I went by the place that shipped my quilt last week and asked why the original box was cut down and placed inside another box. The guy told me that because of the amount that I insured it for, they are required to double box it, with packaging in between the boxes. That explains the peanuts! Anyway, I told the guy what I went through and he felt so bad! I told him about my name needing to be on the outside of the box and why. He said he saw my name and figured it would be ok since it was on the box on the inside. He was really sorry for the confusion he caused.

I’m just glad that everything turned out fine!

Theresa

Those of you that have shipped a quilt somewhere, do you worry about it while it’s in route? You know, that worry that something might happen to it before it arrives at it’s destination? Or that it doesn’t arrive at it’s destination? Well, let me share my heart stopping experience with you……………………….

My friend Doris and I entered her quilt into the Innovations quilt show. It was time to send the quilt, so I went over to Doris’ house and we folded the quilt, placed it inside white plastic bags with the paperwork showing, so that when they open the box they will see which quilt it is. The box itself was a little bigger than the quilt, so we stuffed old plastic bags in the bottom of the box to fill up the empty space. It was ready to ship. Sp off to the store I go to send the quilt.

I get t0 the store to ship the quilt. I have to tell them how much I’m insuring the box for and it’s a rather large amount. Way large actually! I showed them the appraisel on it, and they made a copy for their records. While the guy is filling out his paperwork, I took a sharpie and wrote my name on the side of the box, (as requested by Innovations) Remember what I just said, I took a sharpie and wrote my name on the side of the box. Ok, I got all the paperwork done, paid the man, and went home.

Later that day, I received an e-mail with the tracking numbers and I started tracking the box. Everything was looking good!!!

Meanwhile, here’s how the e-mails went with the nice lady from Innovations.

Me:I’m letting you know that I have shipped my quilt, Flora Elena by Fed ex, so it’s on it’s way. I’ll look forward to hearing from you when it arrives.

a few days later

Her:Where do you live?

Me: I live in Kansas. According to Fed ex, the quilt has arrived. Is this correct?

( I checked the tracking # and saw that it had arrived before sending that e-mail.)

What?????????? I had all kinds of thoughts running through my mind!! I started thinking that Oh my gosh, somebody stole the quilt and sent a box in it’s place, and the quilt is nowhere to be found!!!! Because, I know I wrote my name on the box. That’s NOT my box! But Fed ex said my box was delivered!Oh my……what am I going to tell Doris?????????????

Me: But I did use a sharpie and write it on the side of the box. I did that while I was waiting on the guy to fill out the papers. Now I’m worried……

After I sent the last e-mail, I was convinced that, that wasn’t my box! I couldn’t wait for her to respond to my last e-mail. I found a phone number and called to talk to the lady. Like she said, my name was not on the box……..at this point and time, I am shaking, my stomach is tied up in knots, I then ask her to please open the box………..she did…………….she says “Oh, can you hold on I need to lay down the phone, there’s lots of styrafoam peanuts in the box.” I was silent………..no words came out of my mouth……….but I’m thinking…….OH NO!!!!! WE DIDN”T PUT ANY PEANUTS IN THE BOX!!!!!!!!! It’s going to be nothing but a box full of peanuts!!!!!!!!!!! NO QUILT!!!!!!!

She soon picks up the phone and says, “well, there’s a box inside a box” surrounded by peanuts. Oh, there’s your name on this box. They’ve cut the box down, because your name is folded.” I’m thinking WHAT??????????

She goes on to open the next box and confirms that the quilt is in there……..WHEW!!!!! WHAT A RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course, at this time, I’m still shaking and my nerves were shot! It took a while to calm down and now I want to know, why did the store reopen the box and cut the box down? I’m going to go there next week and find out why! They have no idea what they did to my nerves!!!

Next time we send the quilt somewhere, Doris is coming along too!!! I can’t take the pressure!!!!!!

Theresa

I finished quilting this last week for my friend Terri. I love the colors she used! She wanted me to quilt feathers on it and use a variegated thread, so I used a King Tut variegated on the star and border and a matching purple thread to quilt the feathers.

I think free handed feathers are my favorite thing to quilt! I can use them to fill any size space I need to.

That’s it for now. I hadn’t written anything lately, so I thought I’d quickly share a couple pictures. Now back to work!

Theresa

Last week I loaded a quilt on the machine and I wasn’t sure if I would have enough thread on the cone to complete the quilt, so I called and ordered more thread before I started quilting it. Sure enough……….I ran out………I got everything quilted except the outside border.

While waiting for the thread to arrive………….I took that quilt off and zipped this one on, and finished it this morning.

My thread is scheduled to be delivered today, so I zipped the other one back on and now I’m ready to get back to it, as soon as the thread arrives.

I guess that’s all for now! Come on UPS truck…………….

Theresa

Here in Kansas, this time of year, the grass should be brown from the hot summer time temperatures. This year, the grass is still green, I guess because we’ve had cool weather all summer, with lots of rainfall. We’ve had over 5″ of rain just this week. I don’t think we’ve even hit 100 degrees this summer. We only had 4 days in the 90’s for the entire month of July. That’s not right!! I love hot summer days! I’m getting ripped off this year.

To make things even worse. Look at what I’m seeing out my kitchen window.

There is a tree that’s already turning red! It’s too early for that!! I hope that doesn’t mean we’re going to have an early winter! That’s a depressing thought. Can you tell I don’t like winter? LOL!!

Oh well, on to quilting. My sister made this little wall hanging from some strips that she received at our guilds poker night a while back.  I finally got it quilted for her.

I put the chubby leaves in the border and I thought I’d see how it looks with 2 vein lines instead of just one like I always put in there. I like the double vein look. I’ll have to do that more often.

I loaded a Laurel Birch panel quilt earlier today, so I guess I better get back to work on it. Have a nice day!

Theresa

I’ve decided that in order for me to finish the quilt top that has been on my design wall since February, I’m going to have to make myself work on it for 10 minutes a day.  I have found that this usually works for me. Just 10 minutes. That’s it! I think I can find 10 minutes in my day to quickly sit down at my DSM and sew.  I sat down last night and sewed 4 sets of blocks into pairs.

I’ll then sew the pairs into squares. I have 8 out of 16 large squares sewn together.

I really need to finish this. I’m ready to look at something new on my design wall. LOL!!

I did the sewing on the blocks while taking a break from quilting.  You know sometimes, it feels good to sit down for a minute. LOL!! Anyway, this is a block from the quilt I was working on. I put  loops with flowers and leaves in the background behind the baskets.

My customer picked it up this morning. Now I need to get the next one loaded on.

Well, that’s it! Have a great day!

Theresa

Have you ever wondered how to do this?  Well, here is the way that I sew mine on.  I cut my binding strips @ 2 1/2″ then fold in half and press.

First, make your binding and press the beginning of it diagonally. Then trim the excess away.

Working from the front of the machine. (I like to start down anywhere from 6 to 10″  inches from the upper right hand corner of the quilt.)  Lay the binding on the quilt, backstitch to secure the thread then take a few stitches, stop and open the beginning of the binding. Sew down a few inches, then stop and close the binding strip. I use the foot as a guide. When I start off, I sew a little closer to the edge, so that when I come back, those stitches will be covered and I don’t have to worry about not hitting the exact sewing line. (since I can’t see it when I come back. LOL!)

Make sure that as you sew, you are keeping the binding even with the edge of the quilt.  Stop with the needle down, and advance the quilt as needed.

When you get to the corner, stop the distance of the hopping foot (if that’s what you’re using as your guide) away from the bottom edge of the quilt. Sew off the quilt to your right.

Fold the binding as you would on your DSM.

Then start sewing across the bottom of the quilt.  Making sure that you keep the binding and the edge of the quilt even.

Repeat this process for each corner. The lower left corner and up the left side of the quilt is the trickiest. You are actually going to be going backwards, and sewing away from you.

I lay the binding on the edge of the quilt and hold it down with my fingers to keep it from moving. Stop with needle down and roll the quilt as needed.

Continue to the upper left corner, across the top to the upper right hand corner and you’re almost finished.

Take the binding strip, lay it down on the already sewn binding to see where you need to cut it, so that it will fit up into the already sewn down part of the binding.  I like to make it a pointy diagonal, it seems to fit up into the binding better.

Lift up the beginning of the binding. Remember the part that you didn’t sew down in the beginning? That’s where you stick the end of the binding strip. Then lay it back down. Make sure that both the beginning and end of the binding strips are nice and even, then sew down the remaining binding.

Here it is finished.

Now I take it off the machine, trim the edges and hand sew it down.  At that point I also use  a matching thread and  small stitches to  close the diagonal area where  the ends meet.

Ok, that’s it. Did it make sense? I hope I explained everything alright, if not, let me know and I’ll try to explain it better.  If you have any questions please ask!

Also, please tell me if you try this and how you liked it.  It does save time and no wrestling with the quilt at the DSM. LOL!!

Have a great day!

Theresa

Well, I wrote a while back about wanting to start on a new project and it finally got the better of me! I started working on it! I ordered a  bolt of this beautiful hand dyed 108″ wide backing fabric and when it came I just thought it was so pretty!  Anyway, I had ordered a set of patterns of state birds and flowers back in 2003 (I looked at the post mark) and I thought hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder what that would look like if I embroidered it in white? hmmmmmmmmm So anyway, I couldn’t wait any longer and I marked one block and started work on it. Here it is. What do you think?

So far I’m lovin it! I started it Thursday night and Friday I decided that I needed to make a bag to carry it in. That way, I’ll have everything together and if I need to grab it and head out the door, all I have to do is grab the bag and go. So………today, I made a bag for it.

I combined 2 different pattern ideas and made it the size I wanted. It folds open so that I can get to what I want.  I put pockets on the inside to hold certain things.

I’m going to add velcro to the upper corners to help hold it closed. I will also put a small piece of velcro behind the yellow pocket and the turquoise pocket to hold them closed.

The turquoise pocket will hold the patterns and blocks when I get them cut.

The orange pocket is divided into 3 sections and will hold the embroidery floss,  scissors and the pens I use to mark the patterns. The green strip is the bottom of the bag.

The yellow pocket will hold the finished blocks and the pink pocket will hold the block that I’m working on.

Well, that’s what I’ve accomplished over the weekend.  As soon as I get the velcro pieces sewn on, I’ll be all done with it! Yeah!! The bag anyway!!! LOL!!!  It will take years to make 50 blocks. That’s one reason why I chose to make the bag using a black fabric! LOL!!  Who knows what the bag will look like after I tote it around for ?????years.

That’s it for now……………….

Theresa