Some of you may remember this quilt from last year...It's my 40.5" Intertwined quilt, started in Karen Kay Buckley's class nearly 2 years ago.  It is coming out in this month's edition of Machine Quilting Unlimited!  More pictures can be seen at the link.

It's going to a couple of shows in August and September.  It turned out to be 1/2" too large for the small quilt category at many quilt shows, so it hangs pretty in my dining room.

I have a full week of sewing being planned.  All three of my kids are off to day camp.  I have a binding to machine stitch on to a 117" quilt - thankfully the client is doing the hand stitching!  Then it's off to my fun stuff.  I have a ton of paper foundations prepared, and some of the pieces even cut.  I'm not even sure if I will touch the longarm this week.  Though my visions of what is really possible are often lofty, I plan to get my 40" silk quilt put together.  Just have one piece of silk awaiting the prewashing and then I'll be ready.  It's a little fidgetty how it will go together, so that may not be as simple as it sounds.  Fortunately, the mariner's star and all pieced blocks are done.  It's only got assembly left.  And another quilt I have started, the 2012 version of a mosaic floor, is underway too.  I showed the center a week or so ago.  Two of the 4 borders receiving the orange applique are done.  Each of these takes me nearly a week of hand sewing in the evening.  Maybe I'll even show an EQ7 plan for the entire quilt so you can see where I am...I hope to get all paper-pieced units made up, and then the corner sections.  It really needs to be assembled after the applique is done (or else I have a lapfull of fabric to hold and sweat under as I hand stitch!).  It seems realistic that I can assemble the next 4 corner sections, only after a significant amount of paper-piecing.  Other fun things for this week include having my car inspected, making a list of threads to hopefully buy next weekend at VQF, and maybe even go grocery shopping sans my kids!

Intertwined - detail pics

I showed this quilt 10 days ago after the show, but didn't realize I hadn't really shown too many of the detail pictures.

Turns out, I really love this quilt. I love the batiks, and the purples and greens. They are 100% me and then some. I started this center block last August in a Karen Kay Buckley class on hand applique. Her class was fantastic. I can't say enough about her patterns (but they are hard and time consuming). If you follow through with the applique of one of her's, you'll definitely see the improvement in your technique by the end of it. She has patterns for a quilt with 6-9 leafy wreaths with different flowers and an absolute TON of grapes. I knew after doing the center that I wanted to do more, but I wanted to make it my own design. The vines are needle-turn appliqued from 3/8" bias cut strips, and then are stuffed with a piece of yarn. Can you say, "Very narrow!".

So I added the appliqued ribbon and cathedral window. And more grape vining with the orange flowers that intertwine, hence the origin of the quilt's name. The quilting is traditional and symmetrical, whimsical and fun. I put hidden quilted flowers in the border and no shortage of feathers. I wanted texture, everywhere. There is curved cross-hatching -- something I have grown to love. I made it look more basket-woven this time. Did I mention that there are nearly 150 appliqued circles that are all under half inch in diameter??

For those of you that longarm, this quilt has a layer of Hobbs 80/20 with a layer of Hobbs wool atop that. The thread is Superior SoFine on the top and Bottomline in the bobbin. The filler for the rays in the quilt's center is done with the Bottomline as well. The cathedral windows are stitched with a plum-rose variagated Rainbows thread. Although the pictures don't show the subtleness of the thread colors, the feathers in the center are stitched in lavender thread so that they'd show a bit more. The rest of the threads match the fabrics - mostly Hoffman 1895 batiks.

Though you probably can't tell, the quilt is also adorned with nearly 1000 Swarovski crystals. It glistens under the show lights. I tried really hard to give the quilt a great backing as well. I was tremendously bummed to find that I had missed centering the diamond by about 3/4". It's fortunately not really obvious! When this happened, I kind of suspected it would have a short show-quilt life. But receiving a blue ribbon has made me rethink that. It will be visiting the Georgia Quilt Show in October next, for those of you in that area.

It's 42" square. Could be a perfect size to hang in my dining room. If only...

HE doesn't love it here (like the new dining room was designed for anything else in this spot??!). Thinks it is too large. I think he's crazy. Real Crazy. Even crazier than the fabric-crazy, quilting obsessed wife he has. The wholecoth quilt I have been marking this week may go in this spot instead. Time will tell. It may well be on the show path for a while anyways :-)

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.

Adding the Finishing Touches

There's a lot happening right now at my house. The renovation is winding down. Still awaiting the countertops, but the last dining room box was unpacked last night, and all plastic is officially off of the floors. I need to decorate walls, but this quilt is part of that. And at the moment, I am readying it for the show it is going to next month. It has been 98% done for months now. This week I stitched on the hanging sleeve and finally added these little forget-me-not flowers. I went through about 4 perturbations on how to make a bad little flower before I settled on these. Go figure, these were the ones from Karen Kay Buckley's original design that I thought I was not going to use. I guess I figured I would add my own flair to the center block by creating my own little flowers, or so I thought. But I lack the energy for trial and error right now. I planned them to be a peachy color as well, but last summer I already made two in the light blue, si it was simplest just to make 2 more the same rather than 4! Could be lazy?...yea, but the little blue flowers aren't all that bad.
They are made from 2 circles of fabric (the back circle is actually aqua), and then embroidery floss is used to cinch them in to a flowery shape. The teeny-tiny seed pearls hide the floss. Then the ultimate in lazy - they are glued to the quilt (gasp!) - an heirloom quilt with glued on flowers. Shock! I just didn't want to see stitching on the backside and want the flowers to keep their dimensional look with floppy petals.

Now, a label, and some good photos and I think "Intertwined" is ready for delivery.

Spring? and a bargain sale

Here's my thermometer display that sits on the counter. He's more than a tad confused, standing there holding his umbrella since it is a blissfully (near-summer) day outside, at a ripe 66.5F! The kids just got off of the bus all in hats and boots - pure foolishness! It's gorgeous out there. And it is mmmmmelting all of that snow. A week ago there was nearly 18" still on the yard. Now I have large masses of grass showing. It's good for my psyche. Spring just might come afterall.
Here's another sneek peek at the week's quilting. This is one corner of a wall-hanging. The appliques are ditch-quilted, but I have not yet added any definition to the leaves or flowers. I'm not convinced I am adding anything to the leaves (like veins), but the flowers will get some stitching to show petals.

Similarly, there are dimensional flowers that will be added to the ends of the embroidered stems. This is the center of the quilt. I think I like the design and all, but I have decided that white or light quilts are not my favorite. They show everything - good, bad or otherwise.

I have 2 more corners of vines & flowers to SID, and then onto the cathedral windows to do what??? yea, something. Either way, it's off by Sunday so I can be onto other things....like removing the purple bleeding!

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Also, I am offloading some things I don't use anymore. If anyone is interested please email me at msolomo1@maine.rr.com. I have Ricky Tims Grand Finale DVD (120 min) for sale, $15 plus shipping $3. It's great!

Tomorrow I will have a bunch of quilting books.

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!).