Prep, Playing and Posture

Oh I love to alliterate! I am simple to please sometimes. This week I have been working on many things at once by necessity. I am trying to get a new piece started, possibly in time for Pacific Int’l Quilt Festival, I’ve figured out some ways to make quilting more comfortable and even made time for some play.

I seem to be in a black and white series-I still have more to say on my grasses and drought tolerant plants. I love them: their texture, their movement, their shapes. I hope to capture my favorite grass, Stipa Gigantia, in its entirety, not just the seeds.

I’m preparing the background for a fairy large piece-36″ x 60″ or so. It may not end up that large and it actually may not work at all. I’ve put in many hours to get about a third of the background quilting done. I love this photo of the quilt resting on the hall chair, dappled with sunlight.

For my quilting breaks I have been playing with various threads and motifs on a practice square. I hope to capture the look and feel of the mature seed heads. The seed pods have expelled their seed so the remaining pods are kind of ethereal dots. It’s hard to capture that so I’m playing around with different ways to show it.

I started out with silk thread but it’s so delicate that it just shows up kind of fuzzy. The Aurifil 50 weight is better. The gold metallic just does not capture the feel at all.

I love the look of the grasses in the morning backlit by the sun-I want to capture that. I’m experimenting with silk/metallic threads here and added big ole fat 12 weight thread. I like the heft and statement of the 12 weight. I also think I prefer the daisy stitch over a straight stitch.

And some of it didn’t work at all! I thought little French knots at the end of each stitch would look good. Ew-it’s kind of creepy looking.

All this intense work can be hard on my back. I am careful with my posture but I do have some mild back issues. I thought I would try some back aides. Am I getting old or what?? Back aides?

This BackJoy IS a joy! It’s a simple little device, light-weight and gentle but boy does it make a difference.

The profile of the BackJoy is compact and it’s so light that I see myself traveling with this, maybe even sitting on it in the plane.

One of my students wears one of the Body Right Posture Pleasers and swears by it, so I had to try it. It also seems like a good addition to my tool chest. It’s simple to slip on and the counterweight effectively neutralizes the stress on the spine that comes with quilting.

I’m wearing both right now when I quilt and I am definitely more comfortable. It seems like the BackJoy gives me the most relief and I am pretty sure I will be toting it along with me when I teach and travel.

I don’t have a post yet on June’s Elizabeth Barton piece. Elizabeth has been traveling and has not yet critiqued our blocked out quilts. Once I get the critique I still have to figure out how to quilt it! I’ll keep you posted on my progress.