DD#1 and family are now at their new house halfway across the country from me.
It was a bit easier saying goodby because I honestly believe this was a good move for them. I will miss them, and holidays will be tough without the six of them in the mix, but I think good things await them in their new home.
DH was helping them move, so I took the opportunity to take over the living room, rearrange the furniture enough to put up two 8' tables, and baste some big quilts.
Even with two 8' tables, king sized quilts still hang off quite a bit. My cutting table in the basement (which is awesome) is 4' x 6.5' I usually baste everything twin sized and less on that. King sized batting drags the floor if I use the cutting table though, so I like using these folding tables for queen/king quilts.
I finally found the right sized risers that work well with the shape of the table legs. Most risers don't work well with this table leg shape, and the first ones I tried that did work were only 4" risers, which wasn't quite enough height, and they weren't stable enough. The risers I have now (5" tall) worked great with this leg shape and were completely stable, no wobbly tables here!
So far this week, I've basted nine quilts, two king-sized, two full-sized, and the rest throw-sized or smaller. The smaller one is the baby quilt I'm making for a great-nephew due next month. My basting goal was 10 quilts or until I run out of pins. I've taken down the folding tables now, and gotten the living room back in order, and I'm basting on my cutting table in the basement since I'm not out of pins. I've got a throw-sized quilt number ten laid out ready to baste, and I think I'll have enough pins to baste one more after that. Yes, I have a LOT of basting pins, but they were purchased over several years, and I do best when basting in bulk, then FMQ them over the next few months.
I've not done much sewing this week. I finished the Lady of the Lake blocks I was making, so now I need to cut the sashing and setting triangles for that quilt. I've mostly pieced backings or sewn on borders so I could baste the quilts I wanted basted now. I'll finish up my basting spree either this afternoon or tomorrow, then I'll work on some misc. projects this weekend and next week while I have two of the grands. After this batch of grandkids, I'll have a break from watching the grands, and I will deep dive into Christmas sewing! I love spending time with my grandkids, so watching them isn't a problem. It does have me a bit behind on my Christmas sewing though, but at least I've done a lot of prep work for the things I will be sewing.
Before I started the basting spree, I did finish a baby quilt.
It should be a fun quilt for a baby boy, lots of I Spy stuff in those fabrics. That's finish #25 for 2024. I'm doubting I'll get to my goal of 40, but it's still been a good year, especially when you consider the machine I FMQ on was in the shop for over 6 weeks.
I'll get back to FMQ an hour per day once I am out of basting pins. At least now I've got a stack of quilts ready to FMQ!
I'm starting to declutter a bit too. I even made some decisions about my batting scraps. I don't mind piecing cotton batting scraps, but I hate piecing poly batting scraps. I decided if the poly batting scraps aren't at least 12" in the smaller dimension, I'm passing them on, and my sister wants them. This weekend I'll be going through all of my batting scraps, which is really a lot after this basting spree, and I'll be sorting them into the stuff I'm passing on, and the stuff I'll keep. I'll still need to be looking for a time I can dedicate to piecing batting scraps into larger battings, but getting rid of the smaller stuff should ease the pressure a bit. I have a lot of 6" strips of poly batting that will be moving on. I won't miss them, and my sister will actually get to using the scraps, instead of them languishing here. Win/win!
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