I <3 my IQ

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Suzanne

I know that some of you think that using a computerized system on a longarm is cheating, and I respect that, but I have to tell you, if this is cheating, I don’t feel this least bit of guilt.

Today, I’m working on a quilt that a customer brought to me with a pantograph pattern that had firetrucks and hydrants on it. I do not do paper pantos (I never did them BEFORE the IQ, and there’s no way I’m going to do them now…). Unfortunately, the one they brought me has not been digitized, but I did some looking around and found another one that was acceptable to the customer. Only, it had some detail on it they didn’t want:

pattern from http://designsbyvickie.com

The customers husband is a retiring firefighter and he didn’t want the IFF initials on the cross. She was concerned that it wouldn’t be possible to remove, but I reassured that it was easy peasy. And it was. I just split them out on the IQ, deleted the initials, recombined the rest of it, and…away I go. OK, away IQ goes.

The pattern is super detailed, and it takes next to forever to do an entire pass, but, that’s OK: I’m not standing there doing it. The quilt is really busy, and you can’t really see the quilting all that well:

Not to mention the fact that I’m pretty sure I have a camera problem: some pictures I took yesterday in good lighting were crap…

I am going to be doing the borders separately, they are appliqued, so I’ll show that off when I get it done.

Right now, though, I have to go buy tickets and seat savers for the movie: Diary of a Wimpy Kid is showing, anyone want to come?

TTFN-

Suzanne

Well, hello muscles

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Suzanne

I posted a Facebook update the other day that was mostly tongue in cheek: I had asked Mark several times if he was sure that I couldn’t die from shin splints. He claims that I cannot.

I’m still not sure he was telling the truth.

Today, I’m feeling like I might die from sore arm muscles that aren’t so sure about this weight-training crap I started yesterday.

Boy howdy, am I ever sore.

“Doesn’t it feel good?” Mark asked.

Dude. No. Didn’t you hear the part where I said I was SORE?

This is part of my ongoing quest to become a better, healthier me. I confess that I haven’t done as well as I might like with the whole “not drinking full strength Pepsi,” thing, but I have exercised for 13 of the last 17 days (and 11 of those in a row).

I’m using a website to track my exercise, and I can share this fun virtual journey, the mileage recorded is a combo of some walking I did last week and time spent on the torture elliptical machine:

Clearly, I haven’t gotten very far on my virtual journey, but thousand mile journeys starting with single steps and all that…

Of course, I may not get out of California if my shin splints and sore arm muscles kill me.

Telling on myself

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Suzanne

If you’ve been around the blog for awhile, you know that I take a somewhat perverse pleasure in telling stories on myself.

Well, I’ve got another one for you.

DSC02879 Telling on myself

I started making this baby quilt around the time that we were moving my crap back home from the shop. At some point, I set it aside, for a number of reasons.

When I say set it aside, you should not read carefully put all pieces in a basket or bag and put said basket or bag on a shelf where it can be easily found.

Oh no. That would make too much sense.

No, I shoved it willy nilly and promptly forgot about it.

When I picked it up Sunday, I had:

15 blocks

2 partially sewn strip sets

approximately 14 inches each of the blue and white prints. I knew (and why I knew this particular fact but not another, more relevant fact which I’ll reveal in a bit, I’ll never know…) that this was absolutely all I had left of these two prints. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the rest had been sold in the clearance sale at the shop.

Between that leftover yardage and the partial strip sets, I was able to eek out enough blocks for the quilt as shown — 30 blocks total. With the borders on, the quilt measures approximately 42 by 48, which is a little on the small side of what I normally do when I make baby quilts (I try to think of them more as kid quilts, that will still be big enough when they are toddlers…), but it would have to do, since that was all the fabric I had.

I do remember thinking, before I started quilting it, that I’d probably turn around and find another couple of blocks somewhere in a pile.

But…whatever. The quilt is quilted and now it’s time to bind it.

I went looking in my closet to see if I could find some stray strips of the black and white polka dot (before I cut any more off the bolt), and guess what I found? It’s like I was psychic, but it was even worse than finding just a block or two:

That’s right, I found THREE WHOLE COMPLETE strip sets shoved into a box in the closet. Cut up that would make EIGHTEEN actual blocks. Why did I not remember that I had sewed so many more strip sets together? Why did not occur to me that because I knew I had been somewhat cavalier with the quilt pieces, that perhaps I should look harder to make sure I had everything? Ay yi yi.

Plus? In the spot where I had originally pulled the blocks and other pieces from? Yeah, there were 2 more blocks there, too.

I need a keeper. Someone to save me from myself.

W is for Warren

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Suzanne

The little guy this quilt will go to is not yet a year old, so I’m feeling pretty good about the timing of a quilt. Technically, the wedding quilt I’m working on for his uncle probably should have been done first, but sweet little baby quilts go a lot faster than queen size wedding quilts.

I don’t seem to be able to order this particular black and white polka dot fabric anymore, which is a bummer. Or maybe it’s good for me to branch out and try something new. It’s just so darned cute, though.

I’m pretty sure the backing fabric is leftover from something that Vicki sent me last year for a group quilt. What a yummy color.

And look at that green, green grass. Mark is home today and is out there mowing it right now. We’ve had a lot of rain recently, and it had gotten quite long in the last few days. Of course, the spots that the dogs had fertilized were especially tall, Katie was getting lost in the forest.

Design wall

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Suzanne

So, I appear to be incapable of taking a decent, in-focus picture lately.

I’m not sure if it’s me, or if it’s my camera. Maybe both.

Currently on my filthy design wall are 10 completed Dresden Plate blocks — 1 by machine, 9 by hand. Only 27 more to go by hand, 3 by machine.

I’ve been working on this quilt on my longarm:

I think it’s just adorable. So adorable that I went and bought red and green solids to either recreate this quilt or maybe use the color scheme as an inspiration for something else.

It also appears that I’m incapable of cleaning up and staging my photos. Good grief. (For the record, that’s a tape measure and the box for my new sneakers sitting ther on the floor. And a QOV on the cutting table that’s been ready to mail for, like, 2 weeks.

I actually turned ON my sewing machine yesterday and USED it. I finished the piecing and did the applique work on a baby quilt that I started awhile back. No pictures yet, because I’m going to stick it on the frame tomorrow and quilt it, I figured I’d wait until it was actually done before sharing.

I *thought* the quilt on the frame was done, but when I took it off tonight and flipped it over, I discovered an unquilted blocks. Dadgumit.

No pictures of the quilting yet ((a) it’s too dark for decent pictures and (b) I’m waiting until I share it with it’s owner and (c) I’ve challenged the quilters at MQR to come up with THEIR design ideas, and I’m still waiting for more people to participate in that adventure).

It’s cute, though. At least, I think it is. Mark came in when I was working on it and I said to him “Isn’t this just the cutest quilt?”

“If you say it is.”

He has no taste.