Timing is everything

Sometimes a matter of minutes is the difference between something good (or bad) happening or not happening. A couple of days ago I was running errands, including picking up some things at the hardware store. They didn't have everything on the list and I dawdled around a while, trying to reach the person I was buying them for. After a while I decided to stop by the Goodwill store next door.

I've been looking for frames for my quilts every time I stop by. So I headed to the back of the store, where everything was a jumble, shoved together to make room for the crew painting the back wall. As I tried to wrestle a couple of frames apart, another customer helped out by moving a bedframe leaning on the display.

We started chatting as we looked at the frames and quickly discovered that she is an art quilter, too! We had a great chat (getting out of the way of the painters) about work and sources of materials, and exchanged contact information. I'm looking forward to getting together with her soon. It will be nice to know an art quilter locally, since the ones I know are online.

detail - the turtle was quilted separately, and painted then appliqued
on the quilted background

Well, timing is looking good in the studio, too. After my marathon binding session last weekend I had about 10 pieces to hand-stitch the binding, so I took them along to Tybee. Got several done while visiting with the knitting group Thursday and watching the season premiere of Project Runway Thursday night.

It's supposed to hit 100 degrees here today (heat index 110), so I'll be hibernating in my air-conditioned studio. I have a couple more pieces in progress to finish and an idea for another new piece to start. Plus I now have a half-dozen or so pieces to frame.

One of the pieces I finished was the sea turtles quilt I mentioned a few days ago. After making all the turtles individually, I pieced and quilted the background, then appliqued the turtles on. Sea turtles have been on my mind, as it's nesting season on Tybee, so expect to see more turtles in the near future!

Sea turtles finished and waiting for framing, about 13 by 18 inches

More later.

Back in the studio

And it feels good!

A string block became the center of a new pillow sham

A whole chain of diversions had conspired to keep me out of the studio for about three months, but in the past couple of weeks I've gotten back in the studio and am having a great time.

The first evening I went back in to work I turned on the new air conditioner and just looked around. I didn't even know where to start. I spent a couple of evenings just taking stock, seeing what projects were in progress, and what I needed to finish them. I still wasn't ready for anything too challenging, so started by taking a string block, setting it on point and quilting and finishing it as a pillow sham for our new apartment. Along with that, I pulled out some already quilted string and crumb blocks, which I took to the apartment and finished as potholders.

These string block pot holders add a colorful touch to the
kitchen and are useful

Then it was back to my art quilts. I do a lot of my pieces in components, preparing backgrounds, and making other parts separately, then applying them to the background. I had quilted this lighthouse, plain white fabric layered on felt and heavily quilted with variegated thread, but it didn't work with the background I originally planned. So my first project was to create and quilt a background. I love this orange fabric with stars and it worked perfectly with the bright threads of the lighthouse. The original background, pieced and painted with a sunrise, became the background for a palm tree.

This lighthouse is closely quilted
using colorful variegated thread.

With those done, I went through the stack of nearly finished pieces and picked out and cut binding fabric for each one, and this weekend did a marathon binding session. Not my favorite part, but now I have a stack of handwork I can work on while watching TV or visiting with friends.

With several of the quilts nearly finished, I decided it was time to start some new work, sea turtles! Here's the first herd of turtles. For these I fuse the top fabric to felt, using MistyFuse, then quilt and paint. After I cut them out, I paint the edges to seal them. More on the turtles soon, but for now I have other work to do.

More later!

This palm was appliqued to the painted
background

A herd of turtles! I fuse fabric to felt, then quilt and paint. After cutting out, I paint the edges to seal.

Adventures with washing machines and mixed media jewelry

Anyone been shopping for a new washing machine lately? Oh, my goodness! Last week our washer went out, just wouldn't turn on. Saturday my sweetie finally had time to take a look at it and decided it wasn't worth his trouble to try to fix it. It's been around a while and we'd had trouble with it before. So he told me to pick out a washer and he would install it.

So, to the internet I went. I had no idea washers had gotten so complicated. High efficiency, water sensors, impellers, and on and on. I knew I didn't want a front loader, but the top loaders were just as complicated. I finally tentatively settled on one that was available at the big home improvement center in the next town and headed out.

I arrived to find rows of washing machines and a salesman who knew his stuff. I told him which model I was considering. He didn't have that one on the sales floor, but showed me the next model up, which was very similar. At my request he showed me comparable models, but only the Whirlpool models had both a quickwash setting (for washing new fabric!) and the pre-soak we need for my sweetie's work clothes (week old pizza sauce.....) The upgraded model, with a cool glass top, was on sale for just a bit more than my original choice, so it came home with me. 

We got it set up yesterday and so far I'm pleased. I washed some new fabric and it did not come out tangled and twisted like my old washer. The regular cycles take longer than our old washer, but the clothes come out drier from the higher spin, so they don't take as long to dry. 

With all the attention on the washing machine, I didn't get as much sewing done as I would like. I had several things on my list, including framing some more new quilts. I found a bunch of nice picture frames at the thrift stores while I was out Saturday.

But I did finish up a few pieces of fabric or mixed media jewelry. These are so much fun. You start with scraps and strings, fuse them, quilt them, stamp and paint them, cut them up and embellish. Anyone interested in a tutorial?

I got a dozen pins finished and sent to our store with my sweetie this morning, five shamrocks, three squares and four flip-flops. I'm working on some earrings, too, and should have a good batch of both for the arts festival coming up.

Time to get busy, more later.

What a beautiful day!

The sun is shining, it's warm, my kitty is over his mystery ailment and I have more ideas for new quilts than I can keep up with. And I have chocolate, lots of beautiful chocolate, as my sweetie outdid himself with this gorgeous Godiva chocolate basket for Valentine's Day. And a belated Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there!

I've been back to work on some journal quilts and am getting excited. My goal for these journal quilts is to try new ideas, techniques and materials and see what I like, what I don't like and what I absolutely love. Bit by bit, I think I'm finding my voice as an art quilter.

Rich, intricate quilting is definitely part of that. The more I do, the more ideas I have. I love the texture created by the quilting, the contrast and sheen of thread against a different colored background and the subtle effects of thread matching the background.

These two small pieces, made over the weekend, are influenced by the zentangles I've been drawing, and I'm excited by the effects of the variegated thread. Both are entirely free-hand quilted, using my Singer 15-30 treadle sewing machine.

On the materials front, I can now say I'm definitely a fan of MistyFuse. I've been using fusibles forever, but just got some MistyFuse before the holidays and am now trying it out. A few days ago I decided to try a simplified version (rough draft, so to speak) of an idea I've been playing with. I appliqued one section by turning under edges and stitching it down, another with a paper-backed fusible and other sections with MistyFuse.

The MistyFuse sections were super easy to sew, very soft to the touch and stayed down well. A substantial improvement over the stitched sections, which puckered and pulled and the paper-backed fusible, which was stiff and hard to sew.

I'm working on another project with MistyFuse, but it's time to run to get to quilt guild, so more later.

A little bit of quilting

I'm here. I think. I've even been in the studio for at least a while every day.

But it's hard to concentrate because I'm worried about a kitty who is not feeling well. It's so difficult when they can't tell you what's wrong. Tests haven't found anything specific and the vet thinks it's a strain or bruise, so I'm watching and giving  him time to heal. He seemed to be feeling better yesterday, so I hope we're headed in the right direction.

Okay, back to sewing and art. I have been in the studio a bit. I've put facings on several small pieces that I plan to frame, haven't tackled framing yet. I had thought I would like facings better than bindings for these pieces, but I'm not sure. It's very hard to get a nice, smooth, even edge with the facings. I may go back to a very narrow binding. Decisions, decisions.

I have a couple  more painted pieces in progress, and a couple that are just quilting. Here's a finished piece that is just quilting. I quilted the designs with one thread, then echoed and filled in the quilting with several different threads. When I finished I felt the border fabric was a little bright, so I dabbed on a bronze paint using a stiff paintbrush to tone down the color and add a little richness to the border. This one was finished with a facing.

This is my first journal quilt for February.

Lots of other little stuff, but that's enough for now. More later.

Quilting Gallery weekly contest

This week I discovered the Quilting Gallery weekly contest. Each week they post a theme and quilters send in pictures of their quilts that fit the theme. The one that gets the most votes wins a prize package.

This week's theme is Half-Square Triangles and I entered my Treadle On Triple Star, which I finished last fall just in time for our quilt show. Voting is open through Sunday night, so please go vote for my quilt!

Vote here.

The quilt is toward the end of the page. Here's a detail shot to remind you which one it is.

More later.

Pretty in paint

My first painted quilt was kind of an accident, as I started with a piece I'd already quilted. So I decided to make another and take notes along the way on what works best.

Start by quilting with a contrasting color, then echoing the quilting
with a second color.

Here are the basics on a simple painted quilt, using Lumiere paints.

The paint shows up best on a dark background, so start with a dark fabric and border it with a two inch border. For this one I chose a fabric that picks up some of the colors in the paints.

Layer with a thin batting and cotton backing. I used leftover 80/20 cotton/poly batting. Baste all the way around the edges with a long stitch so the layers won't shift.

Choose two or more colors of thread to quilt the main area. Both should contrast, and the first you use should be the one you want to be most prominent.

Starting at one of the edges, begin free motion quilting. It helps to have some plan of what motifs you want to use and where you want them. Let the design overflow into the border at a few points. Then quilt the border with a color that blends into the border.

Begin painting with main color in larger areas.

Changing to your second color, follow the quilting lines from the first color, quilting inside any motifs like flowers or leaves. This will be your painting line. Add additional quilting to emphasize different areas if you want.

Get out a selection of small paintbrushes, including fine and wider brushes (about one-fourth inch). Wash brushes with soap and water and allow to dry between uses.

Begin painting, using the main color in the larger motifs first. Allow each group to dry (about an hour) before moving on to the next group.  After the main areas are painted, go back to add accents and shading. Paint can be smudged with nearly dry brush for subtle shadings.

Allow finished painting to dry 24 hours, then heat set with hot iron and press cloth. You can add quilting on the painted areas if desired. Finish the edges of the quilt as desired.

 Enjoy your painted quilt! More later.

Add accents and shading after the large areas dry.

A little of this and some of that

I've taken a little break over the past few days from creating new journal quilts and have been working on new variations of the painted lighthouse. These will be the first art quilts to add to the postcards already in my inventory at our restaurant.

I'm planning something new with these quilts, framing them. When I finished the last journal quilts my sweetie suggested I should frame them, then several of the members of my quilt guild suggested the same thing. When I read an article in a back issue of Quilting Arts about framing small art quilts, that was the clincher. So I bought a couple of frames and I guess you'll be getting a step-by-step on framing an art quilt in the next few days.

Other miscellaneous stuff. The new issue of Quilting Arts came in Monday and I was pleased to see my letter to the editor had been printed, and then was used in one of the email promos for the magazine. I guess a writer never gets tired of seeing her name in print, even if it's just a letter to the editor.

Anyone a fan of the movie Mamma Mia? I had never seen it and it was on TV Saturday night. I watched it while sewing and enjoyed it so much I watched again Sunday night. I've had the songs running through my head all week and am ready to watch the movie again.

I've been reading lots of interesting blogs lately. Havels Sewing has some nice tutorials for different projects.

American Quilt Retailer has a roundup of thoughts on the increase in price of cotton fabric.

For other quilters in or near Georgia, I found out that the East Cobb Quilters Guild in Marietta, GA, has it's 2011 show scheduled. Here's the information.

And not really quilting related, but cool, NASA has a new satellite with a solar sail.

Have a great day. More later.

Three finishes!

Boy do I have a bad case of winter! Symptoms are a desire to sleep unreasonably late and an uncontrollable urge to eat chocolate. Unfortunately, the only cure is spring and that seems a very long time away.

But I did get three journal quilts finished over the weekend. Dogwood was the first, and needed beading for the center of the flowers, and binding. I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

The other two are painted quilts, which I'd worked on over the weekend and just needed binding.

Iris was the first quilt in my DIY challenge. The words I drew were Metallic, Sunrise and Tech. I really couldn't think of anything high tech for a subject, at least that went with sunrise, so I decided on a high tech look for the flower vase. For this one I pieced the "table" and "sky" together, then thread-sketched the irises and vase. I started by thread painting the irises yellow with a purple center, but they got lost when I painted the sky with sunrise colors. I quilted the outlines of the vase and the sun's rays, and then painted them in with the Lumiere paints.

I liked the sunrise effect, and I do a lot of quilts based on lighthouses, so I decided on a painted lighthouse as the next piece. For this one I started with a single piece of fabric for background, layered (and basted the edges), then thread sketched in the lighthouse, area of water, area of land and sky. Then I used appropriate colors to quilt in the details in each area. I used the Lumiere paints to paint inside the quilted lines. The white and black are Opaque colors in the Lumiere line and looked too flat against the others, so I highlighted the black with a blue metallic and the white with silver.

After I finished up all the bindings, I used my new Sidewinder to wind a bunch of bobbins. It doesn't wind as well as winding on my machine, it stops too soon and isn't quite as even, but it is nice not to have to unthread the machine I'm sewing on to wind bobbins.

And I finally caught up with the exercises from the Art of Silliness. I'm enjoying the exercises, but since I'd been behind I haven't kept up with the class. I'm going to try to keep up for the rest of the class.

It's a gray and gloomy day, so I'm hoping the rain will clear in time for me to go to guild tonight. More later.

Dimensional applique flowers

I had a good night in the studio last night. I alternated between working on my dogwood piece and an effort for my DIY challenge. I'm not sure about the challenge piece, so I'll just tell you about the dogwood.

This one is another effort at combining different techniques. The background is pieced from a variety of black print fabrics. Then I layered and thread sketched a branch and leaves, using decorative threads and echo quilting, then quilted the rest of the background using black thread. A good idea here (which I always forget) is to baste all the way around the quilt before starting thread sketching and quilting. That should help reduce the distortion.

After quilting, I painted the branch and main leaves, using the Lumiere paints.

Then I got to the tedious part. I wanted to make the dogwood flowers with dimensional applique, my term for creating the item separately, layering and quilting it, then adding it to the background. I used this technique in my Angels of the Garden.

My original plan was for a lot of dogwood flowers, so I drew a zillion petals on freezer paper, cut them out and pressed onto the wrong side of my flower fabric. Then I cut apart in sets of four petals, laid them right sides together with a second piece of the fabric and stitched around the freezer paper templates, leaving space at the end of the petals to turn them. After cutting them out, clipping curves and removing the , I turned them right side out and used the freezer paper template to cut batting (from scraps) to fill. After tucking in the batting, I hand-sewed the petals closed.

After trying some different arrangements, I decided o just three flowers. Then it was back to my free motion machine (my Singer 15-30 treadle) to stitch down the petals, working from the center and leaving the outside edges free.

Next step is some beading, then finish the edges. What do you think?

More later.

A zen of a quilt

I finished the zentangle quilt last night, while thinking about my DIY challenge. I wish all my quilts came to mind as easily as the zentangle. Usually I have a concept and let it bounce around in my head for a while, getting an idea here, an idea there and then I pull them all together. Sometimes it takes a while.

After finishing the zentangle quilt, I worked a while on another piece, which combines quilting, painting and dimensional applique. And I sewed together the bases for two more potential zentangles (or I might use them for something else.....)

I posted my zentangle quilt to the 3 Creative Studios challenge page. There are some beautiful works already posted, it's always inspiring to see what everyone else is doing.

 Here's the finished zentangle quilt and a couple of details. Time for me to get busy. More later.

A challenge quilt or two

Good morning from icy South Georgia. This is the kind of day that makes me glad I work from home!

one of my zentangles

One of my goals this year is to stretch myself as an artist and quilter. I want to try new techniques, ideas, and materials. One way to do this is with challenges, so I'd planned a DIY challenge for the year. I have three sets of words, including techniques, materials, shapes, colors, moods, subjects and more. When I'm ready to challenge myself, I'll draw one word from each of the three sets and use them as the basis for my work.

I was going to do this on my own, until I found the 3 Creative Studios Journal Quilt Challenge. A journal quilt is a small quilt designed to explore a subject or technique. That's exactly what I want to do, so I'm doing my challenge as a participant in the Journal Quilt Challenge. My goal is to average two pieces a month.

My first words are Metallic, Sunrise and Tech. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with them, but I'm thinking about them while I work on some other projects.


And one of those other projects will actually be my first entry in the Journal Quilt Challenge. I recently discovered Zentangles, a kind of structured doodle. Someone asked about using the zentangles to make a quilt and I just had to give it a try.

pieces cut and swapped

I started with three approximately 12 inch squares, layered them, and cut gentle curves through the entire stack. I stopped at six pieces, because I liked the looks and proportions. I swapped the stacks to get three sets with two pieces of each color, then stitched the new set together. You have to be careful to start seams on the interior of the block, because the curves don't match and you end up with extra fabric when you end the seam.

Press after each set of seams, and give it a good pressing when it's completely stitched (I used a starch type spray before I cut the fabrics, made them easier to cut and handle).  For this piece I then squared the block, layered it and started quilting. Next time I'll mark the cutting lines, layer the batting and backing and baste along the cutting lines before I square it. It's definitely worth basting the edges and stitching along all the seam lines before starting the intense quilting, to prevent distortion.


Then I quilted. I looked through my stack of zentangles to choose motifs for each section, and for this one I thread sketched to fill in the solid areas. I think for the next I'll use paint to fill in the solid areas, instead. I just need to finish the edges on this one and it's done, my first journal quilt of the year!

A quilted zentangle

First finishes of the year

Great day yesterday, despite the cold. I figured out how to set up the Treadlin' Bloggers webring, for bloggers who use and/or collect vintage or antique sewing machines. The first sites have been entered, though at the moment two are waiting for their code so they can be activated.

Then it was into the studio. Forget organization, I wanted to create. First project was to finish my painted quilt. I finished a last bit of quilting, then added a tiny binding matching the border, using my Davis VF to sew it on. The binding would have turned out nicely except that in a moment when my brain was turned off (only explanation) I tried to trim up the batting and backing and cut the binding at the corners. We just won't talk about what the corners look like on the back.

The second finish is a quilted purse. This was another of my demo pieces. I kept adding to the quilting, decided I liked it and then had to design the purse to use the piece at the size it happened to be. Fortunately I had more of the black and was able to quilt an additional piece for the back and flap of the purse so I could complete it.

I know I've talked about how these pieces were started before, but a quick recap. I used some random fabrics to set up sandwiches for my demo at our guild's quilt show back in October. I did free motion on my treadle sewing machine, with no particular pattern in mind, just showing people what you can do. I ended up with about a half-dozen similar pieces that I set aside. Some, which showed up better, had light thread on the dark background, some had used a bright pink, which didn't show up as well as I'd hoped.

Later I wanted to try out some multi-line quilting techniques, loosely based on Patsy Thompson's hyper-quilting (she uses stencils and is very precise, mine is more fluid).  I used a very small piece first, added quilting until I was happy, accented with Shiva paint sticks and was pleased with the result. So I started working on the next piece, which I ended up using in the purse. The painted quilt I did a little differently, because I started with just the demo quilting, then worked out the painting and additional quilting together. For that one I used Lumiere paint.

Now its on to the next projects. I have several ideas competing to be next.

 More later.

Painting, stitching and organizing

More quilting and more painting

I am in love with this paint! After starting off by using the Lumiere to paint the flowers, I decided to add more quilting, then paint more.

The original stitching was an off-white. I stitched around the leaves, feathers and swirls with a light blue green poly, for a nice sheen, then stitched inside the feathers and around the flowers with a pink. Then it was back to the paint. I used the light blue green paint that I had used for the base of the flower petals for the swirls, and used it to accent the darker blue on the feathers. I used a green-gold for the leaves and accented it with the dark blue.

I'm thinking fill in with some dense quilting in a darker color, then a bit more paint as final accents.

One of my goals this year is to experiment more, trying out new ideas and techniques and seeing where they are going. I'm finding it very freeing to work on pieces that don't have a goal other than the process. This one started as one of several to demonstrate free motion quilting during our quilt show.  Since these pieces have served their purpose, I can do whatever I want now, and if I like the way they turn out, it's a bonus.

Work station after removing sewing machine. 

Working on this was my reward after getting back to my organizing efforts. I put up a second set of shelves in the dining room and collected more of the stuff onto them. My new shelves total 24 linear feet and they are almost full already, with more stuff still to put away! Amazing how much was piled on the floor, chairs and on top of the sewing machines in there.

Work station after adding shelves, drawer carts underneath. More still to do

This is going to be a continuing project. My goal is to get like things together, and the things that I use constantly closer at hand. My fabric has outgrown my bin system in the storage room, so will have to be divided, but at least I can have all of a type in one place or the other. It's a nuisance to look through a stack of blues in one place, then another looking for a specific piece.

Speaking of fabric, I was talking to my sister yesterday. She's also working on organizing, and also a fabricaholic. The difference is, she lives closer to sources of fabric and doesn't sew as much as I do. We agreed we both need to go on a fabric diet. No new fabric, unless it is something specifically needed for a current project, until our trip to Mary Jo's in June.

With that in mind, I started a new ticker on the blog, fabric in, fabric out, starting with my purchases on New Year's Day.

Back to organizing. My best progress so far has been creating an art work station. I cleared part of a counter by moving out a sewing machine I seldom use and cleared off a bunch of random stuff. By moving over the wall mirrors, and putting up a little set of wire shelves I made a place for basic art supplies. Under the counter I removed open boxes that I dumped crumbs and strings in, and replaced them with two rolling drawer units. They house crumbs and strings, crumb blocks, solids for postcard backings and palettes and containers for art. On top of the carts are a flat basket with sketchbooks and a divided container with stamps and ink.

The thread stand at the end held all my cotton poly mix threads, for garment making. Since I'm not using it that much, that thread went into my new drawer unit for thread, with additional thread that had been stashed away going in the other drawers. When I'm finished all my thread will be consolidated and I'll free up more space on the work counter.

Well, that's enough for now, so more later.

A little of this, a little of that

I'm going to have to find some occasion to wear these!

You know you have too much stuff when you go into a closet you seldom use and find, not one, not two, but three pairs of gorgeous sequined pumps. One is multi-colored, one black and one pearl. Gorgeous! From the masking tape price tags on the boxes, it's clear that I bought them from the thrift store in the building where I used to work. I used to find the best treasures there, and when I was working away from home practically my entire wardrobe came from the store.

As a bonus, at the end of the season, they cleared everything out. That's when I collected dozens of men's cotton shirts, and other cotton items, for future quilts. I think I spent most of last winter disassembling about two year's worth.

Test block

Back to sewing. I finished pinning the SITP yesterday and quilted one of the leftovers as a test block. I like the spirals, but think maybe they should be larger, maybe with a large spiral ending up in the center four-patch. Any thoughts? suggestions? I do like the variegated blue I used for the test and will stick with it.

I didn't want to start the quilting last night, so got back to my fabric postcards for a while. Since my free-motion machine is set up for the quilt, I just used my Singer 500, and tried out some new ideas. I'd been having problems getting it to do some of the decorative stitches, but I discovered that it works fine with the cams, so I used some of them. The water in all three of these cards was done using cams. I also tried sewing with a double needle. One of the nice things about the 500 is that you can actually use two needles, you don't have to have a special twin needle. The sand in the foreground of the right postcard was done with a double needle, one with variegated thread, the other a tan color.  I'll have to do some more experimenting with that.

Finally, last night I was reading through some blogs and ran across a mention of Zentangling, or Zendoodling. I'd heard the term and seen a couple of examples, but didn't really know what it was, so I looked it up. I've been a doodler forever, so I had to try it out. This one doesn't exactly follow the rules, as it is all pencil and fills the box, but it's a kind of cool first try. I have the feeling it won't be the last.

Lots to do today, so more later.

Some more thread work

I had so much fun with the threadwork I did on the sample piece that I decided to try a new project from the beginning. So yesterday I alternated working on my SITP blocks and working on a small floral applique piece with lots of threadwork.

I started with a simple background, then ironed fusible to some fabric. I freehand cut petals, leaves and stems for flowers, then fused them into place. Then I stitched the edges of the applique, using my Singer 115 handcrank sewing machine. I have this one set into a cabinet and it's my favorite for doing very precise stitching.

Then I layered it and started stitching, using different colors for different areas, but with at least three colors of stitching throughout. Then I did small curled stipples between all the motifs.

After it was finished, I used a light stroke of paint stick on the petals and leaves, then used a cotton swab to blur out the paint.

Final result, it's pretty, but not nearly as striking as the previous piece. The light colors get lost on the light background and the dark ones look kind of harsh. I also lost track on the spirals and they are kind of messy looking. And since I matched the paint color to the main colors of the petals and leaves it obscures the details in them. A contrasting color (or no paint) would have been better.

I haven't decided whether this one is done as is, or if I want to do a little more, maybe some watercolor pencils, or some beading to embellish the flowers. This won't be my last try with this technique.

In other efforts, I finished the inner stars for the cream on dark stars for SITP. Today I'll start a bunch of Flying Geese for the outer parts of the blocks. I hope I can get them a little more precise than the recent ones.


Lots to do today. More later.

Sewing ADD?

I hate cold feet! What does this have to do with sewing? Last year I made sets of heatable corn bags for everyone in the family for Christmas. They're just like the rice bags except I fill them with feed corn from the farm supply store. I made a couple of sizes, a longer, narrower one that could drape around a neck, and a medium sized wide one perfect for warming the feet. The last couple of evenings have been pleasant, except that my feet got cold, and I cannot sleep with cold feet. So last night I pulled out one of the warmer bags, heated it in the microwave two minutes and tucked it at the bottom of my bed. Instant comfort and I was asleep in no time.

center of large stars for SITP

I had a very productive evening in the studio last night. I've been thinking about improvements and last night pulled out a swing-arm lamp with magnifier that I'd planned to use on my workbench. I set it up next to the machine I use all the time for piecing. Great!

I finally pulled out my Shakespeare in the Park (from Judy Martin's Creative Pattern Book) and figured out what I have and what I need to do to finish it. I'm doing it in scrappy blue, purple and pink, with a single cream background throughout.

This is such a gorgeous pattern, and I love the sense of motion. But it's not the easiest to put together, so I'm afraid I have some flying geese with their points cut off. But once it's put together, I don't think that will be noticeable. And, quite honestly, if I tried to go back and remake all those units, this quilt would never get done. Even if I had enough of the background fabric to redo it, which I don't.

So, I have all the Snail's Trail blocks done, and all the small star blocks, so just need 16 large star blocks (and all the assorted setting pieces).  Eight of the blocks are cream stars on dark, and I got five of the centers of those blocks done last night, with components for the rest of the eight centers ready to go. My new goal is to finish the eight light on dark blocks this weekend, then next weekend move on to the dark on light.

I played some, too (that's why it's sewing ADD), trying out some echo quilting and fills. A while back I wrote about seeing "hyper-quilting" on Patsy Thompson's site. While I was demonstrating at the quilt show, I did some simple free-motion in light thread on dark fabric. It came out pretty, so I decided to play with it. I cut off a small section and echo quilted the light with a bright pink. Then I came back and echoed again with spring green and did a filler stitch between the flowers, feathers, etc. Then, as a finishing touch, I brushed just a bit of color in with my new Shiva paint sticks. I think it's kind of gorgeous! Now I wish I hadn't cut the piece off, I could have done the whole piece this way and had something pretty impressive.

original quilting on back, with echo quilting and paint, front

Finally, I'm working on a little hand applique. In one of the magazines I picked up, they explained an applique technique where you baste the pieces on, using small stitches and heavy thread, then cut the stitches out and fold under along the stitching line. I wanted to see if I liked this technique better than the folding/gluing/pressing/paper template I've tried before – and I do! I'm getting much smoother curves and sharper points. I'll post more on this later.

Looking forward to a beautiful weekend. We need to get outside and do some work on the house (the joys of having a 100-year-old house) and I need to work on some of my organizing/decluttering projects, but I'm mostly looking forward to getting back into the studio.

So, time to get busy. More later!