Week's End

It's nearing the end of the 3rd week I have been working on this quilt.  On Tuesday, I'd had enough.  I was getting upset.  The green border was not coming out quite like I wanted.  I had a tension snag, had to unpick stitches, and silk thread is hard to remove .  Then I found a small pleat.  The vertical borders were not stitching as well as the ones across the frame.  Live and learn.  I should have quilted them AS I WENT, not after I got to the bottom.  It just seemed that the problems were happening one after another, and I was tired, and in no mood to deal with them.  When I went to bed Tuesday, I decided the quilt was coming off the following morning, and I'd deal with it in a few weeks.  When I awoke on Wednesday, I had changed my mind and dove right in on the red quilting.  I sort of look at this as mindless stitching.  The Dresden plates were SO simple - just follow the lines in the print of the fabric. Clever and effective.  The other dark cranberry shapes took a little thought, but aside from there being 24 of them, they were not very hard.  They look good, though, don't they??!

One thing I did on the red that I have never done is use a wicked thin bobbin thread.  The best matching thread I had is a Master Quilter 40wt poly by Wonderfil.  This company is from Canada, so not as many Americans probably use their products.  They are also a bit pricey, but my cheap thread standards.  I won this last year and have 15 cones of the thread, and I really like quilting with it!  That thread and the Invisifil are my favorite Wonderfil threads.  Anyhow, I have never used smaller than a 60wt in the bobbin.  In fact, I often encounter difficulty winding 60wt Bottomline, so I buy it in the prewound bobbins.  The best match I had for the thread I wanted on the top was either 50wt poly or 100wt Invisifil.  I stitched one Dresden in the 50wt and hated how thready it looked on the backside.  It got ripped out, and I learned how to wind a 100wt bobbin.  The end result is that the red is superfine on my green backing, barely showing at all.

 Here's my mostly round circles -- good enough for me.

I did get the quilt off of the frame today, and as I expected, it looks amazing.  The designs that are hard to envision on a large quilt, are most evident when it lays on the floor.  I'm not saying it is not without a few things to fix and tweak, but I'm more relieved now about the quilt than I was a few days ago.  Pictures???...not right away.  I expect I will get it finished to send it to MQX and other shows next spring/summer.

I got fantastic news today from the Quilting with Machines show in Ohio.  All three of the quilts I entered have received ribbons -- two third places and one second.  Maybe you can recognize them here...

I predict that life will calm down a bit now that the stress of quilting my own quilt is off for a while.  I have half a dozen client projects, and more on the way, but there is no stress like knowing YOU are holding up everyone else's work.  I'm going to take a day to play tomorrow with some new fabrics I have had for nearly a month now.  They arrived just before I started Monster Dresdens (it does still need a righteous name), but I couldn't justify doing anything with them with this looming quilt on the frame.  I have designed a small quilt with some Moda Crossweaves.  They are discontinued, as I understand it, but I found a vendor that still had some for about $5/yd and I got a bunch of pieces.  This quilt was (aren't they always) supposed to be simple, but I loved too many of the colors too much not to get them.  It will be under 40" finished so it can go to the small quilt category at shows (unlike the Intertwined quilt at QwM that is 40.5"!).  I wanted it simple with elegant quilting.  Hopefully I can pull off decent piecing considering how small those blocks are finished.

Preparations

Nine days.  Can you say that?  "Nine days"...that is when I will load this and start quilting.  

I have spent quite a few hours this past weekend, and a couple of the blue wash-out pens, marking this quilt. Normally I don't waste so much time marking, but this quilt is huge.  And I just can't be trusted to remember what I did on the top half when I actually get to the bottom half!

I have several "types" of motifs that I like to use on my quilts.  For that reason, I have spent a goodly amount of time trying to dream up different things for this one.  I am creative, afterall, and I know that I don't have to quilt the same old thing every time.  It is challenging, though, getting away from things that I have seen done successfully, and that I really like.

The 6" outer green border is getting a fun wavy feather, that has a stripe that weaves in and around it.  I'll probably vary up the feather a bit, adding curls and a few leaves.  Somehow, it just looks a bit sterile in the picture.  Once I see how the silk thread looks on the green, I may also do the stripe in another color so that it shows more.

The corners of the quilt are pretty large - nearly 40" on a side.  It's enough blank space to send a quilter running for the hills.  I have subdivided this a little, preparing for a couple areas with fillers, some cross-hatching, some interesting shapes, and all that 1/2" marked area is getting cc'd.  I don't generally do this on a small scale on my quilts, so I opted to do so here.

I also designed the motifs going in the white areas.  These are feathered with cross hatching in the centers, and some other fill around them.  I created this motif a few months ago to go on a whole cloth quilt that I have yet to mark.  They seem like they'll be kind of time consuming (heck, the entire quilt is going to be time consuming), but the end effect of a cool design on light fabric will be worth it.

The center motif is different, to draw the eye inward.  I know, I know...I use rays on quilts all the time.  The fact is, they bring the eye where I want the eye to go.  They add visual interest in a way I have yet been able to replicate.  This is my original design, created by playing around with repeating feather sprays. 

There are pages and pages of scribbles and stipple patterns in my house.  If I see a pattern on something, I start drawing.  I'm taking 2 or 3 of these to use on the quilt in the larger open spaces.  The ones I like best just are not suited for filling tiny areas.

So, 9 more days.

Today, the kids get haircuts.  New shoes have been purchased, and the drawers are being stocked with unstained, appropriate size school clothes.  Do I sound like I am ready??!...Until then, there are a few more things to finish marking and planning, a 3 day getaway to Boston, and of course, a client has called and is dropping off a quilt this week (to be done Monday).  Why is it that right when I am about to embark on a large quilt of my own, I always have another that must be done first??!  Ah, the life of a professional quilter...no complaints.   Then my big green monster will be started.

Design Playing

Nowadays, I do much of the designwork for my pieced designs using EQ7. It gives instant gratification to color changes, which is nice, thereby allowing me to discover things I might not like before I bother to cut and sew fabric. I have the center of this blooming carpenter's star done, and am in the process of piecing the 24 outer diamonds. With 8 of them finished, I layed out the pieces to see how it looked, and was a little disappointed how the colors all seem to merge. Now, mind you, this quilt is being made all in similar cool tones, so I know there won't be as much contrast as this quilt has, but still. This needs to be better defined than it is. So I returned to EQ7 to see what I could do. Booger (aka blogger) won't take my link, so here it is http://www.quiltsoflove.blogspot.com/2011/09/got-butterflies.html

What I found was interesting...Having the purple sections (of the outer diamonds) towards the inside (upper left) left the boundary of the pieced 8 green squares much less defined than when the greens were towards the inside (upper right). This is much crisper to me. I need these pieced squares to be defined and not just blur into the diamonds, like they do in my actual picture above.

I also played with the placement of the center diamonds. Teals to the inside or blues??... Placing the teal to the center makes the center not appear as this bright spot, and the light blue points further help to define the 8 leafy squares. So right now, the bottom right is my preferred layout.

What is your's?...and why?

Playing, Designing, Dreaming

I use Photoshop to help design the quilting for some of my quilts. I can sketch on th Bamboo tablet and audition a multitude of options. I am not sure whether I will use any of these, but parts of each design are being considered. I have 4 of these corners...
The outermost border with the appliqued ribbons is proving challenging to design for. I don't want to go with my usual fall back of parallel lines, but who knows. Maybe feathers & fillers or...

...maybe feathers and lines and fillers. So many choices. I don't really like any right now. Disregard my squiggly braid in the dark gray. It is freehanded, and looks horrible. I have a stencil should I go this route.

...And the center (below), is actually on point, so I have done a lot of twisting my head sideways to study the attributes of this concept. Uncomfortable?...maybe. But it's still better than unstitching something I don't like :-)

Friday Fun

Or something like that, maybe. Hard to believe that tomorrow is October. Three more months of 2011. Doesn't seem possible. This is just about the best sight I can imagine right about now...I know, "what is it?", you are wondering. It's the END. The BOTTOM. Finito! Well, not quite finito, but at least finito is in sight! I'm aiming for early next week to have this off. Not done, but off.
Here's another peek-aroo...nice texture. An absolute ton of grueling, closely-stitched ruler work, but it is pleasing me thus far.

As usual, I am dittling with EQ designs. I do several a week, ditch many for one reason or another. I guess I just have an itch to start a new project. My Dresden plate quilt, which is all hand appliqued, is requiring a little bit of re-stitching (aka I F-ed something up and need to fix it). I want to keep working on this, but re-work can be so harmful to my productivity. Anyhow, 2 years ago I received a FQ bundle of 24 hand-dyes, and have used much of the blues and purples and greens, and have been seeking a project for the red, yellow and oranges. The problem, my brain does not really think in these colors, so invariably if I start out designing for them, they end up being just highlight colors. This design is intriguing because it is 36 of the exact same 8-pointed star blocks, just in different colors. Kind of reminds me of a southwest sunset.

Of course, I managed to sneek in the green. And the same design, without the sashings. Rather a different look. I just dont like the way all the seams will be thick where the blocks come together. Keep designing...

If I hadn't been so doggone busy this week with one thing and another, I probably would have done a dedicated post because I encountered someone's post that was essentially a hot-headed rant that was all but screaming the reasons NOT to have a longarm quilter if you are a domestic machine quilter. The person who I will not name is a very skilled domestic quilter, and in her defense, she was trying to justify her position for how she quilts and why she doesn't need to have a longarm, but damn, it bugs me when non-LA-ers try to tell the world that they know about longarm quilting when they clearly have no experience! Yes, they are large. Yes, they are expensive -- over $10k before you buy any templates and gizmos. Yes, they are heavy, but for Pete's sake, if your's is good, you are not pushing 40lb around because the dang thing is on wheels. That quilt you are tugging into the neck of the domestic machine is heavy too - I know this because I have actually domestic machine quilted too. A properly balanced table and carriage allows very smooth movement of the beasty machine. And again, yes, it is an adjustment learning to quilt with a LA over a domestic. It is so freaking difficult that it took me an entire month before I dared to take a customer's quilt. That was 2 years ago, and close to 2000 hours of quilting later. I do quilt for ME, and I quilt for others. It's the funnest and most creative job I have ever had. I have regretted spending that much on a car, but not on that sewing machine. And if I want, I start quilting at the center, or the top left, or the bottom right -- there is no rule. Now all you domestic quilters just keep doing what you are doing because your work is lovely, rewarding, and perfectly complete the way it is. You are a quilter just as much as I am. I just needed to get my "Why the LA is a great thing" rant off of my chest. It's been itching at me all week. If you want an LA, get one because you won't regret the decision. Achieving proper tension was 500 times easier on the LA than on the domestic.

Have yourself a nice weekend~

Playing

I always seem to get "idle" when I am mid-project. I am in the process of finishing this project.
Truth be told, I spent 6 hours just sewing the binding onto the quilt (it has a wierdly scalloped edge), and another 2 hours doing half of the hand stitching, and I think I may take it off and redo it! What a mood buster. This project is started, but since this one is still being worked on, and I can only hand applique one job at a time, things are moving a tad slow. I seem to only hand stitch an hour in the evening, which translates to just 2-3 leaves. My psyche needs to finish something. I am mentally taxed this summer dealing with too much fighting, whining and general bad behavior. I need kids to go back to school and give me time to think. No, make that time to complete things!

Yesterday was one of those rare days that gave my mind a rest. I had just the boys in the morning, and they were pretty nice to eachother, finally. In the late afternoon, I sat down with my new box of 120 crayons to color something I have been sketching on all week (yes, there was a little envy from 6 sad eyes over Mom getting this ginormous box of crayons...even if they have a box of 300 between them!). This was Tuesday's rendition...
And by Thursday, it had morphed into this. I envision intertwining ribbons in blues and greens and purples. I wish my drawing skills were better. More than that, I have no idea how this could ever be implimented with fabric. This is about the 3rd design idea in 2 weeks that I have worked on...a sure sign that I need to finish something else I have in the works, before I end up with another UFO.
Good afternoons have been a rare thing this summer. With 3 kids, there is always one that is pushing someone's buttons, usually mind. All three decided they'd make "their quilt design". My oldest thinks he wants to learn to sew. He heard what the MQX kid's prizes were, and wants in on a piece of the action! His quilt design is predictable for him, and maybe not the most simple for a 9-year old (despite urges to use the graph paper squares to design it!).

My nearly 5 year old likes to use lots of color. Must be the influences of the quilts in her room!

And middle-man does actually have quite an attention to detail when he sits down and actually does something. He spent 2 hours yesterday and only sketched his. Very symmetrical. Very stitchable. Yikes, do I see another project or 3 coming?

Modern Dresdens

Although the grout is calling (aka, the infinished kitchen backsplashes), I thought I'd share the start of my modern dresden plate quilt. My red/rose fabric that I chose for the center of the plates arrived yesterday. So far I have 6 of 20 plates completed. They stitch up reasonably quickly, then it will be a ton of hand applique.
The conservative side of me hears fingernails on a chalk board, but the wild and whimsical side is singing in the rain at the sight of this. It's completely wild and bold. I really love green, can you tell??

Pondering, Thinking, Dreaming, Designing

and a little sewing.

It's a fact: I have gotten little to nothing done quilt-wise since my boys got out of school 3-1/2 weeks ago. They are trouble times two together, and I find I am all too often breaking up arguments or plans of mischief. One of them has no judgement whatsoever and is just not to be trusted if not watched. I am slow to get my momentum quilting full-force again after doing very little for 2 months because of the mirage of contractors in and out of my workspaces. My house addition is 98% done, and I so need the distraction of work to keep me sane. First: Inspiration and Momentum, then quilting.

I have been hand appliqueing most evenings when not holding a paint brush or glass of wine. I have gotten 2 of the 4 corners of leaves & flowers stitched down. Hard to believe there are still 14 flowers and 48 leaves remaining. It will probably done at the end of the summer at the soonest. I love the addition of the border. It is all very busy, but that is kind of my style.
Though there are weeks of hand stitching still to go, the quilting is imminent. It is never too soon to plan for how it might be quilted. I think I may have most of the threads I want to use, but I'm sort of a thread junkie like some girls are shoe junkies. What's a few hundred cones amongst friends? Here is my initial plan, very much incomplete still, but nevertheless, started. I want the quilting to be outside the box. It will not necessarily follow the piecing, for that would be boring since the quilt is mostly 30-90 diamonds. I will (hold your breath) use a contrasting color in some places...I get so fearful of thread showing that I usually choose very much matching top threads. There's just no way I will change thread colors 25 times throughout the star. No way.

And if that is not enough...I am pondering about another quilt I want to make. OK, it's a shade beyond wanting, since I made one of the plates today. Remember this post?... Good thing I really had my heart set on doing something else because for some reason, EQ7 had to be rebooted and now claims that the file cannot be opened. Well, it can be opened, but all of those quilt designs are poof! Sigh... I am making this probably for my bed eventually. It's a twist on the untraditionally traditional design in that I have a ton of modern-ish green prints to use. The plates are stitched on machine and then will be likely hand appliqued to the background.

OK, now time to decompress and look towards the impending bedtime of my kids. It's been A Day. My usually reasonable 9-year old was a monster today, draining me of all reasonable energy. And there is an apple pie in the oven -- my new oven, in my new kitchen. Yes, the kitchen is DONE. It has countertops and running water now too. Thank goodness. Or should I say finally. Finally! Renovations are not for the weak at heart :-))

Belated 4th & Designs in the works

Finally, we had a very nice and hot summery day. Too bad it took getting to July 4th to finally have that. Besides having to cook too much, our 4th was good. And simple. Too simple. No swimming. It would have been a great lake or beach day, as we typically do, but this year was a different year. No big lake party held to attend. Too bad.

I have made progress on my baskets quilt. It's off the frame, and naturally I discovered 2 three square sections that I missed stitching the background filler. Go figure. It's not quite ready for a binding! I'll show pictures in a couple days.

Until then, I have been puttering with many new designs. I want to make a quilt that once again, uses much of my stash fabrics. Some of my new designs do a better or not-so-better way of doing this, but then. I also want a quilt that has a decent bit of hand applique since I am better able to do this in the evenings, and I do my customer quilt obligations in the early morning & afternoons. Ideally, the quilt design will have good open spaces for quilting designs too.

The first 2 designs allow me to use a curved cross-hatch ruler to creatively fill the spaces around the appliqued circles, which would very likely also be bordered with a 3/8"-1/2" bias strip.
I have many green prints I hope to use in the use in the quilt, and although I like these designs, neither really accomplishes this goal. Plus they both require I buy a good bit of background fabric.

This next one was actually the first layout I played with, and it does use many different green prints. It also requires much paper piecing, which is really not my favorite thing. In the end, it needs some refinement because it reminds me of a cross between a mine-field and a frog in a blender. Probably not the best quilt names, but maybe they'd be memorable!My last designs are not unique. I have wanted to do a dresden plate quilt for a while. It's relatively easy stitching, a pro for construction, but a con if this is a competition quilt. It will use many of the green fabrics. But like others, requires nearly 5 yards of background fabric. Obviously, I have a hard time making a small quilt. I figure I may as well make it fit a bed if I go to all that trouble! It has a decent amount of machine quilting space, though not an overload. I'm thinking of using a collection of scrappy tans for the background of the plates.

But I'm not sure if I want fewer, and larger plates...or more smaller plates (below). Thoughts?? Guess it all depends on how ambitious I feel like getting.

It's hard to design a great quilt. I have many competing needs...size, ability to finish, how much fabric I must buy, how I think it will show and compete, the overwhelming desire to only create my original designs, etc. That last one is hard. How could I make the very classic Dresden plate pattern original??

Oh well, I'm off to the beach today. It's gonna be a sizzler here. Yay!!

More talk on the Tools of My Trade

Earlier in the week I showed a bunch of the templates I use quilting, and talked about my favorites and why. Today I am showing you another tool I use - The Bamboo digital pen tablet. I got this over a year ago, and while I don't use it to design the quilting for every quilt, I do use it for the most custom of designs.
I take a JPG photo and open it in Photoshop. Then I can define layers which can be turned off and on depending what designs I draw that I want to show. It does take a little getting used to drawing on a tablet, but looking at the screen to see what is drawn. The hand-eye coordination is a skill to develop. Admittedly, there are advantages to just scribbling out a design on paper, since I can take paper anywhere I go. But since I do a large amount of my business with clients nationwide, I like to be able to have a design that I can email to them. If I find I dislike something I have drawn, it is easy enough to just erase and redraw, or just delete the layer.

I have recently finished all of the applique and embroidery on this quilt. I know it's going to be a ditch-stitcher's nightmare, but that is a different story. I hope to have it quilted for the Maine show in late July. So, time to get on the design. I've been pondering this design a while now so when I started sketching on the photo yesterday, it really came together quickly. I had to do a few checks to see if my templates can do the particular curves I have sketched, but mostly it was easy. I'd sketch out an area, and then copy and paste it to the other similar spaces on the top. Here's the corner concept...

I have a ton of SID to do, but I envision a few ghost flowers, a feathered border to define the space, and some unknown filler.

The center will eventually have small 3D flowers added at the end of the vines. And the blank spaces will be filled somehow too. I like the rays since they bring the eye outward and inward towards the center.

The cathedral windows portion of the quilt will be ghost-extended into the tan background. I am undecided still about what color thread I will use, but I am leaning towards a soft lavender. I want it to show subtly on both the tan background and the purple pieced cathedral window. I am also planning to try my hand at stitching a curved & woven area. The background of this will be filled in to give relief to the cross-weaves. ...something ambitious to make me think hard (and pull out my ever-increasing gray hairs!).

Ponderings & Putterings

I have been slow getting back to the grind of everyday work, quilting especially. It's not that I don't have a few quilts awaiting my creative touches, I just have been swamped with other distractions like kids, Christmas and a draftsman doing the renovation prints that needs a fulltime babysitter (AKA, me). I took this quilt off the frame yesterday. It's going to a client in California. The quilt is all made from lovely Asian, gold-gilded fabrics. The piecing is simple, yet effective -- challenging for a quilter in some ways because she wants neither a pantograph nor a full-custom. Kind of hard to find a middle ground. The quilting was even further complicated because the backing fabric is icky pale ivory and does not really relate to the top, and since I match bobbin and top threads, every thread I use on the top, shows beneath. Rather than have tan threads all over the gorgeous deep blues, I resorted to the reverse. Not a great looking back, but a happy middle ground I think.

I echo quilted around the prominent cranes and moons and tried to connect the focal squares with waves and swirls, to mimic the wind in three shades of navy, turquoise and aqua. The outer border is a big question as to how well it gels with the center, but hey, gotta do something and feathering on that heavily gilded material was out of the question. It was nearly impossible to see what I was doing using templates!

There is some curved cross-hatching in areas that are outboard of the bird's flight path, just as filler. I also did some soft blue flowers, a couple dragon flies and some meandering leaves (to match the outer border) in the other non-bird squares.

Other happennings...

I got a nice email from a local quilter. I did this quilt for her in late November. It was 125"x105", the largest I have done to date. She gave it to her mom for Christmas, and she emailed to say how much her mom loved it. It's a regular flower garden!

I got another email recently from another client, showing the quilt she did (and I quilted in Nov) for her son. He was very pleased to receive it.

And...(drum roll)...I have become bored showing my other 2 projects which will be a project for a while still, so I have moved onto designing something new. I have not decided if I will force myself to use only stash fabrics or if a small purchase of the backgrounds will be OK. I doubt I have enough of the tan and yellows in any fabric to do the quilt. It probably needs 2-3 yards of each! I designed this using EQ7. I have been hankering to do another feathered star, but with a twist...with a bunch of hand applique. Obviously, the quilt will not have the pointy edge, but I have not figured out how to not have it look this way!

More Design Doodling

I have been thinking about what to quilt at the center of the rosette. It is the center focal and needs to ground the eyes. I think I may have gotten a little carried away though, as this is only just under 6" in diameter! Plus, I think the center design looks a tad like a swastica -- not good.
I have tried to simplify it a little. It would all be done in dark charcoal thread so no green stitches would show. The pebbling is only to make the feathering pop. As long as I have templates of the right size, I'd likely even do a double line spine so that it shows that much more.

Or, is the simpler approach better. You know KISS it...Keep it Simple Stupid. Guess I better see what circles I have in my template box. Something tells me I have a 4" and a 6" and a few real tiny ones.

Keep thinking! Keep dreaming. Keep quilting.

How Do You Design?

Many times, when I get a quilt from a customer, a good design for the top is apparent. I make this decision from an aesthetic and cost consideration standpoint. Rarely are the tops I receive quite as intricate as the things I piece, and then eventually need to quilt. It's the old adage "you get to clean up your own messes"!

I am working on the design for this quilt. I hope to start the quilting in late December or January 2011. I have posted pictures to a couple of quilting forums, but as anticipated, few people really want to make comments on what to do! So I am left working out a design for the quilt, row by narrow row, and then determining whether I have the tools (and skills!) to stitch it.

Often I print out B&W photos of quilts and sketch on them in pencil. This allows me to take them with me and doodle when I have time. If I have less of a time crunch, then I like to use my Bamboo (Wacom) pen-tablet mouse. With this, I use Adobe software and the pen mouse, and just "write" on the pictures. I can turn on or off certain areas of the quilting to audition which I like best. I can copy and paste things to different areas. It takes a little getting used to each time I use the software, but check out what can be done...

Let me show you how my design progresses...

I started by thinking that this 4.5" border of alternating black & white stones would look good with pumpkin seed/curved cross hatching. I'd do some kind of filler in the diamonds to make the X's pop. This is tedius, as I'd likely do this with a template, and the circle is only a 1.5" diameter! It seems a little boring though...so I keep thinking.
So then I try the pumpkin seed/CC so that the design is done in diamonds, thereby creating a secondary diamond pattern of the design. This may be going somewhere. I just need something to fill the brown triangles in with. Stay tuned...
Next I moved onto the sections of New York Beauty blocks. I did a few perturbations of this design, but the older ones were deleted. I have combined some of the same elements again: straight lines, some pebble fills, feathers, curved cross hatching and ruler arcs. I think it will take forever and a day to quilt, and that it will be super tedius, but it will look good. It will also have several thread color changes. Phew...This next border is made up of 3/4" stones...960 little squares to be exact. I know, I know...What was I thinking?? That is beside the point now. Now I just need to find a way to quilt this little thing so that it all lays flat, and as a goal, I want to accentuate the scalloping ivory stones too. Seems easy enough. Famous last words~

The above design concept is not the first one I sketched. It's another design that will require my finding and purchasing a 1.5" diameter circle template in order to quilt it neatly.

Now, moving on to the outer border. It has a large (ha ha, it is only 3" wide, but seems wide in comparison to the scale of the other pieces in this quilt) black row, and stripes of 3/4" outboard of it. Where this is the largest real estate I have for quilting, I want to utilize it well - you know, showcase what I can do, and attempt a pattern that might have even been characteristic in an antique mosaic stone floor. Lofty goals, I know. Here's my first attempt. I drew scalloped shapes, filled with pebbles to make the scallop pop, then filled the background with feathering. I like this, but then I got a comment on MQ Resource from Ronda Beyer about maybe doing a cathedral window concept. It may well be a small push for her CC rulers (which are awesome and have been on my Santa's list for a bit now), but it is a good idea. I just really thought I didn't have adequate space to do something like that.

Back to the drawing board... Here's my latest on the outer and brown borders (may have to double click to see the green quilting lines). I placed cathedral windows in the black 3" border, then filled the diamond space between them and the pumpkin seed/CC diamonds of the brown row with a feathered shape TBD. I think I like this a lot. The cathedral windows would be quilted with either dark gray or black thread, but I don't know what to do the feathering in as it is half in black and half in brown. These are always considerations of the quilting, or else I'll find that the quilting design will just disappear when I go to the different color fabric!

The outer 1" strip of black will just be done with 1/4" parallel likes. I have yet to decide if just SID is adequate for the three stripes in the interlocking border. It seems a touch boring. I still have a few other details to work out, but feel better knowing that I have a plan for the outer border (since this is ultimately where the quilting will start from). Now, just to figure out what size CC ruler I need to order to make the cathedral windows happen!!

So, I repeat...How do you design?? And what of what I have shown here would you keep versus redesign??!