Ugly quilts and CORDS!!!! - Saturday night's post

[I tried to post this last night ... either my computer, me or Blogger was not allowing it!]
Happy Saturday ... I started the day off knowing that I was going to address the hundred cords that plug into our computer, modem, link sys, and solar doo dad thingy. I was on the phone with the solar company yesterday for about a half an hour trying to troubleshoot why they can't get a good reading from their grey box (can't remember what it's called). You know how these projects go ... you start off doing one little thing ... trying to figure out how to put the little grey box where it can get a good reading. Well it has to go up higher on the shelves behind the computer which means a longer cord ... all these dang cords are tangled together. So I took it all apart, and untangled all the cords. What a mess ... then of course it was horribly dusty and so that meant the vacuum came out to vacuum everything out ... while I'm at it, why don't I move the sofa away from the wall (it's next to the computer desk), and vacuum all the dust out of there! Ha, ha ... it's 8 something at night. Everything is now dust free, but the room is still taken apart. It's going to have to wait until tomorrow to get finished putting everything back! The good news is that I did successfully untangle all those darn cords, and try to corral them with some ties. I think I got everything plugged back in properly, now I'll just have to make sure that the grey box is working too!

My other goal for today was to quilt this ugly quilt for our store.  The San Diego area quilt stores are having a shop hop from March 3 through 11.  Each store was to do a block and send their blocks to all the other stores.  Those blocks are all supposed to be put into a quilt that each store hangs.  The idea is that each store will sell a kit for their "block", and the customers can visit each store purchasing all the kits and create their own quilt.  The stores were supposed to use as an example Eleanor Burns' barn quilt ... as an idea for pattern and I believe content.  Well, imagine each store has it's own flair ... combine those different "flairs" into a quilt.  Here's what you get:

Hmm ... of course we believe The Country Loft block is the most beautiful (as I'm sure every store likes their block the best!) ... the trick was to then find a way to tone down the blocks.  We are a primitive store so we like muted colors ... we decided to do a black sashing, and in order to give it a little pizzazz, JoAnn picked a red border . . . I said I thought that helped!  I agreed to take it home and quilt and bind it.  Then it's going back to the store, and JoAnn will probably tea dye it ... it needs a little C.L. flavor! 
I was kind of struggling a little with what color to quilt it.  Although the quilt is dark, there are quite a few spaces that are light, and I didn't want to have black over the really light ... too much contrast.  I decided to go with the one in the middle ... it's kind of a gold/brown color.

I'm using a 40 wt. cotton thread in the top, but I don't like to use that in the bobbin because you go through bobbins so quickly.  I have been using So Fine, a poly thread, which means your bobbin goes a very long way. However, lately I haven't really been happy with the way the tension is working running the cotton on top and the So Fine on the bottom. The Glide thread works great in the bobbin, and I found this color "leather" in my stash that blends very nicely with the top color.  Glide also goes forever in the bobbin.

I think the quilting really helped.  It looks a lot better ...

I just did a free motion stipple over the whole thing, pretty close together.  Most of the blocks have the store's name in the centers; I quilted right over them ... except our store's block ... I left the store name without quilting on it so it would stand out a little more.

Come visit San Diego quilt stores during our shop hop!  I will be anxious to hear the verdict on all the store's quilts.  Looking forward to a fun and exciting shop hop!!