Fun with Amy Butler

I must say that I officially love Amy Butlers patterns! They really are wonderful. I finished the Weekenter Travel bag last week, and while there were some difficult bits, the bag is fabulous. I have to say that I do not like working with the stiff stuff in between (peltex, timtex). Not good on the fingernails, especially when you are trying to sew cording onto it around a curve with another layer of interfacing and fabric to shape the corners of the bag - you get the idea, I'm sure! But the bag came out beautifully, and I know my client will be very happy with it. And I did a fabulous job of matching up the pockets and the sides of the bag.

My next Amy Butler project will be the laptop cover - Sharan got a free sample at Quilt Market last weekend, so I'll be excited to work on it next! Plus I found a site with some free patterns! I cannot wait to get started making some of these great things - they will make great gifts!

What am I sewing today? I have a wedding dress to hem and bustle, and another 16 blocks to machine quilt for a quilt I'm trying to finish up this week. Won't be able to put pictures up on this one till later, but it's really a neat quilt. Not too much fun to quilt - it has a lot of embellishment - feathers, buttons, ribbon. It has 56 blocks with 1" sashing in between, so I stitched in the ditch all the blocks over the weekend (about 3 hours worth of sewing) and am now outline stitching the blocks. If I do about 14 a day I will finish it up on Thursday, and be able to pass it on to the binding person.

What I really need to do is work on the Round Robin, and the Row Robins that are all due in about 16 days!!! Yikes! Deadlines get me motivated, but this one is getting way too close for comfort! Time to get sewing - so hopefully I can get everthing finished on time!

Day of Rest

I am officially taking today off as a day of rest. I worked all day Friday and Saturday at the shop as Sharan is off at a Quilt Show. I have 16 tote bags to make next week, and two sets of quilt blocks to sash and border, as well as a small stack of jeans to hem. Plus I have to work a half day tomorrow and go to the dermatologist to get a mole checked out. So I figure I really need a day to not be busy.

I was excited to hear that two of the Hawaiian Star kits we made have sold already! Looks like we will have to get some more of the background fabric so we can make up some more kits. Either that or I will be getting to take my top home sooner that I thought. That would be nice! I do have all my pictures up in my webshots album so you can see how the star all came together. I need to get better at documenting as I go - I get excited about sewing, and forget everything else.

I've been cleaning up my studio a bit today, and inventoried my stuff from my Etsy shop - I had given out a few of my little wallets and not taken them down from the site, so now it's all cleaned up and back in order again. It's nice to just putter around and not be pushed to accomplish anything. I did a little reading and made a to-do list for tomorrow. And spent way too much time fooling around on-line!

I really need to re-organize my studio, I'm still not totally happy with the layout, but really cannot think of anyway to make it better. I just need another room, that's all there is to it! Actually I probably just need to get rid of all the stuff I'm really not using, but we all know how that goes. After I get this next set of projects done I think I want to work on getting some tops quilted. I have two queen sized quilts that are basted and just need to be quilted. One of them is for the quilt show in september, so that will have to be a priority. I need to figure out what in the world I want to quilt on it. It is a block swap, and I've sewn the blocks into a large star design so there are some fairly large areas to quilt in, plus the blocks and borders to do also. I really want to do something custom, and not just an overall, but I can't think of what will work. Maybe I should get it out and stare at it for a while to get inspired - sometimes that works.

Pamela - who is happy to have a quiet day!

Post Vacation Blues

I just got back from a wonderful trip to Colorado and I feel a little down today. It doesn't help that I have got a cold, and a few deadlines to worry about. I am still anxiously awaiting the letter that tells me if my quilt made it into the PIQF show. I am trying to think positive thoughts, like "who will I tell first?". Wouldn't it be fun to go see my quilt in the show? It would be a great excuse to go visit my sister for a week-end. Then I start thinking about the cost of air-fare! But it would be so worth it!!

I have 8 days to finish quilting a queen size quilt, and finish a baby quilt for the quilt show next week-end. Last year I promised myself that I would not enter anything that was not finished, but I conned myself into entering my Jewel of the Prairie quilt because I may not be able to show it next year. And I entered the baby quilt because I had it all cut out. Unfortunately, here I am again, frantically quilting against a deadline. I suppose I do some of my best work at the last moment, but I think I'd like to not be working this way!

Monday I took Jewel down to the quilt shop and pin-basted it. I quilted 1/4 of it Tuesday, and another 1/4 on Wednesday. I should be able to finish it tomorrow, then have it bound over the week-end. The baby quilt has the top sewn, but I am not satisfied with the border. So, I may have to make a trip to buy a new border for it. So, I keep telling myself I'm ok, I have time, I may not be getting up early friday to sew labels and sleeves on. But I know I probably will!

Back to vacation. I took a ton of pictures, and may have some landscape ideas for quilts. We had a great time, and the whole trip went well except for the severe storm in Pueblo! We were trapped in the midst of 3.5 inches of rain in 30 minutes combined with 70 mph winds. In a Taco Bell Drive-through. We actually did end up getting some food, but there was no way to get to my parents house to eat it! So we very cautiously drove across the flooded street to higher ground in a dry cleaners lot and watched all the fools speeding through lakes of water. The amazing thing is that we didn't actually see anyone get stuck! About a half mile down the road a lady tried to drive her SUV through a railway underpass and just about drowned. I don't know what she was thinking! Luckily by-standers rescued her and no one was injured. There were tons of trees and branches in the streets afterward, and the next day we took a drive through a nearby park I played in as a child and there were about a dozen trees completely ripped out of the ground. Big trees laying around like pick-up sticks. We speculate that there may have been a tornado, but the storm was so bad no one could actually see it! It was an exciting thing, and it made our vacation very memorable! We were very glad to come through it safely, and to have an interesting tale to tell. We know God's hand is on us!

I am glad to be home and back to my sewing machine, even though I am a bit pressured at the time. The quilt is quilting nicely - I've really enjoyed working with the batiks. I'm promising pictures of the finished product next week!