| my museum quilt |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|03:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
I finished the top this afternoon:
This is the quilt that is going in the Job Carr Cabin Museum. I'm going to have a quilt of mine in a museum, and that tickles me no end. Never mind that this quilt is to replace the genuine antique currently on the bed in the cabin so that the school kids who come to tour the cabin can lie on the straw mattress and rope "springs" and see what it feels like while the antique is safely hung on the wall out of reach.
It's 54" square, which fits the bed with a bit of overhang on the sides and at the foot. The pattern is a variation of the traditional Corn and Beans block. There are eighteen different prints, all authentic Civil War-era reproductions, since the original cabin (the museum is a replica built in 2000) was built in 1865. No florals by request of the museum staff, and utterly different from my normal palette, which runs more to jewel tones. And one place where two pieces of the same fabric are next to each other [sigh]. I checked every time I laid it out, from half-square triangle unit to block to strip to completed top, making sure that no two pieces of the same fabric were next to each other. But I managed to do it, anyway. I guess it's my Amish mistake ("only God can make something perfect"). See if you can find it.
The quilting is just going to be your standard crosshatching, diagonally both ways across each square. Simple, straightforward, authentic, and it doesn't have to be marked [g].
After I finish quilting the website quilt (see icon). |
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| Torn Fabric Unraveling in the Wash? |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|10:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  curious | ] |
Today I visited my local quilt shop for the first time to pick up some fabric. When they cut my yardage they cut a small notch at the edge and then pulled, ripping the fabric rather than cutting it. I have never seen anyone cut fabric this way. I am planning on prewashing the fabric I bought (it's for a baby quilt), will the raw edges have more of a tendency to unravel than cut edges would?
In my previous experience with quilt shop quality fabric, I've never needed to baste before prewashing, because they didn't unravel much. However, given the raw edges, I'm wondering if I should?
Thoughts?
ETA: Prewashing is done and the fabric came out wonderfully. The loose threads balled up but no unraveling! Thank you all for the help. |
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| What's your winter project? |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|12:07 pm] |
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I always find myself drawn to certain colors and designs at certain times of the year. I don't always make the quilt, but some years I do. Does anyone else have a recurring pattern in their yearly quilt cycle? |
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| Long Armer |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|04:21 pm] |
Do any of you fabulously talented ladies use a long arm quilter to complete your projects?
Have any of you had to ask for your tops back as your long armer could not meet your deadline and had not notified you prior to the agreed deadline?
Let's pretend you have a Quilt top that's been with your Long Arm Quilter for 4 months and you need to ask for it back to take it to someone else.
How would you go about that?
thank you very much in advance. |
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| Progress of the turtle quilt: gorgeous except for one problem |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|09:17 pm] |
I've just finished piecing the turtle quilt, and while I am generally feeling very smug about it, there's one snag. The fabric for the head and flippers just doesn't stand out enough. If anything, it's actually marginally worse than it looks in the picture. The baby's due in a month, I won't have had time to learn machine quilting by then, so whatever I do will be hand-quilted. This means that all lines will be dotted rather than solid (threads make substantially less impact that way), and I won't have the time or energy for really dense quilting. Any suggestions for how to get the head and flippers to stand out more? So far I've thought of doing a line or so or outline quilting in a dark green, possibly even filling the entire area. I have a variegated pine green that doesn't stand out that much, and a very dark but rather olivey green. I'm thinking of getting a dark pine green instead.
I'm open to suggestions for quilting the rest of it too. At the moment, the plan is to outline quilt inside the shell pieces, perhaps to keep going in a continuous line until the centre, using threads in reds, marigold, green and so on that contrast nicely with each piece. Echo quilt (three rows?) beneath the lines of the pieces of sea, possibly echo quilt all the way through each piece of sea, using threads in blues and greens. Not that sure about the border yet, I might do something like I did for my fish baby quilt, where I did a flowing sea-like design with occasional critters, and I have my eye on a variegated thread that runs from pink through orange to yellow. I'll embroider an eye, by the way, probably in dark blue. I have a really gorgeous variegated thread that runs from yellow through orange, hot pink and purple, but I can't think of anywhere suitable to put it where it will stand out properly!
( Photo, of course )
If anyone's curious, I designed and pieced this using Ruth McDowell's freezer paper method. My mother helped me pick the fabrics for the shell, and my friend S joined in the fun when choosing the border fabrics. You can see it laid out, when we'd chosen all the fabrics but I hadn't yet sewn anything, here. The binding will be marigold yellow and this fabric will be the backing. |
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| Finished Landscape Wall Quilt |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|01:25 pm] |
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A few weeks ago I posted about the landscape wall quilt I was making for my mom in Kansas.
Well. I finally finished it (with the exception of a tag on the back) and here it is:
This was the first time I'd ever used fusible webbing, a satin stitch, and free-motion quillting. I really love the way it turned out! I learned a LOT, did a lot of things out of order and made a LOT of mistakes, and in one spot my sewing machine ate one of the trees. I used an old Singer Touch and Sew model 603e that I rescued from my dad's garage. She sure is a beautiful machine! I think I'll attempt another one of these soon, but for now, I'm sick of looking at this! lol... It took me three months to get it finished, between holidays and colds and just lack of motivation... But for my first one, I sure as heck can't complain!
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| Happy Birthday, Mom! |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|08:58 am] |
My mom just turned 60 on Christmas Eve. I made her this Memory Quilt to commemorate such a special milestone.
It has 66 large pictures (2"x3") and 115 small pictures (.75"x1") in the mosaic border. I started planning this in July and had many speed bumps along the way such as collecting the pictures, getting them to print (I did all photos in sepia tone), and finding private time to work on it. I finished the top on December 23rd and gave it to her the next morning. I will pin it and quilt it when we get home from my sister's house. The fabric collection was primarily Nell's Flower Shop by Moda. I did add a few others. The background is a cream crackle by Moda and the 1st and 3rd borders are also a Moda print. The printable fabric came from JoAnn's.
Here are a couple of close ups:
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| sales 2009 |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|11:41 am] |
Hi guys,
cheeky little question here: can anyone recommend any good yarn sales in London at the moment?
Cheers!
Bx |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|05:22 pm] |
I have been wanting to make a post in here for so long! So happy to finally be able to do so. Anyway - these are the end products of half a year's effort... between work, school, parenting, and life in general, I don't get much crafting time these days.
I have two friends who were both pregnant this year. I made these quilts for them in parallel, and the boys were subsequently born 2 days apart. Both quilts are modeled after a charm quilt I made a long time ago which my daughter has since appropriated for her own.
( behind the cut for pictures ) |
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| And Here's My Sister's Gift... |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|09:41 am] |
This pattern is Slideshow by Atkinson. It was the first pattern I ever bought (2 years ago) but I was a tad bit intimidated by it because I was worried about matching points. It was so much fun that I will do it for my next project. This is a twin size quilt but will easily fit on my sister and her husband's queen -sized bed.
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| Pattern Up For Sale! |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|03:22 pm] |
 Click the image to view details! (x-posted everywhere) |
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| Look What I Made.... |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|01:26 pm] |
My brother and his wife are probably the last two remaining Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans so I figured they deserved a quilt. I will give it to them tonight as a Christmas present. I hope they love it. Here it is:
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| When your crazy excited on fabric ideas and your family thinks your wacky... |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|12:22 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | excited | ] |
Brick road quilt pattern
Larger scale for the visual
Ok a few weeks back I was watching a Fon's and Porter episode and they showed this one quilt done in flannel sort of masculine looking in the brick road design. And I kept looking at it thinking I could use this look in my bedroom with all of my Klimt art. If I did it in fabric in jewel tones sort of keeping in mind the blanket in the painting of "The Kiss" with gold, black, cobalt blue, and so forth.
Which then got me thinking of this fabric I saw last year but it was only available then in the UK and people were using in a "Klimt artwork challenge" but then I didn't think anymore about it I just kinda wrote if off as a oh well. But with getting my fabric in the mail this week I got a ton of coupons so I thought I'd look around the website today between cookie batches and I found the fabric. Not only did I find it I found it on sale and had a free shipping coupon code and I about flipped out. Now I'm not sure if I would just use this as accent fabric for like pillow cases and so forth or if I would use this to make a throw for in the room to go on the end of the bed. Either way I'm plotting out ideas on this now...
( Read more ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|09:04 pm] |
Edit:
Thank you so much for the wonderful comments! I was able to put the green sashing on yesterday, and I finally showed it to my boyfriend. He loves it! Now all I need to so is put on the final border and find a nice comfy fabric for the backing. He asked for something cuddly :)
Here is a shot with the green border:
And a close-up of the detail of the fabric (bubbles!):
It's not so limey/olive in real life. Lol.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
So I'm a terrible procrastinator, and I thought giving myself a huge project like this would push me to finish it in time for Christmas.
Nope.
Lol. Well my understanding boyfriend said he can wait until I finish the top tomorrow, but I wanted to share my progress so far. I started on the evening of the 23rd and stayed up all night, as I will do tonight.
I intended to make 5 paper pieced Bruins symbols, but I screwed myself over for time.
This is my first quilt!
( Pictures, and link to photo album )
Thanks for looking! :) MERRY CHRISTMAS! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|08:21 pm] |
I finished the Go Navy! quilt today. I hand-finished the entire binding today while watching endless episodes of Super Nanny. Thank God for television marathons!
The Go Navy! quilt spans my entire mattress, which is queen sized, with no drop. It's the perfect size for two people to cuddle up or for one to take a cozy nap.
( Go Navy! ) |
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| From the Inbox |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|03:17 pm] |
The president of our local guild just emailed this, and I thought I'd share:
Twas the night before Christmas,
And the quilts were not made,
The threads were all tangled, the cookies delayed.
The stockings weren't hung, the pantry was bare,
The poor weary Quilter, was tearing her hair.
Stacks of fat quarters, tipped over in streams,
Visions of Log Cabins had turned into dreams.
When what to her wondering eyes should appear,
But a bus full of quilters with all of their gear.
They went straight to work with just a few mutters,
Sorting and stitching and brandishing cutters.
The patterns emerged from all of the clutter,
Like magic the fabrics arranged in a flutter.
Log Cabins, Lone Stars, Flying Geese and Bear Tracks,
Each quilt was a beauty---even the backs!
Her house how it twinkled, her quilts how they glowed,
The cookies were baking, the stockings were sewed.
Their work was all done, so they folded their frames,
And packed up their needles, without giving their names.
They boarded the bus and checked the next address,
More quilts to be made, another quilter in distrss.
She heard one voice echo, as they drove out of sight...
"Happy quilting to all, and to all a good night."
Author Unknown
(Shared by a friend in her Quilters Club of America email) |
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