Wow this is a big project

I went to a quilt class Saturday, and started a new project. It's a strip quilt called Jelly Roll Junction. It's colors are yellows, creams, golds, and light browns. The main strips were taken from two of Moda's collections, Summer Bouquet, and Portugal. This is to be a quilt for my mom. What I didn't realize was how big the finished quilt was to be. 71 3/4 x 88 1/4. A little bit more than a twin blanket. I was able to get most of the blocks done at the class, and I finished the quilt top the next day. I decided to use cotton/polyester batting, instead of all polyester. This does make the quilt sandwich easier to work with. But my problem is that I decided instead of straight stitch in ditch method, I would free hand stipple the quilt. Wow, that's a lot of work. I used my work tables and made an L shape to support the quilt as I worked, but I am finding that my wrists and hands can only do so many minutes of quilting before they hurt. An hour at a time. I am also using Fons & Porter quilting gloves. What are these things? Well they are cotton gloves with some type of gripper dots on the fingers and palms. Think of gardening or work gloves with the grip texture on the palm side. These help me move the quilt sandwich while sewing. I started quilting on Monday, and I'm about 2/3 done. I'm quilting the body right now, and I will also stipple the borders. One of the problems I am dealing with right now, is block placement. Because this quilt was so big, I really couldn't lay the blocks on the carpet and see it without something in the way. I should have worked on the layout in the living room. I used the quilt tags I picked up last month to help me mark which block went where, and not get the rows goofed up. Anyways after I had sewn the blocks and the borders on, I realized I could have placed the blocks better. What I mean by that is that a couple of the blocks have matching prints, I wanted to place the blocks so none of the prints were right next to each other. I then decided I would have to check out Home Depot for a large piece of cork, a 5x5 piece and I would mount it on the wall, and I could just pin the blocks up and be able to stand back and see the placement better. I told Neville's mom my problem. She actually suggested using adhesive Velcro on the wall, and a flannel sheet. This is a great idea. I got some yesterday, and I will try it on the Raggy Flowers quilt next when I'm done with those blocks. Right now that quilt has me beat. I haven't even finished cutting out the flower pieces yet. Let alone traced the leaf and stem pattern on the fusible web yet. B and I went to Joann's on Sunday and she bought me all the thread I needed for the quilts. I hope it's enough thread. I've gone through one spool of invisible thread already for mom's quilt, and started on a second spool. I may have to go back and get more of that. Freehand quilting is hard. You can't go too fast, or too slow, and I realize that the back of the quilt is not going to be as pretty as the front because of my beginner skills.

Oh, on a funny note. I got lost Tuesday. I took the cart to the library, and decided, I want to go to Walmart by cart. I had the map with me, and I sort of remembered the directions Neville's mom gave me. Somehow I ended up in the wrong direction. I was heading north east instead of south west. I told her about it, and she had a good laugh. I went over to her house yesterday, and we took her cart out to lunch. She showed me how to get to Walmart, and when someone else is driving the cart, I am able to notice landmarks much easier. No need to worry about looking for landmarks and avoiding trees when you aren't driving. It would be great if there were more path signs. I had a lot of fun with Neville's mom, and lunch was very good. A nice change for the both of us. I am definitely a cart believer. She really pushed the benefits of using a cart versus car, and I now understand. Asshole says I use the cart more than he does, and it's true. I use it now to go to the grocery store, library, and post office. If I could I would take it in the mornings going to school. The other day, I took it to the dry cleaners. I also happened to take a turn too quickly and Asshole's shirts took a tumble out of the cart. Heh heh. A woman came up on me, and asked if I was alright. Oh sure, just took a turn too quick and hubby's shirts fell out.

Oh speaking of the hubby, his name for now will be Asshole. He's constantly acting like a jerk. I believe his PMS is really bad right now. It's not worth it to get into, but he's really being ridiculous. That's my opinion and he's got his. I will validate his, but he hasn't validated mine, and I think that's wrong, so he can go to hell until otherwise.

Hmm where the time go?

Wow, over a month since I last vented. Many good and bad things have happened.

Golf cart- still enjoying the lifestyle, I think we've saved two refueling trips. That's over $160! Seriously, in the month of July I only filled the tank once, we did quite a bit of traveling by cart. The only reason why I had to fill the tank, was to take Stinky to the airport, and I went fabric shopping. We went to the cart drive in movie, didn't go the second one, as Goof didn't want to see a kiddie movie without Stinky. Stinky has been working on his driving skills, he's getting really good, he hasn't figured out how to drive in reverse yet. We got a speed chip for the cart, and now it really flies. I thought 13mph was pretty good, now we go 18mph, and downhill is a scary thing, no regen to slow us down, it's definitely free falling, and it can be scary on some of the paths. I've taken it farther around town than Goof has. I've been having a ball with it.

Sewing projects- still having fun with that. I finished two quilts, Shoe fly is one pattern

Then I worked farmers flowers

I really like how farmers flowers came out, I love the bright, cheerful colors. Plus Stinky claimed Shoe fly for himself. I finished my quilts, but almost lost my patience with my friend and her indecision with color and block placement on Shoe fly. Luckily that was finally done, but the bad news, she's not happy with the yellow colors available right now, and we have her farmers flowers in squares, and partial blocks in a gallon ziplock bag on my fabric shelf. We readdress it in the winter/spring when there will be more yellows she likes. I don't blame her, but dang it, there is not much I can do, and sometimes I feel really frustrated because I'm the one doing the sewing, and most of the money spent in materials is mine. I'm feeling this because the newest project is a tough one for me. She had found a quilt book with some wonderful flower appliques. I looked at the book, and said okay let's jump in, of course we have a new technique to learn. Fabric shopping went along with this project, we made a day of fabric shopping. I programmed the Garmin, took it in her car, as Goof had mine, and I wanted to just go home. No wonder she preferred me to drive. She's got driving issues, fear of expressways, windy small country roads, busy intersections, fear of not knowing where she's going. It didn't help that 3 of the locations I found through Yahoo directory, were not what we wanted, and finally the last location directed us to a quilt shop in the historic downtown area of Newnan. Of course she didn't like that either. We found the shop, she oooohhhed and awwed. I was impressed, but not that impressed. I looked at the quilt books trying to see if anything called my attention, picked up a set of block placement tags, and some fabric. Not a big purchase. She was disappointed because I did not go hog wild in there. Well I don't know what you are thinking lady, perhaps we need to discuss the amount of fabric we are planning to buy, and who pays. I was just feeling like I'm footing the bill for the quilts, and getting token amounts back. Obviously if I feel like this I should be open and honest. 'Hey, I feel like I'm paying for 75% or more of the quilts and I'm doing all the work, and you are just here to pick fabric colors and placements, and argue with me about my choices because they aren't yours!' I know that's not the best way to say it. But I get frustrated at times. Don't talk to me about techniques, you don't sew and I'm the one going to classes, ordering sewing feet, and stuff. So anyways much money has been spent in the last two weeks, and this is what I have so far. I was pissed off, because she gave the impression of dissatisfaction with the look of the block. It was my first one, and obviously I had to figure out what the hell I was doing. I am going to try it again, with straight stitching instead of satin stitching around the flowers. Also don't give me fucking bullshit about how circular or even the pieced flowers are not. What do you not understand, it was the first fucking try. No kidding the colors aren't placed right, I grabbed a few pieces and threw them together to get an idea of what I was facing. Well anyways when this is to be done, there will be three quilts. One for me, she gets one and her mother in law. Yes, I'm making three of the same quilt. I know I will most likely need a couple of drinks after each session where she has to chose which colors she wants in each flower and what neutral background colors she wants. I may tell her to shove it, and say too bad, make it yourself, or here's a check for your money spent, but if you want one, you take what I give you or nothing at all. I have a hard time waiting for someone to decide the tiny details. If I am sewing, give me a bone, and hurry up with at least one grouping so I can get started, it's awful boring watching someone mutter to themselves about what colors they like, and whether it is complementary or not. I admit, I never took a class about color in college. There were times when I fell asleep in Art History appreciation. It was a requisite! Alright then, enough of my rant for today. More tomorrow!

Enjoying the lifestyle

This weekend was fun filled. Stinky's been practicing his driving skills on the cart, and he's getting really good. We did the bbq thing with hot dogs and hamburgers on the 4th. Took a spin around the lake, and wondered where everyone was. Then went home and set off a few fireworks. We headed back to the lake and then we saw all the people! Carts and people everywhere. What I wasn't pleased was seeing dogs out. Fireworks people! Dogs don't watch fireworks like humans do. They don't necessarily understand what all the noise is about. We parked the cart off the path and headed up to meet Neville and his parents. They had marked a spot on the lake shore Thursday morning! Holy smokes! And to top it off, someone had moved their tarp! Seriously, next year I'm gonna have to stake out a spot too. So the fireworks show was lots of fun. I tried to film some of it, but it didn't come out as well as I hoped. What got us giggling and I tried to film that also was the traffic jam after the show. A sea of humanity and golf carts! I'm not used to seeing all those carts jammed up trying to get around. Goof, said it was like that when he took a quick drive to see the parade that morning. We decided not to get up early to see the parade, and I'm glad we didn't. Saturday was another fun filled night. Well it was for Stinky. We went to a drive in movie at the conference hotel above the lake. It was filled with golf carts and people in chairs. We thought it would rain, and we missed it. Unfortunately for Goof it was the movie Transformers. Very boring for him. Stinky was hoping to hang out with girls, but no go. We didn't do too much today, just hung around the house and did chores. I wanted to go to the library this weekend, but Sat, a T storm came in right after I left the house, so I just returned a book and jammed back home, missing the rain by 3 minutes. Today, I wanted to go, and just as I got ready... BOOM! Thunder started. Tomorrow I'm heading off to the library that's for certain.

I'm still working on my quilt, it's rather time consuming cutting the sewn squares into smaller squares. Hard to explain unless you saw what I was doing. Now comes the sewing again. When I'm done, I should have 80 blocks. Enough for two quilts, and then some. Then the placement of the blocks, and finally the quilting of the batting and back fabric. I have some smaller projects I need to get done this next two days. Have a friend that needs belly bands for her mom's dog, ASAP, and a pair of manly jammies for another dog person. I just can't seem to find many manly prints right now. Or we have different tastes. How manly is a male IG in jammies? You can only go cute, hilarious, and some what tough, but come on, the dog is wearing jammies! Moo, loves his jammies, but he's a sweet clown. He's not tough, nor does he want to act tough. This breed has silly, very loving males. The tough ones are the females with their outgoing personalities.

Playing electrician

We put in lights for our golf cart. Goof had me make a template for the tail lights, and he cut the holes and mounted it all in. I got the wiring job. Next is the battery charge meter. I'm tired. More wiring.