We had a mini-quilt show today it seemed. Shirley brought in two of her quilts and I had two of mine.
This one of Shirley’s needs the binding on it – it just came back from the long arm quilter she uses here. Shirley is from Michigan but lives here part of the time as her husband is a contract worker at the nuclear plant like my husband Mike is – just work in different fields. They are going back to Michigan for the summer than back here in the fall then home permanently next year I believe. We will miss her and all the quilts she makes!
Another of Shirley’s – she had this one custom quilted.
A close up of the quilting.
My Star Crazy all spread out
Joseph’s Coat, I had the short blue row finished by the end of the group so I got a photo of it, I need to sew that row down and get the black circles on it then on to the next.
The next rows are all in the turquoise/green group -
I have had a hard time trying to get the true color here but this is about as close as I can get. I am getting so close to the end now that I do believe I will have to drape this out over the design wall now and try to mix in the colors right for this last corner. This might happen this weekend – but who knows, I’m not sure what we are doing on this three day weekend. The end is very much in sight though for this quilt top. I think what is left to do is about equal to the corner of yellow’s on the opposite end.
Have you all been over to Amy at Amy’s Creative Side? It is time for the quilt festival – this is actually the last day to enter. I was trying so hard to get done with Star Crazy as I wanted to enter it in the festival – and I made it!!
Star Crazy is done 
This quilt top was begun 2 1/2 years ago – it was a BOM featured on the Quilt Show, and designed by Sue Garman. Once a month in the year 2010 I would print out the directions and get busy sewing the blocks for the month. I decided that I wanted my quilt to be bigger than what the original pattern was and I added a 10 inch cream border all the way around the quilt and I made the corners curved just because I wanted to.
By January of 2011 every thing was pieced and put together. BUT I already had a quilt on my hand quilting frame so it had to wait, and wait and wait. It went on the frame December 18, 2011 and I took it off the frame May 18, 2012 – 5 months to the day I had finished the hand quilting. I have been working with the binding the last several days and here it is the last day to make an entry for the show and I have it finished!
A little over 250 hours of work went into this baby! 120 hours of piecing and 132 hours of hand quilting. Along with the binding I’m sure I could safely say I have spent 260 hours on this quilt – it will be on my bed now for awhile before it gets switched out – I intend to enjoy it for some time before (if) it gets passed on to anyone else. Finished measurement is 95 x 95 inches (good thing I made it 100 x 100 to begin with – I think fabric is shrinking more than it used to! good thing I love that antique crinkly look – love it as a matter of fact)
So TaDa – here is my scrappy hand quilted version of Star Crazy:
Forgive all the wrinkles – I had just taken it out of the dryer and got busy taking photos. I probably did over kill on the quilting in the pieced area, once I got started I had to continue – part way through I had wished I hadn’t decided to do that. I have lost track of how many queen size quilts I have hand quilted now – this bed sure has seen a change of quilts over the years!
This is the first Monday in forever that I really don’t have much of a progress report for Design Wall Monday – head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is working on.
This post is short – I have 2 1/2 sides of the binding on Star Crazy done. Then I need to wash the quilt and dry it. Then try to get a good photo.
You might see it tomorrow!! I know some people use clips to turn the edges over on the whole quilt or one side at a time – I turn as I go using about 3 clips usually – works for me – what about you?
Now I need to get back to work – when I finish the binding on this quilt I will get back to Joseph’s Coat – another month on that quilt and it should be finished too!
For sure – it is getting down right warm every single day – still no rain in my little corner of Arkansas. It has been missing us – other than a 5 minute thing here and there for about a month now. I have been watering the yard and the plants for over two weeks now – just enough to keep them alive – I don’t want a huge water bill. I dug up the potatoes last night and I guess I got about 5 to 8 pounds worth – I could tell it wasn’t going to be a good harvest, the plants just didn’t look good if you know what I mean. As you see though I only garden for the heck of it, not with the intention of having something to eat for months on end 
this colander full will be enough for some good potato salad and other meals for several weeks only!
The yellow squash that I thought was going to produce well, hasn’t – the veggies are getting soft and not maturing and falling off – what causes that I wonder? The zucchini has a lot of blossoms but no veggies. The only thing that is doing well are the tomatoes & peppers – I hope they stay alive long enough for me to get all the tomatoes off of them that are on them now without having to put them in the windowsill to ripen. The woes of container gardening – you have to water every single day when it gets hot.
Yesterday morning I had quilt group and I brought Joseph’s Coat to work on – I have three more segments to work on and then the row can be attached!
I got started hand stitching the binding on Star Crazy yesterday – I sat down two different times with it and I am almost done with one side! Here is one section of it – I don’t know if you noticed that I decided to have rounded corners on it when it was on the quilting frame way back at the beginning.
I fold the quilt up and lay it across my lap so the heaviness of the quilt doesn’t make me too hot while working on it.
And just for fun so I could say I got started on the quilting – I sat at the quilting frame for about 10 minutes or so last night and stitched along the vine and leaves on the beginning of the Pineapple Square wall hanging.
I got some questions on how and why do I keep track of time spent on my quilts. It all started way back when – people would ask “how long did it take you to make that quilt” and I could say oh about a year and then would be asked “well did you work on it every day, every week, a day here and there” you get the picture? So when I started a new quilt – piecing about 12 years or so ago – I put a little notebook in the basket with the work and when I would sit down to start to hand piece or applique I would jot down the time started and stopped and write down the minutes when I was done. I did this throughout the whole process and was amazed at how many hours had accumulated during the making of the quilt. Then when I began to quilt that quilt I kept the same notebook right there by the quilt and continued to keep track of my time – this was just for my information – but also so that when someone asks that question “will you make me one” I can truthfully say – “do you realize how long it takes me to make this – and of course “how much does it cost to make it” – especially if they have said “I’ll pay you” – they quickly realize that maybe they can’t afford to have me make them a quilt after all. Like for Star Crazy – 250 hours of work and cost was at around $170 and that was only because a lot of the fabric in it was on sale. What kind of price would you put on that? It is very hard to price hand quilted quilts because of the time involved – next to impossible to put a price per hour on something like this. Anyway that was probably more of an answer than you all wanted but that is why I keep track of my time!
I got the machine part of the sewing done this afternoon for the binding on Star Crazy. Working binding in a small room is a bit of a challenge. I have to pull my SewEzi table out from the tight little space it goes in, I get a small fold out table out and put it next to it – I pull Mike’s office chair over so some of it can rest on that – but it got done!
I have it all folded up now so it will be easy to work with and will get to the hand stitching later today or tomorrow.
I had enough backing and batting leftover from Star Crazy (I had cut it way too long) that I was able to cut it and sew it back together again to fit the Pineapple Square Wall Hanging and still had some of that backing and batting leftover! Here it is ready to work on.
This sure is little on the big quilting frame – I don’t know if I have every had something so small on it. Almost the whole this is showing right now. You know I totally forgot I said I was going to clean out under that frame before I put anything else on it!
My space back to being a computer table – Words with Friends – playing two games – one with daughter and one with sis in law.
I got the backing fabric for the Joseph’s Coat quilt – all ready for when it is finished! I like the wide back fabrics from Christian Lane Quilters – if you have never tried them you might want to check out the Fatbacks! Prices aren’t bad – here is what I got for Joseph’s Coat – I just ordered it about 3 or 4 days ago and it came today – what fast service.
We have a barbecue college graduation party to go to tomorrow for one of my many nieces – should be fun – I’m seeing the family way to much this year 
Star Crazy came off the frame last night – 5 months after it went on the frame – the fastest I have quilted a large quilt. 132 hours of quilting, estimated piecing time was 120 hours – that’s about 250 hours spent on this quilt so far and there is still the binding to do!
Looks like it is time to clean out and organize under the frame again while I can see under it.
A little teaser for you – half of the quilt – needs binding and then washing and I will show it to you completely done – sometime next week most likely.
A little of the backing.
The binding is the same aqua that is on the front of the quilt in the sashing. I had this cut and put aside waiting for it. This is a Hoffman water color Bali batik – I’m not sure what that little note was that is in the bag, I will have to check that out 
I think it was telling me how much the background fabric was – I like to total up cost of the quilt when I get done -
Does it ever feel good to have a finish!! Wow do my quilting fingers need a break – ouch fingertips are sore from this marathon quilting the past couple of days. It took 5 hours to do that last border.
Quilt group this morning, then exercise. I will then come home and get to work on the binding. I am bringing Joseph’s Coat with me this morning to piece but I think it will be a little neglected this upcoming week while I work on binding.
