4th Quarter finish along post

I found She can Quilt's quarterly finish-along link up and I thought i would join the challenge but this post took 5 days to complete!  so... although i missed her deadline... Here are my WIP's I would like to finish this quarter. Challenge or not.

Those with Deadlines...

Darla's Quilt: This is a consignment piece and I have been working on it for over 8 weeks. Life got stalled for a month or it would be finished. I sandwiched it yesterday and plan to quilt it today and tomorrow... binding... by the end of the week.

2 Tshirt Quilts: more customer work. I finished one and she wanted 2 more. I have started chopping and ironing the first one, the other I haven't even looked at yet.

Riding out the Storm - a boy quilt that i have to finish by the blog hop in early november. The name has changed a few times... it has become riding out the storm because of the living situation here!

waiting for borders...

Home Grown Tomatoes - cuz money cant buy true love or home grown tomatoes....

Twin Vintage Sheet: not sure about border or just quilt it... but its ready.

Liberty -  the only quilt ive ever followed a pattern on. I love it and cant wait to finish it!

Started and Stalled... 

Dallas' Soar - seriously, I have it in rows, i just need to join the rows! It doesn't even need a border!

HST Vintage Sheet Throw - need to peice it together

Orange it Great - ready to quilt!

Small Projects to clear out....

Red, Blue and Yellow 2 1/2 in squares: I dont even remember what i was going to do with them, so... its going to become a table runner.

Square Dance: This one is definately going to become a table runner, baby quilt or throw... depending on how many blocks i have! What i was going for on the quilt isn't working for me!

Cloth Napkins - I just need to top stitch them!

Train Wall hanging - oh the dreaded applique!!

Just Finish it...

Plus Quilt - I started quilting this by practicing FMQ... but totally lost interest in the whole FMQ thing, total pain in the you know what! But i do still want to learn and get better so im going to finish this one. (besides its for Ralph and I and its gonna start getting cold here soon!)

Vintage Star Quilt - I love this throw but hate the quilting i started. I may rip it all out and start over. (maybe practice FMQ on it too and keep it!)

Additional Goals....

put all of my stock on my etsy stores. I have over 100 patterns to add to uneeda pattern and about 70 more vintage sheets listings, 15 shirt packs, and 5 handmade items to add to upcycled fabric. Cant sell it if it aint listed!! right?

take the THREE LARGE tubs of scraps and cut them down into precuts!!! I cut them into 2 1/2 in strips (or smaller) then 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 4 1/2 and 6 1/2" squares, and I also cut bricks of 2 1/2 X 4 1/2.


So that is about 13 big quilts and 4 small projects. Thats about right and i should be able to finish that!

Getting my stock on Etsy... OMG just do it. I know im killing my husband. Its a perfectionism thing with the pictures. I just have to get over it. Same reason it took 5 days to create this post!

Whats not gonna get done this quarter!!

still peicing:
Orange and /Blue Twister
Snowball
Plaid Star Quilt
Rainbow String
Faiths Flower Garden
1" 9 patch quilt
Window Pains
Scrappy Trip Around the World
Blue scrappy trip around the world

Needs borders:
Trevor's Hug Qult
Irish Chain Quilt
Granny Squares


Needs to be quilted:
Do the Math Donation
Strip Donation
Bright 70's quilt

Most of this is in a bin that will just get moved... maybe next quarter!!

easy week

First let me say, i am going to participate in a blog hop. I saw this one and thought this is right up my alley and I definitely have thoughts on making boy quilts (I have a husband, 4 step sons, 2 son in laws and 7 grandsons and I have made all but one of them a quilt now!)

so be sure to check out the great boy ideas in the "For the Boys" blog hop Nov 2-6. Im not sure which day I am going to be posting, but I will let you know when I do.

I had a pretty easy week this week, it rained so Ralph didn't horseshoe alot and the grandkids seem to have settled down and are getting into less trouble. lol... either that or I am letting them get away with more. I still find myself saying things I thought I would never say. I am saying less of "put that away, no one wants to see it" to Tristan (he is a little flasher) and more things like... "sophie what is that you have, why is there a carrot stuck in my plant... no no dont eat the dirty carrot!"

Life is never dull in a house with three generations in it...

I did manage to finish a couple things!

this is called "Rainbow Pie" We have been listening to a Guy Clark tribute cd. "Cold Dog Soup and Rainbow Pie" is one of my favorite Guy Clark tunes... and i couldn't get it out of my head to name it anything else. I have another finish coming soon called "Home Grown Tomatoes" because money cant buy true love or home grown tomatoes. I guess i am as enthusiastic about being wrapped in a quilt as Guy Clark was about eating home grown tomatoes!

ut oh... i lost the good pictures... well for now here it is!

I have decided to participate in TGIFF's October Quest... basically a month of finishes. So... this is the first post hopefully for the rest of the month I will have a bunch more! Be sure to check it out, lots and lots of finishes!

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!!

Quilts to make!

Here is my finish for this friday... i think i missed a couple fridays... im not sure life has been so chaotic lately.

This little table topper is made from orphan hst's. I made a runner from the same hst's and it sold already.

I still need to finish the quilt, but i will, its for my husbands daughter.

I used some red and white striped fabric for the binding and it has a solid blue backing.

I quilted it with my "straight lines" lol i use the quote marks because as you can see... they aren't really straight at all! 

Ive linked to finish it up friday on crazy mom's quilt

But the good news is i have some commissioned work to do!!! I sold a king sized quilt that i have been working on. I really never expected to sell anything for that much money and i was so floored when she said yes! and i have a tshirt quilt for a friend. (it is the first of three) 

Something struck me about the price of quilts and what people can make making them. We live in an economically depressed area. I have recently considered getting a job but when i realized that by the time i paid for the gas to get there and the babysitter for the 2 yr. old grandchild and take taxes out, i would be spending over half of my check before i even made it. Add in we only have one vehicle and the sharing a ride when we worked in 2 different directions would be a nightmare. We decided with my etsy stores i am making almost half of what i would be bringing home and im enjoying that! With a little work i should be able to double what im making. So... i am going to build my etsy stores. Now... the same day i decided this someone asked me what i would charge for a king size quilt. I hesitantly gave her a price that is almost double what i would make a week at a job (Im talking gross pay, before i paid a babysitter and so forth) and she didn't bat an eye. I figure when im done it will be about 45 hrs of work. To me this was amazing. I get to make more money this week doing something i love than i would make doing a J-O-B.

Someone living in a less economically depressed area would say... my time is worth more than that because i am a skilled worker. and in areas other than this, skilled workers make a heck of alot more money than i charged. Great, so am I but when my choices are making quilts which i love, and working at the dollar store which is about the only place hiring within an hour commute (who cares if im skilled or have a degree... its the ONLY job).... id rather make quilts for twice that pay!  and i might even get to buy some fabric with what i make!!! 

Etsy is really a wonderful thing because i did search and look on there to see what others were charging. Since it was my first large sale, i did go for a little less than the middle of what others were charging! 

Pretty Patriotic Table Runner

I think this has become my latest favorite red and blue piece! I dont know what it is about the red and blue but it is by far my favorite!

Another orphan block table runner. Yes these are orphans from my finish last week!!!

I picked out the r4 happy red and blue ones, added some white corners

I

Quilted it with my favorite close straight line quilting... is this matchstick? I dont know what to call it... and put my favorite red and white striped binding on it (going to have to buy more im almost out!)

It was a really hard photo shoot to do with little sophie, she liked the new blankee and kept trying to steal it as i was photographing it! 

Update on family.....

Ralph is doing much better. He is able to resume some of his activities although were not letting him horseshoe yet. He gets tired easily and Im sure he needs to keep working to build up endurance again. (if you didn't see last weeks post, he had a heart attack friday night caused by stress, his children literally broke his heart!!) 

Buck seems to be doing better, he and his family have moved in with us. Caty has finally hired other people for zippys so Ralph and I shouldn't have to work as much for her. I think she realized that she cant work us to death anymore! 

I did open a 2nd etsy store. I had so many patterns and they didn't fit in with my vintage sheets and quilts so I decided to just do a store for them. I got several in over the weekend while at the hospital but they are selling so fast! Now that im not working so hard I should be able to keep up. I have over 150 sewing patterns to add!!!

www.etsy.com/uneedapattern

linking up with 

Finish it up Friday at crazy moms quilts 

Can I get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict