With A Little Help From Some Friends

I have been working on developing a class to make small mirrors to hang on the wall and today called on the TTT Gang to help me identify its strengths and weaknesses (in other words, they agreed to be my guinea pigs!) These are 4 of the patterns we were working from today. It was a great day because I think I learned more than the friends who were helping me out. When we are the creators of patterns or books or whatever, it is often difficult to step back and view whatever it is objectively. And that is where other people's observations are really helpful.
We started off the process with everyone marking the frame outlines on their fabric with chalk and then applying the gold paint dots. While that was drying, they then cut out their applique pieces and got them ready to fuse to the fabric. They then heat set the paint, fused the appliques and started the blanket stitching. After this was finished, they added quilting and trimmed away the excess batting. You can see that everyone was hard at work and doing their best to finish their assigned tasks. What I didn't realize was that it would take so long to choose which pattern to do and which fabrics to use for the chosen pattern. Most of them did not actually get to the quilting stage of their mirror--there just wasn't enough time. And the TTT Gang came up with some great suggestions on how to handle that. Everyone felt that it would be better to offer just one pattern with a kit already made up and ready to go--and I think they were right.
We did have two finished projects at the end of the day. I didn't get a photo of Betsy's but it was actually a "non" mirror--She made a 10" square to either put on a table or to hang on a wal--with no mirror in the middle. Sheila finished hers and was adding some "bling" as I left for the day. It turned out quite nicely and I loved her color choices. I know the clips all around the edges of hers may look a little strange, but they are holding the front and back edges together as the glue dries.
The hardest worker of the day was, of course, Callie cat who ensconced herself in my basket of batik scraps and batted at Lucy's tail as she went by. All in all, it was a great day and I feel confident now--that with their helpful suggestions and hard work--it can be a great class.

Trying Something New

I've been playing around with a new posting "do-hicky" this evening and I hope it works. This is a small slide show of the creation process for my newly finished "Whither Goest Thou." I hope you like it.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A New Project

I have a new project that is in the beginning stages and, hopefully, it will end up being a pattern for sale. While I was sewing together the blocks that I made at St. Christopher, I came up with the idea for a wallhanging. (You can see that quilt on my March 7th posting.) It was made with the "Birds in the Air" block pattern and, for this new project, I am using half of the block to form the frame around the flowers. I spent a fair amount of time yesterday and today working on the flower basket--changing things, moving things around. This is my first applique that has used Steam A Seam and I think it works great when designing as you can keep moving thing around and they just stay there.
So, that's it for now. More later. It's pretty cool!

Whither Goest Thou Finished--Finally!

It seems that I have been working on Whither Goest Thou? for ages and ages. I kept running out of quilting thread and would have to reorder or something else would come up and I would have to stop for a while. But, at last, it is finished. This is an original design and is a little more traditional than my usual style. It has a combination of quilting cottons and batiks and it is quilted with whatever threads seemed to go best for a particular area. I have been pretty consistently using The Bottom Line thread by Superior for use in the bobbin. This has really made a difference with my Juki sewing machine. And for those of you who don't already know, I do all of my quilting on a regular domestic sit down sewing machine. The size of this quilt is 75" x 75". And here is the back of the quilt. The red fabric at the top is the hanging sleeve. The back is made up of fabrics that were used on the front. This is something I have begun to enjoy doing if there is enough fabric left after I finish the top and I think it add a little additional pizazz. Interestingly enough, the judges commented on the back of my quilt at the Mid-Atlantic, saying that the way I did the back contributed to their selection of my quilt, Swamp Hibiscus, for Best Use of Color. That was a new one on me.
So, anyway, this one is done and now it's on to the next. I have a drawing started for a larger quilt but I think I will do a couple of smaller projects before I tackle something more complex--sort of clearing the mind so to speak.

A Birthday Gift

It was my daughter-in-law Kecia's birthday today and we went to their home for a celebratory dinner (chicken wings from Caulder's Pub). I will have to admit that this is the first time I've ever had chicken wings (except as part of a fried chicken dinner). WHERE have I been all my life? Anyway, I enjoyed them. I provided two desserts for the occasion--Lemon Delight and a cheesecake--both homemade. Lemon Delight is the most wonderful dessert. It is made almost entirely of chemicals, has more fat than I probably want to think about--and yet . . .it tastes delicious and light as a feather. How about that for a complete denial of the intrinsic harm in a 2" x 2" square of yellow goop? Yum, Yum.
Anyway, I had ordered her a Cricut font for her present but it didn't get here in time--and I hate to go to a birthday party empty-handed. When I went to Sew'n'Sew's sale on Friday, I bought a Christmas tablerunner pattern. I really liked the picture on the front so I thought I'd go ahead and make it for Kecia as a "take-along" gift. It did turn out nicely but I would have to say that this pattern wasn't the easiest in the world to follow. We had a program at our guild on Thursday which was presented by a pattern maker and one thing she said was that she wrote her patterns from the perspective of reaching the level of EVERYONE. And that is how I hope I write my patterns. I think that someone without a lot of experience would have had a very difficult time with this one. The bottom line is that I did get it finished in time and Kecia liked it--so that was the main thing. I want to make one for myself but I think I'll wait a while before tackling it again.

What WAS I thinking?

In an earlier post I showed a photo of a quilt top that I had just finished. I wasn't happy with the color of the red--it just seemed too heavy on the pink side of the spectrum. So I dithered and discussed options with some of the TTT gang and finally decided to go the RIT dye route. I bought a bottle of Tan Liquid and followed the directions. Put the dye in the washing machine, agitated it, added the wet quilt top, etc). And, well, I was happy with the color. It tinted the quilt enough to tone everything down.
A great result, you say? Unfortunately, no. It seems that the fabric that I used for the red squares had a propensity of returning to its pre-fabric state--that is to say it raveled and turned into threads. When I took it out of the dryer I had MANY frayed seams. I spent hours trying to salvage the quilt top (I have a hard time giving up on a project). Well, I did get the seams repaired but I know they're not very strong and I'm not sure how well it will hold up over time. So the top will go into a drawer until a finer day comes along and I get a new idea about what to do with it.
It was suggested to me that perhaps I should have put the quilt top in a large container with the dye, stirred it occasionally, gently hand rinsed and then hung it out to dry. I think that is an excellent suggestion and if I should ever be stupid enough to try this dyeing thing again, that is exactly what I will do. Live and learn.
On a lighter, gentler note: I went to a funeral this afternoon for a 91 year old friend who was a remarkable man. In spite of many physical afflictions (including macular degeneration), he lived his life to the fullest--including going out to lunch with my husband just this past Thursday. Among the things he loved was music and he had a collection of over 1,000 cd's. His funeral was held in an Episcopal church and was a traditional service; however, it had a couple of twists that were somewhat unusual. Before the service began, in place of the regular pre-funeral prelude type of music, the pianist played an assortment of 40's & 50's (and maybe some 30's) showtunes and several lively gospel tunes, ending up with a rousing rendition of "When the Saints Come Marching In." It captured his spirit so well and everyone was nodding their head or tapping their feet to the beat. And then, the homily was mainly one long punchline that captured the humor and intellect of this wonderful man. His children were in the front pew and added to it as it went. I think that everyone came away from the service with a sense of a life well-lived and a sending off that was defintely a bang--not a whimper. Way to go Gaynor!

Finishing Is A Good Thing

While I was at St. Christopher last week, I worked on two projects. The first one is a charity quilt for our guild, the Cobblestone Quilt Guild. I found a lot of squares that I've had around for quite a while and cut up some of them into triangles and used the lighter ones as squares to set them off and--voila--a charity quilt was born. I actually had the top finished and pinned together before I went to St. Christopher and quilted it while I was there. I then sewed on the binding and there was a finished project. I really enjoy sewing these charity quilts because I think it is important to step out of our own little world from time to time and recognize that there are so many others that have it so much worse than we do. And if this little quilt can bring some comfort into a hurting situation, then I am so very grateful.
The second project I worked on while I was there was a little more complex. I saw it in Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting July 2007 and the article was called "Red Sky at Night." I really liked this pattern and cut out all of the pieces before I left for the retreat. And I might as well confess what I did. Do you see all of those red pieces? There are 144 of them. They're dramatic, aren't they? Well, the first time I cut them, I cut them wrong! I could have cut them down and used them anyway but, alas, they were already smaller than the size called for. It's one thing to misread a size (such as 3/8" instead of 5/8") but it's an entirely different matter to ADD an additional cutting step--which is what I did. I cut the correctly sized triangles in half again. What was I thinking???? Don't answer. . . So anyway, I started over, cut the pieces the correct size and now have a large set of triangles that will somehow be part another quilt. I will have to say that my red stash has been greatly diminished in this process.
So, keeping on, I did sew all of the blocks at the retreat and then laid the quilt out on the floor after I returned home and sewed it together row by row. I really like it and I think it was worth the journey to get to the finish line.