another quilt in Japan

These are at another Church in Japan, ready to be handed out. Did you make them?

Dangerous!

So, I went to the doctor today about my sore shoulder and he says I tore some muscles in there. Muscles I can't pronounce. He even pulled out his anatomy book to show me that they exist and that I need to be more careful. I told him it was from bowling, but we all know it was from quilting. I just couldn't tell him that I've been quilting so much lately that I hurt myself again. He is going to have me locked up for good! The last time I told him I hurt myself quilting, he called the men in the white suits, but they didn't get there fast enough to put me away, so I knew I had to come up with a better story. I really did probably hurt myself bowling and then didn't let it heal all the way before hurting it more quilting.

He says that a muscle tear takes 4-6 weeks to heal. Seriously? He also says that if I am doing something and it hurts that I should stop. Really? My doctor must think I am crazy. I may need to lower my expectations for the summer and take things easy for a while to give myself some time to rest and recover. I'm going to try lefthanded quilting a little and taking it easy and get my kids to help with things like vacuuming and driving (yay for my almost 16 year old) so I don't have to use the shoulder as much. A couple of weeks more and I should be as good as new. Now, just to keep from hurting myself again. The doctor also said to stretch before exercising. If only he knew, I don't exercise. Maybe I should stretch before quilting!

A winner!

Congratulations Rebecca. You are the lucky winner of the Stretched Stars kit and I will be sending it out to you as soon as I hear back from you and get your address.

Thanks everyone for entering and stay tuned. I will keep sorting fabric and cutting it up and will have another giveaway before the summer is over.

I see the doctor this afternoon and wouldn't you know, my shoulder is feeling better this morning? Isn't that the way things go?

Lefthanded quilting

So, even after giving my shoulder a whole day of quilting rest, it is still killing me. I made a doctor appointment for tomorrow. I decided that while I waited for the appointment, I would see if I could quilt lefthanded. What could it hurt?

You know, I'm pretty good lefthanded! I got my 4 quilts done today using only my left hand to guide the quilting machine. Watch out world, now that I can quilt with both my left and right hand, I can get twice as much done. If only I had two machines, I could work them both at the same time :) Ha!

The advice nurse thinks I may have torn a muscle or stretched some ligaments. I hurt it bowling about 3 weeks ago, but that was in the front and now it hurts in the back. This doctor must think I am a giant spaz. I swear that since switching to Kaiser I have been into see this guy about every month for some new problem. Before switching I only went to the doctor to have a baby! Seriously :) I need to get my records transferred over so my new doctor doesn't think I am crazy.

I blinked...

and he turned 14~

We went to IHOP this morning for our traditional birthday breakfast :)

Happy July 4th!-giveaway

Got the quilting accomplished today and had some fun with my mangle this morning. I got through an entire bucket of fabric scraps in about 20 minutes. I promise to make a video of the wonders of the mangle to show you just what it can do! I think everyone needs one of these fancy, old fashioned ironing machines. Thanks Carla for introducing me to this machine. I have no idea how I lived without this iron!

And now, for the moment some of you have been waiting for :) I still haven't taken a picture, because I'm not finished cutting the fabrics out, but they will be patriotic fabrics to make a red, white and blue version of this quilt, the Stretched Stars quilt. It will be bigger than this one, because I'm cutting the squares 6 1/2 inches and the triangles 6 1/2 inch finished using my Accuquilt Studio cutter. The squares will be white and the points on the stars will be either blues or reds. A great way to celebrate your favorite 4th of July Holiday, or Labor Day or Memorial Day, or to give to your local Veteran's home or Quilts of Valor.

The contest is open to US residents only, sorry, can't afford international postage :(

Here's the rules: You must be a follower (I'm trying to get more followers so Accuquilt will allow me to give away a Baby Go or a Go! fabric cutter) and leave one comment per person. You are welcome to post on your blog if you want, but not necessary.

Contest ends July 6th at midnight. I will pick a winner on July 7th when I wake up and notify the winner by email and on the blog. If you are no reply and I can't get ahold of you, I will pick a different winner, so make sure I can get ahold of you.

Good luck!

Today's goal met

But, hubby says to stop quilting today because I'm complaining that my shoulder hurts. I say it is from all of the driving I have been doing lately, but he says it is from all of the quilting. He is probably right, but I hate it when he is right. So, instead of trying to get more quilts done, I'm trying to match up quilts and backing fabrics. Since I don't have places to put the matched pairs, I'm putting them in a box. I've pulled out all of the quilt tops and there is a huge mess on the floor of the quilting room. No pictures :) I've pulled out a bunch of fabric that is big enough for backing without having to be matched and pieced together and do you realize just how hard it is to match the two together? You would think with over 100 tops and more backings than that, things would go together easily. But, when you are color challenged, things can be difficult! I had my daughter helping me yesterday, but hubby was playing an online video game with all of the kids today so I was on my own. I think I did ok, I'm sure she will jump in as I start pulling these out and question some of my choices :)

I matched about 40 quilts and you cannot tell from the pile. I have now sorted the tops by color categories and plan to bring a pile to my friend Carla's to pick out some more backing fabrics before she heads to Sister's in Oregon on Wednesday. She offered to kidnap me and take me along. When I mentioned it to my family, a discussion started as to who would starve to death before I came home in 5 days. It was very funny to hear how the kids thought they could survive on Top Ramen and what they would do when that ran out. While the thought of a retreat is interesting, I think I had better stay here and clean up my mess! It might take me 5 days to get to the front door.

and finally, here is a picture of one of the tops I quilted today. Isn't this one really cool? Once finished, it will head to Japan, along with a few others that arrived in time, but just didn't get finished in time to go with the big shipment.

I caught up!

I didn't think I would make it, but I quilted 10 quilts today and got caught up for the week :) No more getting so far behind. Just 4 quilts a day. MUST STAY FOCUSED. No more migraines, and I think the plan should work.

My doctor changed my medicines again and suggested I try aerobic exercises when I actually have a migraine. Ha! I doubt he has ever had a migraine because just the thought of exercising with a migraine makes my head hurt. Plus, I don't like to sweat. Ick, yuck, no thanks.

Off to start trimming this big pile of quilts so I can get them to my binding beast or at least get them off the kitchen table!

So here's the plan

I have two of these clothes hangers for my quilt tops. Not all of the quilt tops I have will fit on these :) I'm not complaining, just saying that I have a lot of tops to work through and this is why I am trying to get so many done this summer. I'm hoping to play catch up before more come in. Most people go on vacation during the summer and I have time off to get lots of quilting time in. Then, when I'm back in school and my top makers have time to sit at home and get busy again, they can load me up with more quilt tops again.

I took one of the clothes racks and made these little cards, one for each day of the week. Since my goal is 4 quilts a day, I figured I would put 4 quilt tops and backings in each little slot and then I would know if I reached my goal for the day or not. If I can do more than the day's quilts, I can just pull from another day. By the end of the week, the rack will be empty and I can always find more quilt tops in the piles and stacks of tops that are around in the sewing room. Each week I will have my daughter help me pull backing fabric to match the quilts and of course some of these will need the backings made to size. Lots of these quilts are bigger than one width of fabric so it will take some time to get the backing ready for quilting.

But, I think with a system in place, I will be better prepared each day for the quilting that needs to be done and feel a little less stressed. I can see the progress each week as the quilts disappear from the rack. I will replace them at the end of the week--each Saturday--with new quilts and since I have two racks, if I have time during the week to match quilts with backing fabric, I can always match and hang on the second rack without interfering with the first rack and messing up the progress and the visual impact it makes as the quilts disappear.

I'm pretty excited to watch this happen. The way the sewing room is now, things aren't disappearing! I keep bringing fabric in from the garage and the mess is just getting bigger and bigger! I'm trying to cut it up and sort it, but fabric is like rabbits--it breeds in the dark! :)

Hope you come back and watch the progress of the disappearing quilts and stay tuned for the quilt kit giveaway on Monday!

not keeping up

I'm just not keeping up with my goal of quilting 4 quilts a day. I really want to get 200 quilts done this summer and I have to get back in the groove if I want to get these tops done before school starts. I know to some this seems like a big task, but it really can be done. It only takes about 15 minutes to quilt a small top for me, but it is just one of the many things on my to do list each day.

Yesterday I finished fixing my mangle :) Carla's husband has been helping me. I had to rewire the electrical parts and I had no idea what I was doing. I went to the local hardware store and they built me a new electrical plug. You see, this thing is from the 1950's and the old plug had the insulation coming out. It still worked, but I figured it was just a matter of time before it shorted and burned my house down. Plus, when I drug it into the house, I ran it over and cut through the electrical cord. Probably the best thing I ever did because that forced me to replace the cord. Unless I am forced to do something, it takes me forever to fix something. Like my leaky faucet in the kitchen. Needs to be done, but hasn't happened yet this summer. Next on my to do list. I just know it is going to be a pain in the neck. Seriously. Not something I want to tackle.

So, the mangle is working and now I can iron fabric so easily. It is fun! Crazy huh?

So, I iron and then cut it into little pieces, which means the fabric needs to be sewn back together. Which takes away from quilting time. Not that I'm sewing fabric back together just yet. First you have to make kits. Kits with patterns. Patterns that have to be searched out on the computer and printed out. And then stuck into baggies, along with the cut out fabric. Do you see where I'm going here? I'm making lots of UFO's. Unfinished Projects. Why? I have ten thousand of these already, but it is so much fun to make these. And then I will find friend (unsuspecting victims) to sew them together for me :)

And speaking of victims, I'm going to have a giveaway on Monday, July 4 for one of these quilt kits. It will be a patriotic kit to celebrate our country's birthday. It will be Stretched Stars and in Red, White and Blue and I will send it to one lucky Winner! It could be you :) It will have all of the fabrics and a pattern and all you will need to do is sew, sew, sew and you can keep the quilt top, or send it to your favorite Quilts of Valor program for them to finish up and give to a Soldier to say THANKS for serving our country.

So, come back on Monday to see a picture (because I haven't cut it out yet) and enter the giveaway.

Ok, enough procrastinating. I'm 10 quilts behind so I have to go quilt!