Its Beginning to look a lot like Christmas. . . .Design Wall Monday

You know I've never been one to start a lot of projects and then work on them simultaneously.  I'm a very task oriented  - linear - quilter.  Well, at least I was a very task oriented, linear quilter.  Then this summer hit and I've managed to start working on several projects at once.  With the fair safely over - and no I did not get my quilt quilted in time (read big sigh!) - I thought I better get after making my Christmas project.  SewCalGal is hosting a Christmas quilt show and I wanted to enter it.  Plus I've been saying for the last 3 years that I need to do a decent Christmas wall hanging for the house.  You would thing that a quilter could manage to have some decent decorations that she has sewn up during the holidays  wouldn't ya??

Sooooo, of course I didn't have an idea of what I wanted - I just knew that I wanted it to be a bit artsy - a bit classy and not toooo cutesy!!  I did some surfing and found a pattern that I liked, but it was just a tad too twee for me.  So I spent the after noon tweaking it since of course 'cause ya know I've never found a pattern that I didn't want to change in some way. Here is the finished sketch.

In old news, I did manage to come VERY close to finish hand quilting my quilt --- should finish that up this week with all of the new shows coming on.  Between the fair, a head cold and working everyday this week nothing got done.  Still things are slowing down so maybe I'll manage to finish up some of these projects!

Still Quilting, and Quilting, and Quilting Design Board Monday

Well its a week later and let me tell you, I've worked myself up into a hand quilting tizzy!  First I would like to thank everyone for their encouraging comments on getting this project done on time for the fair.  It really helped!  Still, it was hard - I mean - really - hard to sit down at the frame for long periods of time.  I mean who wants to be sitting there hand quilting when there is a 5 day 90+ degree heat wave in progress.  Then to top it all off, our little foster kitty, Kali who is now 7 weeks old, was constantly jumping onto the frame and attacking my needle.  I swear I must have taken her off that frame a hundred times this week.  Finally by the weekend, she was content to sit on my shoulder and watch me quilt.

Through all the trials, I persevered.  I managed to quilt a total of 23 hours this week.  Sitting still is sooooooo much harder then it looks.  I remembered to get up and stretch but I must be hunching my shoulders  because I have a soar spot in between them.  My hands feel fine but I have a quilter's callus to prove that I've been putting my needle time in.  

So far I've quilted 50" of this drag-along quilt.  I've got eight days to finish up the remaining 40" and get it bound.  Thank God I decided against bordering the dang thing.  I mean who likes borders anyways - they are a bugger to get straight - I never know how to quilt them and if I wanted a frame around my work I would have taken up watercolors!  Hmmmmmmm watercolors is looking mighty good right about now. 

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