Where's Millie?

Everyone has asked me if my new APQS Millennium has arrived yet.  NO… darn it.  It was shipped out on either Friday or Tuesday (Monday being a holiday) but I’m not sure which.  Since I haven’t received any tracking information yet, I’m guessing it went out yesterday.

I won’t be able to set it up anyway until the third week in March, as I have to wait for my buyer to pickup the HQ16 first.  She’s coming on the 7th, but that’s a Sunday so unless I want to try and set the frame up on my own, I’ll have to wait another week for Jim to be off.

But that’s okay, I have tons to do!  I’ve about finished the new pages for the website, with my pricing information and quilt preparation, etc.  I’ve ordered a bit more thread, and will order several rolls of batting (Quilters Dream, my favorite) to have on hand.  I plan to stock QD Dream Wool, Dream Cotton (Deluxe), Dream Puff, and Dream Blend on rolls instead of packaged batting, so I can sell to my customers only the amount they need.

The “Quilts for Kids” I finished were quilted on the HQ16.  Today I am cutting out the fabrics for a Thimbleberries Quilt I made my parents a couple of years ago, called “Town Square”.  I love this quilt and want one of my own!  I’d like to have a few tops to play with right away when the Millennium arrives (after I do some practicing on an old sheet)!

I’m going to make up some small quilt samples with my favorite pantographs on them, to show customers.  I might do some custom quilting, but I think my preference will be edge to edge quilting.

A little progress!

No finishes to report, as I still have to quilt and bind both of these, but the Schnibbles Picnic top is done, and this morning I whipped out the first of the “Quilts for Kids” tops.

I made a mistake on the Schnibbles top.  After piecing the borders and adding the first one, I realized that there was supposed to be corner blocks instead of having all the borders sliced and diced and meeting willy nilly at the ends… but by then I was so ready to be finished with this little quilt that I decided to ignore my mistake and continue on!

I’m just going to hang this one in the garage over the fuse box anyway, so no big deal.  The colors don’t go with anything in my house, and my garage quilting area looks pretty sad, so a bit of cheeriness will help.

Now for the loud quilt… I thought it would make me crazy to work on this, as I do not like bright colors, but it was fun!  They do not include any binding for these, but the backing is supplied, and the instructions suggest either “pillow casing” the quilt, or folding over the backing to bind it.  Amazingly, I happen to have a half yard of blue fabric in my stash that matches the blues in the cars, leftover from when I made Lexi’s quilt to use for binding.

I’ll dig through my stash today and see what I can come up with to make a second one of these.  I think this is a terrific cause, and I will be doing a lot of these!

Update on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 2:15PM by Created by CJ

I finished my second “Quilt for Kids” top this afternoon.  I had enough fabric leftover from the donation dress I made to use as the large blocks and the backing for another quilt, and I filled it in with a few other fabrics from my stash.

This fabric probably made a better dress than it did a quilt, but it’s not too bad.

I’ll get these quilted up this week and shipped out.