The very beginning of a new quilt and some interesting purchases

 

My guild’s show, the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild is this weekend! I worked the judging room as a helper yesterday and I’ll be White Gloving Fri morning and Saturday afternoon. Judging was so much fun!  If you ever get a chance to help with judging, do it! You will learn a ton about quilting and what judges look for.

I got a preview of many of the quilts and let me tell you, it is a spectacular show. Come see us!

Sooooooo, I started a new quilt. You know what that means: at this point I am thinking all will go well, birds will singing under blue skies and cherubs will float around my quilting room. I KNOW disappointment and ripped stitches are soon to f0llow, but for now, I am in the honeymoon stage:

This fabric is divine. It is a heavy metallic linen with 5″ stripes. I have had it for probably 8 years or so, waiting for the right time. I love strippy quilts and have admired many antique strippies.

Already, several things have taken me a new direction:

• This is a very heavy fabric. I usually Misty Fuse baste my quilts but with the combination of the metallic coating (think slippery, not wanting to bond) + its hefty weight made me think that Misty Fuse was not the best choice in this case. I spray basted instead.
• I realized that whatever cutting method I used, I will be cutting into metal! Just a few cuts of this fabric killed my rotary blade. From now on, any cutting I do will be with some rot gut scissors.

I am playing right now:

This is early on thinking and I could end up with an entirely different plan. I am considering doing feathers in the white stripes and some sort of grid in the silver stripes. I am also considering putting a vine in wool applique by hand in the silver stripe, surrounded by grid. That would be quite an undertaking, perhaps more than I am willing to commit to. All that is up in the air at this point.

Observations so far on my test panel:

1. Scale too large. I do like the grid on point.
2. Scale is good here.
3. Considering some sort of parallel line surround of some sort of feather.
4. The mirror image of 3. Kinda not liking the mirror image on 2 differently colored stripes. I don’t think a 2-stripe plan of one design is going to work on this fabric.
5. Reversing the position of the feathers and the parallel stripes. I kinda like the other position, as in 3 and 4.
6. Playing with various sizes of plain grid. I doubt I will do this. Plain grids are hard! Every single bobble will show, unlike the pumpkin seed grid.
7. Oh I like this one! A lot!
8. A little too plain.
9. Pretty, but I like 7 better.

I was inspired by the wool applique I saw on this quilt in this year’s Houston show:

Is that not divine? I love that it is all one color. I love the gridded background. I love wool applique. I have sketched out a Jacobean inspired design for this quilt already, but there are several barriers. I need as white a wool as can be found, I need to felt it, and, I have to commit to a LOT of work. I have been itching to do some wool applique, but this would be a very deep dive!

Also, it would be tricky to quilt around the applique on a domestic machine. I would echo quilt to provide the needed line to travel upon. Also, I might be doing lots of traveling, so that could get messy. I would consider quilting the grid first and appliqueing atop that. Yes, that would be a challenge. See what I mean? This is no small task.

On an unrelated note, I recently stumbled upon an entire Gees Bend inspired collection at Target. I know, that sounds implausible. But lookie here:

A great little pouch that I will use to hold supplies for retreats and classes. It’s about 2″ x 4″.

And I love this throw! It’s about 50″ x 60″, a perfect lap size. Every morning I read and do devotions; this is perfect for my chair. I love the colors and the black hand stitching. It has a poly filling so it’s not going to be an heirloom, but I am tickled to have it.

So there ya go, my week. I’ll be sharing at:

Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Friday