Tuesday, May 31, 2016

De ja Vu?

If you are thinking, "I have seen this before", you are right!  This is the 2nd Ladies of the Sea in 6 months, and the 3rd in the past year.  It is a beautiful and daunting quilt to imagine hand appliqueing, and almost as daunting to get to longarm quilt!  This one is a little different in that it has a pale green fairy frost background.
While I like to try to make each quilt individual, I also am challenged because I love the look of the rays behind each boat.  In the end, I did the rays anyhow.  The fillers on this particular quilt are different than the last 2 quilts though.
It has a single wool batting.  All appliques are ditch stitched with Madiera Monolon, and the fill is done with a soft green Glide thread (40 wt poly).  I wanted simple quilting that just let the applique show, but still provided a little bit of a textural variation.
The corner stars were the biggest challenge, as the piecing lacks a little precision.  Too much detailed quilting that couldn't possibly align properly would only show off the anomalies.  I aimed for simple, trying to draw the eye to the texture of the background rather than the star.  I want the viewer to have to really study them to know that they are a little imperfect.
 We all love shots of the backs, especially when they are mostly solid!... It is simply gorgeous.
 this is the border -
612,143 stitches later (yes, my machine has a counter!), this is in the history books and awaiting it's trip home to California!  Big sigh of relief :-)

I am om my last 9 days of freedom before school gets out - frantically trying to quilt up a couple class samples, and work on the fine details of my show quilt.  It was too warm today to have that beastie-boy on my lap, but it may be cooler later this week.  "Must Make Progress", that is my motto.

Here's a little blurb in the current Quilter's Newsletter I stumbled upon last week.  That is a partial pic of my Jester's Folly quilt, which will be on its way to the Shipshewana Quilt Festival in a couple weeks.

5 comments:

Susie Q said...

Thank you for showing us another Ladies of the Sea.... years ago I wanted to do that quilt, now I know better. It is still fun to see how you quilt them, similar but different. The backs is beautiful even without any "color".

Jan Hutchison said...

That's a lot of time-consuming quilting for you - it looks wonderful. I'm afraid the word is out now - send your finished Ladies of the Sea to Margaret for beautiful quilting. I can see an endless supply of these arriving on your doorstep! You'll wear your Longarm out in no time with a few more of these.

kupton52 said...

Once again these quilts are a feast for the eyes! True eye candy! Your quilting is what really brings them to life. As a new (-ish) longarmer I've been having a hoot reading your archived blog posts and seeing your progression from a really good quilter to what I think is the most masterful quilter around today. The photos are so inspiring. Enjoy your next 9 days....my 3 are grown and 2 with their own children. I really miss having little ones in the house....but at least now I have more time to quilt. Thank you again for sharing these wonderful quilts.

Kathrin said...

It is georgeous!Thank you very mich fort Skating

Unknown said...

Beautiful work. I'm not the best piecer in the world, but that star block looks great to me.
I'm glad I'll be able to see one of your quilts in Shipshewana. Best of luck!