Not Fast Food

It was pointed out to me that I had not posted a completed picture of Not Fast Food...so here it is!  Non-quilters always ask, "How long did that take?"  There is no easy answer to that question - I know they mean, "how long did it take to sew the dang thing," but how long did it take has to include agonizing over fabric choices, cutting fabric, arranging the layout, etc.  I went into KiwiQuilts last week, and I was telling one of the customers that each of the blocks took between 10 and 15 hours (most took 15) to sew, and that I named it Not Fast Food because I was a White Glove at the East Cobb Show in 2009, and a gentleman said to me that he was glad that quilting had not gone the way of fast food. I thought of him when I was working on this piece and the first block took about 10 hours to piece. Tracy thought that was really the name of the pattern, and had not been able to find it.  Hmmmmm.....wonder why?  It's a Block of the Month from Starr Fabrics. You can buy the whole kit at once and save on postage, but I would recommend joining their mailing list, and when they have their 12 days of Christmas sale or another sale, they'll send you a note and you can get it then, or buy it at one of the quilt shows. I bought it at the Chicago show a couple of years ago, and it was 50% off.

I am sooooo glad to be finished with this. I learned a lot, and my piecing got so much better by the end. It is off to Leona Harden to be quilted.

I spent the day Saturday down at Quilts and Fixins in Jonesboro to sell Raffle Tickets for the East Cobb Raffle Quilt.  This picture does not do it justice. I met lots of quilters and we sold lots of tickets, so it was a good day!

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go! Have a great day!

I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere.

Freakin' Rock Star From Mars

I made it under the wire with my entries to the East Cobb Quilt Show. I did not finish the shoe quilt, wasn't even able to get it to a point where I could pretend it was a quilt. So I have two entries this year: The Amazon Star on the left and Not Fast Food. The Amazon Star needs some work, as it is not quilt show worthy. It has the World's Biggest Feathers (tm), and I have to try to figure out how to fill them in.

And I finished piecing Not Fast Food...

I took them to the Post Office at 4:45 and told the attendant that I needed them postmarked today!  to which he obliged. Having sewn for hours every single day for the last couple of months, I am now going to work on the Brown Sugar Stitchers Treasurer's Report, and then, bed.
"Forty percent of Americans would not vote for Obama if he personally saved them from drowning." Bill Maher

Paper Piecing

100% of the quilters surveyed (me!) love the sharp points and intricate designs you can get with paper piecing, but hate taking the paper off. Not only is it a pain, but it's messy. I started taking paper off last night at 7, finished at 11:30, only took the paper off six blocks and I have a million little pieces of paper on my sewing room floor. I started out trying to put it in the trash can, but that little extra motion was taking up time, so then just started dropping it on the floor. As I was sweeping it up, I decided to share, because 85% of the people who read this blog want to see my messy sewing room floor.

Back at it this morning, but I have an appointment for a facial at 3, so I can't work on this all day today. 

79% of all statistics are made up.

Still working on it...

Sashing on all the rows, everything all lined up, pieced border pieced...I should finish it up by Friday.  I was hoping to finish it this weekend, but piecing the border took longer than I thought, and making sure that all the blocks are lined up is going to take longer than I expected.  I didn't get started on it until about noon today...our sprinkler system is out and I had to hand water all the new landscaping we put in last year. We've had mid-90's weather for the last two weeks, so no water has really started to take a toll on the plants.  I have a jillion hydrangeas.  Which just for the record, I have never liked. Don't ask me why I let the landscaper talk me into them. 

"I'm from Georgia where the tea is sweet and accents are sweeter. Peaches are the ladies. Summer starts in April. Macaroni and cheese is a vegetable. BBQ is the state food. Y'all is a proper pronoun. Chicken is fried. Biscuits come with gravy. Everyone is Honey. Someone is always getting their heart blessed. And we are all "fixin" to do something.” Jerome Cade

Happy Memorial Day!

Remembering those who have lost their lives in service to our country, as well as those who have served and are now serving in the military and the sacrificies they are making.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning up several of the blocks on Not Fast Food that were way wonky. One thing I can say is that I have definitely improved my paper piecing skills over the course of these blocks, and that's what it's all about, right? When I look at the blocks I pieced initially and the one I just finished up, seriously, they are like night and day.

So today I started putting it together.  The pattern calls for a 3 1/2 inch sashing, but when I laid it out, I didn't like such a big sashing....the blocks looked too far apart, and after all that hard work, the sashing just kind of drowned the block.  So I made the sashing 3 inches instead of 3 1/2.  And I squared the blocks off to 12 1/4."

So this will be set on point, and I was so careful when I cut the setting blocks...you can imagine my consternation when those end setting blocks didn't fit!  And then I realized...duh!  Of course they didn't fit - the top was now quite a bit smaller than the pattern. So I'm going to clean it up at the end...dividing 7/8" and 1/4" is just too hard for my pea brain.

When someone asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway. 

And Done!

Woo-hoo!  Just finished the last block!  Yippee!  It took a little bit longer because I wasn't paying attention and cut off the seam allowance (on the left)...duh!

Don't ask me what I was thinking...I have never cut off the seam allowance before. A little bit of scotch tape and it was all good. I had to resew 5, 6, 7, and 8, because I cut those off with the seam allowance, but it could have been on the other side where I would have had to resew the whole dang thing.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.  Wayne Gretzky

One! Ha, ha, ha, ha, One! One more block to go!

LOL - Now I'm The Count from Sesame Street!  It's because this block drove me in-sane! Aaaaugh! I want to be like Oprah and savor this last block..."no bitter, all sweet," reflect on the journey, the takeout meals, the unwashed clothes, the missed holiday celebrations while I was sewing.  Maybe have Chris Rock or Tom Hanks come and help me look back on how far I've come since that first block...instead, I think I'll just try to get 'er done.   Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.  Benjamin Franklin

Two!

I really wanted to finish this block before the world came to an end today at 6, but we had a guild meeting, an applique class after that, and then I went to the sewing machine hospital to get my machines back!  Yippee!  The 200/730 is sewing beautifully!  They didn't charge me for the 830, but my back is hurting so bad, I left it in the car! 

"BREAKING NEWS*******RAPTURE HALTED: Because of discrepancies surrounding His "manger" birth, Jesus was unable to produce His original long form birth certificate, so the Rapture is temporarily on hold while Trump hires investigators to track down the 3 wise men who were "supposedly" witness to the newly born Jesus back in the day. Unfortunately, this means MONDAY will still come as originally scheduled."

 

Three!

This block was sooooooo hard! In fact, it was so hard that I turned it around... there were just too many places to line up that weren't working. I hope wherever this quilt ends up it doesn't get washed...there are pieces here that are hanging on by the slenderest of threads! I'll have to be more careful on the next block...

I got a sewing machine for my husband! Good trade, huh?

Four! (Four more, four more...)

They're starting to look alike, aren't they?

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid doing entirely."

"I've got five more blocks to go now...

...over the hill and just around the bend...I've got to keep on sew - ing...I've got to sew on....uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh...I'm so tired now...but I just can't lose my stride..."

I crack myself up sometimes!

This was the best line from the Correspondents Dinner: "Donald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Republicans, because it will streamline their search for a Vice President." 

  

Six!

"Donald Trump says he has a great relationship with 'the Blacks'...unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he's mistaken."   Seth Myers, White House Correspondents Dinner, 2011

Mission Accomplished!

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." Jessica Dovey
"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."  Mark Twain

Seven...no, not the movie...

Seven blocks to go! 

Apparently I have sewn so much that I have worn my sewing machine out! I had to take it and the 830 back to the sewing machine hospital. I was not at all happy with the sewing machine hospital...we do seem to have a love hate relationship, don't we?  I'll start to think they're OK and then they'll go and do something else. It is absolutely my fault that I didn't bring the 830 back in right away after I had it serviced and it wasn't sewing properly.  When I told the service manager that I had not been able to get the tension to sew correctly, she found the original service slip from January and said they will have to charge me AGAIN to service it. I said if she looked at the stitches she could see that I had not sewn on it since I had it back, but she said they don't keep that record and it doesn't matter anyway. Actually, I think the machine records service record and stitches...I'll have to check. I may or may not make a fuss...I'm excellent about voting with my feet, although Bernina makes it really hard to do that. There's no other dealer in the greater Atlanta Metro area, which is why I keep going back there. We'll see.

I played around with how to lay this out:

Actually - truth, truth - I'm getting bored, and I was trying to play around with different layouts to see if I could stick a fork in this and call it done.

I went to the ECQG night meeting for the first time Thursday night. It was very nice and the people were friendly. The speaker was Margaret Miller.

There ain't no answer, there ain't gonna be any answer...there never has been an answer...there's the answer.

Gertrude Stein