Still working

This is just to pop in after a while of being off to let you know I am still quilting my daughter's quilt. I'm on the 47th day out of the pledged 365 days of quilting, square number 79 of 180 squares total and about 43 done since I began on Day One of the 365 Day Challenge. No picture today, but maybe tomorrow.

I've slowed down some, quilting something like a half of a square a day. If I can just stop letting myself get sidetracked with word puzzles - which I love! This quilt gets top priority from now on. Well, after the necessities of house keeping, that is.

This is Nurse Sharon speaking: Take the needlework cure.

Day 39 - Yesterday

So this is where I got to yesterday. Square # 74, the yellow one in the hoop.

This is Nurse Sharon speaking: Take the needlework cure.

38th Day of Quilting

Even though I missed a couple of days this week of quilting, I did make progress on the quilt. Here is how far I've come. since the last picture. I've done 71/180 squares now. See the red square where I was about to quilt on the last picture? It's the bright red on the top left. I finished that one and five more. In the hoop, the next one I do is the green print under the red toile print, turning the corner. It's a-gettin' thar!


I hope to finish about ten more squares this week, but any progress is good. I had hoped to finish ten from last week, but only got eight more done. Still, that's better than none.

Break

In two days, I've only quilted one-fourth of one square of the quilt. I'm not beating myself up over it though. That would only slow me down more.

I'm considering this a break so that I do not burn out and put it down for another two or three years. I'm hoping to get back to it today. Too long of a break is just as bad or worse than no break at all.

This is Nurse Sharon speaking: take a needlework break once in a while.

Days 32 to 34

"Day 30" was not right. It should have been 31. O well, no matter. Today is Day 35, and here is a picture of where I've gotten since the last post, on days 32-34.

The bright yellow on the left of the red square was the square barely showing it's corner on the last post. I was looking forward to getting that far! Now, I've finished both the yellow red squares and am about to do the green print next. The yellow and red were both done yesterday (Sunday). 66 out of 180 squares done!

 

 

I suppose the green print will be far away from where I snap the next picture. These pictures are helping me to keep the momentum going, maybe like our grandmothers or great-grandmothers did with neighbor women, because so many of them just got together and compared notes on quilting, ironing, laundry, recipes, gardening, child training, etc. They had their social networks - only face to face rather than face by way of "book" :-)

 

 

This is Nurse Sharon speaking: Take the needlework cure.

Day 30

Only 335 days of quilting left!
This post is really about yesterday, so here are some pictures of yesterday's quilt work:

This is the next block for today's work. I began to mark it yesterday. I decided to abandon the tissue paper and the whole square template idea. They didn't fit all the squares, and I remembered I'd seen one of the Barber sisters mark a quilting border with a single flower petal template like this. There were eight Barber sisters. Five of them live in my little town and all of them quilters.

 

 These two pictures below are to show where I quilted and where I'm headed. Yesterday, I was about to quilt the red/white at the bottom of the hoop. I quilted that one and the yellow/brown print and am about to move on up to the green print. Next - the red/white print again above the green, then turn the corner and do the yellow one just barely showing. One little square at a time.

 I've mentioned my little graph drawing I made to keep up with where to quilt next. Last week, I had finished 55 squares - I'm counting them on Sundays - and had a goal to get to 61. I am past that now and am headed around the corner to the mark. I put a mark at 12 squares, hoping I could do that many in a week and surpass my original plan of one a day, minus one day because I know I'll miss a day. Look at the number "90" When I hit that one, I'll still have 90 squares to go, yet it looks as though I'll be almost through! What a trick of the eye. Kind of like how we kids used to spread the peas around on the plate so it would look like we were finished. But, Mother or Daddy would always scrape them all together and make a nice pile of two more spoonfuls. {:-[

I hope you're having a good day doing some needlework! Alas, I still have Mama things to do before I can sit down to quilt.

This is Nurse Sharon speaking: take the needlework cure

Day 29 of 365

Here are some pictures of the quilt I'm working on. These were taken yesterday, "day 29" of the 365 days I have pledged to myself (and to you) to work on quilting. This quilt was started about 10 years or so ago. I put it aside for at least a full three years. I think the longest thing to do in quilting or sewing a garment is the preparation before the sewing or quilting. Arranging all those squares so the colors would look "right" was very time consuming.

I had just quilted the green print to the left of the red/white with the quilt markings. I'm about to work on that square. It's square 61. I'm officially 1/3 the way through quilting the squares.

I'm showing this to show where I started - the checked green square in the foreground, I think was my first square.

This is to show a close-up of where I am and how I'm carrying the needle from one square to the next. By bedtime, I had *almost* finished the flower design. They take so much longer than the grid squares.

 

This is Nurse Sharon - taking the needlework cure.