String Challenge and More

Well if you read the title you would believe this post to be about the String Challenge and More.  Well…there’s not much string challenge in this post but there’s lots of “more”.  I haven’t sewn much this week.  Life has been SUPER busy with lots of getting things together around here.  With that excuse you would think I’m ready for the quilt retreat on Wednesday.  Well nope, I’m not at all.  I haven’t packed a stitch.  Well Kelli did call me and ask me to bring something so I put it in a pile hoping I’d remember it.  We’ll see.

So what kept me busy this week…First off I’ve been writing blog posts.  If I’m gonna “quilt ’til I wilt” at the retreat I need some blog posts written ahead.  I don’t want any of you to think something happened to me!!  Second, about Thursday or so I got an email for a magazine reminding me that the quilt we submitted to them was due August 1st.  UGH.  I completely forgot about it.  We were behind so Connie agreed to sew the top for us and got it to us in time BUT, I forgot to quilt it.  UGH.  Then they sent a long request form of things to send with the quilt.  Double Ugh.  I sent that list off to Kelli with a big “HELP” in the message.  Then I looked at the quilt machine and UGH again.  I had a charity loaded into the machine.  That needed to be done first before the publication quilt.  SO…Friday night I quilted it.

Saturday was busy….Craig and Kalissa came over in the late afternoon and we ended up going out for supper.

Sunday after a trip to Harmony to our antique booth I finally put all my effort into the quilt.  That morning I had tried to put a backing together.  I grabbed the bag of fabric from the fabric company and started rummaging.  I didn’t see a backing.  Hmm.  I thought we asked for one…maybe they didn’t sent it.  I looked and looked.  I could find nothing except this.

Darn.  One said outer border.  Were we really going to put that on?  With my time crunch…I think not.

Well being I couldn’t find the backing (if there ever was a backing) I started to rummage through my fabric.  This is the best I could come up with….I didn’t love either.  I measured out.  There wasn’t enough of the top piece so I opted for the navy piece.  But darn.  That’s my favorite fabric in ever.  I use it for binding ALL THE TIME.  I didn’t want to waste it on a backing.

Then I looked up from the machine and saw this….I had already picked it for backing a different quilt.

Not perfect but better.

I decided to worry about that quilt later and seamed this fabric together to make a backing for my current “crisis” quilt.

I loaded it on the machine and went off to Harmony vowing to finish it when I got home.

Harmony took longer than expected because on the way home I got an idea and Kalissa was an “enabler” so off we went.  (I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.  As is it’s 10pm and Hubby already told me to quit working and get to bed once.)

I got home and Hubby made supper. (I love him) Then off I went to the sewing room.  Oh my.  I can do this.  I can get this quilt in the mail by Wednesday.  (Technically is suppose to BE THERE by August 1st buty oh well-it’s the best I can do at this point)

I had the backing and the batting loaded.  I grabbed the quilt top and WHAT???????????  The top was too wide.  What had I done???  It was already loaded.  I was already behind.  I had to unload the backing, fix the backing and then start again.  Thankfully I had more fabric.  So I unloaded it.  I laid the top across the machine.  I laid the backing on top of it to see how much more fabric I needed to add to the backing.  WHAT???????  Now it was the right size.  What was going on here?

I had thought I designed it to be square.  UGH.  It wasn’t square.  The border is “different” and because of that it’s not quite square.  Oh  *******?!?!?!  The backing was fine.  I put the quilt top on the wrong direction.  Oh my word.  Could anything else go wrong?  All I would have needed to do was re orientate the top.  AHHH>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I got it all reloaded…grumbling the whole time reminding myself that I hate deadlines and this is why we make the quilts first now days and then submit them….Oh why, oh why?

So I was going again and got the whole thing quilted and I listened to a great audio book while I did it.  I was back in a good mood.  Then I came downstairs to the weekend mess.  I was scrambling again.  I had wanted to bind the quilt in the morning but nope.  I have to be downstairs early and try to get the house cleaned up before childcare….(which I have two BUSY days as being I have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off for the quilt retreat, all my part time parents switched their schedules around to come on Monday and Tuesday.)

So about 10 minutes ago is when I realized I needed to write this blog post…so here it is!!  That’s also when I realized I had not a thing to write about for the actual string challenge….

Now remember about how I was I mentioned Kalissa was an “enabler”. Tomorrow I tell you where we went and what distracted us. I think you’re going to LOVE it!!  It was definitely worth the “behind feeling” I have now.

…and Hubby just told me yet again to get to bed so…blame all the misspellings and grammatical errors on him (this time) because I’m (for once) listening to him. It’s going to be a crazy week!! I need to get to bed.  Did I tell you I haven’t a single thing packed for the retreat? Thank goodness Connie sent me a packing list!! She knows me so well.  Goodnight…or as you are reading this.  Good Morning!!!!!