Completed: Teapot Quilt

A few weeks after I began working on my husband's t-shirt quilt, I finished the hand-quilting on the very first quilt I pieced. Almost 10 years later, the small wall hanging was finally finished. I made my continuous bias binding, sat down in front of Netflix and began sewing. Four hours later, the quilt was finished.

Applique is still not one of my favorite techniques. But I do like this quilt. Looking at this picture, I realize it is not 100% complete. It is lacking 2 things: the hanging sleeve so it can actually hang on the wall, and the 13 buttons I dug out of my mom's sewing box for the knobs on the teapot lids (I didn't want to try to applique the tiny circles for the lids, thought I would make a small substitution.) Dang it! Although it is not Technically complete, I am still marking it as complete. Those two finishing touches will not take long, and now that I see them, I can add them to my weekend to-dos.

One less UFO in my world!

June UFO Challenge

The June number has been released! And once again, it is just what I wanted to be working on (so much so that I was going to go renegade and swap my numbers around if it wasn't!) The chosen project number is #9!!! My Teapot Quilt, the very first quilt I ever made. Now for those of you who remember that wasn't originally the project, very good! Yes, it's true. But remember, I promised dh I would finish two (2) quilts before I bought the supplies to begin another quilt. And now my bf is pregnant, and I want to make her a quilt. The Teapot quilt is actually almost finished, so I can definitely finish it this month, then go back to working on the 4th of July quilt. And when I finish it, I can go shopping!!!

The other reason I was going to swap my numbers around is because I took my car into the shop a few weeks ago, and had to spend over $1,000 to get her fixed. Ouch! So I needed a project I could finish without having to buy any supplies for. Okay, I bought marking pencils, but that doesn't really count, because those are necessary for the quilting process! (which, by the way, the best quilt marking pencils out there are Roxanne's Quilter's Choice) I think the original plan with this quilt was to use the remaining yardage to make bias binding, so I have all I need. Except for a border hoop. Which I really would like, but think I have come up with a way to make it work with my regular hoop.

On another note, with the mini-storm we had last night, we now have fried outlets. Over half of the outlets in the house do not work, even after searching out all three (yes, 3) breaker boxes in the house. We have flipped every circuit, tried to match them all up to lights and outlets in the house, and failed miserably. Less than 1/3 of them were labeled to begin with, and as I flipped them, we discovered that 1 in 4 were mislabeled. Imagine that. And we never did figure out which ones were to the outlets that are dead, probably because it's not a circuit breaker issue, but a wiring issue (did I mention this house was built in 1940 and has "crazy" wiring all over?) There are places where you can see new, grounded outlets have been installed, but that doesn't necessarily mean the wiring was updated. So, who knows what's really going on behind the walls! Ergh! At least it's not all outlets, and at least the computer was plugged into a different set of outlets. And now I'm beginning to wonder about our surge protectors.........This probably means they're shot too.

ARGHHHHHHH!!!!

The Quilter's Callous

So the truth is, when I wrote my post Thursday, I still hadn't basted the quilt together. The plan was to have that completed before going to bed that night, when I would also publish the post saying I had done so. However, Murphy came to town, and it took me all day yesterday to get the quilt basted. I began quilting last night, and only worked for about 30 minutes.

But I had to take my car to the shop this am, and so I also took the quilt. I figured, several hours waiting on my car to be fixed would also give me several hours to quilt. Which was a great idea, if only I had taken into consideration: my Husband. Who went out for a run this morning, and didn't take his key with him! And our door is one of those old fashioned models that requires the key to turn the latch. It can be completely unlocked, but you're not getting in without the key. The car service place was super nice and gave me a ride home so I could let him in. I am almost finished with one block.
Of 54. Plus 4 corners, and a border. I have a long way to go.

As I haven't hand quilted in years (probably 4), I am now rebuilding my callous. I actually sewed my finger to the quilt last night. DH laughed and wondered how in the world that was possible. I then proceded to demonstrate, making very sure to not repeat the actual process. I'm taking a break from the quilting for a few minutes, while I allow my poor finger to recouperate. Poor finger.

Fourth of July Quilt

I know I haven't posted lately, but that is due more to the fact that I am still entirely wiped after spending 3 days cleaning out and moving the rest of the junk from the old apartment. And when I say I cleaned, I mean I was down on my knees Cinderella-style scrubbing at carpet stains and removing mildewy grout. I. Am. Tired.

So most of my evenings have consisted of me flopping dramatically onto the couch when I get home, moving only for bathroom breaks and to finally slink off to bead. Thankfully, I have my day job, which includes a sleeping angel for at least 3 hours a day. The work from this week shall give me posts enough to last me several days if I split the stories! Which I will. Therefore, today, I will tell you about the UFO Challenge quilt I am ready to begin hand-quilting as of tonight!

This quilt is pictured and described in my UFO History page. As I pulled it out to begin working with it, I was trying to remember how and when exactly it got started. I was part of a quilting class at my church in Chattanooga, and for Christmas, we had a fat quarter "naughty santa". The fabrics I received were patriotic, and I can't remember how many exactly I got. I think it was 5. That spring, our fearless leader brought in directions for a Yellow Brick Road quilt. Since I already had the 5 patriotic fabrics, I chose the full size option and headed to the LQS for 10 more fat quarters. Now, the time period here I'm still fuzzy on, but it was less than two years after September 11, so patriotic fabrics were all the rage then, and soon, I had enough to work. Blocks made, sewn into strips, three strips sewn together, and I put it away to begin on another project. (see the UFO pattern?)

Fast forward five-plus years later. I have never forgotten about the quilt, knowing I needed a backing fabric whenever I chose to complete it, and always looked at fabrics during the summer. Nothing ever really jumped out at me, plus I never really had the $$ to splurge on it anyway. BTW, I also never really went into a good quilt shop here in town to look for fabrics, so I never had a chance. Once the challenge announced the # for the month was 3, I was estatic. I had so hoped to get to work on that quilt! So off I went to Mammaws Thimble. Massive selection of fabric. Choir of angels sing when you walk in, I swear! One hour and 30 minutes later, I emerge with a border fabric, and a backing fabric. (It took longer than planned, but mostly because the #1 pick for backing DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH material for me!!) Luckily, #2 did, and it is just as good a choice.

What I have always planned for this quilt was to hand-quilt "fireworks" as my design, and so wanted to find a good template and hopefully iridescent thread to use. Ix-nay on both. Never could find a fireworks template. And the lovely woman at the quilt shop suggested that I not use the iridescent thread, as it creates more tension in the stitch, more puckers, and more thread breakage. Thankfully, there are templates for sale online, and I found several that with the right thread, will look like fireworks exploding, anyway. And Mammaws had a beautiful spool of variegated thread in oranges, purples and yellows to complement the quilting templates. See?

And, so, after what must be at least 7 years, the quilt is ready for the hoop!