The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

Packing, prep, goodie bags and angst

It’s not been a very Instagram-worthy kind of week. I’ve been prepping and putting together a goodie bag for my students and getting packed for the weekend ahead. I’m stoked about teaching at a retreat center for the South Valley Quilt Association. The group has not gathered together in 2 years and everyone is excited about meeting in person. The retreat center has a strict safety protocol so everyone feels comfortable meeting. I feel honored to be leading such an event.

I’m prepared for a lecture on our first night and then 2 days of free motion quilting fun. I have not been to the center, but it is described as “an oasis of peace”. I just want to rest on that statement – does that not sound so good? Peace! And quilting! What could be better? I hope I remember to take photos.

A few of the things given to me by other artists; I cherish them!

Last month at Craft Napa, I got a peek at Libby Williamson‘s fabulous goodie bags for her students, and a light bulb went off for me. I need to do something for my seminar students – I was shamed into this, so it’s all Libby’s fault! I definitely wanted to make something personal, memorable and useful for each student and that’s why I landed on a thread catcher. I know I wrote about them last week. Here is is all finished:

I put a wee bit of Velcro at the edge to keep it closed. I think it hits my target of personal, memorable and useful.

And here she is all packaged up with some goodies:

I added my fav mechanical pencil, my fav blue wash out marker, 2 home made salted caramels and a spool of Quilters Select Perfect Cotton Plus, courtesy of RNK. Those caramels are dog gone perfect – just chewy enough (won’t remove dental fillings), creamy and delicious, with just a hint of sea salt. Yummmmmm! I think it turned out to be a pretty good bag. Next time I make any of this, it will go exponentially faster now that I’ve perfected the techniques. I hope everyone enjoys them.

But we do need more than caramels to sustain us – ya gotta have some chocolate too, right?

I covered the bases with both milk and dark chocolate. I hope that between the caramels and the chocolate, everyone finds something they love.

On the personal quilting front, I’m not a procrastinator, but I have been wringing my hands over this one, afraid to go forward:

That is a close up of my trapunto quilt. You can see the remnants of the blue wash-out marker on the trapunto bubble, right? Think about that for a moment: there is blue wash-out marker that needs to be removed, with water…..from flaming orange dupioni silk. Is there any other fabric and color on the planet more likely to bleed than a silk dupioni in the red/orange spectrum? Will I ever learn?

I do have a plan and I will test on a scrap first, but I am playing with fire there and it could ruin my quilt. Stay tuned for that one. Wish me luck. The normal methods of getting out bleeds won’t work on this mix of silk and cotton and I’ve consulted with top dyers for advice.

I’ll be posting at:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
and
Finished or Not Friday.

 

 

Comments

  4. Next time precast all silk. It will not bleed or watermark…I used it 7 years ago on a converted sweatshirt…yes sweatshirt and it has held up beautifully….

    • I have had silk that would not stop bleeding no matter the treatment (and I’ve done them all). The silk was from India. I am unsure of the origin of all of the silks I used in this piece. I’m working on what I have now, a mix of silk and cotton and it is going to be tricky!

  6. You would think by now that someone would have invented the ultimate marker that is easily removeable without wrecking the quilt. I had to blow up the picture to see the mark you are talking about; if you think it needs to come out and can’t live with it, hope you find a satisfactory method for removal.