Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Baltimore House Finito!


What a great day! Have really been enjoying this 'Baltimore House' quilt project for Colleen. If you want to see the entire quilt, or much of it, there are more pics on my web site....Phidgeit. As you can see, she completed the quilt in 2006, and I was happy to quilt it in 2012. Had a great time with all of the applique, my very favorite thing to quilt around AND in. Liked her swag border too. Figured out a way to do the 'piano key' border lines without having to stop and start again. If you notice, there are two parallel lines running about 1/16" apart, one would be the advancing line, the other one the retreating line. Finished this up tonight and finally saw my husband for the first time in quite a few days:) Life is good!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

give it a wrist wrest....

Leaving town today for a week or so. This is a good thing, I need a rest(or at least my wrists need a rest as I am wearing these silly wrist stabilizers since they say I have Carpal Tunnel..... I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!!!) Actually, this is the very first time EVER that I have left for a vacation and have taken neither sewing nor knitting project with me. Just my Kindle and some jigsaw puzzles this trip.

I finished up the two kidz quilts for two darling nieces. Will deliver them to their Grandma this week, and she will deliver them back to England.

Unfortunately, I don't get to see these darlings very often, typically once a year.

When I return, all rested and ready to go, I have a wonderful applique folk quilt that I am working on for a client. Enjoying it immensely. Hopefully, I can learn to self-moderate so I can ease out of this dang wrist thing. No computering for a week will be EXCELLENT for it as well, not to mention no cleaning, vacuuming....you get the picture. I'm a happy camper.
Enjoy the rest of the week...BTW, the Plow Guy would ask you to pray for snow:)
Phidge

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Kid's quilts

I am working on two baby quilts for nieces... one is actually a baby, the other a very active toddler. I don't get to see them often, as they live in England, but they are very dear indeed. Baby quilts have changed dramatically for me... no longer am I using the sweet, the pastels, the traditional. My colors are much bolder, brighter, less conventional. I have been putting Minky on backs of baby quilts, since I found a terrific resource for fun and funky Minky, but I did have some great flannel to use up. After all, I am STILL trying to give away my $100K stash. Today was challenging, as I am trying out wrist splints for carpal tunnel. I HATE the restrictiveness of them, particularly when using Ethel(longarm), but I really feel that this is the lesser of two evils. I actually started to get used to them. I think of the hours of applique and rotary cutting, productive work. Then I think of the hours of solitare and computer crap, wasted work.

I did two 'tot' quilts for my granddaughters last summer, loved every minute of it. Lots of reinforcement since they are typically a fraction of the size. My 4 year old granddaughter however, got a queen sized one for her bed. Aren't kid fabrics great now? I didn't have a pattern, just started drawing out a plan. Then I saw some blocks made by my friend Linda, and just had to incorporate them into my granddaughter's bed quilt. Then there was a twirling tirt(skirt) to be made as well out of the scraps. Very fun stuff.



Friday, January 6, 2012

trial and error

Last month was a busy month, holidays and all.  I had the pleasure to quilt a most wonderful Civil War memorial quilt by a very well respected(and rightfully so) quilter.  The blocks, color choices, fabrics, applique... all exquisite.  As is her custom, my client reduced the block sizes to 6", making a very interesting quilt top.  My challenge was to marry the front thread(paper bag color) with the back(barn red), making an acceptable tension stitch on both sides.  For the most part, I thought it went well, but there was a great deal of tension manipulation involved.  I totally underestimated the labor intensive stitch in ditch, which was an integral part of this quilt, allowing highlighting of each specific block.  I did some research and found that gridwork was very popular during this era, so I added a large amount of half inch gridding in many of the blocks.  I think the overall effect was splendid and I believe that CR really enjoyed the results.  Have a peek.  Note that the last picture is indicative of the quantity of threads that needed to be knotted and buried. A great learning piece... keeping track of each quilting element's time. A pleasure to do, labor intensive and all.