Friend Finishes ~~ Tees and more

I told you here that I'd been helping a friend whose wrist is pinned together and in a cast. She fell and broke it pretty badly, so she won't be sewing monogrammed tee shirts for a while. But she had a nice little thing going, so I'm being a good friend by helping when I can. I took a few days to get another order of tee shirts sewn up so she could get them to NSU this weekend. 

There were several tees and four of these pull-overs. This stuff is thin and slick, so yeah, hard to sew. I remembered that my Bernina has a dial to set the presser foot so that the feed dogs can grab the fabric and move it along. 

If you have that feature, it's quite useful when sewing this weird stuff. But you have to remember to readjust the dial after. Otherwise, when you work on something like the warmup pullovers or the fleece blanket, both of which are thick, the same setting can cause a pretty serious drag.  You don't get very far even though you're driving at full speed.

It doesn't take very long to remember that you caused your own problem. Ha! Anyway, we are done for quite some time, I think. She's promised not to take any orders so that I can work on a few quilts. Two of them are Christmas gifts!

Everything turned out great. Well I had a slight problem with one tee...my seam ripper slipped and took a bite out of the knit. I sort of repaired it so one of the young grands can wear it as a night gown. It won't fit anyone else.

I'll leave you with some linkups and this picture of our cat. This is how we sun ourselves in Louisiana--half in the sun, half in the shade. 

Link Ups!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Letter shirts ~~ finished

I mentioned on Pin It Weekly that one of my friends has a small shop offering letter shirts for college students. The majority of her business comes from Greek organizations, mostly from Phi Mu. 

On Tuesday she fell and broke her left wrist. A trip to the ER got her a pass to today's surgery. Combine those two bits of information and you can probably figure out how her mishap concerns me. I sew. I mean I sew anything. I've made wedding dresses, knit garments, kitchen accessories, baby accessories, suits for myself and lots of other things I can't think of on the fly. So, yeah, I sew.

A trip to surgery (even "just" outpatient surgery) means you won't be sewing for a day or two. But she had orders that needed to go out right now. Guess who got the call? As I said on Wednesday, I've helped her before, so it's not a big deal. But she was in pain and a perfectionist, so it was a big deal to her. 

Upper left corner: finished shirts; upper right,
two fabric choices on tee; lower left, two choices
incl. the chosen geometric; lower right, my preference.
Lesson: don't make choices for clients!

Okay, okay, I stepped in. One of the customers hadn't made fabric decisions, so I pressured her with pictures of only a few samples and in no time I had the shirts, the letters, and everything else ready for production. 

Except I sewed the letters on the first two shirts in the wrong order! TWO letters! backwards! Arghuhhh. Rip, rip, rip half the night--knit does not play nice. Resew the correct way and work on the other items. The delivery person had to pick the order up at my house to make her appointment; it was that close!

So yesterday I went to check on my broken friend and encourage her before seeing the surgeon. More shirts. And a couple of jackets. And a couple of blankets. Hmmm, I have such a tough time saying "no," especially after I've already said "yes."

Anyway, if you're going to help someone, you may as well see it through to the end.

 

 So the weekend will be spent in the sewing room working on her shirts. But I'll be in the sewing room!

blanket in gold 

 And a few more pics of the completed shirts. The jackets (in black) are still in WIP stage. I have to rip out the bottom hem before sewing on the applique. Otherwise the pocket won't open. The kids love that she always opens up the jacket and saves the pocket. It's a great place to toss a phone. 

two more blankets

When was the last time you got wrangled into helping a friend? Comment down below and, as always, thanks for visiting.

Visit these good ole Link Ups!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Love Birds ~~ finish!

While Richard and I were traipsing around the western states, I needed to keep myself busy. When I get bored, I come up with ridiculous ideas, which often get me into trouble. At the very least I share my ideas. Not a good idea.

The original bird from Preeti

Close up to see the embroidery

Knowing this, I packed some handwork. One of the items I carried with me is the little bird quilt that I started when Preeti (Sew Preeti Quilts) sent a left over bird from her "He Tweeted She Tweeted" quilt. It was such a generous gift that immediately made me think of love birds. So I made a second bird to face the first and connected them. When I began quilting, I simply stitched in the ditch to outline the birds. Then I "finished" the edges of the quilt with a zigzag seam so it wouldn't fray.

My addition

Close up of their heads and faces.
Both have a little cap--how about the feathers in one cap?

That's where I stopped. My idea was that I would continue the quilting, including some thread painting, while we were traveling. Luckily, I decided before we left that some embroidery thread would do the trick, and I didn't need to pack some machine embroidery thread. 

The back using the feather fabric that Preeti included in the gift.
The little white stick is actually part of a broken plastic clothes hanger. 

 I keep my hand embroidery thread in this little pink bag that I bought on clearance for $2 several years ago. The front pockets hold my thimble, scissors, a needle book and extra needles. 

The back pocket holds a cross stitch that I started many years ago. I got halfway through the piece and found myself so lost that I abandoned it. I suppose I have so much work invested that I can't toss it. 

Of course, having a nice little organizer doesn't mean that you're organized. Every time I wanted to work, I had to pull every skein out to find a color. I decided enough of that. Yesterday I started cutting cardboard into mini-spools. While watching TV, I wrapped about 25 spools with thread. 

Still a few skeins of thread to wrap

 Today I cut more spools for the embroidery thread and some longer ones for the crewel thread. Digging through my stash, I found just enough rings so that I could sort colors. Now all of the blues are on one ring. I did the same with red, yellow/orange, green, purple, and neutrals. One ring will hold all of the crewel thread and another holds empty cardboard spools.

Much better!

Honestly, I don't embroider very often, but I also dislike disorder and am hopeful I'll be more likely to pick up my needle now knowing that I'll be able to get to work quickly and easily. If nothing else, the embroidery stuff looks much neater. 

Do you see what you started, Preeti? Talk about inspiration and motivation! That one little bird took me from quilting to embroidery to organizing. And the best part? I enjoyed every moment! Thank you again so much~

Lots of Linkups!

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework (TGIFF

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or not Friday)

Another Day with Leah ~~ a finish!

How's that for a play on words? Ha. Leah may not appreciate it, but it's not likely that she's sitting around eating bonbons and reading my blog like you are.

Nope, Leah Day is a workaholic. How do I know? Well, I know Leah. I've followed her, liked her, read her work, and saw her (once) in person in Houston, maybe? I'm not sure where, but I am sure that she is cute and sweet and smiles. Even more than I do. Yes, I smile. Lots! Especially when I'm at a big quilt show.  



But wait, this post is about two Sundays ago, when I worked on this quilt and quilted it to completion in one day! Yes! Loaded it on the longarm, quilted it, pulled it off the machine ... all in one Sunday afternoon. 

Want to know my secret? It's big. No, not the quilt. It's the secret that's big. Rather the secret is big motifs. Check it out. A different motif for each square, every one about three times its normal size. 

I wanted a soft hand because this is a baby quilt that will probably get used more than most. I don't know why I think so, I just know boys. This baby boy is going to a house of three big sisters and a big brother. I figure he will get lots of playtime and naptime and lovey time. Those all need quilts, right? There you go. 

I just hope his mom (my coworker) enjoys the quilt as much as I enjoyed making it for little Blaise. I've even added the label since these pictures and wrapped it up in a pretty bag. 

Since I mentioned using Leah Day's motifs earlier, I thought I'd show you a couple of photos of the back so you can see them. (The photo above is really two, despite that they look like one.)

Please don't look at the "eyelashes" in the quilting. I would love to figure out how to fix this problem myself. It's a common issue with my quilting, so apparently tension is not my forte. Oh but I love my little bitty circles and zigzags and swirls. However these eyelashes seem to be my biggest problem. Do you have this problem, and if so, how do you fix it?

I HEART My Crafty Friends

I have the best crafty friends! Remember that some time ago I wrote about retreat plans at Fountainbleu State Park? I was very excited and counting down the days. 


Until the days got close. That's when I had to face reality. I do not heart reality. We were in the middle of testing season and I was testing middle schoolers. And I was swamped. 

the group tee shirt (designed by Kelly) and Erica's
sweet card expressing sorrow that I could't come

I could not (though I tried very, very hard) wrap up testing. Oh, I had great plans to do just that. But even great plans can go awry. Middle schoolers do not help things run smoothly. Best laid plans. Blah, blah, blah. 

a closeup of the tee design

I finally gave in. Reality won. And I lost. Big. 


In the end I had to admit defeat and tell my crafty retreaters that I could not retreat with them. I wanted to run away (Fountainbleu sounded like a nice run-away-to place) but no. I stayed. And worked. And cried (just a little, but there were tears). 

a shopping bag, which I will use to pack
sewing supplies for our upcoming vacation

Well, retreaters to the rescue! They had each brought along a little something. 

And they made lots of little somethings. 

And they gathered them up and.... MAILED the somethings to me! I just got them. In a pretty box. And inside the box...somethings for me! Sorry no pictures of the box. I came home from work today (my last day) and found the box sitting pretty on the bench outside my door with mail piled on top. 



Really, I thought it was for Richard, but I brought it all in anyway. And my name was on top of the box. As soon as I saw Erica's name I knew what a lovely, thoughtful crafty friend I have. I do <3 crafty="" don="" font="" friends="" my="" t="" them="" too="" you="">

all the goodies posing in one pretty picture

I immediately opened said box! Do you see all the pretties? I <3 admit="" crafty="" do="" friends.="" it="" my="" span="" too="" you="">

darling scrap booking items and some wooden button love

a personal dry erase board and pen - which will
sit right beside the machine for sewing notes

a personalized mug and mug rug

 
Aren't they the best? And don't you <3 do="" font="" know="" them="" too="" you="">

What surprise box have you gotten recently?