Nothing To Do - Yeah Right!

No way!  I have tons of stuff to do.  So I sat around all morning and did none of them!

That just means I have no pressing things to do for someone else.  It really did feel good to do nothing but play on the internet an watch Fox News.  I ordered a new roll of batting for the longarm and some rotary cutting  blades (I got a great deal on them). I should be in there cleaning up that darned room.

Here are some photos from the shower yesterday.  The happy mommas loved the quilts.  Tory said, this has surpassed our greatest dreams!

And that felt good!

 This is the pregnant one, Loni.

These are the two happy mommas-to-be!

This, believe it or not, is the grandmother in the blue shirt.  They were modeling toilet paper diapers that other party goers decorated them with.

Here is Tory and Loni taking the quilts out of the Tote Bag.

Here they  are showing off the quilts, and everybody is Ohh-ing and Ahhh-ing!

Suess Quilts Are Done!!!!

Finally!  And in good time, because the shower is this afternoon!  LOL.

Here are the finals:

The Lorax:

Front and Back











Seuss 2: 


Front and Back







And the Bag to Tote All Things Baby!

It is just a simple tote bag.

With strings on the side to make it smaller or larger.








And the last leftover of the backing as a panel.

Here it is with the two quilts in it, ready to be toted.

Where Was The Camera?

My new eye is marvelous.  I spent the day yesterday running around in the glorious fall weather, exclaiming how incredible I could see every 10 or 15 minutes!  Really, it is amazing to literally "see" the difference from before and after.

I am glad you liked the Orange Cactus post!  He has been with us for a long time now, and he is always interesting!

Yesterday was the last physical therapy appointment.  Today I took my bag of goodies over at 11 am when they got off work.  I had a quilt for everyone!  They were floored!  It was fun seeing them go through the six quilts and bargaining with each other to get the one they wanted.

I think they were all happy with each one they ended up with!

Of course I forgot to take a single picture!!  Aughhh!

In other news, the Lorax Quilt is complete!  Here are the final pictures of that.  I did remember that before I send it off.

Tory chose the most perfect stripe for the binding.  I mentioned that stripes often look great as bindings, and she did it proud!

 Yeah!  One down.  One more to go!


I am still thinking about Seuss 2.  So that will stay with me in top stage for a bit.  I have an idea of what I need to do, I don't want to do it, but I know what it needs.  More later.

Quilting!

I quilted the Lorax!  And showed it off at the Modern Quilt Guild meeting last night!

Of course, they loved it!

And for Seuss 2, they really liked  the spikey things, but all agreed that it looked better with them off the sides.  The top and bottom was OK though. 
I was leaning that way, so I will finish squaring things up and build a backing for it.

I quilted it with a new to me thread.  It was somewhat thinner than my regular thread and I had a problem with breakage until I got the tension straight.  That was only about half way through!  Grrr.

The thread is a light blue and blends into the colors well.  It also sinks into the quilt since it is thinner.  So you don't really see it a lot. 

The jury is still out on the thread though.  As to whether I like it.  The really great thing was that there was very little lint.  I generally use the thread from Connecting Threads and even though they say is it low lint, it really puts out a LOT of lint!

A quilt with Frank's feet!

When I got the Avante HandiQuilter and Margaret came to set up at the
house, she sternly told me to clean out the bobbin case EVERY TIME I CHANGE IT!  Or else!


And I do, with the Connecting Threads thread it is a definite must.  But when I changed the bobbin in this other stuff, it was ........clear!  I was kinda shocked, I guess.

I  wonder if the new thread comes in heavier weights.  I have to admit, I don't even know what brand it is.  If it does, then  maybe I can use it like BottomLine in my bobbins for all the threads until I use it up.

I bought it in cones, so it may be until forever!

Lorax - the Completed Top

I ended up adding the sashing around the entire center just because I thought it looked better.  Then I added the black stop border and the 6 inch outer border.  Now  it looks like the the black border is floating! 

I love it!

Now I have to start the other one.  I don't think I have enough fabric for the backing of both quilts so I think I will wait till the second one is done to the same stage to see                    

how much i need to add to get the both done with the same  backing fabric. 

She sent me the Dr Seuss fabric that has the words he used from a number of his books.

When Tory first started talking about the quilt I bought some Dr Seuss prints to make two pillows for them, good thing I thought of two pillowcases that far back!  Tory's mother loves SpongeBob SquarePants so I bought some of that as well.  More pillowcases!

I have to admit, I like SpongeBob myself!

The Lorax Revisited

I had left the Lorax hanging in my quilt studio on the design wall.  I guess I was still not totally happy with the way it was looking.  I would go in there and move something around and gaze at it semi-critically.

Today I decided I needed to even up the sashing strips.  So I spent the afternoon ripping out the middle parts of both rows.  I had to even it up.  Then another strip of blue and white poofy things found a home. 

I do like it better.  I am having a hard time dealing with the fact that the blocks are so tall compared to the width of it all.  And the next set are even taller by an inch!

I began to draw up some sketches for the next set of blocks.  I want to do a random set with some other blocks tossed in to make it interesting.  And I have to figure out how to "boy" it up.

I think they have chosen the name Atticus.  I am hearing a lot of unusual names in the recent years.  I guess Brittany, Tiffany and Aiden are getting too common  now-a-days!

I like it better so far.  But maybe it needs a blue puffy thing border all the way around just before the black stop border..........

I Might Just Sleep on a Bed Tonight!

I called the mattress guy on Friday to see if they had gotten the bed base and could deliver on Saturday.  Nope, base still has not come in.

I calmly asked him to transfer me to a supervisor.  Not the store manager, but the next up supervisor.  I wanted to cancel my order with the supervisor.  He assured me that he could call me back shortly and have a number for me.

Five minutes later, on the phone he tells me they can deliver the mattresses on Saturday and when the base comes in during the week, they would come out and deliver and assemble everything.

Yes!  Around 10 AM this morning I will at least have a MATTRESS!  Yea! 

I am going to work on the Lorax for a bit while I wait.  And the Banned Book Challenge.  I keep changing what I want do.  There are so many good ones!  I want to be a real radical!

We went to the Farmer's Market and scored some beautiful tomatoes.  I am sending some to Fayne......don't let Carrie forget to give them to you!  No, really, they are very friendly!

Lorax Design Frustrations

Don't get me wrong, I love this part of quilting.  I have a basic idea and I tweak it as I go.

I cut the block centers from the panel section.  I also cut 2 1/2 inch strips and used them to mock up a view of what it would look like when it was together.  Wow!  Overwhelming!  All the color and patterns really were fighting.

I needed some calm places to rest!  So I pulled some solids and added them into the mix.  It worked well to pull things together.


Once I got the blocks together and where i wanted them to live, I started working to add some width the the quilt top.  the two strips of blue and white got added in.

Then came the matter of the borders.  I tried a number of combinations but always, too busy, too much.

I pulled my go to color.......black.  So I am testing a black stop border and

deciding what color the outer borders should be.

I still have enough of all the fabrics to use  as borders.


So........what do you think?

What else could I add?

What colors need to come in?

Is black too harsh?

Frank likes it.  And surprisingly, he likes the mish-mash of colors and patterns.  I guess I am more ordered than I thought!

The Lorax Quilt

I am starting on the Lorax quilt.  She sent me a ton of Dr. Seuss fabric's to use.  Her intention was to have one quilt.  But she sent me two of the book panels, each from a different book.  So I had the brilliant idea to make her two quilts.  It would certainly surprise her!

If the colors had been similar it would have been more rational for me to fit them into one quilt.  But one is a lighter value than the other.  One is The Lorax and the other is Oh! The Places You Will Go!  The book panels are a bit different in size as well.  I can adjust with no problem but I wonder why they do that!

My personal favorite is Green Eggs and Ham closely followed by One Fish, Two Fish.  I think my all time favorite kid's book is Are You My Mother?  Carrie loved the Sesame Street books and I think we read Grover's Bad Awful Day a million times!  Did I mention that Carrie was going to grow up and marry either Burt or Ernie?  I think she ended up with a little of both!  LOL

I don't think I will need more fabrics, but if I do I can add from my solids stash.  I also  bought some Dr Seuss fabrics to make her some pillow cases.  Her mom, who is my friend, loves SpongeBob so i also got some SpongeBob fabrics for some pillows that can be kept at grandma's house!  That will surprise them as well!

I have one quilt easily mapped out.  But I want to use an irregular grid for the second quilt.   I am having difficulty laying it out in EQ so I am going to have to resort to the graph paper.  I think, though, it will go together like most of my quilts -- making a block to fit here and another to fit there!

 That is the fun part of designing these babies!