Seemed to have hit a wall :/

Not much quilting progress to report on the 30 day challenge - I have one more Lover's Knot quilted, and waiting for binding, probably tonight. If the weekend doesn't get cluttered up with stuff, I should finish another tomorrow.  I won't get anywhere near the 30, but I've got momentum and that is great.  I also had a call for an appointment from a repeat customer while I was gone on my trip - yippee!!

The conference was great!  The travelling went well and luckily our only incident was a flat tire on the trailer, but it happened at the hotel.  So pastor was able to take the tire in to Wal-Mart and get a replacement the next day while we were in services.  It had dry rotted on the sidewall, so we are quite lucky that it didn't blow out on the highway.  The speakers and music were awesome, and it was just really cool to see all those women wearing skirts and big hair.  Sometimes in my day to day life it seems like I'm the only skirt & hair lady I see, it can be lonely.  Just the camaraderie of a large group of ladies was encouraging. It was so amazing to worship with almost a thousand other women in the same place - wow!  And the messages were aimed at women, about being a mom, a leader and the best woman I can be for God.

Above is our group as we headed into Friday night's service  We all had black & white or black & beige on and matched nicely - but it was completely unplanned.  Sister Linda did my hair and I was so pleased, it turned out great!  The pastor's wife is on the far right, and what's funny is, she checked her photos from before and had on a strikingly similar outfit on the last night of the previous conference, LOL!

This is our group in the service Friday night.  Such a lovely bunch of ladies!!

Sister Linda and my pretty hair - I think she has better photos of it on her phone, maybe she can send me one.  I have so very little hair to start with, and I don't know how to work with it at all.  So it was really sweet of her to take some time out of getting herself ready and make my mop pretty ;)

 

 

This was our group at CiCi's Pizza on the way home.  It was a great pizza buffet and we all left stuffed.  I even tried the Pineapple dessert pizza and it was wonderful.  This restaurant is one that they go to each year when they take the school kids to competition.  We drove by the church that hosts the competition too.  They are adding on and it looks amazing from the outside.  The kid will be surprised when they come next year.

 

 

 

 

 

Friday already and September is almost half over, WOW!

On the challenge front, I worked on the next Lover's Knot quilt last night and got a few more rows done.  I've done piano keys again in the outer border to control some of the fullness (and there is LOTS of fullness!) and then a version of the ribbon candy border in the next sashing.  It's hearts, but done continuously like ribbon candy.  I think I saw it somewhere before and finally figured out how to do it, I don't think it's original, LOL.  For the body of the quilt, loops and hearts to tie in with that border.  It's fairly open and breezy, so it does go quickly, although I've used 5 bobbins so far, so that is surprising!

Work is busy today because we have the annual fish fry.  Lots of people in the building which is so odd, it's usually just me.  But good lunch, so the trade off is worth it!

Looking forward to the women's conference next week with ladies from my church.  We are going to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  I guess we're going to a resort there.  I'm not entirely sure about where we are going, but I'll pack my bags, get in the van and get out where they tell me, LOL.  Really, really looking forward to a worship experience with a big group of ladies.  Our church usually has around 50 people for worship services, so this will be a very cool, new environment!

I haven't been off on my own for a trip since the quilting class I took in Ohio about 5 or 6 years ago.  So even just the vacation aspect of getting away will be a treat.  The part I'm most excited about is getting to know a few of the ladies from my church a little better.  We don't get a great opportunity to sit and chat, and that is when you can really ask questions and find out more about someone.  I did get to visit with Marci's BF's mom .  We stayed behind after the meal at our last Women's group meeting.  I got to ask her about when she found out she was carrying twins and what that was like.  And she told me about how the babies got RSV when they were only a month old and the BF died and was resuscitated a couple times.  He was definitely the sicker of the two, poor punkin!  But it was just nice to have one on one time to talk and get to know her, and I'm looking forward to that with several of these ladies on the trip.  We have a 6 hour car ride there and back, plus a whole afternoon Friday without commitments, plenty of opportunity there!

And two more . . . .

Challenge is going great!  Finished the first one for the Sylvia family and delivered it Monday.  She loved it and sent two more tops with batting home with me.  I have to shop for backing for her.  That sounds funny, but she is homebound so she gives me her JoAnn's coupon and I go get the fabric and then she pays me back.  So the finished one is the brown and pinks.  I used Victorian Rose thread and it matches the pinks nicely.  But the neat thing is that the pink looks great on the brown backing!  Two quilts for the price of one.  I looked on my camera, but apparently I didn't get any photos of this one, bummer! 

The second finish for the week is a baby quilt.  The piecing was so-so, several seams opened up on me as I was quilting.  But it turned out great.  I did feathers in the brown outer border and in the four colored triangles.  For the beige background I did a meandering swirl all over.  It really added some nice texture.

I used five colors of thread for this one, to match the fabrics.  Lots of thread changes, but the end result was worth it.

Didn't manage to be very productive over my two days off though and that's a bummer.  I was on such a great roll for the first week or so, and just really bushed this week.  So, hopefully I can head home and get another of the Sylvia quilts done - they go quickly, and get moving again!  I'm working on sketching ideas for the next two.  One is a monkey wrench and the other is a BOM patchwork.  Should both be fun.

First update - 2 done

Challenge is going along.  I finished the Dresden plates and delivered them on Monday afternoon, before we took DD back to school.   I was thrilled with the way it turned out!!  It makes me want to finish piecing the one I have started so that I can quilt it up just like this one, LOL.

I did Egg & Dart in the sashing because it is a very traditional design and so is the Dresden Plate.  But I found this cool idea on the internet to do a double line arc - giving the look of a flower.  I auditioned several background fills, but they all overpowered the plates, so in the end I went with the lowly puzzle stipple.  The busy floral border got dream feathers because I know the customer loves them (and so do I!)

The second finish (well, it will be finished tonight, but I'm counting it for now!)  Is a commissioned baby quilt.  I think I talked about this customer before.  Her mom made baby quilts for the daughters (one is my customer) and then the granddaughters.  Now mom has passed, but granddaughters are having babies.  My customer still had all of her mom's leftovers from the quilts she made.  And the templates and coloring books, etc. that she based her designs on were in the materials she brought me too.  There were enough completed (by Gr'ma) blocks that each Granddaughter has 4 or 5 of Grandma's pieced blocks in her quilt too.  I made the rest of the blocks.  There was embroidery on each one too.  This customer is really neat and she was just thrilled with the first one, she is very sentimental and the fact that we were able to incorporate her mom's work into each daughter's quilt was so appreciated!

Each quilt has the same Sun & Moon block in the top and bottom corners.  For this one, I made them.  The blocks gr'ma made are the Overall Sam, Cat, Humpty Dumpty, Squirrell & Elephant.  I had to embroider the cat, it was just basted, and I made from scratch the Sun, Moon, Bear, & Lamb.  The lamb block will get a little bell attached to the collar - just like her sister's quilt has.  It's neat that some of the fabrics and blocks are repeated throughout the entire "family" of the quilts, tying them all together.  And my customer told me that the fabrics are almost all recycled clothes, so there are more memories there.  The heart on the teddy bear's chest is a special touch for this quilt, hearts are this daughter's special thing.

These pix are before it was quilted, and I actually have some quilting to finish up tonight, but I've brought it with me to work so I can go by the store and pick out binding fabric on the way home.  We have Bible Study tonight, so if I can get it finished and the binding on, I can sit for half an hour and sew after study and let Marci & Collin spend some time together.  They are both sad because he leaves for a school trip tomorrow night for a week and they'll only get to talk to each other for maybe 15 minutes each night, oh the miserable sadness of it all!!  So hard being 16, LOL.

As far as home life, I'm excited that I seem to have developed the habit of doing my dishes and shining my sink.  I've actually lost count of how many days in a row the dishes have been done, sink shined and kitchen tidy.  This is pretty monumental for me!!