Last summer right after my May vacation, Vicki Boissey & Sharon Stoehr brought a church raffle quilt & this quilt to the cabin intending to use that quilted piece shown here for the backing. While we worked on the other quilt, Vicki decided to enlarge the quilt top to the max & to get a different batting.

Perfectly pieced by Paula McLean, Vicki's Canadian cousin, making quilting this trouble free.

June 01: First brought the quilt top and backing but decided to enlarge the top. She remains in the queue until she & Sharon can come back for another marathon quilt-it-in-a-day adventure.
June 09: Bought new backing
June 14: Planning to return to the cabin with Sharon to help quilt this.
Dec 2012: Never heard any more Vicki or Sharon until now. Had long since dropped them from the active queue. Couldn't commit in December plus the quilt was too large now. Sharon trimmed it down.
Jan 31: Sharon asked to be put back in the queue and the ladies want to come back to the cabin to do this project together.
Feb 13: When Sharon emailed me today, I realized I had forgotten to log this in the queue. So sorry about that. At least I didn't skip over it completely. Whew!
Feb 21: Today is the day but I have no idea when to expect the ladies. Ah ha! 11:00. Vicki wanted hearts of some kind and decided on Wrought Iron for her pattern. 3 PM Lunch! YES! Since when do streets have to always have street signs? This is the rural hills after all. Huh? Only Sharon knows for sure what that is all about. 6 PM. Time flies no matter what! 7:15 PM last roll of the quilt. Oops! Ran out of batting so had to stop and piece in about 6 more inches. King size wasn't quite long enough. 8 PM taking pictures. Soon after the ladies leave in the dark & moderate night.
Feb 22: Last night, the ladies left soon after 8 PM anxious to stay well ahead of the storm they had been talking about throughout the day. I paid that little mind since I was so hot all day & the 40's temp outside was a delightful retreat now & then. I worked on photos and this post thinking the whole time how nice the hot tub outside on the deck would feel. Finished at last, I wrapped up in my terry robe, grabbed something to drink & an extra towel, slipped into my wool slippers I use for just this purpose and headed out. Three feet from the door I realized I was walking on ice! And more was falling! And that tub may as well have been a mile away. IT WAS STILL 40 DEGREES too! So disappointed  I opted for a hot shower instead. A bit of mindless TV & then to bed at the zero hour--a common phrase these days--but it took a hour or so to drift off. Didn't leave my woolen cocoon until 10 this morning. And that's all I have to say about that.

A sneak preview of Terrie's Bandana quilt.

Once again Nancy has been an invaluable help. She mentioned Sgt. Shootes to me back in December & immediately Terrie said YES for him to receive her quilt. He knows about it too. So much fun...and joy.

Jan 19: Terrie and I had some fun tonight tossing around ideas of how to quilt her bandana project. It will be fun to see where we end up.
Jan 22: EQ7 rendition that will probably need modification.
Jan 25: Terrie offered a layout to get things moving.
Jan 26: I devoted the day to trying different layouts. Together Terrie & I are trying to come up with the perfect plan even density that won't take until Easter to longarm. LOL. Seriously!! I will spare you all the process until we get closer to a YES smile from each of us. After a second long day, I just deleted (by accident) my entire folder of quilt layouts.It's okay because I have it memorized by now and have all the pieces saved as patterns. Easy to recreate but not easy to find a YES! design. Ideas welcomed.
Jan 27-28: Still working on an IQ plan.
Jan 29: The quilt top is here. Actually it was at the PO Saturday but couldn't be delivered.
Meanwhile, Nancy Haacke of Wasatch Quilting and Laurie Thomas of It's A Quilt Thing have offered their assistance with patterns for this quilt. Both women are IQ pattern designers. After several very long days, Terrie has decided on the plan she wants. In a very rough cut & paste kludge, it is shown below.
Jan 30: I feel like a plan is slowly emerging.., Yes, we have a plan for sure.
Feb 03: Prepared the quilt for loading (pressing, checking size of batting and backing).
Feb 04: Loaded & basted. Ready to quilt. I will be quilting this rotated counter clock wise 90 degrees. There are several reasons. 1) The borders are on the sides only. 2) The blocks are 16". I never program a panto larger than 15" to be sure it fits. As a quilt is rolled up, it takes up quilting space. Doing this sideways leaves me the maximum amount of quilting space on the third column. 3) The backing has 2 vertical seams. Quilting sideways changes these to horizontal seams which do much better.
Feb 05: This is FUN!!
Feb 06: Quilted and shipped.

Jan 19: Quilt top arrived & photographed
Jan 23: Prepped & loaded.
Jan 24: Basted.
Jan 25: Quilted. The thread and stitching are virtually invisible so I have made some desperate attempts to show it off anyway.
Jan 26: Final pictures. Can't ship until the icy driveway melts.

TJ is a Trivette & that is a good thing. I am friends with several in his family. On many occasions, TJ came along with his dad, Tony, to help out around here with miscellaneous work.

Recently, TJ sold me a car that is perfect for what I wanted. That is when we started talking about what kind of quilt he might like. He designed it himself using posted sports quilts by Joan Taylor as a reference.

Jan 15: Started planning a sports quilt for a friend. He wants Pittsburgh Steelers, Jacksonville Jaguars & Chicago Bulls in one quilt. Believe it or not, we might just succeed at this. Too soon to publish plans. Nice challenge for a change.
Jan 24: TJ has not had an opportunity to look over all the options I have offered him so I am just going to go on and order fabric and make this quilt. I hope he loves it.
Jan 31: I only ordered the backing fabric which came today. Took it to show TJ. He has totally changed his mind about what he wants so back to the drawing board.
Feb 02: Still no feedback from TJ. And I don't dare go ahead because he is particular about what he wants even though he has changed him mind. Not two teams, just one. Steelers. Simple. Not too busy. Use yellow as focal color.
Feb 11: We have a plan & the fabric ordered.
Feb 20: The fabric is here.
Mar 08: Washed and ironed all the fabric. Cut out the blocks. TJ is considering what IQ pattern he wants.
Mar 09: Piecing the top. Regarding IQ pattern: since the front is a football theme & the back is a basketball theme, not sure mixing themes via the IQ pattern is a good idea. Thinking perhaps something generic would work better. Proposed an idea for the quilting that simulates the diamond stars on the logo.
Mar 10: Quilt top is finished--absurdly big for my full size bed. LOL
Mar 11: Did some IQ programming to get some overlays. Piecing the backing while waiting on TJ. It's settled--loose spiral square with double wool batting for very nice warmth. The backing is ready. Will load and quilt tomorrow.
Mar 12: Need to tweak the IQ pattern & press the backing before loading. Turns out I spent a lot of time tweaking before I was satisfied. Determined, I got the quilt loaded & ready for basting.
Mar 13: Basting is tricky with wool batting and even more so with too layers. Glad that is done now! Quilting ...
Mar 14: Still quilting ... and done. Better photos in the morning.
Mar 15: When bringing the quilt into my room to photograph, I discovered a first. I had loaded the backing upside down. This really is not a bad thing for this quilt just unintended.
Mar 22: Made the binding.
Mar 23: Attached the binding.
Mar 24: Hand binding has begun.
Mar 27: Should finish today. FINISHED!
Apr 12: Working 6-7 days a week at the car dealership, TJ finally got his quilt when I drove by yesterday on the way to Greensboro. He saw it several weeks ago here at the cabin on other business and made every second and penny working on it worth it. Thanks TJ for the joy you bring us.