Back from a very productive vacation

I've been on vacation for the last 5 days.  I left with a heavy heart believing that I was going to miss the deadline I had committed to for H2H.  I have 2 completed quilts due by June 2.  I had the tops done when I left but no time to get the quilting done.

We have a retirement home in Florida, since we're not ready to retire yet we have not done much in the way of furnishing.  Currently we have blow up beds, blow up chairs, blow up love seats and a patio set doing service as a kitchen table and chairs.  Oh yeah, we have tall chairs for sitting at the kitchen counter.

What we do have is plenty of floor space.  But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

I packed the 2 tops, who knew what kind of time I would find to do my thing.  For Valentines day MJ offered to get me a sewing machine just for the house in Florida.  He pulled up machines on Amazon and said pick one.  No fool am I, I picked a small Brothers with 72 or so built in stitches and several feet and best of all it was light weight.  While I was at it I ordered a Fiskars  Mat, ruler and rotatory cutter, some aurifil thread and a couple of pair of scissors.  No time like the present to see if the toys would work.

We landed on Friday and Saturday morning I was at Joanns getting batting and then Target to get a sheet set for backing.

Now over the years I have envied all of you who sandwich quilts on the floor.  I have never had a floor to do that on. In Florida I have lots of empty tile floor.  It worked out wonderfully until I tried to get up. I couldn't walk right or sit down properly for 3 days.  But I did sandwich both tops.

Next challenge was where to use the sewing machine.  Remember I don't have a real table.

I quilted the first top at the table on the right,  The chair was way to low to work from but I already hurt all over so I just plowed through what was a little more pain in my neck and shoulders. Top 2 needed to be worked at a better angle.  So I planted the machine on the raised counter but the foot pedal didn't make it to the floor. 

One thing we have plenty of is boxes, so I dragged one in and made great use of it. I know that you are supposed to wear your shoes when sewing but I didn't want to muck up the new walls. Electrocution or a dirty wall.  Priorities!

Got this top quilted too.  The only disappointing part of the whole thing was lack of access to my stash.  I ended up using the left over backing for the binding.  It looks fine if just a little boring.

I started hand sewing down the binding on the first quilt last night before bed.  Before putting it away I threaded a bunch of needles  and on the flight home I finished the entire thing.  

When I was young I used to commute into the city and was always amazed at the way people could read the news paper without bothering the person sitting next to them. It was all in how it was folded.  I managed to fold the quilt into a square approximately 18 x 18 and then just kept refolding. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

So here is quilt number 1 completed.  Tonight I will start to hand sew the binding on quilt 2.  I see it being done in plenty of time to beat the deal line.  Big Whoop for me. and especially the H2H project.