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NOTE: I’ve got my weekly post over here – I had a fun trip to California’s mid-coast. Sooo, if you’ve been following me you know I’ve been playing with Applipops. Applipops are kind of like well-made washers that nestle into each other. A set of them allows you to make perfect circles in record time with a very short learning curve. They are the coolest dog-gone thing. I began to see the FB posts of Ellen Rosenbach and I was stunned by the beauty of her quilts. I’d not heard of her before she entered FB on May 17 and…
NOTE: There will not be a newsletter this week as I’ll be traveling that day. I forgot to add that to last week’s newsletter. If you’re not already getting it, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter here. It’s been a week of new starts, pondering what’s next and a discovery. First, the discovery. You probably recall my Turtle Hand Batik panel that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Quite by accident, I turned on the lights above the panel at night and was delighted with what I saw: I love how the light rakes across the piece…
I worked on two things almost exclusively this week, well actually one tiny thing and one gigantic-seemingly-unsolvable thing. On a whim, while cleaning up my workspace I ran into my bag of goodies from last year’s Houston Fall Market. Market is so. much. fun! All the vendors are showing their wares and new stuff, giving away samples and projects. One of those that I came upon was a kit to make Annie’s Flipping Out Bag. It was a complete kit and I thought what fun that would be! In all fairness, I am NOT a bag maker. When I go…
Well, kinda two finishes, more like wrapping up what was about 90% done previously. But hey, I’ll take it as a finish! I did ultimately decide to go with the “back” of the organza sheer SAQA Auction Donation quilt: If its purchaser prefers it the other way it will be easy to move the tiny sleeve and show the “front”. I was perplexed on how best to hang it and I like my solution: I cut a hollow plastic tube to size whose previous purpose was to hold a small American flag. The flag had faded and I kept the…
I’ve been itching to make a garment. I saw the Agustina Boxy Top on my IG feed and thought it looked perfect: free download, I knew I had fabric for it in my stash and it was super simple. Ah, not so: I consider this my muslin and I had hoped it would be a “wearable muslin”. Unless you’ve sewn a pattern before, it’s always a good idea to make a muslin so you know what adjustments you’ll need to make. This was so simple that I thought I didn’t need a real muslin. Hah. This top would be best…
This week feels like a new season. I had several gigs reschedule and/or go to virtual presentation. It feels good to work again and talk to people that want me to visit! So the gauntlet has been thrown down and it is clear to me, if I want to work right now, I must go digital. Onward I go, researching and attending Zoom meetings on how to Zoom. I am the benefactor of the work of several who have gone before me that are teaching the rest of us how to teach virtually. You may have heard, AQS (American Quilter’s…
I finished, just in the nick of time! I submitted yesterday afternoon, with a wee bit of trauma, but it. is. done! I named her “Much in Common”: “The linen tablecloth and I are about the same age. We both have some worn parts and stains, and not everything is symmetrical. It was a pleasure to quilt her and retain her imperfect charm.” She is 55″ x 57″. And she is heavy – quilt + linen tablecloth + buttons + lots of thread = heavy A couple of detail shots: She was a little fussy to quilt. Her print was a…
It’s really getting down to the details this week. I worked hard all week on my grid work and am about half way through with the bead work. Next up are Prairie Points, attaching the rick-rack and then a piped binding, photos and submission. I decided to triple stitch the grid and I am glad I did. Those extra two passes took a lot of time and work but I think it was worth it. Let me show the progression and I think you’ll see why: Single stitch grid. Meh. Here you can see the double stitched grid on the…
I hold the notion that most times it’s the final 10% of your quilting decisions that make or break your quilt. I think I have way more that 10% of work left, but only a few decision areas left. All of those revolve around the border. I have gridded the border, no small task and a first for me. I did not decide until late in the game to grid the border and that is what created the problem. At that point, the center of the quilt had been heavily quilted and the unquilted border was one floppy, wavy…
This week I concluded, there is hope that I can finish this quilt in time to be able to submit to the Houston show. Hope, not a slam dunk, hope. I micro-stippled for days-on-end this week. And buried another 1.5 million knots. And just to switch tedious tasks, I finished embellishing 20 feet of rick-rack: That right there is 750 faux French Knots by machine. It took oodles of hours to figure out the right formula to make this happen. Pounding 12 wt cotton thread through polyester rick-rack, deliberately piling up the thread was fraught with peril. The final formula,…