Marathon of quilting

I took Friday off.  I spent most of it on the town with Sydney, shopping and having a nice lunch.  We tried to get a haircut, but there was an issue after I dropped her at the salon and she had me come pick her right back up.  It was all good. 

And, I spent the hot part of the afternoon, the part where no body wants to be outside, quilting.  That afternoon, I realized I only had three weekends before quilts need to be turned in.  That led me to decide that I was going to finish the quilts this weekend because I still have sleeves, labels, transportation bags, and washing/blocking to do. 

Thank goodness, Rob understood.  He knew we were coming up on this weekend, the one where I would panic.  Except I didn’t need to panic, I just needed to put the seam ripper down and decide that what I had was good enough.  Believe me, that was not easy.  But, it was very liberating.  I don’t have to be perfect.  I just have to be as good as I can be in the time allotted.  And, that time is up.

The sewing room is a wreck.

And, the cutting table in the garage looks even worse.  I couldn’t be bothered with putting things away.  That’s okay, there’s plenty of time for that.  And, Sydney will deal with vacuuming the 10,000 snips of thread off the floor. 

But, A Place for Life to Happen is completed, and the crooked lines are straight again (each put in twice!)

I finished The Point is the Points, too.

That got me where I needed to be, but being who I am, I also finished the restoration quilt, even taking out the red that ran and replacing some of the pieces it ran onto so the quilt can be washed again.  I chose to only replace two of the three pieces that got red bleed.  The third was a fabric used a lot in the quilt and I decided it was okay to have that red tint along one edge.

   

And, I still had time to make all four sleeves for the quilts.  This week, I’ll focus on getting them sewn to the backs and next weekend, I can start designing labels and washing/blocking

Labels are a lot of work and I need to make two for each quilt, one for the transportation bag and one for the quilt.  The transportation bag protects the quilt from the floor between dropoff and hanging, so they’re very important.  And, the silk quilt will be rolled onto a pool noodle and that has to be covered with muslin as well as a long tubular bag made for it.  Two quilts will be delivered rolled.  The others will be folded and inserted into pillow case size bags. 

Ya’ gotta love a man that says he understands and while we did have to run some errands over the weekend, he was focused on making sure I got as much quilting time as I could.  Sydney even kicked in and helped clean up after us.  Great support system.  They’re always such a part of my quilting and my successes.  Rob kept me in ice water and entertainment for both days.  It was a good weekend.  No panic.  Thanks, Y’ALL!  At 5:45 yesterday afternoon, I was sore and stiff and declared that there would be no more sewing that day.  And, it felt good to be that far along.  But, I bet there are other quilters in town that are going in for that final push…the one that gets them over the finish line in their own marathons of quilting.

Be well.  Have a great Monday.  Lane