YWAM Arpons

My left hand is still hurting, but I have been able to hoop the aprons and now have four of the five finished. I am so happy to be able to get back to some embroidery again. It is still my first love in creativity. The Jamaica team works so hard raising money to go to the YWAM base and then works even harder once they get there. So much work and so few workers it seems. Our DOVE Westgate team just works their hearts out, as well as their bodies. These aprons will keep some of the people a bit cleaner, I hope. 8-)

Yipeee! It's finished!

PTL, it is finished at last!!! I stayed up late last night finishing Joe's quilt and it will be going to the post office this afternoon. It was an adventure, for sure. I have learned so much during the process. Some of the lessons I could have done without, like the blocks not stitching out to the proper size and the bobbin thread pulling to the top during some of the stippling. I have learned that I hate using invisible thread! It is a pain in the patootie because of its tendency to curl. Next time it will be plain old cotton thread.

I hope the little guy likes the end product. I am afraid when he compares his to the ones made by experienced quilters that he will be disappointed. I have seen pictures of quite a few of the other quilts made for this school project and am embarrased to have some of these women see the pictures of mine. I am hoping that the children will just be happy with all of the quilts and realize that some of them were made by long-time quilters, but they were all made with love.

From now one, I guess I will stick with blankets for Project Linus. We have such a wide variety of people making blankies for PL in many different styles that the children can always find one they love. I won't be making my blankets for any one child in particular.

Now it is on to finishing several UFOs that I have in the works. I have aprons to emborider for the Youth with a Mission Jamaica team to take with them in June, a curtain panel to shorten for a friend, a pillowcase to make for another friend for her granddaughter's birthday in June, etc.... In other words, I will stay out of trouble for a long time!

Check back in a few days to see what I've been doing. Tomorrow it is our PL chapter's Quilting Bee, so I pray that my serger, Bernie, will behave and that we get a lot accomplished. (He doesn't like QBs for some reason and misbehaves regularly.)

Stippling

Today is stippling day! Last night Arthur Itis came to visit and made my sleep almost non-existant, but stipple I must! Needless to say, I won't get the binding on today... perhaps tomorrow.

At church we are always talking about stretching ourselves out of our comfort zone, so today I am really stretched! It has been fun and is almost like back in my cake decorating days when I did cornelli lace. One big rule of cornelli is to never cross a previous line of icing. Well, if the same rule applies to free-motion quilting, I am in big trouble with the Quilting Police! I don't think the third grade at Sheridan School has any of those around, so I should be safe.

Here is a picture of my progress. BTW, all of the instructions I have seen on free-motion quilting never mentioned what to do if the bobbin thread runs out. I punted and just started back where I had stopped when the thread ran out. My machine only prompts me when the bobbin thread runs out, not in advance of the occurance. 8-(

Progress continues

Sunday I had a peaceful day of rest after church. Working in the nursery in the morning was not restful with more babies than our quota. They were all pretty well behaved, so it worked out with the four of us caring for them. I think I changed diapers on seven of the eight, but the babies didn't all sleep. 8-) Our motto is, "they shall all be changed, but they shall not all sleep."

I spent some time Sunday evening watching videos on YouTube about machine quilting. Several of them had great tips. I was surprised at the abundance of quilting clips on there.

I put the walking foot on Big Ellie and went to work yesterday afternoon with the quilt-in-the ditch part of my quilting. I had a few false starts until I got everything working together. One tip I saw on YouTube that I have trouble remembering is to pull the bobbin thread to the top before I start stitching to avoid the dreaded “thread nests.” Another tip said to use YLI invisible thread, which I fortunately had in stock. Apparently I used it in another project somewhere sometime. At least with the invisible thread it isn’t as noticeable when I don’t stay in the ditch.

I discovered that I have an echo foot in my box of presser feet and I’ll play with it a bit to see how it goes. It may work on the embroidered blocks. I also thought that I might just do a curve in the corners of the blocks a couple of times to anchor the sandwich. I even searched through my embroidery designs last night to see if I had any little redwork designs that I could embroider in the corners, without success except for a freebie little bulldog head from Oma’s Place. I don’t think that would look too hot in my Christmas and Fall blocks though. At least I’m making good progress now and am happy with the way it is turning out. Without too many roadblocks, I may just get this thing finished and in the mail by the end of the week.

Here are two pictures of my progress.

Joe's quilt is now spray basted and pinned. I don't think the layers are going to go anywhere now! I'd be stitching on it right now, but I don't want to get involved and then have to quit before I'm ready.

Tonight is the Triumphant Quartet, Crists, and Browns concert at Lancaster Mennonite High, and DH will be anxious to leave about 2:30, at lest and hour before we will actually leave! He has always liked to be everywhere about an hour before the doors even open, but he is getting better about it. Now we only have to get places a half hour before an event. Aging is a good thing!

Quilts for Comfot-Joe

I've been working on a quilt project the past few weeks and have obsessed much too long on each step of the process. I'm sure it was a moment of insanity when I agreed to make a quilt in the first place!

I am now putting the quilt "sandwich" together and hope to begin the machine quilting in the next day or two. It is the first time ever doing this and I am so thankful for some quilting mentors who are holding my hand while I proceed. Please, dear Lord, help me to complete it so that Joe will enjoy a comfort blankie representing several of his favorite things.