finished to flimsy---woohoo!

By the time I quit sewing on Saturday I was up to the last two joining seams.  One at the quarter mark of the 2nd half and the long middle joining seam between the two halves.  I didn't sew a lick yesterday as I was considering if I wanted to make some changes with the left side of the Chevron quilt. I HAD initially planned on trimming it off on one side but................I like how this last corner looks.  The chevrons are sort of floating on the white background.  I mulled it over and mostly read a couple books on the Kindle app instead, did the laundry, walked my dog, played with the critters, anything but sew.  Still, every blessed time I woke up during the night last night that quilt was on my mind. Time to finish this thing up and move on!

I had already trimmed some off of the left side.  If I were to keep it the way it was, and sub out the print quarter square triangles with white background ones then some of it would need to be re-constructed.  OR I could ditch one of the peaks across the quilt top---go with 6 instead of 7 or 12 subcuts instead of 14.  Quilt was a bit too wide anyway so you see what happened.   The top half took a bit longer, the middle quarter less and the last quarter did not need remodeling.

I joined the lower half sections, pieced a couple of the quarter squares on the top and then went to out to lunch.

And finally, the top is done!  I am much happier with the result and did not have to trim away any of the fabrics that I paired up to make a "wave" quilt for Lily to go with her nautical themed room.  It does not quite mirror the right vertical but it is close enough.  Short of piecing in a small square of the adjacent zig color into the quarter square triangle in some manner, I don't know how to make it less stubby on the left side????  Or shorten the right edge rail piece by adding a 2.5 inch square of the background color might work.   How OCD to I want to appear to be?  LOL.  I might try that on another quilt OR here is a novel idea, I could follow the tutorial as written!  This finished about 46 x 68, close to lap size 50 x 70.

What's next?  Well, it will have a special appliqued label on the back featuring some of daddy's art work from his childhood days.  It will be pieced into the backing but I am not working on it today.

I could start on the wedding present tree skirt but probably will not.   I may cut it out tomorrow but I really do need to get started on the September Blog Hop pieces--yes, plural as in three.  I've got the fabric I will use and I know what I am making.  Since I have my trip coming up before I know it, I would be smart if I got going on that.  The happy couple will not need the tree skirt till like after Thanksgiving and hey, Lily is just a few days shy of one month.  I'm allowed to detour!   Once I do set up to quilt, I have two donation tops of my own to do as well. Also I told one of the Belles I would do her nieces' Snuggle Up tops once she is ready and has them pinned.  I would put the binding on for her too but she will have to finish that up.  Those are quick and easy simple lines and won't take long

I still have not made connections with the sewing machine dude.  May try again tomorrow if he doesn't manage to call me back. I'm not waiting by the phone or holding my breath dragging the cell everywhere I go.  I did that for two days and that was enough.

Checking in

August 1st.  In some ways this year is whizzing on by and in others, dragging.  Whizzing by because I am busy most of the day either inside or outside.   Dragging because it is 6 months to the day that my dear husband departed this earth.  Growing older and doing it without the love of your life is the pits, just got to say.  I'm trying---all you can do, right?

I have the chevron quilt half done but did not even sew for two days this week.  We had a bit of a cool down weather-wise and what a gift that was!  One day it was sweeping inside and out, dust mopping, mopping, vacuuming and even dusting in spots that it had never occurred to me to ever dust.  You know, the "don't look up" philosophy?  Well, that framework around the kitchen pass through, and around the windows flanking the fireplace----ugh.  Dust accumulation, big time.   I dust around the doors of the bedrooms and bathroom but I don't know why I didn't think about the windows!  Well, after all that floor stuff was done, I drug the vacuum outside and cleaned out the car and then hand washed it.

The next day it was cook ahead.  Poached some chicken breasts and browned some ground beef with chopped onions for later dishes.  Then I cleared out the frozen bananas piling up in the freezer door by making banana nut muffins for coffee break time.  Then since I dislike any of the available pizza choices around here, made my own ham and cheese pizza.  Most of that is up in the freezer too.  Now the freezer is stuffed full again and the cycle repeats, LOL.   There is not a whole lot of room out in the chest freezer either.  Not with more freezer containers and varieties of bread and vegetables out there too.

So here is sort of where I left off with the quilt except that loose row you see.  That is row 8 and I sewed that at about 3 in the morning this morning.  Yeah, awake again at the magic hour of 2 a.m. and not going back to sleep.  Row 9 is pinned and read to feed through the machine.  The top half rows are joined and folded on the hanger.

I did mess up on two counts with this.  First my drawing was incorrect as I had 13 sections in it and there are 14.  That part may not have mattered so much until I tried to flip the table cloth over and upended the drawing.  I had to re-pin what remained but it didn't look like the picture.  I figured it out then.  14 on hand, 13 pictured.  DUH!  Debating about re-drawing it. It was laid out right from the other direction.  Forget just flipping it.   I took the finished part off and pulled the cloth up as I still need to keep Skyler away from the sections and possible string pulling.   I put row 8 back on the hanger once the picture was taken.  He's napping on the perch now and ignoring it.

My other goof?  I kept thinking that I had misplaced some of the pieces when I took them down off the tablecloth.  13 sections, where is that other green tone on tone???  Looked and looked again,  retracing my steps.  When the next row, the polka dot, was short 2 sections the light bulb finally when off.  You already sewed it into the preceding rows, you goofball!!

Does seeing this laid out straight how just how this thing goes together??  Simple block sections and you should see "L's"  all across the row.  If you don't then you have turned the piece incorrectly.  I pin the sections as I pull them off the design wall flopping the section on the left over the one on the right with the pin indicating where to stitch.  So far I have not messed up that part though I did need to re-cut the right upper corner.  Again, that drawing thing messed me up.  Most of it will get trimmed off in the end anyway so this is just to aid in the piecing.

Wanna see the latest pictures of the little recipient? Lily is now 3 weeks old.  The quilt will be one our little peanut can grow into, LOL as it is looking like it will end up more like lap quilt size.

Her Nana, my sister Diane sent me these.  I know her Mama is humoring Nana with that pink business.

Nana said she fell asleep in her arms

And the critters?  Some of you have told me that you like reading stories of their antics.  Oscar is a bit in the dog house, literally as he has had to have a bath two weeks in a row as he has picked up some fleas.  I thought the scratching was a bit better with the advantix (dang but that stuff is pricey!) but he is back at it.  I even bug sprayed the section of yard he frequents the most as that is what the neighbors who had him before said to do.   Two bottles later, he is still scratching.  Anyway, both times after his bath when I was in picking up the wet towels he has taken a dump on the floor.  Peed too, once right by his food dish of all things!!   He is fairly calm about the bathing part but the minute my back was turned.  Ohhhhh bad, bad doggie.  So, is he mad at me?  Trying to get even in some manner?  Stressed out?  My fault for not making sure he did his business before I gave him a bath?  He had been outside for a few hours at that point and had plenty of time to do it in the appropriate spots.

I have allowed him to romp and play in the living room about an hour or so before he heads to the crate for bedtime.  He enjoys it and we get some snuggle time in.  Don't let him in and he just whines and jumps against the gate.  He must have done a bang up job jumping the other night as I came out of the rest room to find it knocked over, and he was tearing into the cat food on the other side.   Skyler just looks at him, like " you are insane, man"  hissing at him if he gets too close but more or less, just watching to see what he will do next.  Last night, Skyler was top of the couch at one end, Oscar right below him and me on the other end.  Maybe there is hope and I can take the gate down.  I caught my foot on it the other day heading into the kitchen and fell banging up my right knee.  Really surprised I don't have a bigger bruise.

Mz. Mouzie,, the door stop Christmas stuffed mouse he "stole" from Skyler bit the dust and I got him this duck complete with crackly stomach and a squeaker though he has not really elicited the squeaking yet.  As you can see, it is not going to be long for the world either.  Half the beak is gone already.  I pulled some more stuffing out of the head so I could sew it closed.  He tore a hole in one of the wings and about tore it off.  I patched it and sewed it back on.  The tail feather section is torn.  He is missing a couple of "toes" and one leg is about off.  It was hanging by a few threads so I took it off the rest of the way.  Still he is having fun with it.

Friends has told me that I need to look at garage sales or thrift stores for toys as they will not last long with those tearing up teeth and the pulling they give the toy.  I had pictures of both of the boys but they must still be on my phone.  I was goofing around with that setting yesterday, LOL.

I boogered up my Singer trying to sew a pocket on the vinyl table cloth.  It was not happy with me and I've probably thrown off the timing or some such thing.  Big bad loopies on the back.   I am waiting for Mr. Haynes to call me back about making hand off directions.  When I called late yesterday afternoon, he told me he was possibly headed towards my little town today but was unsure of a time since he had another client's commercial machine to deliver too.  I did drag out the Brother to finish up with top even though I don't like switching machines in the middle of the job but I did check the machine settings with the Perkins Dry Goods Perfect Piecing Seam Guide that I had used to set up the Singer.   Get back to row 9 after lunch. I do have  an errand to run and just know he will phone once I leave the house.   That is also why I haven't walked Oscar in the park yet today.  It will ring to my cell but still, there are areas of poor reception.

Guess that's it for now-----thanks for stopping by to see what I am up to.

Some progress

Today I am making some steps to get chevron quilt for my great-niece started.

I drew my "road map" up in EQ yesterday.  Actually that almost helped more than reading through the tutorial stuff in a way.  I have a clearer picture in my head just how it goes together now which made it a bit easier to put the sections up on the design wall.

The actual pieces are below.  Never mind that light green at the top though it is kind pretty, LOL.  That is just the other side of the table cloth I picked out.  I need the flannel side but paid for both.  There is one more row at the goes at the bottom but I was already skirting the baseboard a bit.  Since I don't need those pieces until the quilt is more than half sewn, I just set them aside for now.

The quilt top is sewn  "on point" or in diagonal rows.  You may be able to see that from my printout.  I find it easier for me to track what each row is supposed to look like if I fold the paper along the row lines I have marked  isolating each individual row as I work on it.  That way I can verify that I have not only the right color in the right order.  Also on this quilt I have to be concerned that I keep them going horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical.... and so on. Sew the first 7 or 8 rows and then start working from the opposite end, then join the two halves.

I have also decided that I am going to add quarter square triangles to three sides of the quilt as I believe it will make it easier to trim down the unneeded sections later.  The bottom won't need them but I really like the print for the top row and I don't want to cut it all away!!  I already have had the printout folded where I think it will need trimming.  This idea should also provide some stabilization of straight of grain.  Not entirely but some.  Still need to cut those out but that is no biggie.  However, the more I look at this, the more I think I want to extend the zig zag out a bit on the left hand side.  I have plenty of the fabric leftover so could easily cut those in the colors for that edge.   That would allow me to keep more of the fabric on the right hand side as well.  Yep, doing my own thing.  HMMMM

Since Skyler is a horrid string chewer, I have declared the design wall off limits.  Out of the master bedroom please!  I moved his litter box out of the master bath and back into its original position in the laundry room.  I already have told you that Skyler is constantly in the kitchen regardless of the dog's presence, in or out of his crate.  I think he will be able to get to the box when he needs it since he no longer gives the dog a wide berth.  Heck, he is on the attack, plunking the poor dog on the nose through the gate grate or going right after him.  Never mind that he has no front claws to inflict any real damage.  Oscar, more or less, turns around and walks away with a "whatever, man" attitude.

Oscar is outside most of the day unless it is raining or storming. When inside he roams around the kitchen and laundry room,  Now he gets in the living room with supervision for a few hours in the evening.  They are just a foot or two from each other vying for "most favored nation" status with me if we are all in the same locale.  Put a towel on the couch for the dog to get on and then Skyler wants to sleep on it to make it smell like cat.  Oscar just wants to sniff and track Skyler wherever he goes even if that means tunneling under the kitchen chairs.  Good thing he has short legs, LOL.  These two crack me up!

Okay, sewing decisions made.  Go pull the fabric bin and finish up that cutting that I didn't know that I needed to do.  Email or message Baby R's Nana to show her what I am up to as well.