Friday, September 03, 2010

I'm a Lucky Gal

I have never had the luck of the Irish whatsoever until this year, and day by day, month by month, I am constantly surprised at what riches come my way. It is truly surreal and unbelievable. I'm over the moon with excitement.

A month or more ago, I submitted my story to HandiQuilter about how I came to buy one of their machines. They were holding a contest. They were going to select 15 people from their stories, and bring them to their company for a 3 day retreat. Did I say that this retreat is in Salt Lake City??! I had just returned home from the Maine Quilt Show, and was still pretty psyched about seeing this year of my life come full circle. I wrote my story that night.

Tonight while I was doing the drudgingly dull task of making dinner (Oh, how I dislike cooking on Fridays!), I got the call. My story was selected, and I am going to the quilting retreat next month!! Boy am I excited - and it is a paid trip too! I have one small logistic of getting someone to cover my college class either one or 2 days, but, hey...they've yet to get me a contract so anything is fair game now in my book. I can hardly wait to hear from the HQ contact to find out what I might learn/do on the retreat. I'm seriously dying to learn some machine maintenance (considering that is where my beauty is going next week, for a little R&R & deep oiling).

So what is a quilting blog without some quilting, you ask?...Here's Nearly Insane #1 all quilted. Believe it or not, it is a continuous pattern, even on the sashings. This is (as if it is not apparent from the next picture), the absolute largest quilt I can do. It is So wide that I cannot move the machine off from the quilt on either side. Dictated by the size of the backing, anyhow, which was about 135"x135". Who, I ask you, really has a bed that big??! Yvette does absolutely the most intricate piecing I have ever seen. Some of these 6" blocks have over 100 pieces. The quilting was really quite hard - the fabrics are mostly rather busy, and seeing my thread was challenging.
And layed out in my hallway (which can house a twin without folding easily), here is one half...
...and here's the other half. ENORMOUS! I shutter to think about the shipping!
I did a continuous swirling and feathering pattern in the outer borders (totalling 18"!) and a more structured leaf & swirl in the white border, where it shows more.
It's so pretty. And very heavy thanks to the ton of seams.
Here's some peeks at the blocks - Count the pieces...
I like this star. And the basket too.
It's just Completely Insane, I tell you. There's no Nearly about it! Yvette has actually made a 2nd one of these too. Imagine that! And oh, any guesses on how many yards of thread it takes to quilt a 13924 square inch quilt???
answer: about 4500 yards!





9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats!! The trip and classes sound exciting, hope you have a wonderful relaxing time!!

Kathy said...

The red and white quilt is a beauty now that you have put your special touch on it! Congratulations on the trip and retreat to Utah!

floribunda said...

Lovely quilting! I did a Nearly Insane in multi-colors a few years ago but have always admired the red & white ones I've seen. Have fun in Utah!

Yvette said...

I am speechless yet again from your work. It looks AMAZING!!!!! Colleen is going to LOVE it!!!

What a wonderful trip you are going to have to Salt Lake! You really deserve it!! The work you do on the HQ machine couldn't be done any better on a machine that costs much, much more. HQ makes a quality machine and if I had the space it would be my choice.

Unknown said...

Margaret: I'm the recipent of this amazing nearly insane quilt. It's BEAUTIFUL!! I'm soooo happy with the results. I'm truly amazed at the quilt Yvette sewed and your quilting How lucky am I? Now the hard part, keeping my husband from sitting on it. BTW, our bed is a CA king but raised up on stilts, thus the need for such a large quilt!!

Thank you so very much.

Colleen

Brenda said...

Congratulations on your trip. I love the quilt you are working on. You do such lovely work.

Ivory Spring said...

Margaret, that quilt is amazing! I can't imagine you having the time to do all that you do!!!!

The retreat is truly a TREAT! :)

Lynn Douglass said...

Love that quilt, and your quilting suits it perfectly! Very nice work!

Robin said...

Gorgeous! You did a beautiful job quilting Yvette's quilt. And what a challenge! The all-over design works so well.

Congrats on your retreat win. That sounds fabulous! Have lots of fun!!!