Tough week for quilting

I started a (New Year's Eve) mystery quilt the beginning of March. It had been cut and ready since that day, but I had some projects I was working on.

I finished step 2 and was setting up for step 3. I realized that this (ignore the poorly sewn seam, it got frogged, twice.....)

was actually supposed to be this

not this

Needless to say it took more than a few hours frogging and refrogging after sewing.

Then the worst thing happened.......

I was set up to quilt my mystery quilt with a new pattern that is circles and bubbles. I was stoked.

2 rows! I just needed 2 more rows! But sadly I think the timing on the longarm went kaput. Mid-quilting I had to loosen the quilt and take the machine off the rack. It's in the shop until Monday.

Some weeks are just harder than others, I think. I'm hopeful that I can reinstall, find my place in the pattern and restart the quilt with minimal fuss. Because in the end, that's sometimes the best we can hope for!

Snow day!

It's my first snow day in a long time. When you have to be to work no matter the weather, it's sooooo much better when a snow day falls on a day off. I managed to sleep in until 8 am! It helped that Sasha got in bed and cuddled against my legs. She normally leads the charge to get up and get outside to potty and then eat, but is learning the art of warm cuddling! Hubby is working from home. Since the 4 loads of laundry are done, chicken pot pie is made for lunch, and the dishwasher is running, I get to play in my quilting room.

I'm loading my mystery quilt onto the frame. It's from Cheryl at Meadow Mist designs. Unfortunately all the fabric is from my stash and I have no idea what fabric it is. I think I moved one of the blues in my 2002 move!

I did find some Garden allure, DariDesigns studio for Robert Kaufman to back it. I planned on doing pebbles in red all over. But red is so hard to match. Normally I would go to the LQS and attempt to buy a different red (more maroon-y) but everything here in the Northeast is closed because of the snow! So I went with a light blue. This is going to be my first all over quilting with my longarm (normally I just do a one item repeat), so we'll see how it goes!

What are you working on today?

Long time lurker, first time blogger

Until I figured out that "Netflix and chill" was dirty, I always said that it was my fiance husband and my favorite thing to do. We love that the shows just flip into each other, until we fall asleep and have to figure out what episode we fell asleep in (who am I kidding, just go to the first one). I tend to binge watch television or listen to a book when I quilt. Hence "binge quilting" became a thing.

I learned to quilt in 2002. I'm learning, from my lurking, that that first strip-quilting class may have given me 14 years of bad habits that piecing is forcing me to correct. I signed up for a few mystery quilts, and the one that I made looks fantastic, except that I can't put it together. My half-rectangles were so cattywampus that my rows are off by inches. When you work 60 hours a week, put dinner on the table every night, and try to have a social life plus do some quilting, that can be a bit more than discouraging. Especially when some of the blocks were sooooooo perfect!!!!!!

Then I did a quilt that a dear friend asked me to do for charity. And, even with it's flaws, it earned the charity a lot of money. That, friends, was when I wanted to blog, so that I could learn from others as well as create a record of my beautiful quilts, especially as I don't keep many of them.

This blog is for me to learn from you and to keep myself accountable to my ever growing stash and the UFOs that I have stashed in my closet. I have a long arm quilting machine, but I have tops that need to be quilted. And since I now work for a hospice, I want some of those quilts to grace the laps of my wonderful patients and for their family members to have a wonderful keepsake.