How the Sewcation went . . .

I think I am slowly recovering from my sewcation! It was lots of fun and lots of  WORK!!!!

Sister Diane and I had very specific plans and specific projects to work on.  The first was the party slippers pattern out of Christmas fabric for the HoHoHo blog hop. Cute pattern, but it wasn't until slipper #3 that I figured out the best way to make them! (See previous post for photos).

Diane and I had planned to complete a quilt made out of the Jason Yenter - Winter Wonderland fabric we purchased for our online store (In the Beginning Fabrics).  The name of the online store is CadiCorners.  (More on that later).

On Monday evening, I started cutting it out. We had decided to do a triple Irish Chain pattern. Of course, being the gals we are, we couldn't use a pattern with the math already done, Nooooo! We had to  change it up and go through the (hassle) of figuring out the master block size with all the other sizes involved! Trust me, it is so much smarter to use a standard size quilt block. Cutting fabric at 10pm and continuing on into the wee hours of the next day is NOT smart when you have to cut 1 3/4" strips. It would have been so much easier if they were 1 1/2" or 2" strips!

Having the strips for block A all cut out, we finally decided to call it a day (night) and head to bed. Early on Tuesday morning, I started sewing. I sewed, and sewed, and sewed and (well, you get the picture!)

Here's what things looked like:

 

I sewed the strip sets together, then cut those into 1 3/4" strips. There are 7 fabrics in a strip, 7 strips in a block.  Notice I had containers with the sewn together strip sets. They were labeled

A, B, C, and D.

 

There are a total of 32 blocks of the above combination.

 

 

Block B has a total of 31. I don't have a photo of those in progress but here's a close up of one taken after the whole quilt was quilted:

 



Diane and I took the completed quilt top to the local Gammil Dealer up in St. Albans. Both my sister and I have had long arming classes but this was a first using a Statler. This machine is computerized and we chose two different snowflake patterns for the two different blocks.
Here is a photo of putting the quilt on the frame:

Here's a photo of the screen up on the wall. This is how we were able to lay out what the machine would do for us:

This is Julie (with her back to us in the photo). She and her husband run Cowles Sewing and Quilting up in St. Albans. Julie was wonderful and worked with us to help us get this quilt totally quilted on Saturday. Diane is in the photo too! She was pretty pooped when it was done! I was there to help put the quilt on the frame, get started with choosing the snowflake patterns, run through setting up the first two rows to be quilted, and then I took Mom back to Diane's house.  I returned a couple of hours later to find Diane almost done! She had two final rows to set up and quilt, then we had to turn the quilt on the frame to quilt the remaining two borders.  This took from 10am until just after 6pm to do. Basically, Diane and I were taught how to use this machine.

So, here are the photos that I have of the quilt. I left Vermont to go home to Phoenix on Sunday, August 11th. On Sunday evening, my sister had completed the quilt -She sewed the binding on. I do not have a photo of the completed quilt - but this will give you an idea of what it looks like:

 

Diane made a gorgeous Christmas tree skirt - she just needs to get it quilted and photographed. Then I will post that!
I will be working on a Christmas stocking here at home.
Well, so long for now!