What a long strange summer it has already been! It hasn't felt much like a break yet, but I am starting to settle into a new summer routine. We drove back from Virginia on Monday. It is about 12-13 hours by car and we are getting pretty good at the drive. When Kurt goes up for work, he will fly, but with all the kids and the supplies we are still taking back and forth, it made more sense to drive.
With the new job, I am working this summer, but it is a minimal amount. I have two mornings a week scheduled in the office during June and then I'll bump it up to three mornings a week during July. So far I am doing most of the normal summer work that I would have done on my own. What a nice change to pace to have them offering to pay me to do work. That isn't something that often comes up for teachers. In addition to college advising, I am also still handling gifted, homeroom and new teachers. This week I started on the gifted curriculum and paperwork planning. Next week I will jump into the homeroom lessons.
That still leaves plenty of time for quilting though. First up is to start working through the list of three t-shirt quilts that I am supposed to do this summer. With so many requests piled up, I decided to invest in a heat press. It makes quick work of getting the stabilizer attached to the shirts which is always the longest and most tedious part.
The first quilt is a full size quilt for a wedding in July. So much bigger than I usually make t-shirt quilts, but with the new press I had all of these shirts ironed and cut in not much more than a day! There is still one more row that doesn't fit on the design wall, but you get the idea. She is a fan of purple and lilac, so I tried out three shades. So far I am liking the lightest one best. Not sure if I will go with cornerstones or not. I prefer them for sewing the rows together, but it adds more color to an already busy collection of blocks.
How are your blues coming along? Clearly I am not quite there yet, but Anna has moved her things out of the sewing room again, so I can get things set up again soon. This should have been the last time that she came home again to stay. She is going straight from her summer job to her new grad school apartment in the fall. I will shift the sewing studio into Sydney's room when she goes off to the University of Florida at the end of August which will leave us two extra rooms for whoever is home to visit. That is the working plan in any case. Things seem to change quickly around here.
8 comments:
It does sound like the heat press will be handy for your t-shirt blocks! Cutting the sections and ironing on the stabilizer is always the hardest part. Good luck with your new job! Sounds like you're already off to a good start.
Tshirt quilts are a lot of work. The press looks like a good time saver. How about the lilac for the sashing and a mid range purple for the cornerstones?
The blocks for the T-shirt weeding quilt is looking pretty good.
It looks like you've acquired the perfect equipment to help with this.
I like seeing that heat press in action!
and wow!! you will be busy in all directions!!!
I have green finished now... haha!!! Blues will come soon
Such a busy summer will go by in a flash won't it? I'll be handing over my courses next week to a new online teacher. Yay!! This will be my second attempt to retire from teaching. And just in time as my hours are picking up again with a new project for my other part-time job.
I'm always amazed at how much you get done, even with all the "distractions" of your busy life! The T shirt quilt will be a beautiful memory for the bride and groom.
Congrats on the new heat press, Angela! Which one did you go with? I was SEW happy to have mine for the last two T-Quilts that I finished! There's another one coming up on the horizon and more after that one, too. That tool has already paid for itself in time saved!
For the t-shirt quilt, how about using one of the darker lilacs as cornerstones? the contrast will be subtle, so they won't stand out, but they'll make the block joining easily to handle.
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