Showing posts with label FLL. Show all posts

Customer Quilts & FLL

I've had a busy few weeks.  I've been working on a few customer quilts and we had the FLL State tourney over the weekend.

 All in all, things came out pretty well.

 Here is Annie's quilt.  This one was quite large and she chose an orange peel design for it.
I just love the backing fabric she used. (Note to self--buy some.  And travel more.)
Next up was Denise's quilt.  She chose custom quilting on this one and it is a really special quilt.  Pressure on!  :)  I spent around 24 hours working on this one and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.




I finished it Thursday morning. Here's all the different stuff I used while quilting--four different long arm rulers, a regular ruler, seam ripper, tweezers, marking utensils, scissors, needle to bury tails, glasses, spray bottle with water, and the plan I drew out with markings and measurements, which ended up being a huge help to keep myself on track.
Friday night we had our guild Christmas party and then Saturday was the big day--our last-ever FLL State tournament.  We left the house at 6:30 a.m. and got home after 9:30 p.m.  We ended up taking first place in robot performance.  That means we got the highest robot score of the 24 teams competing.  You get three tries at the robot and only the top score counts.  My son and his robot partner went in to the last round knowing we needed a perfect run to clinch the title.  And we got it.  I think it was the most satisfying robot run we've ever had.  Those two work beautifully together, such smooth transitions, and even completing all the runs with time to spare. They made it look effortless.
We placed second overall, which has led the boys (a group of seven that are fine people) to dub themselves the B team.  We seem to always finish second, year over year.  I remind them every time that we do it with integrity, because most of the time the team that gets grand champion at the state level and gets to move on has a high level of parental involvement in designing and programming the robot.  The kids and the other teams all know, but somehow those particular teams always manage to fool the judges.  I guess that's life, but it's always disheartening to me to see that some of the other teams' parents care more about the win than honor, good sportsmanship, etc.  I feel sorry for those kids that their parents don't have more faith in them.  Which is why our boys winning first in robot, knowing they did every bit of it, makes it so good.  
So.  Next year it's on to the next stage of robot, FTC.  And I am hanging up my coaching hat (three years directly involved, six total years we've been doing this) because there isn't a project or Core Values at the next level, so I am of zero help.  I have absolutely no mechanical or programming ability.  In fact, I only learned how to run the FLL robot (which button to push to make it move after it's been programmed) about a month ago.  And then I promptly pushed the wrong button and made it malfunction.  Oops!

 I have a ton of things I need to get done that I've let slide over the past six weeks.  I'm still on step one of the Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I'm not done with Christmas shopping, haven't wrapped anything, and the house is a wreck.  I did do some cleaning yesterday and need to finish up with the floors today, but there's clutter everywhere.  And until we finish the rest of the basement, there will continue to be clutter everywhere.

 Here's the room with the carpet installed.  The guy damaged the trim in a few places, so that room is now in limbo while we try to resolve it with the installation company.
I can't remember if I mentioned before that we need to replace all our windows because they are defective. We replaced the two in the newly finished room over the summer, but all the upstairs ones need to be exchanged too. The first group of those is in, so the upstairs will be torn up more as we need to remove all the trim on the inside and the siding on the outside in order to replace them.  

 I did work on these the other day.  Just a bit of hand sewing and they'll be finished.  They've been in the UFO pile for several years.
Here's hoping for a bit of sewing time before the holidays.  May you have a peaceful holiday season.

 Linking with For the love of geese and From Bolt to Beauty.
Posted by at 1 comment
Labels: , , , ,

On My Table

I've been pretty busy this past week.  While I haven't made much progress on the technical side of things, I have actually done some quilting and sewing.  And it feels good.

 I made a Kristine ID wallet (pattern by Uniquely Michelle) for my daughter.  She chose the fabrics.  
I was happy to have this coordinating zipper laying around.  I didn't even
feel bad when I threw away most of it after cutting it down to the right size.
I didn't do so well with fabric placement here!  LOL
I made one of these for myself a few years ago.  Read all about it here!

 I quilted another charity quilt for my guild.  The fabrics in the quilt are by Sweetwater for Moda.  I chose to use the Starry pantograph to quilt it.  And I have happily passed it off to another guild member for binding.
I'm working on a secret project.  Here's a weird, grainy sneak peek.
I'm also hoping to get to my son's NASA quilt this week.
I've mentioned in passing that I'm working on taking photos of my quilts.  I'm still struggling to find the perfect lighting and styling.  I thought it would help if I had a quilt ladder.  I beseeched my husband to make one over the weekend.  I chose mahogany because Menards does not stock walnut.  Here are a few photos of it.  
Determining layout.

I really was hoping to do a finished quilt picture of this quilt for this week. And wouldn't you know it, we've had overcast, rainy weather the last few days.  Not complaining though, because we desperately need the rain.  So, here's another little shot of it.
The coolapeno/jalapeño plant is still going strong in the garden.
We have started our sixth, and I think final, FLL season.  My kids are also taking an eight-week Intro to Fencing course.  Add in SAT prep, trig/pre-calc, just general schoolwork and activity stuff, etc., it's been busy.  I must comment here that although I have a degree in Mathematics and I used to teach math before children, I can't remember how to do most things past Algebra without looking them up.  😞  Oh, I'm also learning EQ8 and made a very basic quilt layout with imported fabrics yesterday.  Feeling accomplished!

 I am accepting bookings for quilting right now.  Turn around is under two weeks.  Book services and sign up for my monthly newsletter at www.quiltingbyanne-marie.com.

 Linking with For the love of geese.


Posted by at 2 comments
Labels: , , , , ,

Current Status

Here is the pile of things I need to work on.
I have a sick child on her way home from school.  I imagine nothing much is going to get done over the next few days while I freak out.

 We won a Research Award for our project at our state FLL competition over the weekend and placed fifth of 23 teams in robot runs.
On the way home, we were on the phone with my mom when I heard a noise.  I asked my husband what it was and he said it was the wiper.  It flew right off the arm.  Luckily we were able to stop at the one town between the competition location and home and buy a replacement after 9 pm.  The sad thing is, we just replaced that wiper this summer when it came loose while driving.

 The next morning we got in the car to run errands and discovered we had a flat tire!

 In other sewing news, I'm sad that Amanda of crazy mom quilts is discontinuing her blog at the end of the year.

 I hope you all are having a better week than we've had thus far.  I'm off to decontaminate my house.  Sigh.

Posted by at No comments
Labels: ,

Three Years Later...

Three years ago, Fat Quarter Shop hosted an EPP sew along.  I bought all the things and stitched together the pieces in a somewhat timely fashion.  Then I had to sew the finished piece to the background.  And there it sat, in various stages of completion for close to three years!!  Have I mentioned how much I dislike appliqué?  

 I finished stitching down the star to the background Monday night.  I had enough backing fabric that I could hook it to my long arm.  I was going to stitch a small, wavy line using a ruler.  Well, the ruler was actually little scallops, not waves.  So then I was going to try to use the Jane ruler I bought at MQX from Gina Perkes.  This ruler does clamshells.  You need to have a marked one-inch grid.  I pulled out the stencils I bought from Dorie Hruska.  They are all on the diagonal and I need a straight grid.  So I marked it with my rotary cutting ruler and blue marker.  I guess it's really easy to get slightly off while marking by hand.  Enough that the accurate grid the ruler depends on is just not there.  (Lesson learned:  buy the stencils.) Okay, now I have a more-or-less one-inch grid marked all over the top.  What do I do?

 I finally decided to try doing an all-over continuous curve design, specifically, the Terry Twist(TM). Yes, that is a trademarked design.  I thought the one inch was a bit small, and I did not feel confident in my ability to stitch it.  So I went with a two-inch grid.  I did much better than I expected.  The one-inch would probably have looked a little better, but this mini quilt is finally done after three years.  Good enough!  Pattern is by Fat Quarter Shop, fabrics are Kona Snow and Meadowbloom by April Rosenthal.


Our FLL competition was Saturday.  The boys did so well.  We set goals to improve performance in Core Values and Project over last year and score at least 150 on the robot.  While we haven't seen the judges' marks yet, we felt that we significantly improved Core Values and we thought our project was outstanding.  Our robot crashed and burned during the table runs.  We always expect a bit of that, but it was worse than normal this year.  Our third run, the robot actually froze up and wouldn't run the program.  Still, we got third place in robot score and third place overall, which means we're heading to state on December 1.  And the middle school team, 3/4 of whom were on our teams during elementary school, also qualified for state and got a robot design trophy too. Overall a pretty good day!
My father-in-law is coming in just two more days!  I cannot wait to see the cabinets.  I don't think I mentioned, but he is also bringing a few more cabinets for my pantry.  Those will enable us to store away the canning jars and accessories, along with a few rarely-used counter-top appliances. We've been busy trying to finish off a few small things in the sewing room and also picking up the main part of the basement so that there is a clear, clean path from the slider over to the sewing room to bring in the cabinets.  My husband does outstanding work, but cleaning as he goes along (or at all) is not his strength.  And the basement has been a construction zone for two years. Anyway, we're just about there and I cannot wait!
Posted by at No comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Postcard from Sweden Mini Finish

My last week has been fairly stressful--the last bit of preparation for the FLL tournament this Saturday, elections, well...actually that's about it.  Things are falling into place nicely for the tournament.  I had some issues with getting the t-shirts printed.  I think everything is under control there, finally, at the last minute.  Elections.  Not a super great day to be a Hoosier, not that I ever fully feel like a Hoosier, nor do I think I ever will feel like one.  I'm always a bit embarrassed to say that I live here.  Well, on the bright side, the political ads are over for a bit. Just think of all the good that could be done with that money instead of spending it on advertising that no one likes.  Do these ads even influence any voters?  I only ever hear complaints about the commercials.

 On to much happier things.  Last week I was ready to re-quilt my Postcard mini.  I got the quilting done on Halloween and even started binding it.  I finished it totally on November 1.  I decided to use clear thread on the top and a gray on the back (which is gray).  I quilted in the ditch horizontally and vertically and also did the diagonals.  Because I had many attempts at the quilting, I had a lot of needle holes to address.  I ran the finished mini through the steam cycle on my dryer.  That took care of the holes and also made the quilt shrink a bit out of square.  I went with it, happy to have it finished.  Even though it is now a bit wonky, I still am pleased with it.  It's around 18 x 22.
(c) A. Hammond

Last week Monday my guild got together to make a charity fundraising quilt.  We made some improv-like Christmas tree blocks based on a tutorial available from Amy Smart.  Improv is NOT my thing.  I am a math major and a type-A.  I like my things even and as perfect as possible.  I like preciseness and improv is not that.  I went along and tried to contribute a few blocks.  I then got the job of attaching the vertical white borders and the outside borders, along with quilting it.  The quilt top in progress and some fabrics for borders and backing made its way to me on Friday.  I worked on the borders and quilted it Friday and Saturday before passing it along to another member for binding.  Since this required a quick turn around, I chose to do an all-over loopy meander. It is 40 x 60.


Can you find my seam join?  I was pretty proud of it!  LOL

Because this week wasn't stressful enough, the power cord that runs my stitch regulation decided it would be a good time to develop a wire break.  I would be quilting along and my machine would just stop mid-stitch.  We found a similar cord on Amazon that I hope will do the trick.  It arrived yesterday and I haven't had time yet to try it out for compatibility yet.

 Kim of Maggie Magpie Studio sent me a bunch of Bonnie & Camille's April Showers scraps as part of #getyourquiltywishesgranted4.  I feel very thankful for her generosity.  Look at all this beautifulness!  My plan is to make a king size granny square quilt for my bed using these plus the jelly roll and a few other scraps I've managed to buy.

I really have felt the need lately to work on getting more UFOs finished.  I started an EPP mini back in 2015 when Fat Quarter Shop did a quilt-along.  I was new to EPP then, but got it all stitched together well enough.  Then I had to stitch it down to the background and there it has sat, in progress, for almost three years!  I picked it up again this past week to try to finish stitching it down.  I'm getting closer; more than half way.  I just have the top six diamonds left to sew down.  Have I mentioned how much I dislike appliqué?  To clarify, I love how it looks and HATE doing hand sewing of it.  I cannot figure out a good way to get a nice point on the ends.
Let's see.  I finished both pairs of pajama pants I was working on for my kids last week.  No pictures though.  I have almost one side of the Tula quilt binding sewn down.  No progress made on any cross stitch.  I've been focusing on sewing down the EPP and alternating that with binding. Sunday my husband and I will try to get everything in my sewing room ready for my father in law to come in and work.  We have a bit of floor leveling left to do, a bit of drywall patching and then painting in the closets, and painting the window frame if there's enough time. I cannot wait to see my cabinets in there!

 Last Friday, after several days of heavy rain, I looked out into my garden to see an obscene display of stinkhorn fungus.  So gross.  They smell terrible. The only way to remove them is to remove all the soil and mulch around them.  Not worth the effort since they are, um, erect, for a day or two, spew seed, then become flaccid and wither away.  They are sort of funny in a juvenile sort of way.

I have four pink flamingos protecting day lilies in my lower garden.  Lately I've been finding them off their posts in the morning.  At first we thought it was due to high winds, but now I am convinced the deer are pushing them over in an attempt to get to the lily leaves.  Evidence--lots of deer footprints and chewed off leaves.  I did, however, find that one of my flamingoes was host to a monarch.  My picture is rather blurry, but maybe you can see the empty cocoon?  It's circled below.

Well, I guess that's it for this week.  I need to get going on cleaning since we have a dinner guest tonight.  And I have a few more FLL paperwork things to get done.  Until next week.

Update 5/13/21:  Linking with For the Love of Geese.
Posted by at 1 comment
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

So Close and Yet So Far

I haven't been doing a whole lot of interesting sewing.  A little bit of piecing over the weekend, but nothing worth sharing yet.

 I've been trying to finish off this cross stitch in the evenings, and I'm really close.  This is my first time cross stitching on printed fabric like this.  Sometimes it's a little hard to get the needle through the paint.  The worst part is that there is a partial dot showing above the lady snowman's head!
We are deep into FLL season now, with only three and a half weeks left until competition.  We have practice twice a week and every weekend now.

 And my father-in-law called last night to let us know that my sewing room cabinets are ready.  He's ready to bring them and we can't actually have him come down until after the competition.  NOOOO!😩

Posted by at No comments
Labels: , ,

Woppet Swap Team #woppet_kiwi Part Two

I received my Woppet swap package from Betsy in Germany last week.  She made me a two-sided bucket lined with the cutest flamingo fabric.  I should mention that I love plastic yard flamingos.  I find them really amusing and I also use them to strategically protect some of my flowers from the deer.
Isn't this a nice swap package?
Anyway, I got a really nice bucket and I love that the sides are stiff so that it stands up.  One side has a pieced block and the other has some flamingo hexies.  She also sent me a much-needed couch caddy for sewing that I've been using all week.  It lives on my arm chair now.



Some new fabric snips, lots of fabric, some bath salts, and some German Lindor candies were in the package too.  I'm so pleased with everything she sent!  I can't wait to try the Lindors to see if they taste the same as the ones sold in the U.S.
I've had some brief bursts of productivity. I started quilting my Astrid quilt.  Does anyone else think of The Office when they hear that name?  LOL.  It took me an hour to get the first four inches quilted.  I haven't had time since to go back and work on it.
I made 12 Halloween napkins last week.  I sent eight to my sister--forgot to take a picture of those before I sent them.  I also made four for us.  
I also started piecing the Fig Tree jelly roll diamond pattern.  (Note:  fabric is by Sandy Gervais, I think.) I had made the strip sets a while back and then left them all piled up on my bigger design boards.  I have a guild Sewcial day this weekend and thought I might like to take a design board or two with me.  So I needed to start sewing to clear some off!    I've accepted some imperfections in some of the seam matchings, so it's not too bad.  I need to make 20 some-odd of these.  Pressing will be fun...

I cut out all the fabric to make another Floral Burst quilt--I call it a cross quilt.  The pattern is from Love Patchwork & Quilting issue 31.  It's on the cover.  I made one for my mom two years ago, I think, and decided to make one for myself in a slightly different color way.  I'm planning to work on this at Sewcial.  

 I've been working on some small cross stitch projects in the evenings--so glad to have my new sewing caddy to catch all my thread trimmings and to hold my scissors.
Now that my husband is completely finished with his class, he has been working on getting the window in my sewing room trimmed.  Obviously not painted yet!  Now that the leaves are falling, you can really see my neighbors' house through the woods.
And we still have four and a half weeks before the FLL competition, so tons of time is being spent there. 


Posted by at No comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)