Where do I live?

Last week... (hint: the temperature is in the lower right) Sunbathed on the back patio in the afternoon. Dug out all the shorts. Thought about air-conditioners.

Fast forward to this morning...

Just frightful. I know that it is March 28th, and historically, it's not at all uncommon to have snow still on the ground, but really...After the last 6 weeks of very mild weather, this is culture shock. We've returned to the 30's and 40's and I am having to tell my kids not to wear shorts to school. The news is not met with an ounce of enthusiasm. It does, however, make quilting in the afternoons easier. Even more amusing, the town has been street sweeping this week, which is an assumption that there won't be any more snow. And what is right in front of my house this very minute??! A street sweeper!

I have my quilt loaded right now. I am about 1/3 of the way through the monolon ditch stitching to stabilize it. Normally I just dive right in, and do the ditching at the end. But I'm not really sure how long I'll be able to keep it on the frame so I am stabilizing first in case it has to be taken off for customer obligations. I expect I will work on it through next week, until I leave for MQX. Maybe I will show some progress of this quilt in coming days, but right now there is just not that much to see since I am only ditching, and in clear thread!



My Cartoline da Venezia (aka Postcards from Venice) quilt (below - photo taken last year at MQS) returned home last week. It was at the AQS Lancaster show, where it earned an Honorable Mention. I was pretty happy to get a ribbon at all when I saw the show photo CD and realized all of the quilts that were in it's large wall quilt division! It will be going to HMQS in May.

A long weekend and a few finishes

The kids were home 4 days this past Columbus Day weekend. Just about all sewing came to a screaching halt, except that which I can do between 5:30 and 7am, and after bedtime. It does pay to be an early bird in my house! We spent Saturday doing the soccer and dance shuttles all morning, and a fair bit of puttering in the afternoon. The weather hit 80 or above all three days which is not common for Maine. I was able to get a good bit of my back garden replanted. It was pulled out completely this time last year in preparation for the house addition. Fortunately I was able to keep much of the plants in a holding bed that I have grown veggies in in past years.
On Sunday we made our annual trek out to the Lobster Shack. It's a local and kind of low end restaurant on the coast. You pay for the location not the fried seafood and burgers. It was a hot and gorgeous day. The kids usually cooperate for a few pictures that often go on the Christmas card, then we walk along the rocks. A nice outting. It's the kind of place that makes forgetting any issues and a strong desire to really want to sew easy.

Last weekend was the Quilting with Machines show in Ohio. I sent my Postcards from Venice to the show. Despite some reports that the show seemed small, the competition of quilts was of a high quality, as seen here. I am lucky to have received an honorable mention as well as a teachers ribbon. I'll find out when it arrives home which teacher gave it. This quilt is making its way to the Georgia Quilt Show now, with high hopes of doing well there in 2 weeks.

What else haveI been up to??? Still designing, still dreaming of a creative way to use red and orange hand-dyes. I actually like the design I am developing now. It's kind of art nouveou, but not really in those colors. Maybe I should just give up and go for the purples and make the design process simpler on my brain!

I finished a client's 2nd table runner in the wee hours of this weekend. The little red flower centers are not appliqued on. I prepared the circles for the client to enhance the look of the flowers.

...and a closeup look

And lastly, I have shirred some fabric that will become my daughter's newest dress. We picked it out for Christmas, despite it not being red or green. Those seem so cliched and not worn but a few times around the holidays. I just want to make her a pretty heirloom dress that can be worn year-round. I need to go buy yellow floss before I can go much further. It is a shade of green, and there is some red (only the piping details will be red), but it will have a yellow ruffled underskirt and sleeves to make it springlike. I should have bought the eyelet laces this weekend at Joann's on their sale...oh well!

Postcards to the Press

I grabbed a magazine at the grocery store yesterday...
I knew this edition had an article on the quilts of MQX West, but never figured to be featured since there were so many other ribbon winners. Much to my surprise, look what I found! The article is 4 pages, and shows about 15 of the lesser known quilts. These are truly some of my favorites from the show, and for the most part, they did not receive ribbons. It's nice to see all quilters rewarded, regardless of how their quilt places.

...and a closer look,

I just mailed this quilt off to the Quilting with Machines show in Ohio. If you are in the area, you can see it there in a few weeks.

Will the Wonders Never Cease??

Today was mom's day away to go to the Maine Quilt Show, and let the kids have a day with Nana. I hoped that my two quilts would show well. I kind of knew from the shows earlier this year that Postcards from Venice would probably do well, as long as judges were not too picky about a few misaligned points on the curved-pieced rosette. It's not the flashiest quilt, and it's probably not what every Mainer thinks is the most interesting to stare at, but who's looking at the quilt when it has all those awesome colorful ribbons to gawk at??!

Holy smokes (OK, that is NOT the word I mumbled as I walked into the Civic Center, and right off the bat, saw this). I could hardly believe it. No, I practically peed my britches with glee and shock. Yes, this is 75 hours of quilting vindicated in ribbons. I am so happy. No, make that still on cloud 19. Higher than the air. Four quilt shows since April; seven ribbons. Happy grin.
I know you have all seen the quilt months ago, buthere's a closeup at the new quilt "bling". I'm sure my daughter will think that the purple ribbon ought to be in her room. We may have to have a small (ok, huge) negotiation.

I did enter another quilt. Smaller, brighter, flashier. It received a ton of fantastic comments (yes, I am always listening to the viewers...I know that they may not love dull colors and dense quilting, but judges do...). "Intertwined", as I named this 42" applique quilt also brought home a blue ribbon (one of I believe 5 given at the show). More happy smiles.

I actually had quilted 2 other quilts that were at the show (client). One was judged, and it took a 2nd place ribbon (one of only a few of those!).

All in all, a very successful, surprising, shocking and smile-filled day.

Quilt Blocking

I have found a few decent websites or blogs that discuss how to block a quilt. Most of them are better if your quilt is on the smallish side. Quilts that are heavily quilted, as my floor quilt is, require blocking to return them to their appropriate and original shape (or else they will hang wonky and wavey, and be rather unsightly!). If it is only going onto your bed, then it's not such an issue. But this quilt is heading to MQX in 3 weeks (yea!...just got the email this weekend that it was juried into the show) so I don't really want to give judges and viewers a pimple to see right off the bat.

Here's what I did...
The supplies are simple. There is a little cost involved, but these items are reuseable or you may already have them. I got 4 sheets of 24"x8' (1" thick) styrofoam (interlocking style) from Lowe's. All 4 sheets were about $40. You can use them as a design wall when you are not blocking quilts. Other things I used include a tape measure, metal square, permanent pen and a box of 300 stiff pins. Other websites say to use T-pins, but I thought they were kind of pricey so I got the dressmaker pins - they have a wider shank and don't bend like regular piecing or applique pins. They were under $5.
My quilt is (give or take) 75" square so you also need a large space that can be left undisturbed for several days. I could have cleared a place in the basement, but my bedroom is cleaner and warmer, and because it is 12'x18', it has the requisite 8'x8' space needed. I had to move the bohemoth bed a few feet, but we can survive this week (it's good training for a month from now when we begin our downstairs home remodel - It wll clearly be much messier then). Guess I just have to crawl over my husband to get out of bed :-)

All 4 foam pieces connect to make a large solid surface that the quilt will be dried on.

I taped the pieces together with duct tape just so they couldn't shift any while I blocked the quilt.

I also marked a square corner, and marked lines out from this corner for ~75". This is the corner I started pinning at.

But before there can be pinning, the monster quilt had to take a short bath. No jets or bubble bath, but a 5-10 minute soak to ensure that all fibers were wet. Trust me, handling it (all 18 lb of it) was worse than lifting a wet dog from a tub. I got soaked before I ever started to block it. I didn't dare wring it for fear of messing it up. I blotted as much moisture as I could with 3 towels and then took it to the blocking pad.

I started pinning the quilt to the corner I marked with the square, placing pins every inch or so. The pins are stabbed in at a backwards 45deg angle so they will hopefully not pull out. If I had made some measurements before I soaked the quilt, then I'd know what the "average" length and width of the quilt were, and I'd then stretch the opposing sides of the quilt to be this distance. We'll pretend I did this. In actuality, I stretched them to be the same distance, but my quilt is out of square by about half an inch so length and width are not the same. Oh well. I also could visually shift the placement of the edges so that all of the stripes and borders appear most straight. The whole process took about ah hour and a half. Lots of wet knees. OK, just 2, but they are quite damp still.

Now I have a fan running in the bedroom, and I have jacked the heat up from the normal daytime setting of 60F to 68F, in hopes of drying this beast before next week. I may also go back later and walk gently on top of it with some towels on the quilt's top to get out unnecessary water. I am pleased with how straight the borders look, as they were looking pretty wonky towards the last times it was on the frame.

It may well not win anything at MQX. In fact, I highly doubt that it will. But it is an important step in my quiltmaking journey. It was good enough to get juried into the show. Now I am trying to do the last things I can to make it show as well as it can.

Tune in next week as I (hopefully) document the successful application of a piped binding.

Dealing with Issues

Whe I realized that I had not posted since Monday, the reality of my week began to settle in. It's been busy and not always in a good way. I am still dealing with the draftsman that is drawing up the prints for our house remodel. Seems everytime I get a revision drawing to correct one thing, he has botched something else. It just makes me silly. Wednesday delivered us with our 2nd snow day of the year. All 3 kids were home from school, as we got nearly 15" of snow. Good thing I got awesome new snow boots recently! After our 1st snowstorm of the season last month, I realized my old boots (which were not really very comfortable anyways) were nowhere to be found. The kids all loved the snow, but dear old Mom isn't that fond of having to snow blow and shovel! Afterall, it was a day when I should have gotten 5 hours of quilting in, and I barely got 1. Whoa is me.
I am very soon to be taking this off of the frame for the 2nd time. It's not officially completed, but is much closer. I have one border (or maybe 2) that I need time to reconsider, and get going on some customer work before my trip in 10 days and my kids's vacation next month.
The next picture shows what the quilt looked like when I took it off the frame 2-3 weeks ago. There are places unquilted, and places I have altered. Pay perticular attention to the rosette.

I liked the idea of doing the concentric lines along the rosette, but they proved to be hard to do well. Once I removed the blue marking pen, I was mildly horrified how crooked many of them looked. On top of that, I was never really committed on how to do the black & green background behind the rosette. After I had requilted the areas of the borders that I showed last post, I started ripping this center out. It is the quilt's focal point, and just cannot look crappy.

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Here's what I came up with. I have done radiating rays every 5 degrees through the rosette and through the interlocking border. Then I decided that it would be nice to feather the rosette spokes since the detail quilting shows better on the lighter fabrics. It looks decent on the ivory. The light gray was a total pain to quilt because the fabric has lousy visibility (lotsa mottling). I think it still looks alright. At any rate, it is better than my first attempt. It ought to - it took about 6-8 hours to pick out and then about 8-10 hours to quilt. I know, hard to believe. The visibility or lack thereof just slows me down a lot. Plus there are lots of stops and starts to have to bury.

Now the thing with this rosette that I have not mentioned yet is that it has a problem. Oddly, I have yet to get too worked up about it. Considering I am a Type A, I am very surprised that I have not completely flipped. Afterall there's about 75 hours in this so far, just in the quilting. What have I done, you wonder??...When I pieced each of the 15 degree sections for the rosette, I had to hand cut the pieces since they are curved. I traced templates with an aqua sharpie pen, then cut them out. Before I sandwiched the quilt, I noticed some of the aqua pen on the edges of the medallion pieces and shrugged it off, thinking that it had to have been heat set given all the ironing they went through. Hmmph. Famous last words, Fool. The first time I tried to remove the blue marking pen, I started seeing little bits of aqua. Holy crap. I couldnt believe my eyes. Well, now I am in hard persuit of a remedy for the pen. My readings onthe internet indicate that these pens are not really permanent, and that the right amount of patience, repetition and choosing the proper removal method can (WILL) get the staining (OK, now bleeding) out. I looked rather suspicious at the grocery store buying four bottles of rubbing alcohol. I have tried that on the frame, but I will get more aggressive once it is off - trying stain stick, full immersion and other suggested tricks. I hate to resort to a bleach pen because it will affect the back of the quilt, but it's better that the front look acceptable than the back! If ANYONE has a remedy for these pens that they thought worked, please tell me!

And the quilt does have a name now, but you will just have to wait for a grand reveal.

The Name Game

I have arrived at that arduous task which always stumps me. It is time to actually give this quilt a legitimate name. My husband and I struggled with both of our boy's names. I stubbornly wanted Henry both times, so I failed to budge on agreeing on a name until labor started. I got to use the name Henry when we adopted a cat. I have been calling this my "Italian Floor Quilt" for quite some time now, but it really needs something more showy or as my daughter would say, fancy. Somehow seeing the quilt label reading "Italian Floor Quilt" seems a little too boring and simple for the 70 hours of hell the quilting has put me through! So, please...Give me your thoughts on a name (ie...leave a comment!!).
I have had this back on the frame for 5 days now, and progress has been good. I haven't had too many issues other than that things have taken longer than I expected. What else is new?! I filled in the area between the cathedral windows with that "clover-shaped" motif. It is really a shape from the Venetian architecture. I have thought long and hard on this quilt as to how to bring in the architecture to the design. The clover shape is going to also be used at the center of the rosette.

The peachy border was completely picked out (4 hours of ripping), and something similar, yet denser, was quilted back there. I still want to do something down that center area to make the 2 intertwining paths "pop", but I haven't gotten there yet. And at the suggestion of someone at MQResource, I have put 3 mostly parallel lines in each of the 0.75" gold and ivory stripes. For those of you that do not longarm, please don't think that this was a fast effort. It was anything but fast. I think it took about 4-5 hours (much time spent burying threads too!). On a longarm, these are stitched with a straight template, and careful, careful guiding of the 43lb machine. The corners took forever with the intertwining sections (5 sections per corner, and 6 thread buries per section - you do the math). I was skeptical about how they'd look, and if I really could sew the lines straight enough, but I am pretty sure I love the effect.

I also did a bit of fill-in on the center. Now the medallion rosette has to be largely taken out and restitched once I figure out how to do the curves neater than I did them the first time, but I want to get everything else redone first. This weekend, I did the rays out of the rosette. They are every 5 degrees. And today, I did the very much micro-quilting of the gray-brown 1" border that surrounds the rosette - the one that has the very tight feathering. It is only a 26" square, but this feathered border took about 45 minutes.

I have one more thing to do before it will, once again, come off the frame for contemplation. I will assess/pickout/plan the redo of the rosette. You see this rosette is pieced differently than the ones in the Bella-Bella book that I have seen. Mine is curved piecing rather than straight, so the quilting is a bit more challenging! ...another "what was I thinking??!" moment

I am off to planning 2-3 more customer quilts and then I should be ready to get back on this bad boy...that should be just about the time I am headed to North Carolina for this!

Don't forget to give me a name suggestion :-))

Getting Past that post-Christmas Funk

Usually I have the funk in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but this year is different. Since Christmas, I have hardly been able to do anything. I am over-tired, my body aches and is sore. My mind is kind of numb. It's just not like me, and I don't like it. Today I didn't even get dressed. Mind you, we had a blizzard roaring outside, and we were all couped up inside anyhow, but still.
The days leading up to Christmas were really busy. I was getting less and less time to sew, which is my natural mind-vent. It is what rejuvenates me when I am tired. Last Thursday, we spent the day at my inlaws. Celebrating with them is always an anticlimactic event, bordering on underwhelming. I know my MIL means well, but she just never gets her shit together before Christmas, and that just bugs me. Planning and being ontime are not her forte. Come to think of it, they are not something she does at all. She more or less bought the kid's gifts right off of my "do not buy" list for her. I had these already wrapped from Santa. One gift got unwrapped before I knew what she'd bought, but one for my son I made her keep. So that left him only getting a really dorky pad of drawing paper for Christmas. She'd allegedly knit him a scarf that says "Star Wars" too, which he'd love but she wouldn't give it to him because she didn't have the same thing finished for my other son. I hate that she has to give each one the same thing. If she gives us one thing, she makes a point to tell us that she sent the same damn thing to the cousin in CA, who we never see! Seriously, who cares?? We go from completely underwhelming to total excess. My family gives a multitude of gifts to each person. It would be a happy amount if it were less than half as many, but that will never change. My brother's family has been out of the country the last 2 Christmasses and they brought a ton of goodies from Europe. I felt cheap this year, but I will get over it. I did relatively little quilting for anyone, and chose to give size appropriate gifts. Go figure that this is the year that nobody else did!

My middle kid had been a total pill all week long. We had an incident with his school early on, and his behavior and attitude just left us both exhausted and frustrated. My SIL came over on the 24th with her girls for a few hours and the kids just argued constantly. It was, sadly, a relief when they left. I just hate this. They used to be all so sweet together, but that day was awful. We were kind of tense and stressed, just wishing that Christmas would be over once and for all. The thought of taking them to Christmas Eve church was just plain scarry! Plus, we normally go to a 5pm service, which is mostly kids, but this year I wanted to do a candlelight service at 7pm -- kind of clost to bedtime! We were left with no choice since my husband was out all afternoon returning a gift for Sophie that my MIL gave her the day before, and buying a new damn fish. You see, the week before I got my boys 2 Betta fish (male & female), and attempted to hide them in the basement for a week. Apparently, we have a very aggressive male, and he either ate all the food, or ate part of the female. On the 24th, I discovered her dead. Dandy! If that wasn't a sign, what was??! Anyhow, long ranting here...The XMAS eve church service was delightful. My oldest learned to read the verses of the hymns, sang and liked it. He was entertained getting to hold the candle. My middle son fidgetted, but stayed quiet. And Sophie sang her own little version of the carols "Farmer in that dell, farmer in that dell, hi-ho and a jingle bell..." - you get the idea, mostly sung when there was no other music playing ! The older couple behind us were amused. I miss going to this service because there is something very serene when the church is illuminated only by candles, and we are doing the unaccompanied "Silent Night". Something came back to us in that hour that had been missing all week. Hope. Baby steps for now. Christmas was nice. The kids were good, happy, etc. Slowly I will try to regain the sense of clean around here. And maybe contemplate a mini-diet. Too many cookies and fudge!

17 days after starting this, I took the quilt off the frame. It's not done, but I have been puttering with it minimally the last several days so I figured I'd put the machine to better use. I have a customer quilt needing doing. I suspect in a few days I will feel motivated to conquer it creatively. I like how the quilt above looks more off the frame than I did on. That is often the case. This is the backside - it looks kind of like leather. I sat and picked out things I don't like for nearly 4 hours today. Pebbling is such a pain to have to remove! Seeing it down, though, gives me ideas of areas that need modifying.

T minus 3

The Christmas preparations are about as much done as they are going to be. My husband and I went into my 6 year old's class yesterday to assist with a gingerbread house making activity. There was SO much candy it was insane. Even I ate too much of it. I can only imagine how much the kids ate, despite the instruction to only have 4 pieces. These houses were made with graham crackers royal iced (aka glued) to milk cartons, then decorated to death, as you can see!
Today I continued my cooking, just a little bit. I secretly really hate to cook. And I hate to do dishes more than that. But above all, I do love a good dessert, so here's what was made...

And the photos were not doctored!...The red velvet cake is so freaking delicious I can hardly wait. It's got 1 entire bottle of red food coloring in it to make it that deep color! Yesterday I struggled with my caramel corn. I had to remake the caramel once after having one batch crystallize (and then sending hubby to fetch me some more sugar). I have used a ghastly 6 lb of sugar this week between my caramel corn, these cakes and peanut butter fudge (double yum!). Yikes! I hear a diet in my January future...

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I hate to admit that I have been quilting on this quilt 2 weeks now. That's not off & on for 2 weeks, that is about 45 hours of my life. I reached the bottom today, and breathed a huge sigh of relief, knowing that it can now be taken off the frame if need be, and put back on without causing any risk of creasing the backside. While I have a little time still, I am chipping away at little undone areas of it before I decide it is time to put on a customer quilt and get to business. When it is off, I will unpick any areas I am redoing, and do all of the marking necessary to finish it.

This afternoon, I quilted about 75 straight minutes of those straight lines in the black. They are 1/4" spaced. I've heard this type quilting called pinstriping or piano-keys, but this really is more like corduroy when it is this dense. It has tremendous texture. There's a good bit of ditch quilting to be done along those stripes, and I have not decided if I want to do it on the longarm or put it on my domestic, since they are so close to the edge.

It has challenged me every day, and despite feeling some days like I wanted to toss it overboard, I am starting to think it will be OK when it is finished. Only the good Lord really knows when that might be though!

T minus 6

Christmas is less than a week away. My kids are wicked excited. Guess they think Santa has deep pockets and an amazing nack of bringing everything that they want and then some. I honestly hope that they are not disappointed! I sat Miss S down with a pan full of premade cookies the other day so I could get some house work done (gasp...I did not make them from scrap!). She added sprinkles and sweets for a good 20 minutes. Unlike her brothers, she didn't just eat the sugars! My mother came over later that day and made a gingerbread house with her. That girl does love to cook! Her letter to Santa has been mailed, and she even received a delightful letter in return. Talk about being something surprised to get a note from Santa. She's convinced he's definitely going to bring her every possible princess!

I've been nursing a cold for nearly a week now, and as of last night I have 2 kids with it too. I took Sophie to the doctor this morning for an ear infection. Between her and Bryce I was up 4 times last night for either aching ears, stomach ache, peed bed or puking. Pure delight. At 5am, I gave in and climbed into bed with her because I knew I wouldn't have to leave my nice warm bed again if I just stayed there!

So now I get to the nitty gritty of my life. I've been stitching away on this darn quilt for 10 days now. I have lost count how many hours I have spent on it, but it is way too many. And there are far too many ahead of me to count. At present, I am happily past the halfway point, but I know it will go back on the frame and get more work. So merely reaching the end of the quilt is definitely nowhere near the end.

I have 8 or 9 different threads in this one - as you can plainly see from the massive thread pile! It has made quilting this in a timely manner impossible. I am sort of at the point where I would be cursing the customer if it were not my own blasted quilt. I am feeling tired of it, defeated in how I am quilting it and just plain frustrated. The fabrics are impossible to see the quilting on and I am discovering after I free-quilt areas (when I look at the back), that they look sub-par. Rip, rip. I also marked this stupid rosette completely before quilting it, then after I removed the marking pen, I was horrified how crooked some of the lines looked. I could just cry. I think that this was the point where I just wanted to toss the entire quilt. I am mad at myself for making it so freaking microscopic, so that every area to quilt is tiny, requiring ultra-careful control.

I have areas where I have more or less experimented on how I want to quilt them, so there are sections requiring removing to make things similar! I want to infuse more gold metallic thread, and tried it on the gray squares/diamonds. Not sure if it will stay or be changed to a more visible color. My middle initial "E" seems to be for "experimental" lately. Ouch. Perhaps you have a suggestion for me...(hint!) That just reminds me that I discovered a section of gold quilting that has ticking on the backside. Oh boy, do I have a lot of picking out!

For the longest time I really did not want the computerized gizmos for my machine. I take pride in stitching freely and nicely, but it surely would make stitching look perfect in areas with horrific visibility. My little rows of pebbling could look flawless, rather than rows of poorly traced fresh water pearls.

Tuesdays are Just For Me

OK, a few more peekeroos...

AHA, I finally devised a manner in which to take a few pictures so that there is visibility of the stitching. My clip lamp is low to the quilt and angled back at the area. Plus it is wet (sprayed to remove marking pen), which may make it easier to see. Not sure.
As I said before, these are AWFUL fabrics to quilt. I like my threads to blend, and because the fabrics are all mottled, the visibility is terrible. It's not so bad with the ruler work (which about 85% of the quilt is!), but those freehanded feathers are not nearly as cleanly stitched as they would be if I could see the threads!

I hope to actually claim being half done by end of tomorrow. I am just about ready to do the rosette. I just have a couple of small borders down each side and a couple cathedral windows to do first.

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I am in the middle of a love-hate relationship. I don't usually get this technical unless they are for me. I have always said that I'd make my own worst customer. Perhaps that actually makes a better quilter for others. Who knows. Right now though, I question every section I stitch. Is that how I really want it to look? Is that really as good as I can sew those darn feathers? You catch my drift. I have committed to ripping out a section I did a few days ago - decided it wasn't my "vision" afterall, but mostly I am just hoping that this quilt is like most others, in that when it is off and I see it all out, laying flat, I will be pleased. After today's sewing, I am hopeful. I love the NYB sections, even if they did take 4 hours!

I am moving on slow this week, despite having all the time in the world (which I should be using to get things done that really need to be done!). My class finished last Friday, but except for the final exam, I am done until the kids are out next Wed. I threatened them that they'd be in trouble if anyone got sick and messed up "mama's week" (jokingly, ya know). It did happen last March when I had a week off from school, and one of the three was home with me every single day! What I never anticipated was that I'd be the one sick. Kinda sucks. I have a head cold, nothing major, but it is playing havoc with my ability to quilt all day! Guess I could have it worse (and well may next week if I pass this to anybody else!).

Hard to Photograph

Holy crap!...photographing these mottled fabrics is nearly as hard as decorating a Christmas tree with six extra hands (always grabbing at the glass ornaments like they are juggling balls). It should come as absolutely no surprise that they are hard to photograph, since they are equally as hard just to see to stitch on. I find that I am going over stitching lines with a marking pen just so I know where they are when I am stitching another section!

I have quilted about 16" of the quilt, with a section in that still undone. Indecision :-((() I have known that these fabrics are screaming for the gold metallic thread, but until today I had never done much with it mostly out of fear. It was a notorious pain on my home machine so I just assumed it'd be worse on the longarm. Despite the dense pebble/mosaic section being the most time consuming to piece, it quilted up rather quickly this afternoon, and in metallic thread too.

So far, my biggest regret is with my backing fabric/color. It is a brown adobe colored fabric. I got it because it was 108", and was an easy choice. I really wanted the black/charcoal fabric, but settled on brown instead. It's just not quite as pretty. Looks like a big dirt clump rather than granite. Live-n-learn. First instincts...

I'm at a point where I need to design those next 2 solid borders. Then I suspect it's time to go pray that the center medallion comes on relatively flat (ha!~).

Hope your weekend was good. I quilted for four and a half hours since the hubby took the kids shopping - mine was pretty good!

Santa!

Despite being massive excited about Santa coming to her preschool next week, Sophie more or less wanted absolutely nothing to do with the fat man in red today. That is my lap beneath her - she needed some reassurance. The boys, on the other hand were very excited to rattle off their Christmas wishes for Santa - all 30 or 4o of them! We also went and cut down a tree. Today was the first day in nearly 2 weeks that was tollerable to go outside. We've had dreadfully cold weather lately, unseasonably cold for December. And tomorrow they are predicting 2-3" of rain! Sounds like a good tree decorating (and sewing!) day.

I snapped this only because it's a little humor of our times. Who'd ever think that Santa Claus would use a cell phone??!

I have finally started quilting this quilt. I put it on the frame yesterday and have no idea how long it will take. I am allocating next week and 1-2 days the next week for it. After Christmas, I have a few customer quilts I'll need to attend to. I am 6 hours into it now, and have done parts of the outermost 3 borders. Nothing is completed on account of my inability to decide fully what to do. I like the cathedral-style windows done with the curved cross-hatching, but I am stymied as to how to quilt the area with the checkerboard (in the center of them). Ideas??? Should I continue the cathedral windows right over the checkerboard, or change pattern?

I am also basting a bit more than usual in case I need to take it off the frame and finish areas later. These Northcott Stonehenge fabrics are really pretty, but are proving to be hugely difficult to quilt because my threads are mostly coordinating (since the quilt is very busy itself), and it is impossible to see where I have stitched. The curved cross-hatching around the squares on point in the brown is done with a 1.5" circle template. It is tiny, and the edges of the template are not as smooth as I'd like. My fingers are wicked sore after 2 hours of manipulating that. I know, I know, you cannot really see that from the picture -- Another hazzard of coordinating threads! Eventually, the stitching will be visible (it will won't it??!).

I played with a metallic gold thread today that I ended up ripping out. I thought it might be a good thread to stitch in the area that is gray and brown. It was too tricky to feather with so I am guessing I will select a more muted tone, perhaps a softer brown or who knows. I have left areas unquilted that I just cannot quite figure out what to do with or cannot see well enough to stitch!

Stay tuned, I will periodically post pictures of this quilt's progress the next couple weeks. Hopefully it will progress quickly and without incident!