Stocking Woes and a Good Finish

I was making excellent progress on Bigger Bit's Stocking. Doesn't it look great!!

Until, I noticed I was off by two lousy stitches. 

Do you see that H at the end, hanging pass the line under it.  

Maybe the picture below will help you see my problem.  

I started my solid line at the edge of the flower below it and not from the base of the pot.  See red lines on the sides.  Because I started the solid line wrong, I started the letters wrong.  

Ask me if I am a happy camper.  

Un-stitching is in my future.  The gold line also has two different colors of gold in it.  GRrrrrrr

I hate making mistakes.  

The good news is....

I finished my friend's quilt and she really likes it!!

Here it is all finished.  Do you see Little Bit's foot hanging out.  Kids and a draped item and they have to get under it.  Notice the lump on the right?  That is Bigger Bit sitting under the quilt. 

Close up of the binding,  

My favorite T-Shirt.  Fun project and I am glad I am using my frame again.  I don't think I could build a business quilting for others it is too stressful.  An occasional friend is fine. 

Happy Stitching!!!

Another Setting for Blue Work & Dutch Treat

Setting #2

Well I have been thinking on this on & off all day.  This is another setting I thought of a couple of years ago for the Dutch Treat blocks.  I had to redraw the block because some how I had lost the original file.  I did rearrange the blocks a little and I like this setting so far.  It also means I would do less Dutch Treat blocks.

I copied the idea from the quilt on the cover of the book The Art of Machine Piecing by Sally Collins.



Setting #3

Here is a variation of the setting!

I Amazed Myself...

...with the dumb thing I did. I just had to ask myself what was I thinking and the only answer I can come up with is I wasn't. I went to one of my favorite quilt shops, Cutting Edge Quilt Works to purchase the backing for my Dear Jane Christmas Swap Quilt. Of course I took the quilt with me to show off. I found some backing I liked and it was even extra wide backing fabric. I was so excited I won't have to piece the back and I'll have some left over for a small project. So instead of pulling out my piece of paper with the finished quilt dimensions on it. I laid my quilt top on top of the fabric and cut a width about 6 inches wider. I thought that was easy, I cut my fabric, paid for it and went home. Once home I added two more borders to my quilt top. Do you see the problem now?
So today when I did my very scientific measurements. I held the backing up to the quilt top to see how much bigger it was you can imagine my surprise when I realized it was smaller. I measured the quilt top and the backing which was smaller than the quilt by an inch. You guessed it I ended up piecing the back.
It gets better. I loaded the backing on to the frame and I went to find batting, I could have sworn I had some batting here big enough to use for this quilt. Nope I don't. I could piece some but I'm not big into piecing backing. I might try it another day but not today. With what I had here it would have had two seams in it or one long seam right close to the border seam on the quilt. Neither of those options seemed like a good idea, especially considering my luck so far today I decided against it.
I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world that has done that, but I might be the only one mentioning it on her blog and admitting it. Not one of my brighter moments in my quilting career. I would never let a student do that. Oh well, just a small delay. It is now just waiting on the frame to be loaded tomorrow.



So I took a nap instead. After dinner I did sandwich and start quilting the applique horse for my daughter in law, it's her Christmas gift. I finished all the stitch in the ditch around the borders. I know I'm going to do some meandering in the center and on the outer border but not sure what else I'll do in the pieced border.

Well I guess I better head to bed, of course with that hour nap this afternoon, I'm not sleepy now but boy was I earlier.

Well take care and if I don't drop in again before Thanksgiving have a great one.

Someone Please Shoot me...

...and put me out of my misery. OK I know that sounds a bit like a drama queen type of a statement. But let me tell you why I feel that way. I finished cross stitching the main outline area of the big flower on my cross stitch design I'm doing for my friend in FL, that I'm going to see on May 5th. I looked at the design key to see what color I needed next and flip over to the color picture and what did I see? You guessed it. I used the wrong color!
Now to be honest I vaguely remember having a thought, that it was strange to have a brown flower, but this was a modern color scheme, so I guessed I pushed it from my mind. Why didn't I listen? Why didn't I look at my colored picture? I have no idea.
So now what, cut it all out or buy another piece of fabric?
The fabric is a bright slime green, the color is off in the photo.