt! I'll get back at it soon, I'm sure.

Continue to stay safe!

This and That and Wallpaper

 

I finally decided on a peel and stick wallpaper for my sewing room closet! I love this print!

It didn't take long to install it. I finished it Saturday (with a tiny bit of help from Hubby). I have ordered a ruler rack for the side of the closet - I'll share more once it comes in.

We had a huge hail storm here Saturday. I've never experienced hail like this before - it was like we were under attack. Luckly, no damage for us.

Strawberries! These became a delicious strawberry cobbler and strawberry bars. Yum!

I've been busy at my Accuquilt cutting half square triangle pieces. HUNDREDS of half square triangle pieces. Theses will be various shades of gray paired with a grunge white. I'm going to a quilt retreat in a few weeks (TRIPLE YAY!) and I'll take these to sew. 

I've made progress on my Blessings/Marshal hand quilting. I'll share a photo next time. 

Every single day is filled and busy with Sadie, quilting, and golf (for Hubby). We love our busy life. Sadie is walking a bit now so she is officially a 'toddler.' Fun times!

Continue to stay safe!

On to Hand Quilting and Jen Kingwell

This one little picture represents a lot of work/fun. Thursday I finished all the ditch quilting on Blessings/Marshal. That was indeed a big relief to my shoulders and chest muscles. A LOT of quilt wrestling!! 

Thursday night was our virtual quilt guild meeting and we were fortunate to have Jen Kingwell give our program...all the way from Australia. She gave a wonderful program, just sitting and chatting about how she got to the point she is in her quilting career. She also shared lots of quilts she has designed, including Marshal. It was interesting that she said that she had to design Marshal completely before she ever took a stitch and this is different than she usually works. It seems she usually starts by making a block or two and letting the design evolve as she sews. 

Jen also said that because of the way she had to work on Marshall (she was hired to do this quilt by Quiltmania), she was not totally pleased with the final design and that she had seen other Marshal quilts (where the quilter did their own thing with the units) that she preferred over her own. I think she would like mine - I'll send her a picture when I'm done. 

Jen Kingwell handpieces and hand quilts most of her own quilts. After the program we could ask questions - I asked her what hand quilting thread she uses. Aurifil 12 weight. So Friday morning  I went to my sewing room to see if I had any. YES! I found one spool of 12 wt and it was the perfect color for this quilt. Lucky me!

Jen (we're on a first name basis now - haha!) also showed one quilt on which she quilting enough around the outside edges to sew on the binding early in the process and then she could go back and finish the quilt. Eureka! So I started the hand quilting process on Friday around the last border. I can do this because the entire quilt has been stitched in the ditch. Saturday morning I finished the border quilting, trimmed the quilt. and made the binding. Saturday afternoon I machine sewed the binding in place. Sunday afternoon I finished hand stitching the binding down.

And here we are now. Let the hand quilting continue! 

Continue to stay safe!