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.

More from Lowell

One of the great things about the Lowell Quilt Festival was that it was not just a judged/juried show.  The town of Lowell, which is a former textile mill town, gets involved.  They provide a free bus shuttle to get from showing to showing (and there are ~6-8 other smaller shows) -- this year this was great since it started raining.   The New England Quilt Museum has a fantastic exhibit which we went to.  Unfortunately, they don't allow photos so I can't show you the completely awesome Hollis Chatelain quilt that is there.  It will blow your socks off.   The current exhibit has many machine quilted pieces, as compared to last year's very traditional and old quilts.  We went to exhibits at 2 other small galleries, both of which had receptions with food, but the one that was truly the most fun was the one put on by the Boston Modern Quilt Guild.  It was held in the former Appleton Mills building.  The mill has been completely renovated, and is a FABULOUS location - great light, and the architecture is stupendous.

Now, as many of you know, I'm kind of like a deer in the headlights when a truly modern quilt comes to me for quilting.  I generally work through the fear and quilt it beautifully, but if given a choice, I tend to stray more to the conservative side, with the use of modern fabrics.  So I was caught completely off guard liking this exhibit as much as I did.  I came upon the next set of quilts, loving the one on the right.  It has fantastic colors, and I said to my mom "I quilted one of those (referring to the one on the left) last year".  Ha!  Turns out I quilted that very one!  It was one of the wedding quilts my client Andrea made.

 There were a couple displays of small quilts...

 After I saw Andrea's pineapple quilt, I was not shocked to see the pinwheels, which I also quilted.  But the surprise was all mine a few minutes later, because I spotted who I thought was Andrea at the front entrance. I've never met her, but her mother (also a client) has posted pictures of her.  It was great to finally meet - it was indeed her!

 As I came out of the restroom, I saw this, and loved it.  It's such a fun backing.

 This is the front.

I am quite a sucker for orange peel quilts.  It's the taking of an old-fashioned pattern, and remaking it with a modern twist that is appealing.  This quilter modeled her design after a greeting card (attached to the quilt).

 Here's a shot of the venue.  I told you it was gorgeous.  Lots of natural wood, steel and light were everywhere.  It is SO far superior to the auditorium that the actual quilt show uses where lighting is concerned.  Too small to use for the show though.

And a quick look up to see the 3-4 floors of modern art (aka beams, columns, steel, etc!)