this week...and every week...

This week... 

My friend C.C. has invited me to use her long arm quilting machine.  She is a beginner just like me.  However, she is an artist, and her drawing and painting experience gives her an exceptional start at free motion quilting.  We get an early start on Mondays because the building we work in isn't air conditioned. Luckily, most days there's a nice breeze that gives me some relief.  

We've been mostly just practicing on muslin to get a feel for the machine. These sample pieces are a combination of hers and my stitching.  I'm not going to tell you which of us did what, you could probably already guess 😋.

 

This Monday I brought over one of the charity quilts to do "real" practice on. 

 

You might recognize that blue fabric.  I had left over strips from trimming the backing away from "Midnight Sails" made by the Maple Street Charity quilters.  I had just enough of a black and white large Hawaiian print in my stash that was perfect with the black and white palm trees. (Quilting was done in 3 hours. I'm not sure if that's good timing for a 45" x 60" or not. but it's a whole lot faster than hand quilting!!)

 same blue fabric but the quilts look so different!

On Tuesday I got a purple streak 😊

Wednesday is for Maple Street Charity quilting.

I love the "quilting bee" feel of sitting around the frame and talking as we stitch!

Lawana and Judy work on tops to keep us hand stitchers busy.

Thursday is usually a Starkville Hooper's day, but once a month I join the Wannabe ladies in Vernon, AL.  (There's just not enough days in the week!!)  Watana Cantrell is the amazing hostess/instructor of this group.  She has us working on a sampler star quilt.  It is set up block-of-the-month fashion, except up until now we've been making 2 blocks each month.  I missed the July class due to being in CO at the time.  I'm 2 blocks behind. That's ok, I'll catch up by next month I'm sure.

today's block makes 7 ... I'm not so sure about these colors anymore... Here's hoping the alternate blocks will pull it all together!

We also started making fidget quilts for dementia/Alzheimer nursing home patients. Unfortunately I got caught up in my work I forgot to take pictures of my progress. It seems I've gone with a Leather and Lace theme. I promise to get a pic next month.

What I did get a picture of was the how clever it is to use those little strips of batting that are trimmed off quilts just before attaching the binding. Often times these strips are thrown into the trash.

It's easy to straighten the edges and butt them together, then stitch with a zigzag and use the new bigger piece for smaller projects like these fidget quilts. Perfect!!

alright, it's not a great picture, here are 3 strips, a 4"+8"+6", joined together to make a piece that approx 18" x 24" which is a perfect size for the fidget quilts! (run on sentence? sorry!)

And this evening I picked up this project again (finally!!). 

I'll admit there some steps in quilting that I do not care for... 

burying threads would be one of them. And now this task is behind me, "YAY!"

The next daunting task was printing some memory pictures onto fabric for the back of this quilt.  For the past three years I've been doing all my internet activities from my phone, even this blog.  It was working just fine for me that way, except for special printing jobs, I'd have to run to my Sweetling to do it from her computer.  Thankfully, she set everything up so I can log into my accounts while she's away at school during the week.  Now, I need to relearn all the programs that will make my life on the computer easier 😆.

Also this week, I made a facebook page, Hita's Whimsy, to post items that I have been inspired to make and that are available for purchase. I believe I've got paypal ready to accept payments... 

This is a huge step for me and an incredible learning process.  What I need is someone who's already done this type of thing to talk me through it!! Or just ask everyone to have patience as I figure it out.

And then finally Friday (which is still tomorrow for me because I haven't got to bed yet), I'll have my Sweetling home for the weekend!!  Saturday is Parents Day at MSMS.  We are looking forward to it!!

So, except for Tuesday, this is my typical week.  Seems to be a LOT of quilting going on!  😁💖