Sunday, August 19, 2012

13 hours!!! of sewing. **heavenly sigh**

Yes.....from 7:30 AM until NOW (11:00 PM), {{minus a 2-hour dinner break}}....

It was GLORIOUS GLORIOUS GLORIOUS!

Ready to see it all!?!?!  :D

The day started with binding.  LOTS of binding.  First up:  Star Path - QOV Mystery #28
And it didn't take very long for me to reach my first snafu of the day :\  Hm.....tension! (AGAIN!  Remember that post not too long ago about tension?)  I re-threaded everything...and moments later, my thread broke.  Hmm.....someone wasn't happy.

Alright lil' lady!  I'll give you a thorough cleaning, if you insist!
Cleaned, oiled......... and we were back rolling :) with BEAUTIFUL stitches and a softer hummmmmm...... She was happy again!

And don'tcha hate it when this happens......??

No biggy.... leaned over and grabbed another random red 2.5" strip from the strip bin....
Didn't even clip the threads;  just kept toodling along to add the additional red strip and kept going on my merry way.

And did NOT think ahead!  Duh!  I should have trimmed up the binding a bit as to NOT hit a seam in the corner turn.  Oh well.......

Star Path (65" x 75") -- The first of the day;  DONE! 

Then, after a coffee refill, I pulled out Old Glory for the next binding session....

Really Amy!??!!???!  TWO quilts with short binding??!!?
Oh well......I wasn't about to be deterred!  I grabbed another strip....NOT REMEMBERING to cut down what was on the quilt! so the seam met in the corner : AGAIN! 

Old Glory (55" x 69.5") 

Whoo-hoo!  The biggest (only?) goals of the day:  Accomplished!  Before Noon, even :)  These two will be hitting the mail tomorrow on their way to Karen; Wisconsin's QOV representative.

And since I was on a binding roll:  

Star Harbor (59" x 73") was also finished up!  Wahooooooo!  THREE finishes in one morning!  I wasn't sure about the gold binding at first..... However, it framed it all quite nicely, if I may say so :)

And all complete---WITH labels! BEFORE NOON! (I think-----it's all kind of a haze to me now)

 So.... wow!  Three finishes.....what to do next, right??!?!?

Start a new project, of course!!!! Ohhh....... I blame Andee and Andra for this one!  They've twisted my sewing arm!  The three of us are working out some unit swaps for this......


With Andee on Facebook chat, I spent my afternoon working on some 9-patches and 4-patches.  Not finished with either pile... but a good start. 

And then..........HOLD ME BACK!  
The flying geese units!  I have NEVER needed to make flying geese this ADORABLY small before!!!  In fact, I didn't even hesitate to just snip off the bonus triangle without double-sewing!  **GASP** Way too small!  The trimmings were snipped into my (giveaway) crumb box.  I don't crumb quilt, but I save them up and give them away once the box is full.  Another person's trash..... :)

Around 4:30 in the afternoon, I excused myself from Andee (and Kathy), and made dinner.  Tacos tonight.  Usually a big hit with my family :)

And then.....BACK AT IT!  But I was honestly about to close up shop;  getting poooopered out!

And LOOOOOOOOOOOOK who ended up joining in my evening! 
First, Bonnie is the small video on the middle-left of the screen.  What????  She's leaving for Bali TOMORROW!!!!  I can't believe she Quilt-cammed tonight.
And then.......after some chatting with Nancy on Facebook, she called me up for a video chat.  What a blast!!!!  Little did she KNOW that I keep my camera with me at ALL times in the quilt room!!!!
A second wind hit me..... and I quilted the evening away.

By 11:00 PM EST, Bonnie bid us goodnight.  Nancy stuck around for a bit longer to finish up the last few of her 9-patch parts before heading out.

And then...........

SILENCE!!!

DEAD SILENCE!!
After hours of SOMEONE with me in my quilt room via technology...... it was eerily silent.  I had finished up the last of my prepped flying geese units and was trimming off the triangles.... so... it was REALLY silent!  I hadn't turned the music back on when Nancy and I ended our call...the only noise was coming from the hum of the light above me and the slicing of my scissors.

BUT!  I have 252 flying geese done;  separated into 3 different sets of 12 geese;  my plan right now is to keep creating 3 sets;  one I'll keep, one will go to Andra and one to Andee.  

How many does the quilt need??  SIX HUNDRED!  I think I spent about 8 hours alone on these geese today/tonight.  Quite tedious..... But after Bonnie mysteries....psht!  This is SO do-able!

AND THEN!!! Just as I was about to turn everything off, I stood and saw my design wall. 

 
See the gaps!?!?!?  I FINISHED the "C" blocks today as my leader-enders.  Bonnie's timing is PERFECT to start a new leader-ender project: Spoolin' Around  She said she would blog about that tomorrow morning with measurements before needing to get into Bali-mode.  I can't wait!  

I took the "A" and "B" blocks down from the wall... and joined them in with the "C" blocks.....
I just put them on the floor;  haven't done any moving around of blocks yet.  

No wonder I don't have much more in the way of blue scraps!  Actually, I don't have a SINGLE blue 2.5" OR 2" strip left!  (other than what I've set aside in my QOV strip bin).

So, there ya have it.  My computer screen is showing 11:56PM right now.  WOW!  Almost an hour to write this post.  I certainly will miss the leisurely schedule of summer! This week, I need to put in 16 hours at the school (flexible time), and then inservice is next Wednesday and Thursday.  I still have a few days of summer left;  and you can betcha that they will be filled :)

I hope hope hope you had a wonderful weekend!

14 comments:

Jane said...

Oh, wow, what a day! You got so much done. Enjoy the rest of the days you have home

Andee said...

You are a sewing dynamo! You ran circles around me today--I think I was sewing in place, lol! It was great fun and I am so glad to see your progress! Loving your little geese too :)

Amanda said...

You're bonkers! But it sounds as if it was just what you needed, so good for you. I've sewn nothing for ages, just haven't felt like it. Yesterday I cleaned my machine since I did fell like doing some sewing, and it started gathering all the stitches up. I've no idea what to do about it, so I walked away and left it and still didn't do any sewing.

Nancy said...

Isn't it great having a friend in the sewing room??? I got so motivated last night and really hated to end the call. We definitely have to chat and sew again.

Hugs!

Andra Gayle said...

ok, first, WOW! Second, no way are we going to video chat while I sew because I sew pre shower and in my pjs. Not that the post shower and dressed is all that impressive...

Darling Jill Quilts said...

Way to go!!! You got a ton done!! So impressed! :)

Pokey said...

Oh, you have done so much in a small amount of time! You must machine bind, not handstitch? I do...life's too short for giving that kind of time. Looks you have some fun stuff coming up, too, good for you!
:-}pokey

Quilter Kathy said...

What a great day of relaxation and accomplishment!

the ark said...

I hope you know how much we appreciate the time and care you put into your posts! I go back to college on Friday (yikes!) and these last few days of FREEDOM are sooo precious to me and I enjoy filling them up with all your quilty goodness!
Hope you have a fun (and productive!) last few days of summer, too!
Tricia

Candace said...

Wow, gorgeous quilts and high five on overcoming obstacles. I love the gold binding and your quilting is beautiful as usual.

scraphappy said...

Last gasp of summer! I'll bet it feels great to go out with a bang! Amazing how much you can accomplish! Love those little geese. What an amazing quilt they will turn into. Sound like they are easing you back into school gently. I hope it is going to be a good year. Is your schedule any better this time? I checked in on Bonnie and saw her sewing away again, but as it was a school night I turned into a pumpkin nice and early. The schedule does change up a bit these days. A month ago I would have been right there with you.

Unknown said...

Never mind the sewing. I wouldn't have the guts to open my machine and get into it the way you did! I applaude you for that. Saved money on having it serviced.

berylthepearl said...

Love your QOV quilts, especially like the labels. Don't you love it when you get so much accomplished!

Andee said...

We sure did not know what we were getting into with Hawaii Sunset, did we?