Making Memories... and a little Quilting too...

Yesterday I posted about spending time with my father and making memories with him… Well, on Father’s Day my boys took me Golfing at a pretty nice course.  I am not a golfer.  Josh is pretty good, and Jonathon is getting better all the time.  Jonathon beat me by two strokes that day, and Josh beat us by almost 30 I think.

Last night while perusing through my phone’s pictures, I found these and immediately began remembering our day… I had two shots worthy of remembering that day...

My first incredible shot happened on the second hole.  I was about 160 yards from the green with a tall tree about 30 yards in front of me, another tree about 20 yards beyond that, with only a small window between the two.  I pulled out a 3 iron and swung hard trying to just bust through the first tree…  This was my 3^rd shot on a par 4.

There's my Ball, and the trees I had to hit through...

And that's my ball!  The closer one.  Right THERE!
All I had to do to PAR the hole is tap the ball three
inches and put it in that hole... But I missed.
As pitiful as it is, I missed.  So I bogeyed
the hole.  It was my best hole of the day...

I documented my first incredible shot, the second is permanently and forever etched in my mind’s eye and Joshua’s as well.  On the second one, I was about 210 yards from the green in DEEP rough with about 150 yards of water between me and an 80 foot tall tree that stood directly between me and the green.  I laughed and told Josh to go up on the ridge so he could see my ball land on the green.  He laughed back and told me I was crazy to even try.  “IF you get over that tree, you will completely overshoot the green”, he insisted.  I said, “Nope, I’m going to whack it as hard as I can with my 5 wood and it will go the distance with so much back spin it will get over the tree and drop right onto the green.”  SO I took out my 5 wood and I whacked it.  It went straight as an arrow directly up, barely cleared the tree, and about 2 seconds later, I heard, THUMP, followed by Josh screaming “NO FREAKING WAY!!  NO WAY!!”  Yup, I hit the green.  Landed it about 8 feet from the cup.  (Of course that was my sixth shot on a par 4, and then I three putted for a whopping 9, but it was still the best shot of the day!!  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of that one!)

That was a FUN day, and as we were finishing up (ie after my boys had kicked my butt on the golf course) they decided this needed to be our Father’s day tradition…  I don’t care if I suck on the golf course, if my boys want golfing on Father’s day to be our tradition, so be it.  I’d rather have a tradition of spending time together on the golf course, getting beaten by my sons, than memories of opening ties year after year.

Speaking of Memory, I think mine is failing.  As some of you know, I started quilting when I quilted a t-shirt memory quilt for Josh’s High School Graduation last year.  That quilt turned into four quilts.  That’s a long story, but as I was sorting through some stuff in the garage, I came across three of them.  I had pieced all four before his graduation, quilted two of them but had apparently only bound one of them.  I had promised him that I would quilt the other two tops after I had more practice and could do a better job, but I had completely forgotten about them.  SO I bound the one that was quilted but not bound last weekend.  And the other two are now on the top of my "To Be Quilted" pile.

I have posted many photos of Frappe’ “helping me quilt”.  She is Jonathon’s kitten and she LOVES to play in the quilts, fabrics, threads, etc.  Josh’s cats however, NEVER come play in the quilting.  So, I had Josh’s quilt up on the ironing board, and all of a sudden the quilt gets yanked out of my hand and down onto the floor.  I suspected Frappe’, but found Espresso AND Mocha, Josh’s cats. 

Mocha, who NEVER plays in the quilts...

And Espresso, who wants to claim she still NEVER plays in the quilts...

When I started to take this photo they were all three there, rolling on it!

They were rolling around, burying their faces in the quilt… It was kind of funny.  And then it struck me, they KNEW this was Josh’s quilt.  They hung around and played with it, tugged at it, etc. until I was done working on it.  After I bound it, I tossed it into the washing machine and started working on something else, and they were gone.  Frappe’ showed up a few more times, but Mocha and Espresso were done as soon as Josh’s quilt was no longer in the room!

How weird is that.  Those t-shirts haven't been worn by Josh in well over a year, some of them long before that.  I wonder if they actually smelled Josh on them, or if they just "recognized" it, it looks just like the first one!

And then I also ran across this group of pieces…

Some of you may have recognized these.  These are some pieces from Bonnie Hunter’s Roll, Roll, Cotton Bowl (RRCB) Mystery Quilt from last fall.  While doing this quilt, working frantically to keep up with Bonnie, I cut off the tip of my middle finger and I had to back burner the project until I had healed.  (DISCLAIMER:  I am in no way implicating Bonnie in the cutting off of any body parts... That was completely my own doing!)

Once I was ready to start quilting again, I had other quilts I needed to work on so this went into a project box, and was forgotten about.  Until last night.  While I like the RRCB as designed by Bonnie, I am only about 35% done, and I have decided to be honest with myself and acknowledge that it will be a while, if ever, before I pick it up again.  (There is just something about actually doing it along with everyone else that is motivating, not to mention it is no longer a mystery!)  So, I have decided to use the pieces that I already have pieced (and maybe add a few more) and create a new design that will enable me to use what I have quickly.

I didn't really try to match the colors in my drawing program, I am just trying to get a conceptual idea of what I can co.  So here are two of my favorite ideas that I have come up with…  The square will finish at about 42x42 (and leave me with a lot of pink, green, pink rectangles), the rectangle will finish at about 36x63 (and require me to make a few more string squares...)

The Square

The Rectangle

Leave a comment and tell me which design you like better…

Maybe next time Bonnie does a Mystery quilt I'll be able to keep up, that's a big Maybe, she is FAST!!

Until Next Time,

Paul

My kid trumped Quilting Thursday night...

Some of you may remember Jonathon from my post last week from the finalization of his quilt.  Well, he is a soccer player, a pretty darn good one at that.  He, along with 20 other players, was chosen to represent his age group (14 Year Old Boys) for our state association's Olympic Development Program.  Over 200 kids start each fall, and after several cuts, 21 are chosen to be on the State ODP team.  Jonathon has been on that team for three years running now.  Needless to say, I am a very proud Dad.

Tomorrow, Ohio, and 7 other states will send their teams to Kansas, and they will train for a week with 140 of the best players in the midwest.  Jonathon will be trained by some of the best coaches in the country.  He LOVES this camp.  He will play and train for about 10 hours every day, he will be exhausted when he comes home, and he will talk for days about the things he learned and the experiences he had.

Tonight he had to pack.  So, I resigned myself to no quilting tonight so I could help he and my wife pack up all of the things he needs.  Then it happened.  "Dad, Mom bought me a bunch of new socks.  Would you sew some bright colored thread onto them?"  (The boys are required to mark everything they bring, and two years ago I started sewing some bright colored thread into the sock on the foot where it won't be seen while wearing the sock, but if the boys all toss their socks into a pile, he'll be able to identify his.)

So I got to sew!!  And when Betsy comes out, so does my camera.  So, here are some photos of my Thursday sewing evening!

I just slid on a sock...

Rana wide zig zag forward about an inch, and then back again...

And now Jonathon will know which socks are his...

 My father is also in town, so I'll be spending some time with him this weekend.  So this may be all the sewing I do... We'll see.

Until Next Time,
Paul

Long Arm Saturday!!

Well, today I spent the day at my LQS (QuiltTrends) using their HQ Fusion Long Arm.  I always enjoy quilting at QuiltTrends, the ladies there are so friendly and helpful.  David and Rhonda, if you read this, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your help.

I was having trouble with some thread breakage and they helped me until I was no longer having trouble with it.  David (Shop Owner) even went and found a new thread holder to change the position of the thread which helped reduce friction, and while it was better, I was still having thread breakage.  Rhonda suggested another means of friction reduction and her method worked!  I went the rest of the afternoon with no thread breakage.

Before going onto the long arm I had to put the quilts on leaders.  I have my leader centers marked... Notice anything wrong in this picture?

Leaders NOT centered... I still don't know what I was thinking.
Actual center is that fold on the left... I was more than 3 inches off!!

I marked my center on the quilt back, but then when I went to put the leader on, I completely ignored my mark!  What was I thinking!??  Well, I wasn't about to undo all those pins to make the quilt center and the leader center match, so I grabbed my water soluble pen, and I marked a new center on my leader...  It worked well, and saved ma at least 30 minutes.

So at the shop, I started with Jonathon's quilt.I used a fun colored thread on top and black on the bottom.

Then I quilted the Stars and Stripes quilt for my boss.

Mission Accomplished... Fully quilted, but from a distance the
quilting is not visible, allowing the pattern to fully take center stage.

Next step.  Binding.  Have I mentioned that I HATE binding.  It is BY FAR my least favorite part of each project.

Oh Yeah, one more thing that I have to share...  When taking the Stars and Stripes quilt off of the long arm, I failed to cut my bottom thread!  I pulled the quilt off the frame, and I walked to the back of the store where I could toss it on the large tables and fold it... It was then that I found thread still attached to the sewing machine over 50 feet away!  It wound through aisles, around an FQ table and around a sewing machine.  Rhonda exclaimed, "Paul, it is never a dull place when you are in the store..."  (I'll take that as a compliment...)

I only took this one photo, but trust me, I am at the
back of the store taking this photo, and this thread
runs all through the store....

More next week.  I'll get some good photos of both quilts after they are bound and washed.

Until Next Time,
Paul

Thursday's Quilting Night # 9

Well, after a one week hiatus, I got back to Thursday Quilt Night.  The weather tried to rob me of my joy, but it did not succeed...  You see, here in Central Ohio it has been raining almost constantly for the past three weeks.  My lawn had grown to a rather ugly length, but I couldn't cut it because it has been so wet.  But today, the sky was painted a beautiful light blue with scattered puffy clouds and that orb that shines and warms us was visible all day.  So, as soon as I got home I mowed the lawn.

It looks so much better now...

Then I finally got to sewing.  I was so excited to actually break out the sewing machine that I forgot to take many pictures, but here is what I worked on tonight...  This is Jonathon's quilt.  Jonathon is my 14 year old, and he picked out all of the fabrics used in this quilt.  We talked a little and he showed me quilts he liked and I designed this based on his likes and dislikes...

Jonathon's Quilt Center Row Missing
Do you see my mistake?

I

It is ironic that I was just emailing with Melissa Corry from Happy Quilting about making mistakes and having to rip out stitches, so tonight as I began to feel a little tired and thought about quitting... I pushed aside the thought and pressed on because I wanted to finish.  Not five minutes later, I did it.  I sewed a section on the wrong end and upside down...

I decided to quit for the night.  I don't want to make anymore mistakes... One seam to rip isn't too big a deal, but I'd rather stop while I'm ahead.  I'll fix it tomorrow.  Right now, I need to listen to that voice and go to bed!  (But of course, I must blog first!)

See the bottom row?  Over there on the left with the black stripe on top?
Those two blocks are supposed to be on the right side with
the black stripe on the bottom.

That is the top half, Below is the bottom half.  The middle is going to be different, it is going to have three blocks instead of five...

I don't know why this got rotated... It is horizontal on my PC...
I would welcome any advice on how to fix this!

Over there on the right hand side bar is a link to AnneMarie's Japanese Fabric Swap.  I received my fabric today... I still need to cut it up, but that will happen tomorrow when I am a little more "with it"!!

I ordered two yards of this fabric.  I only need one for the swap, and I intend to use some of it to make an iPad cover for a friend of ours.

Until Next Time, or maybe sooner...
Paul