Progress again!

It has been a while since I have blogged and linked to Works in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Mostly because there has not been any progress! lol.

But i am back sewing and with a vengance (posted yesterday about three finishes this week!) I have lots of unfinished projects now though...

First off I have a commissioned quilt that I have to buy the batting for and finish... will post finish pictures on this one. The problem with living in the middle of nowhere is I have to wait till Saturday to go to "town" and  buy it.

Second... I started this little table runner tuesday. I have finished quilting it and now I just need binding...

Ok, I did have a better picture of this quilt, without my stepson and daughter in law's laundry behind it... but my little guy is so cute I had to use this one! It is a baby quilt i started today. I had a bunch of scrap bricks left over from other projects and I saw this quilt in the Connecting Threads catalog (it was a kit you can purchase) I used my scraps (I even had a bunch of the 2 1/2 in white squares already cut) I need to put the orange, yellow and red rows on it.

Then there is this one...It is my orange project and ive been working on it for about 18 months. I finally have a flimsy out of it, its a large queen. I plan to buy the batting saturday as well. I laid this out on my bed for the picture and it is amazing how BRIGHT the room got with it on my bed. Im not sure what im going to do with this one yet.... I did decide tonight that it's name is Cheetos, my grand daughter Alyssa came up to me tonight after eating them and her face and hands were the same colors as my quilt! lol.

These are my works in progress that i expect to finish soon. Here is my complete list of UFO's that i have tucked away in corners

Liberty Quilt- borders and quilting needed
Donation Do the Math - quilting
Home Grown Tomatoes - still piecing
Dallas' Soar - quilting
Donation Strip Quilt - Quilting
Rainbow Strings - still piecing
Vintage Sheet Twin - still piecing
Cotton Dress World - scrapped original idea and im not sure where im going with it
Giant Plaid Quilt - still cutting and sewing I think i need 150 more 4" plaid squares
Giant Stripe Quilt - I keep stealing pieces of it for baby quilts so I think im just going to make it a twin
Pretty Little Windows - still piecing, may take forever
5640 something - still hand piecing 1 in squares. I only work on this when I want to watch a movie in bed

There may be more lurking ... lol

Actual finishes??? Wow!

I have been productive again! woo hoo. It feels so good to be productive again!

Saturday I finished the Tshirt quilt that i have been worked on. Ok, the picture quality is bad because i finished it up at 2 am, had to wash it and ralph delivered it to his customer at 5:30 am. So i had to take the pictures on the floor with bad lighting!

I have two more to do for this customer. It took a while to figure out the layout because of the different sizes, but I was pleased with how it turned out and how it quilted. She loved it and cant wait to see the other two!

I sold the last vintage sheet quilt in my store the other day. They sell well so I needed at least one to put in there, sunday morning I sat down with my precut 4 1/2" scraps and put this together. I am pleased with how it turned out and I called it "Baby Powder" because it was so fresh and pretty you can almost smell the baby wrapped in it!

Being that I was on a roll, monday morning I sat down and honest to goodness I peiced it and quilted it before most of the residents in our house was even awake! The points on the star are the left overs of the flying geese on the queen quilt in my last post. The boxes of the stars are 1 1/2 inch precut scraps and the white is the scraps from the white vintage sheets I use in most of my quilts.

Ok, see the points on the stars, they are HORRIBLE! I figured out my 1/4 in seam is way off. I keep a peice of painters tape on my machine and my grandson loves to play with it, obviously he has moved it! So I am trying to figure out a better method that isn't as fun to a 2 yr old! lol

 I also whipped up some more vintage sheet cocktail napkins for the store. They have sold well in the past. I have given these to all my little grand daughters for their tea parties too. They love them!

I am linking up to Show and Tell Tuesday, Free Motion by the River, and Sew Cute Tuesday at Better off Thread. There are some creative links there so be sure to check them out!

an almost finished quilt

Wow, it has been over a month and I haven't posted... where has the time gone and what has been up?

sewing wise i have been working on this king sized quilt for a customer:

im not sure if she reads my blog so i can't show much yet... i want to show it  all to her finished!

but the flimsy is done and i will start quilting it as soon as i finish the tshirt quilt im working on for another customer. Pics of that when its finished. I have to say, tshirt quilts aren't that hard, they are just alot of thinking and careful stitching.

I do have one boo boo that you can see in this picture. I made it too big and had to trim off a row off of each side. When i did, i didn't leave enough seam allowance to have clean points against the border!  It bugs me but im sure she wont notice! There are 180 of those flying geese though... that took as much time as making the X's!

I went shopping recently and bought a whole new batch of sheets for my store upcycled fabric and a mess of patterns for uneeda pattern. Both are doing well and Im spending alot of time adding the patterns right now.

Why have I been sewing so little... well that has to do with home so here is that update!

on the home front...

Ralph is doing better (he had a heart attack) and is about to go back to work, good thing cuz 2 months of not being able to do what you love is wearing thin on him.

I had my appendix taken out a few weeks ago... that was painful and i don't recommend appendicitis! Ralph took me to the er because i was throwing up and in alot of pain. They sent me over to Nacogdoches by ambulance and they took it out the next day. I drove myself home the day after that. They say in the last few years they have started doing them laparoscopically and recovery is much quicker!

As i was coming out of surgery, we got a call that Ralph's son Travis was in a bad accident at work, he was alive but badly burned. He is an electrical lineman so saying he was alive first is important. Its a dangerous job. But there was an explosion and fire ball and he has 3rd degree burns on 20 percent of his body.(chest and arm) He is still not back to work and has to start skin grafts next week. They are saying november before he will be able to work again.

His wife bridgette was in the hospital for over a month. She is on dialysis and not doing well at all. She did get to come home and not go back to the nursing home.

I say all that and shake my head, other than bridgette and diabetes we are normally fairly healthy people! Neither ralph or I have been to the doctor in years!

Other than that Buck, sharon and their two kids have moved in meaning i have to contend with a 1, 2, and 3 yr old every day (because we still have custody of travis' 2 yr old) It is great having the grandkids there, I love them to death and we do have fun with them. They are ralph's stress relief, a few minutes of wrestling with them on the bed and hes happy. But, Buck needs a job and he needs one yesterday! They need income and a home.

The grand kids are why i haven't sewn much though, every time i sit down to sew all the other adults in the house say "mimi is out there she can watch them" and they go lay down in bed to watch tv. Meanwhile im having to get up every 2 minutes because at least one of them is in mischief! That and they are all obsessed with my sewing machine... why can't their parents keep them from monkeying with it! Everyday I have to check my settings because they tinker with it and yesterday they lost the thread i was using to quilt the tshirt quilt! Good thing I have another spool the same color, although i hate to change spools in the middle of a quilt in case they are slightly different, this time I'm going to have to!!