It's Gettin' To Be A Pretty Long Journey

It seems as if I've been working on this quilt for years!  Well, at least months--and months (which I have).  And now I'm getting down to the final stretch.  My last hurdle has been how to transfer my feather drawing to the black border.  The usual way I would do this would be to use a light box and trace it with a pencil (light or dark depending on the fabric).  However, that wouldn't work in this case as the drawing wouldn't show up through the black fabric.  The other issue was that I couldn't mark the border ahead of time because the markings would have been rubbed off by the time I got to them.

 So, what to do?  I had used this Saral transfer paper in a class I took and thought it might work well in this case.

 This is the pattern I drew (which no longer has the little circles).

 More of a close up.  In order to transfer the pattern to the cloth, I could do only one fourth of the border, quilt it and then move on to the next section, repeating the process.  The process was this:  I carefully folded the batting and backing back under the body of the quilt and smoothed out the black border fabric. (I'm very fortunate to have a large table where I could do this fairly easily.)  I then started with the transfer paper under the pattern--but on top of the black fabric.  Using a ball point pen, I traced.

This is what that looked like.  I only traced the bare essentials.

 And this is the design quilted.  It was a somewhat messy process and the pattern was hard to hold in place--but it worked and was the only solution I could come up with at the time.

And this is the border after I've added the stippling stitching in the background.

So . . .I'm getting close.  The journey's been fun but I'm sort of ready to get into the station.

And Now--For Some Fun!

 You know, some teachers are talented but can be Oh So Serious about their work and other teachers can be a lot of fun but somewhat lacking in talent. In Peggy Barkle, you are fortunate to have both things in one package. She came to our Guild last week for a lecture and a class. In her lecture, she showed many beautiful quilts and talked about the method of quilting she developed that is featured in her book, Blendable Curves, which is published by C&T Publishing Company.  She has a wonderful style of talking about herself and her work that had us all laughing.  And isn't it great to find something to laugh about these days?  Laughter is literally good for the soul.
Although she talked mainly about her quilts that are featured in Blendable Curves and shared her vision for another book in her future, she actually taught "Twisted Bargello", a pattern by

 Australian quilt designer, Chris Timmins.  I saw this pattern years ago when it was published in an Autralian quilt magazine and had saved it for a long time with the idea of making it.  Well, time passed and I didn't do it.  I still haven't done it, but I did have the pleasure of being at Peggy's class (I'm the Program Chairman this year) and watching the fun that all of her students had with her.

 She was very smart in that she had each student sew lots of strips together BEFORE class.  This guaranteed that everyone would go home with a good start on the bargello--and would, hopefully, finish it. 

 You can see here that everyone is working away and there was such a pleasant atmosphere in the room.  Peggy gave lots of tips on easy construction methods and helped find the "boo-boo's" that sent the design off course.

 Here are a couple of quilts in progress.

And here are another two.  By the end of the day, everyone had a really good idea of how their quilts were going to look and, as an observor, it was fun to see how each quilt turned out so differently.  As Program Chairman for a Guild, you can spend many, many hours lining up speakers and teachers, setting up lecture spaces and classroom spaces, taking them out to dinner and escorting them around BUT it all is more than worth it when you have someone come to town who is as nice and as much fun as Peggy Barkle.  Thanks, Peggy.

A Quilt Show

This past Friday, I went to a wonderful quilt exhibit in North Charleston that was organized by Cookie Washington, a local artist.  This was in conjunction with the North Charleston Arts Festival, a yearly event that celebrates all of the arts in the community.  This exhibit was somewhat unique in that all of the artists were black women.  Several of us enjoyed the show so much that we went back today to see them again.  We all agreed that we liked this quilt the best--Lessie Rose by Barbara McCraw.  It is really difficult to capture all that was going on with this piece.  The swirling background fabrics added movement to the quilt and emphasized the motion of the women's hair.

And if you look at this closeup, you can see the hair on the women and the detail of the faces.   We spent a LOT of time looking at all of the details and appreciating the skill and thought process of the artist.

 And here is a second quilt by Barbara--Oya 11.  If you look closely, you can see the outline of a twirling woman.  And you can see a closeup view in the next picture.  One of the amazing things about this piece was that it appeared that she pieced the components of the woman entirely separately from the background and then superimposed them on it.  Really incredible and beautiful.

This piece is Love--Generosity & Service by Yvonne Fraer.  There is gold beading around the heart that doesn't really show up in this photo.

 And this is Southern Greens by Rachel Clark.  Rachel was in North Charleston--from California--for several days teaching quilted garment construction and, by all reports, the classes were fun and stimulating.  I was fortunate enough to attend her fashion show and was quite taken by her sense of humor--as well as her artistic and technical skill. Among other things, she loves to make clothing that celebrates Christmas; however, she also loves to make clothing that features watermelons.  She showed a watermelon coat that was a show stopper and, as you can see in this quilt, she likes her watermelons there, also.

Arianne King Comer created this wall hanging entitled Oasis.  She is a very talented Charleston artist who does a lot of her art work in indigo fabrics, mixing her dyes in the traditional way.  I think the border of this quilt is done in that fashion.  The poem at the top of this quilt was very moving and seemed to be reflective of the time she spent in Africa--we think.

Cythia Cephas presented this quilt--Strong Women.  I loved the combination of the women in the panels and the style of piecing.

This piece by Pauline Barrett is called the Gift and you might notice that the woman is placing her hands on a belly that is heavy with child.  I have included a closeup of some of Pauline's quilting in the next picture.  Her stitching was wonderful throughout the entire quilt.

And, finally, this is Wholesness: Giving Birth To Fully Consciousness by Cookie Washington, the organzier of the show.  It's quite an interesting piece.
I was really glad that we took the time to revisit this show today.  The building was quiet and it afforded us an opportunity for reflection as we looked at this wonderful group of quilts by some amazing women.  So many of them were telling stories about their lives and experiences and I'm grateful that I given the gift of  a window into their world.

The Quilting Begins

 People often ask me what thread I use to quilt my quilts, how I baste them, what batting I use, what needles I use and several other questions.  So, today I'll answer a few of them.

I've been working on this quilt for months and months and, finally, I have gotten to the quilting stage.  I never spray baste a quilt--I pin it using the oak flooring surface of my living room to spread it out on.  Why do I not spray baste?  Two reasons:  First of all, I don't like all of those fumes going into my lungs and, secondly, I'm not good at it.  When I've tried it, I always seemed to get wrinkles and I couldn't even imagine getting a smooth result in a large quilt.  So . . .I just tape the layers to the floor--pulling the edges taut but not tight--turn on my Books on Tape and just go for it.  I'm fortunate that my dog knows better than to walk on it so I can leave it overnight if I need to (of course, she may not like walking on all those pins either!).  The batting I'm using on this quilt is Warm and Natural.  I usually choose this or Hobbs 80/20.
The quilting here is on the center section of the quilt and you can see if a little better if  you click on the pictures to enlarge them.  For me, the most difficult part of any quilt project is choosing the threads and the quilting stitches.  With this quilt background, I decided to use a thread that was darker than the fabric so that the stitching would stand out.  I'm using Superior's Nature Colors by 

Hollis Chatelain  ( 40 wt. Trilobal Polyester) with Superior's 50 wt. cotton in the bobbin.  And I'm using an 80 sharp needle.  I tried using an 80 topstitch needle but the thread didn't like it and kept fraying. One thing I've learned is that just because one machine likes a certain kind of thread or needle doesn't mean that your other machines will feel the same.
This is the first large quilt that I've quilted on my Bernina 830 and, so far, I've been very pleased--mostly because I've had zero problems with the tension.  I REALLY hate it when I turn the quilt to the back after stitching a while and realize that I'm going to have to spend a lot of time taking those stitches out due to bad tension.
So, now I've finished with this thread and I need to figure out what I'm going to do next!

Hampton Park

This post was supposed to have been written several days ago; however, I misplaced my camera (with the pictures inside).  I searched high and low--even got depressed because I had no memory of where I might have actually put the camera.  When my husband got back in town this afternoon, I was sitting in his "Men's Room" and catching up with what had happened while he was away and--low and behold--there sat the camera--black case against black background.  It was a good excuse as to why I hadn't seen it, but did little to explain why I didn't remember WHERE I had put it.  Oh well.  On with the story . . .

 Last week was our wedding anniversary and I thought it would be nice to visit a local garden since we couldn't go out of town that day.  The weather was gorgeous and I suggested Hampton Park--a lovely city park near the Citadel.  Hampton Park has been around for years and years--and has had many lives.  In the late 1800's, it was a race track; in the early 1900's, it was an Exposition Park; in the 60's it was a zoo and it now is a large public park with lakes, trees, bandstand, jogging trails and flowers, flowers, flowers.
I first went there as a young mother to take my son for picnics and to see the zoo.  It really wasn't much of a zoo by today's standards but it was fine for a

3-year old.  There were alligators (up close and personal), otters, monkeys and other assorted animals.  And I can still hear--and smell--the monkeys.  I guess it all kind of fell away after Charlestowne Landing opened up but I have many fond memories of it.
But now the gardens have been rejunvenated and explanded and the flowers are well worth seeing although I would recommend going early in the day because the paths are not well shaded.  You can see here some of the ones I saw last week.  Notice the bumble bee on the blue flowers.  You can also see that there were edible plants--cabbage and swiss chard.

 I was especially interested in the swiss chard because it costs so much in the grocery store and is so delicious.  Since there were a couple of people planting flowers along the pathway, I stopped to ask them about planting times, etc (It's a fall-planted crop here in the Charleston area).  While I talked with them, I learned that every single flower that is planted in this huge garden is grown either from seeds or cuttings.  They have many volunteers who do this and I would have to think that it saves the City a lot of money.  And so much beauty results from all of the effort.

 Cabbage

Swiss Chard

 Part of the "Lake-System"

 This looks like a good climbing tree to me--once you used an extension ladder to get up into it!

There has been a lot of attention paid to Angel Oak on John's Island and it is well-deserved.  But look at this limb on one of the trees at Hampton Park.  Can you imagine just how long it took to grow down to the ground like that?
So, all in all, it was a nice outing for our anniversary.  And, hopefully, some of those flowers will end up in a quilt one day.