Friday

Client Quilts

I longarm quilted a black and white quilt for a friend who will donate it to a PKD charity event. I'm always happy to help her complete her projects for this annual event. 

Now that we've come to the end of the harvest season here in Wisconsin, I thought I would try my hand at making a batch of chicken stock. I read an article from America's Test Kitchen about how homemade stock is healthy, easy and more economical than buying it in a carton from the grocery store. So using ATK's recipe I made a batch. It was definitely easy but not so cheap. I buy organic chicken stock by the case from Sam's Club for under $10. Just the chicken parts for this recipe cost me $18 at our local meat market.  


I got 5 quart jars of stock. The one thing I did not prepare for was the freezing part of this recipe. I had to make lots of room in the freezer for the large jars. I just hope I remember to plan far enough ahead to thaw a jar when I need to use it in a recipe. 


A client asked me to longarm her king-size quilt. I wasn't so sure I wanted to take on such a big project for more than one reason. I had other obligations to get out of the way first and there's been lots of issues with her projects in the past. Sometimes she gives me a chunk of fabric that needs to be made into backing and sometimes the backing she made isn't big enough. 

With this project, the backing wasn't big enough. It was a wide-back piece that wasn't long enough. It was so wide that I could have cut some of the width down and stitched it to the bottom but the fabric was directional so it would look really dumb. So she asked me to buy a bigger piece from the shop where I work. I had a co-worker help me choose something we both liked. It turned out nice when it was done. 


Wednesday

A T-shirt Quilt

I have to get better at saying no. I find it a real struggle. I end up getting myself in stressful situations because of it. I always have too many charity quilts to finish, too many client projects to finish and too many quilt groups that take up time and energy. Quilt groups are supposed to be fun. And they would be if I wasn't saying yes to so many other quilt projects. But I'm working on it.

I started scheduling client quilts. I do just one per month. If someone asks, I let them know the first available month and they get to decide whether they want to wait or ask someone else. Surprisingly they usually wait. So I am booked until February. 

With that said, here is my client quilt I finished for the month of October. It's a t-shirt quilt for one of my co-worker's nieces. She did a beautiful job of piecing the quilt and I love the way she laid out the blocks. 



I quilted it using a modern all-over quilting design.  

With a little extra time on my hands I thought I would do some decorating for halloween. 


My husband built me the most awesome pallet bar this summer so I couldn't resist putting Sally behind the bar. Ha! I'm already feeling some of the stress I've been feeling disappear.

Saturday

The Glam Bag

My sister used Peanuts fabric to line the box of the Christmas gift she gave me last year. It was such a cute idea. Today I used the Glam Bag pattern from Pink Sand Beach Designs to make this toiletry bag with some of the fabric. The pattern required fusible fleece interfacing and decor bond as well. I thought I was never going to be able to sew through all those layers but the bag sewed up like a dream. At first I thought the directions were going to be a little complicated, after all they are 4 pages long. But there's a method to the madness and when followed, you get a perfect bag. I still have lots of Peanuts fabric left so I am looking forward to making something else with it. 

Peanuts Fabric