Circle Lord Update and Other Stuff

Last week I was debating whether or not to repurchase the Circle Lord, well I decided that the price was too good to past up so I took the plunge!
It should be here in a week or less. Michael & Kay the owners and creators of the Circle Lord are great people and they are always great to work with and talk to. So I am getting the basic set up, will be able to quilt from the back as well as from the front and I will have the original Aztec, the mini Aztec and the large Swirls ETE board (I had the original aztec and the swirls before) but the mini aztec and working from the front will be new to me. I can't wait to get it, I will be adding the swirls board to my light density quilting designs, I am sure it will be very popular as it was before when I owned it.


I am already thinking what my next purchase will be...probably the fan clam board because I am getting alot of old period style, scrap type quilts in and the baptist fan will add charm to them plus I have had some customers tell me that they were interested in that design...so maybe next month I will purchase that one. If I were rich I would tell Michael one of each please!, LOL Then I wake up from my dream.


Oh but the mail man did deliver a really cool thing this week. Something that will help me with choosing the right color, got you thinking, huh?

It's a Kona Cotton color card! It is gorgeous! Now I won't have to guessif the fabric that I order will be the right color. I like to use the kona cottons for my quilt backs as well as in some of my quilts. http://www.fabricshack.com/

has the full line of kona cottons for only $4.19 a yard they use to have it for $3.99 a yad but they recently raised their prices but still is the cheapest that I have ever seen it for. I got the color card from hancocks of paducah and I just found out that they have a color card for the hoffman watercolor batiks...may just have to get that sometime in the future as well...since I am working with more and more batiks.

Friday was my oldst's Birthaday, she turned 19. Where has the time gone? It seems that it was only yesterday that she was born.

Well time to go for now...it's well past my bed time and I have church in the morning.

A week later

So today, Saturday the baby quilt needed to be done. I posted about it 2 weeks ago and didn't say much since, so do you think I made my dead line?
Well of course I did! Here are some pics.....

This doesn't look like much now but just wait it gets better.

A little progress, one of 8 blocks.

 

A close up of the quilting, I quilted bumble bees all over it.

And this is what the quilt looked like when it was finished. The mom to be loved the quilt and said that it was too pretty to use...HUH? I say a quilt is only truely loved if it is used and is in tatters ;0).

So I did make my deadline but I have to work this weekend. One of the quilt groups that a few of my customers belong to is having their quilt show on the 13th and so for the next 2 weeks I am over booked and so it looks like no weekends for me until I get through the 13th. I even had to turn a few customers away because I am only 1 person and can only quilt so much in a week. I hate having to do that though, but what am I to do?

Should Be Sleeping

It's the middle of the night and I should be asleep, but I can't, my brain is racing and I am thinking about quilting. Go figure. Anyways I was just over at my recipe site (link is on my gecko website) and someone went and spammed it :0( so I cleaned it all up and locked the forums so if they come back they won't be able to do it again. 


Anyways I guess part of my problem is that ever since yesterday (when I found out about the Circle Lord Valentines day special) I haven't been able to focus on much. About a year and a half ago I had to sell my Circle Lord (bling for my APQS Liberty ;0) ) because I needed the cash to pay off my Bernina 730E before the back interest fees kicked in. The moment it sold I regretted having to to see it go. I told myself that some day I will buy another one. 


I have been spending the past 2 days (nights) debating with myself going over in my head the pros and cons of repurchasing now. The fantastic deal vs I no longer do custom quilting for customers. Chris' arguement is (he said) that I only used it about 3 times....uuuummmm wrong! In the year that I owned one I used it over a dozen perhaps 1 1/2 dozen times. And looking at all of the quilts on the APQS site that are part of the Circle Lord Challenge is making me want one again even more. Chris said it is ultimatley up to me, and yes it is costly even with the discount just to be used on my own quilts but the tool is a great tool and has been improved upon since I had my first one. So come morning I am going to order a new one. Just the basic plus for now and then I will add the various templates to it here and there as time goes by. 


Another reason for me not sleeping is I am under deadline with the baby quilt I mentioned last entry. I need to have the quilt pieced by Sunday so I can quilt it on Monday and have it bound before next Saturday, which is the day of the baby shower. I did make some progress though on it today. I was able to finish the applique on the 8 blocks. Saturday I will finish up the 1/2 sq triangles and get the center together. Will post pics of it when it is all pieced.


Ok got to go, the eye lids are getting heavy.

What?...The weekend's over, already?

I swear the weekend seems to be getting shorter and shorter, or maybe it's just that I have so much to do that they seem to go by with just a blink of an eye.

This past weekend I thought I would only have time to put on the borders of the rainbow log cabin for Hailey. But I was able to even get it quilted!

I quilted the "Hearts a Flutter" pantogragh on it using white thread, didn't want to add any more color than there already was in the quilt. It will be a while before I get a chance to put the binding on it, plus I plann on making 2 matching pillow cases for it as well. But it will have to wait because Saturday I decided to start a new project...yes it involved a trip to the quilt store (Quilter's Oasis) :0) The new project is a baby's quilt. My 2 oldest daughters are invited to a baby shower and I thought the "baby girl to be" needed a quilt. Here is the pics of the new project...   

The quilt is called "Frosted Flowers" and is in the PS I Love You 3 Quilt Book.

Here is what I have done so far...mostly batiks in soft pastel colors and lots of pink!!! The quilt will finish at 48"X65" and need to be completed and wrapped up for the baby shower on 2/27/10. There are 8 applique blocks set on point and framed by the half square triangles above, followed by 2- 1" borders and 1- 5" border. Do you think I can get it done? Mind you I also have 15 custmer quilts to do in that time as well, it's a good thing my husband is very understanding and does the cooking on the weekends ;0).

Valentine's day did not come unnoticed this year, but instead of spending money on flowers and cards this year we decided to make a real special dinner at home for us and the kids. This way we were able to share the day with the kids as well and spend less $ than going out to eat.

So the weekend is now over, one project not quite finished and another started and 1 out of 15 customer quilts finished. As I was taking the pics of the customer quilt tonight I glanced over at the mascot ("Tiger" the Gecko) and this is what I saw.................................................................

The little guy crawled into the box that the crickets come in (his food source) and is now looking up at me through the celophane on the box. The way the box is set up the little hole allows the crickets to come and go at will but the hole is quite small and some how the gecko was able to get in but since he is too big the flap on the hole has trapped him inside. Chris got rid of the flap and made the hole bigger so the gecko can get out if he wants to now but several hours later he is still in the box. Either he is really stupid or really smart in thinking that he can make an escape thinking that we will eventually throw out the cricket box and then he will be free from his prison. 

Bali Pops!

Bali Pops!, Just the name of these are fun. Actually I have not found a Bali Pop that I haven't liked :0) For those of you that don't know what these are..where have you been for the past year? These are the new rage! It's the best way to satisfy your Batik cravings without going broke trying to get a variety of colors and textures. These little beauties are 2 1/2" wide batik strips in 40 piece cordinated packages with fun names. Like Cappuccino, Berry Bliss, Strawberry Fields, Mocha Mint, ect...

This is my next project (to be started as soon as I get theborders on the rainbow log cabin quilt). This is a combination of 3 Bali Pops (Mulberry, Cotton Candy, and Sherbet) I am going to use them in a Judy Niemeyer quilt called "Stepping Stones" it calls for 3 bali pops or 100 strips. Should be fun. As with any project the hardest part is picking the color combinations. The above is my latest decision but may not be my final decision, LOL! I like to have them spread out to look at for a while before I start the project so I can look at them to make sure I like the combos.

I also have the next several months of projects (heck, who am I kidding, it's actually several years of projects, LOL) planned out! 

Yes, I am obsessed...my name is Joann and I am a "quilt-aholic" ;0)   

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

Do you ever have days where you feel like no matter what you do, you just seem to get nowhere? Welcome to my life.

Business wise, I have nothing to complain about. I am as busy as I want to be. I even have been able to get my weekends off lately. I have finally gotten a schedule/ routine that works for me. During the week I get up, take the youngest to school then come home and workout, then get ready for my customer appointments (quilt drop offs and pick ups) then quilt late afternoon and evening with taking a dinner break in between. Works great. 

It's when I get to the weekend part that seems to go by so quickly, and there is so much that needs to get done but only so much time to do it. This is where I feel like I am spinning my wheels. For instance this past weekend I wanted to get some cleaning, laundry, sewing etc...done but when the weekend ended what was ther to show for it? Fewer dust bunnies, some orginazation, what I thought was all caught up with the laundry (only to wake up this morning to new mountains of dirty clothes) and progress on the rainbow log cabin quilt. Shown here....

The center is now complete and all that is left to do is the borders!

Honestly I wake up on Monday mornings more tired than I do the rest of the week, what's up with that?

On the diet and exercise front, everything is going as expected the scale is contiuing going down and I am sticking to the exercise each day. I discovered "Coke Zero" it is a diet no calorie pop that actually tastes pretty good, I never did like diet pop in the past but this stuff isn't that bad, go figure.

When I was hunting dust bunnies this weekend I also did some straightening up of my fabric stash. I realized that I have a lot of projects that need to get finished and that I need to do some scrap quilts to get rid of some of my stash, to make room for some newer stuff that is more to my likes these days. So after the above quilt is done then I am moving on to other projects that need to be finished before I will start any newer/ commision projects. I also need to start saying "no" more often when people ask me to do things for them in the future....like my MIL (but that is another topic ;0) ) 

Breaking Out of the Comfort Zones

Last week I decided to make a BIG change, I got my hair cut really short!
I was tired of the long almost straight style and needed a change to lift my spirits up, the cold/wet winter days and nights were wearing me down. So what the heck, since I decided at the begining of the year that I wasn't going to color my hair any longer the old style and old color were just looking bad with the natural color and grey...the quickest fix to spruce it up was to go short and get rid of alot of the old color. I updated my pic off to the left side with the new do, check it out. My kids were in shock, lol the older ones don't remember me with short hair and the younger ones weren't born back when I wore it shorter. Let me tell you my kids are my biggest critics and they don't like big changes (at least not when it comes to their parents).

Last week I was able to finish my customers quilts by Wednesday! so I was able to have a 4 day week end!!! (except for customer appointments that is on Friday). Thursday is when I got my hair cut, didn't do much on that day other than grocery shop and lounged around. Friday I was planning on quilting one of my own wallhangins but only got as far as loading it, ended up quilting it on Monday to get it off my machine so I could quilt customer quilts. Heres the pick of my wall hanging... It's a "Tonga Dimes" quilt and I quilted "Whirlygig" on it, I would show you an up close pic of the stitching but I used a med grey thread and it doesn't show up in the pics. All that's left to do is bind it, but that's for another day.


Since I had time off again this weekend I was able to work on the Rainbow Log Cabin Quilt. I was able to finish the last of the 3 sets of blocks....

They are pretty bright!

Here are all of the blocks, 6 color combinations. The pink fabric is for the inner border, binding and backing and is from the "Dimples" fabric line and the "Dots" are from the Moda "Smores" fabric line and is the outer border. It will be one bright quilt when finished, I may have to where sunglasses just to quilt it, LOL!


I am planning on piecing the blocks together next weekend then the following weekend putting the borders on it.