IQF Deadline . . . TODAY!!!

Today is the deadline for applications for IQF in Houston. Did I make it . . . drumroll please . . . YES, B. submitted my pictures and application along with my check to the IQA office in Houston. It was a very harried last couple of days, but after many long hours of working on the quilts and then getting pictures taken, I'm happy to report that my goal to apply for the juried International Quilt Festival in 2010 has been accomplished. Mark it off the list. Moving on . . . I will find out in early July if my quilts will be shown in October at IQF. How exciting is this??!!

Getting Close

The deadline for submission is next Wednesday. Will the quilt get done??? Stay tuned . . .

Progress in Rough Draft Form

As promised, here's the apron that was sewn on my new $69 Singer machine. The material was provided by Jill's Mom. I still need to add the purple gingham pockets and iron the puppy.

I think I'm looking scary and severe in this draft. Don't worry, I'm still working on "perfecting" the picture!!

Today I had an enjoyable day off from work. I ran 2 miles this morning and then got to work on the sewing. Here are a couple of pictures of my work in progress. I am still making changes to it so we'll just have to see how it progresses. The process has been totally enjoyable so far except for the big fabric mess that I'm making. Yikes!! I need a bigger room. Apparently a 12 x 17 room just can't handle the amount of sewing and creating that I do!!!

New Addition

Here's the latest addition to my stash of all things sewing. I purchased this baby at Target for $69 plus tax. I wasn't sure what I expected, but I can tell you that after setting the machine up and going for a test run, I am totally impressed with the machine. My $69 Singer and my $2000 Bernina are sitting side by side each other right now. Granted, I would never give up my Bernina (unless I was trading up!), but if I were a beginning sewist (I just recently discovered this word!) with little money, this machine, so far, is worth the money. There you have it; there's my endorsement. I promptly whipped out an apron on the machine (I'll have to take a pic or two and post later). The tension needed absolutely no adjustment and the only noticeable thing the Singer was lacking was the automatic reverse button. Yes, this machine goes in reverse, but you have to hold the lever down the entire time you sew in reverse. Just a minor nuisance.

This weekend I made a backpack to go on the tent quilt that I'll be submitting for consideration to the Houston International Festival. It's an "interactive" quilt and I don't think there's anything like it out there yet. My great nephew, Jackson, was the recipient of the first one (although the backpack is a new addition to the quilt). He assures me that he likes the quilt!! In addition, I started my art quilt that I would also like to submit for IQF consideration. The deadline is May 26 so I better kick it up another notch and whip that puppy out. Luckily I have tomorrow off from work so I'll get another day to work on it. Stay tuned . . .

Embellished

I think I'll call the quilt finished. I just finished sewing on the jewels and embellishing with crystals. What do you think . . . good enough for Houston?!! If I don't get my other quilt finished by May 26, I think I'll submit this one for entry into the 2010 Houston International Quilt Festival.

My vacation is almost over and in two days I'll be back at the desk. Actually on Monday I'll be at tax school and we know what a joy that is!! But, I still have 1.5 days to keep on going. In seven days, I have finished one of the cousins' quilts, finished the art quilt and put together the Conoco 10k run scrap book. And, oh, yeah, traveled to OKC and ran a half marathon. I can't believe that was just 6 days ago. Wow! I also bought a cheap Singer sewing machine that was recommended at one of the sewing studio sites that I visited. It was on sale for $69 and now I'm going to go and see if it is worth keeping. The girl who runs the sewing studio has equipped her studio with this machine only. Not quite like my Bernina I'm sure, but I'm willing to give it a try. I keep dreaming that one day I'll have my own sewing studio, but for now I'll just keep acquiring my fabric, knick knacks and learning new skills. Next up: making binding for Cousin #2 quilt. I have my OKC scrapbook to put together and then I'm free to work on my quilt for Houston. Hmm . . . what kind of quilt is that, you ask. Well, it's another art quilt, but this time it's not abstract. Stay tuned . . . I'll be trying new techniques on this one. Wish me luck.

It's About Time

Yikes! I've been gone for awhile, huh?! Well, it's not like I haven't been sewing; I just redirected my energy into running. And I'm pleased to say that I have now run 2 half marathons. I did the Houston Aramco in January and I just finished the OKC Memorial this past weekend. It was a journey, that's for sure, but one that I am glad I took. I plan on continuing my running and hopefully I will start to get better times!!

Anyhoo, let's get back to the sewing end of things. Since I'm not sure where I left off in my sewing journey, I'm just going to post some pictures and see where I'm at.

At Thanksgiving time 2008 I asked all of the family members who feasted at C&W's house to write on a blank piece of white fabric. During the next year I added pictures and leaves and quilted the puppy up. This was the result. It was presented to my brother and sis-in-law at Thanksgiving time 2009. I think it turned out wonderfully.
Closely inspected . . . I think it got Mom's approval!

This is the finished quilt for G&E. It's a lot prettier in real life.


I took a painted wholecloth class at the Houston International Art Festival 2009. It was such a fun time although 3 hours barely made a dent in the painting part. I brought it home, finished painting it and this week while I am on vacation I quilted it up. Now I have to trim and bind it and then I'm going to embellish it with some beading and crystals. Can we say "ooh, aah"??!!

This quilt was made out of my Aunt Ida and Uncle Stan's clothes. I originally was going to make a wall quilt with pictures of them that my two cousins could hang in their respective homes. When I got to looking at the clothes, I thought how nice it would be to snuggle up with a lap blanket on the couch instead of looking at fabric on a wall. This is the first one I made. I still need to bind it. The second one was finished today. The binding was sewn on by hand on the backside and all threads were buried. I think my cousins will like them.

This is the 2nd quilt: same, but different.

A Pressing Matter

Since I have a problem with taking the time to figure out which way seams should be pressed so that when they are sewn together they face opposite directions, I opted to press all my seams open on this quilt. I think in the end it made the entire process go faster and it was less frustrating.

I have finished piecing the blue quilt. I'm in the process of deciding whether or not to applique some items on the quilt. It looks lovely as it is and I think once the quilting on the longarm is finished, it will turn out to be a lovely quilt. But, I keep thinking that I might like to try something different with this quilt and make it "pop" some more. We'll see. If I get a design drawn that I like, I will probably go for the applique.

This morning I ran 3 miles at 7 a.m. The temperature was 82 degrees with 88% humidity and a 92 degree heat index. It was a little uncomfortable by the end. I just finished reading an article about running in high humidity. Oops. Luckily B brought me water at the 2 mile mark. I will run again on Sunday. Hopefully my knees will continue to hold up and one day I will run like the wind!

Blue, Blue, My World is Blue

This is my new creation. I designed this quilt on Friday and started cutting and piecing on Saturday and Sunday. I really like the way the blues fell out. It seems soothing to me and I'm sure that my brother and sister-in-law will be pleased with the finished product. I'm going to applique a design in the four corners and possibly the middle of the quilt. Once it's longarmed, it should be gorgeous!

I finished trimming up the latest brown quilt. (There were three in a row for those of you who lost count!) Now we just need to sew some binding and spend a couple hours hand stitching it down. I find that part of the process to be rather soothing. I didn't think I'd like it, but I'm finding that finishing the quilts makes me almost as happy as designing and making the quilts. Oh, the simple joys!

Opened and Closed

Yesterday was the opening day of registration for the Houston 2010 Marathon and Half Marathon. As you know, my brother and I were both able to sign up around 6:30 p.m. yesterday. This morning when I logged onto the computer, the Half Marathon was closed. All 11,000 runners were signed up and unless you wanted to sign up as a "Hero" (which means paying an additional $350 to a charity) you are out of luck for the 2010 Half Marathon. It's like the MS150 all over again. Last year registration opened at 10 a.m. and by 5 p.m. it was full . . . 13,000 riders committed to the ride. B and I did not sign up last year as my heart wasn't in it. Then when my Austin friends came to town for the bike ride I was totally disappointed we hadn't signed up. So we're going to ride again in 2010. Am I too old for this stuff???!!!

B and I went to the gym at 7:45 this morning and did 35 minutes on the elliptical machine. We did the one with the incline and the arms that moved. I tried doing the stationary one, but for the life of me I could not figure out how to get my left leg to go. It was dead weight and I couldn't get it to move. I finally put both feet on the left pedal to get it moving. I'm going to have to improve on that! Anyway, the calf feels pretty good right now and I'm all set to run tomorrow morning. Yay! Exercising is good and I feel motivated. That being said, I could use a nap!!!

Big Day

Today was the opening day for registration for the Houston 2010 Marathon and Half Marathon. The race will be limited to 22,000 runners evenly divided between the Marathon and Half Marathon. At 2 p.m. there were already over 13,000 runners signed up. Yikes. I have not been able to run for the past two weeks, but I was undetered in my determination to sign up for this race. I contacted by brother, J, in Kansas and yes, he was ready to go. So we sat at our respective computers and filled in the requisite information and then on the count of three we hit enter. And we waited. Both came back with errors, so we corrected those and hit enter again. This time it came back that too many people were trying at the same time. New strategy. My brother hit the "register" button first followed by me. After a couple moments of anticipation his came back with a confirmation number. Mine followed shortly thereafter and my confirmation number was exactly 100 greater than his. I guess we'll see when we get our bib numbers if we were registered consecutively. We both signed up to run the same time so that we could start the race together. I hope I don't let him down by running too slowly. It was all very exciting and I can't wait to start chonicling my running journey with the countdown to January 17, 2010. It'll be here before we know it.

After nine months of no spin classes, I went today at noon and did the hour class. This teacher was not as enjoyable as the teacher in the class I went to for an entire year. Her music was much better, albeit louder. I didn't care for this guy's music at all. I need something with words that I know so I can sing along in my head. Oh, well. I ended up with a good sweat and felt really good afterwards. I'm envisioning a new wardrobe in a smaller size so let's see if that works out!!!

I designed a new quilt pattern this morning and tomorrow I will start the process of picking out the fabrics and cutting some fabric. I think that I will do some applique on this quilt so that will be my new process in this quilting journey. The quilt will be going to a different brother and hopefully I'll complete it in time for my annual trek home for the holidays. If all goes well, it will be totally pieced by Sunday evening.