Bold and Bright

Argh. When I woke up this morning (half an hour before the alarm because Jazzy couldn't find his paci in his bed and therefore decided nursies were in order), my right arm ached. Too much work yesterday!

Since I'd finished the Tumblers quilt, yesterday I decided to move on to the next project: a braided wallhanging top in Christmas fabrics that was in a bag of strips I got at Costume College.  I pressed that and the backing, and made a Frankenbatt of three strips of batting from my basket of batting scraps (I hand-stitched them together).  I also cut strips for the binding and hanging sleeve from the excess backing fabric.  Got the quilt layered and basted, hauled the Singer 15 table over by my sewing desk, and spent a good portion of the evening doing free-motion quilting.  Project quilted!  Following that, I trimmed it up (more rotary cutter work), hauled the 15 table back to its place, and tidied everything away.  Now I just need to put on a binding... and a label... and a hanging sleeve....

In any case, here's the tumblers quilt!

Bright and scrappy, with some dark to let the eye rest.  There are actually two spots where the same fabric meets up to make hourglasses.  Oops!  I made this one nice and wide and long so neither of us ends up quiltless.  I don't tend to make my bed quilts long enough for pillow tucks, though.  I like to see the pillows!  And the pillowcases do actually kind of go with the quilt... well, I used a bit of the main fabric on the scrappy binding.  Good enough!

And then, of course, as soon as Mummy and Daddy abandoned the bed this morning, it was seized in the invasion of the bed snatchers....

Bright Tumblers, Done!

I just took the last stitches on the binding and finished the Bright Tumblers quilt.  No pics for now - it's dark!  But I made it of three-inch finished tumblers, sized to fit our bed, so I'll take pictures of it on the bed tomorrow.  My wonderful Mother-in-Law asked, so I calculated: at thirty rows of forty-one tumblers in a row, there are 1230 tumblers in this quilt!  And the back is (mostly) made of two lengths of fabric left over from making the boys bedsheets and pillowcases.  When I started the quilt as part of Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Leader and Ender challenge, I showed some of the inspiration photos to Wonderful Husband and he liked one that was mostly brights with some darks, so that's what I did.  This quilt was always intended to be for him, and I finally gave it to him a few days ago, mostly finished, as one of his birthday presents. ^_^

We're keeping the house tidy and showing it to about eight people a week (mostly on weekends).  So far I have managed to not be here when someone is touring it.

And Jazzy has of late been tucking himself under the quilt on Squiddle's bed, or under the sheets on my and Wonderful Husband's bed, so tonight, for the first time, I tucked him under a quilt in his own crib.  He seemed to like it!

Busy busy busy busy / there's so much to do!

So, the house got cleaned within an inch of its life.  (Except, please don't look in the garage.)

And photographed on Tuesday.  Tuesday night was quilt guild.  I had 69 blocks turned in for Block of the Month!  And 29 out of 30 instruction sheets taken for next month's.

Wednesday I took a workshop with my guildmates: My Basket Collection by Sandy Corbin.  It was so much fun!!  I wish I'd taken a workshop with this guild before.  I got a quarter of the project done.  But I was so fried from stress that I skipped writing class that night.

Thursday morning Jazzy had one of his classes.  That afternoon I hauled the Singer 15 over by the sewing desk and started quilting the bright tumblers quilt.  Screw the meandering loops I was pondering - I just went for two straight lines across every row.  Get it done.  I got 35 of the 60 lines done.

Jazzy had another class this morning.  And the house's MLS listing went up today. If you want to see where I live, the house we've lovingly restored from a wreck over the last ten years, it's here.  Anyone want to buy a nice mid-century house three miles from Disneyland?  (You can see the fireworks from our front door.)  And I sat back down and finished quilting those last 25 rows.  And hauled the Singer 15 back by the front door to resume being the entryway table.

Now to trim the batting and backing and invent some binding.  But first, I should invent dinner....

Back Up And Running

I'm finally recovering from post-yard-sale lurgy, the stress over listing the house and getting Jazzy speech therapy, yet another birthday (I am now the answer to life, the universe... everything!), and that time of month.

Over the weekend, I actually finished a quilt top (Bright Tumblers, started in 2015), pieced together the fabric I had designated for its backing, pieced together batting from my bin of batting scraps, and got it basted.  But before I rearrange furniture and drag the 15 over in front of the 401 to do the quilting, I have a couple other things I want to finish.

Last night I did one, which was making the Giant Geese for this month's block exchange.  My parents gave me an alpaca wool pressing mat for my birthday present, and I used it on the geese, and oh my!  The seams pressed so smooth and flat! *happy quilter dance*  The other thing I need to do before switching into quilting mode is to sew up sample blocks for the October block of the month.  Maybe today?  But probably tomorrow.  Tonight is the board meeting for quilt guild. *prints up copies of the minutes*