It's in the Bag

It's kind of a big day in the studio, because it's one of the scariest in the landscape quilting progress, at least for me. That's right...it's time to take all the pieces (many of which were added since last week's post) off the temporary layout for this new free-motion landscape...and bag them up for later, when they'll be fused or glued into place.

It's almost as if your quilt goes away...poof! That's why it's so scary. But throughout the preliminary design process, nothing is permanent anyway. Designing is not about permanence. This is the time to be totally flexible. Time to try different fabrics, values, colors and textures. Time to play with placement, additions, omissions, and fun details--although I often save the finer details for later.

So, as of lunchtime today, the fabric pieces are grouped in plastic bags (generally according to size, and/or areas of the quilt). The exceptionally long or large pieces are on the design board, a convenient place to park them for now. If you can't do that, find a large plastic bag, a drawer, a box, a shelf, whatever, and put them there. It's particularly helpful if you can keep them in a place where they don't have to be folded--otherwise, they may have to be ironed again before gluing/fusing them down. Why iron more than once if you don't have to?

 

The freezer-paper pattern pieces are also bagged, even though most of them will never be needed again. The thing is, you never know--a day or two later you just might decide you want to use a different fabric for a particular piece. If so, you're ready to iron that pattern piece onto the new fabric and cut it right out. Never throw away a pattern piece until the quilt is done. (And even then, I keep some of them. I'll get into the 'why' of that in another post.)

The few pattern pieces that aren't bagged are pieces I still need to work with--like putting battlement details and arrow slits on the tower fabric. That didn't need to be figured out for the general layout of the quilt, but it will need to be done--details cut and fused--before the tower gets overlapped by the main garrison piece (the big, gray stone wall).

Next up will be tracing the original drawing, albeit with changes, on a full-sized vinyl overlay. Easy and kind of fun!

I want to switch gears here just for a second, especially for any readers who are local (Louisville, KY area) and who happened to know Linda Bowles, owner of Moore's Sewing and Learning Center. This is the lady who has so generously exhibited my landscape quilts in her shop for the last two years. Linda passed on Wednesday, after an illness that never got her down until the very end. She was one of the kindest, most supportive and loving souls I've ever met. Her family, staff and customers, including me, will miss her immensely. Moore's will never be the same without her smile, her cheer and her hugs.

Hooking up with Leah at FMQ Friday and Sarah at Whoop Whoop Friday--even if I'm not quite as whoopy as usual. Linda Bowles would want that. Anything to do with sewing/quilting/embroidering was something she was always ready to celebrate!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Linda