Customer Memory Quilt ~~ Finished

Welcome to TGIFF! I am very pleased to host Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday and especially want to thank Fiona for her help and support. What a nice gal!

I've been working on a customer quilt that took longer than I expected. One of the reasons for the extra time had to do with my playing. I always do that. Play with the quilt. 

Maybe I'm afraid that quilting will become work if I don't get to play. I do enjoy the playing part!

I pulled motifs from the shirts to create the quilting designs. That was so much fun that I played on the entire quilt...spending much more time on it than I should have. 

This quilt is heavy. As in weight kind of heavy. The shirts are synthetic and heavy despite the fact that many are mesh. Of course, because they are mesh, I had to add a quilting-weight cotton under them. To reduce the weight of the quilt, I cut away the backs of the shirts and as much of the bottoms as I could.

But mostly I played. Did you notice the extra work I did with the red and white uniform? The undershirt is quilted, but the sleeveless over-shirt is not so that it can be buttoned closed or left to hang open. Rather cool, don't you think? I played a lot! But I had fun doing it.

	Quilt Stats
Name:	Sports Memories
Size:	84" x 88"
Fabrics:	customer shirts, Kona solids for front, natural muslin from backing
Binding:	Kona Olive
Pattern:	improvisational design
Quilting:	custom free motion quilting
Completed:	April 2016

The fabric yardage was included in last month's report with all the other purchases, so this month it get counted as usage from my stash. I have no intention of counting purchased fabrics twice! Of course, you don't think that the report will show a wash, do you?

So now it's your turn! What have you been working on? What's your finish for the week.  Click the link and I'll be visiting your blog in the next few days.  

An InLinkz Link-up

Ikaprint labels are here!

A couple of weeks ago I decided to order some labels from Ikaprint, a custom clothing label company that makes several different types of labels. 

I chose to purchase satin sew-in labels in a pretty cream color with black ink. I think this color combo will work well with the items that I tend to create but will stand out enough to be seen.

Of course, I could not wait to get one of the labels sewn into a project, so I chose a completed project to add in a label. It didn't take long to choose this little zipper bag as the guinea pig. 

It was easy to rip out a part of the side seam, which is good because I had to rip it out twice! I decided that the full label was just a little big on such a small bag. After ripping it out, I folded it smaller and sewed it back in. 

Much better. The labels are actually just the right size to add to a quilt or large bag, but the smaller bag looked like it had a large ear sticking out of one side. lol

I seriously considered putting in my blog url, but I think that today people who are interested in a product will do a quick google search, regardless. So I chose to add "Handmade in the USA" in the hopes that would be a selling point for some people. 

I also put the full name of my brand so that people will become aware that I make more than just quilts. Actually, the majority of my sales are for smaller items. I just happen to prefer to make quilts!

I'm so pleased with my labels that I put them in a special glass jar so that they can sit on the shelf close to my sewing machine. 

I will most likely keep a few in the organizer within arm's reach, but I want to keep the dust from them since I expect that it will take a while to use all 200 pieces.

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Y E L L O W

This quilt showed up on my Pinterest feed today--right up top where I could not possibly miss it--and I just fell slap in love!

So I figured why not? Why not let yellow and ____ be my inspiration this week? I love the mix of yellow and gray in some blocks, the yellow and red/blue mix in others, and my favorite, the yellow and black.  

Let's begin with yellow.

And for more inspiration: some gorgeous yellow quilts! 

Wow! These are bright and beautiful!

Have a great week! Hope you find some yellow around you.

ATT and the Samsung S6

I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 smart phone. It's no longer smart. Richard says it has a brain injury. That is not what I told the tech guy when I finally got someone on the phone.

All photos from Google Images

But how does one describe the problem to a person who cannot see the problem? I don't mean he was blind or that he couldn't envision what I needed him to see. No, the problem is that I want to point, wave, poke (as necessary in this particular case) and just generally talk with my hands. 

That's my problem, you see. I need my hands to talk. To explain I have to get very animated, sort of like a cartoon character on fire--jumping around, flaying my arms around, poking the problem (doctor-like) until the listener sees the issue. 

Phones don't really allow for that. Nor do they allow me to read expressions. I need to know that my listener/tech/help is listening to me. What if the guy is shopping on Amazon? How do I know? He could be picking onions out of his burger for all know, mimicking to the guy beside him that onions give him gas and laughing it up. 

But back to the phone. "It does not respond to my touch." That's what I eventually had to say to the stranger on the other end of the line. Not my finest line, of course, but the truth. My phone's touch screen is dead but not the phone itself. The phone is on and works, but there's no way to tell it what to do--make a call, add a date to the calendar, text a friend. Nothing. 


Press, poke, push. Yeah, nothing.

The new phone came in and I've set it up. Now to restore factory settings on the old one. The directions are easy: turn off the phone, press buttons, press more buttons, press even more buttons, done. 

Except. 
Oops, the phone doesn't turn off. 

And. 
There's no getting to the battery without the gadget. You know, the gadget that opens the case to get to the innards. That gadget. The one trustworthy people shouldn't need and don't have access to. 

All photos from Google Images

Ahh, just let the battery wind down. The phone will die naturally. Then plug it to the charger and reread the directions. Once the battery has a tiny charge, go. 


But there are husbands who mean well. The ones who don't ask questions, just do the sweet things that you didn't get to do for yourself. Those who charge your old phone after you've waited three days for it to die. 

Pin It Weekly #149

Lately I've been pinning a variety of home decor items. Mostly they have been modern pillows or pillow covers. 

Clean, beautiful modern colors with lots of details and color-blocking make these pillows perfectly contemporary.

Love these colors and the patterns!

Love the gold stripe!

Easy peasy, colorful . . . perfect!

And for fun, a few pictures to show how the pillows work in the room!