All Done!

I can't believe it, but I have finally finished my first full-sized quilt!

I honestly have no clue how long it has taken me to work on this project.

I started many years ago.

This quilt is special to me and there's a story with it.

My mother-in-law gave me a set of unfinished quilt squares that her mother started.

There were a total of twelve Overall Sam squares.

I put them away thinking that I'll learn to quilt someday.

Haha.

Years went by but I kept thinking about them.

At the time I didn't know anyone that quilted.

So I started researching on how to quilt.

Then I actually started working on the quilt squares themselves.

It was a very slow process at first because I had no clue what I was doing.

Eventually I figured it out.

Sometime in early 2014 I finished the quilt top.

Then I prepped it for hand quilting while I recovered from brain surgery the summer of 2014.

Initially, I had planned on about five months to hand quilt it.

It took much longer.

Partly due to lack of realistic goals and partly due to surgery recovery going better than expected.

I felt so good I went outside instead of quilting. :)

By Christmas of 2014, with the quilt frame taking up a large space in the living room,

I realized I needed to have a more realistic quilting goal.

Even though I recognized this fact, I never made a new goal.

Fast forward to spring of 2015 and I made new goals that were easy to stick to.

I was well on my way to finishing by the end of summer.

My dad turned out to be my biggest cheerleader.

He would ask me almost every day if I had quilted and how far I got.

It was a real encouragement and great accountability.

Then when he was tragically killed that put a standstill on my quilting.

It took me several months to get back to quilting.

I was bound and determined to get this done.

As time drew closer to Christmas 2015, I could see the end in sight.

I worked diligently to finish this during Christmas break.

It's a little hard to read (I need to work on my embroidery skill).

"A Boy and His Dog, made for Nolan, pieced and quilted by Angela Schultz,

Overall Sams pieced by Georgia Bennett, quilt #5, finished January 2016"

I absolutely had to put grandma's name on it.

She started the Overall Sam blocks.

She didn't start quilting until she was in her 60's.

She inspired me to quilt.

When we visited her in Tennessee she would almost always be

sitting in front of the picture window at her quilt frame.

Then she would tell you to pull up a chair and grab a needle.

That is one of my fondest memories of grandma.

(And the quilt frame I used was made by my father-in-law

for grandma to quilt on whenever she visited Indiana.)

It has become my tradition to take my finished quilt project to my in-laws to show them.

My mother-in-law doesn't quilt, but I think she's thrilled that someone else has picked it up.

It measures 70 x 87 inches.

I let Nolan pick the backing fabric.

He wanted some wildlife. 

You may wonder why there are only six of the twelve Overall Sam blocks on the quilt.

I  thought for a long time about it.

I wanted both of our boys to have quilt squares made by their great-grandma.

So I split the set and added the dogs.

Since grandma had such wild fabrics I let the boys pick the material for the dogs.

It adds to the craziness of the quilt.

Part of the reason it took so long to complete Nolan's quilt was

because I worked on the blocks for both quilts.  That's 24 blocks!

This means that all I have to do is add sashing to Connor's and the top will be done.

Before I get to his quilt I have a project I want to do for myself!

I have absolutely enjoyed quilting so far.

It's a fun new hobby.

So that's the story behind Nolan's quilt.

Sidelined

Enjoy this beautiful picture of a sunrise that God painted for us.

I wanted to post pictures of my finished quilt which I had planned on doing this past weekend.

But apparently I needed to medicate with pain killers and antibiotics and hold down the couch.

It all started the week of Christmas with an abscessed tooth.

I had my painful tooth checked out and was told I needed a root canal.

Yippee.

I had one in the spring.

That one was no big deal, painful before hand yes, but no big deal.

Everything was going great with this one until after I had my root canal done last week.

I expected some soreness, that's normal

Even some swelling is not out of the ordinary.

But this seemed out of the ordinary.

I was taking more pain meds with this than when I had brain surgery.

So, after a phone call on Sunday to the awesome endodontist, I have some new antibiotics.

The swelling has gone down and I'm in less pain.

So hopefully I'll be back to "normal" soon.

And I'll be able to finish Nolan's quilt. :)

Mug Rug

This is a rug mug.

Bigger than a coaster but smaller than a placemat.

I'm counting it as my first quilt finish for the year even though it's only 7" x 8 1/2".

It's quilted and it's finished.

That counts in my book.

My goal for making this was to practice a new binding technique.

I wanted to try it out before doing it on Nolan's quilt.

~

It was also the first time I did not use a pattern; I improvised while sewing.
Scary I know but it was fun!

I might have to make more.

The Little Pleasures

Yes, I'm posting more pictures of Connor putting food into his mouth.

This time it's his first hard boiled duck egg.

The good news is he loved it.

The bad news is were down to nine duck eggs.

We're still looking for a place to buy duck eggs from.

It's looking like we'll just have to wait until our new ducks start laying...

and we haven't even ordered them yet!

Quilt Progress

With my limited quilting experience I had no idea how to trim a quilt.

How do you make it square?

Thankfully Pinterest rescued me and I watched several tutorials.

I finally understood how to do it but I lacked the proper large enough tool.

I had made a nice large sashing all around the quilt.

I didn't have anything big enough to span the distance to the outside edge.

I tried lining several smaller rulers side by side but it was still too short.

I finally found what I needed and the price was right and I still had some Christmas money left!

I anxiously awaited its arrival.

It wasn't supposed to be here until Monday.

How surprised I was to find our mail carrier delivering it today!

This is an awesome quilting ruler.

I had the quilt trimmed in less than an hour.

Next phase: making the binding.

I'm getting really close to getting this quilt done.

One Step Closer

On Monday this is all I had left to quilt.

I was determined to get this done while on Christmas break.

A close-up of one of the zillion stars that were quilted.

I didn't like the original location of this one so I moved it.

The white lines will wash out in the first washing.

By Friday I quilted the last star.

I'm so excited to report that I have finished quilting!!

I worked diligently every day to finish this.

I quilted across the entire quilt in five days.

I'll be honest and say that my fingers are a little sore.

But I'm so glad it's done.

This is the only contrasted quilted part.

All of the others blend in as best as I could get it.

This was in honor of our dear old black lab, Rosie.

A close-up of some of the stars.

There's just a few ;)

All I have left to do is square it up (aka trim the excess) and add the binding.

I'm planning on sewing the binding by machine.

It should go fairly quick.

I'm hoping to have the quilt completely finished within a couple of weeks, if not sooner.

I've already disassembled the quilt frame.

I'm so glad to have my living room back!