Down (and Back Up) to Business

As mentioned in the update at the bottom of my last post (What a Blockhead, Charlie Brown), my mostly free-motion quilt Lida Luna got blocked in the end, though not nearly as thoroughly as it would have been had Lida the bird not been attached to it already.

She's protected here with about 6 cotton and linen hankies (my press cloths), as is the Angelina fiber moon and its tulle halo. I kept the iron as far away from Lida as possible but managed to get most of any excess fullness shrunk out of the background. I couldn't really tell how flat the whole piece would end up until after the excess batting, backing and top were trimmed from the edges. Here it is (below) with the first two edges done, and you can already see that it probably won't be a total disaster.

There's only one area, about 6 inches in length and fortunately near the edge, where the fullness didn't shrink out entirely. I'll try to ease it flat when I sew the binding on. That's really all I can do at this point, and it will probably be okay. Other than that, the quilt squared up nicely after its final trim.

 

This brings me to my not-so-favorite part of finishing quilts: choosing the binding. The cool thing is, for the first time ever, I have an actual design wall! My VVHH (very versatile handy husband) finished making the panels Saturday out of some corrugated board, styrofoam insulation panels, and cotton batting. By that afternoon, the design wall was up!

 

By Sunday morning it was down. Like, on the floor. Long story short, duct tape ain't what it used to be. But the 3M mounting pads were still proudly stuck on the wall--all 28 of them--as if to say, "Hey, we did our job."

 

So up the stairs came VVHH with the drill and electric screwdriver, some really long screws, and even--get this--some little white plastic covers to hide the screw-heads. Problem solved. (Only one patch job was needed, after the drill bit bent a little and chewed up some of the design wall cover. I whipped out a small square of fresh cotton batting and some Nancy's Notions mending tape. Second problem solved.) And no one will ever know those mounting pads are still on the wall!

 

My first color choice for Lida Luna's binding was solid black, which naturally looks pretty good around a nearly achromatic quilt, but before cutting up my black batik, I'm trying one other thing. The strips in this photo are cut from the leftover gradient fabric I used for the water in the quilt.

If I can get the light, medium and dark areas placed just right around the quilt, I'll piece them all together into one long binding strip, and away we'll go. Otherwise, it's back to black.

Meanwhile, after a day of going nearly cross-eyed arranging those black, gray and white gradient strips, I turned to some color work for a break.

If you're interested in color theory, Gloria Loughman's book Radiant Landscapes goes into more detail than any of the Landscape Quilting books I've found so far. For the first time, I took an in-depth look at the color wheel that's been sitting in my drawer for over a year and noticed all the ways it can be used. After making a color chart of all these color pencils (none of them are exactly the color of the paint on the pencil, of course), I began charting some of the color combinations Gloria talks about, starting with split complementary, shown below. It's been a fun and educational project, but now the binding strips are calling me back to the design wall.

 

 

Hooking up with Leah Day's FMQ Friday post--she's got a new project started and has made tremendous progress on the stunningly gorgeous Duchess Reigns. Check out her other links, as well, along with her reader hookups. Also hopping over to Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday post and hooking up, since I'm whooping about my design wall. Take a look at the feathers she stitched this week, and her beautiful stack of quilts headed for orphans in Ethiopia. Too cool!

 

Speaking of cool, you folks who are living in the roasting zones try to stay that way--cool, that is. We hit almost 100 Thursday, and some places went over it. Be safe--stay inside with your AC/fan and quilt away!

 

Linda

A Change in Scenery

It's Free-Motion Quilt Friday over at Leah Day's website http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2013/04/fmq-friday-put-smile-in-it.html and she's wondering what we're free-motion quilting this week. Well, Lida Luna (see my post titled Moving Ahead before Moving) finally got sandwiched, basted and onto the machine, and by Sunday I managed to free-motion stitch the whole thing (minus Lida, the bird, who is really the focal point). My biggest concern, other than just how Lida herself would eventually be quilted and embellished, was stitching over the sheers I'd used for the first time ever in a quilt--a layer of white tulle over the moon and two layers of black organza over the tree reflections in the water.

  

Turns out Joyce Becker was right: no worries. They stitched like a breeze, no snagging and no thread breaks, even using mono-poly thread. What a relief! I'll be much more willing and far less terrified to use sheers from now on. In this case, the tulle overlay on the moon was a must. Serving to corral the occasional runaway Angelina fiber, it also added a subtle halo, the diameter of the tulle circle being roughly two inches more than that of the moon. (If you click on the photo below, you can see it.)

As the background came close to being finished, I thought I'd be anxious to get Lida on the quilt, but instead I found my focus and enthusiasm oddly waning. Two days later, it hit me. Outside my window, color had recently appeared everywhere--daffodils and hyacinths blooming, the tulip poplar tree and forsythia hedges bursting with blossoms. Lida Luna is essentially a monochromatic piece, lots of black, grays, silver, an extremely deep purple and some midnight blue, and I'd been looking at it in my cramped little studio for weeks. What I needed was some color!

I didn't want to start another large project just yet, so Tuesday I decided to piece one of those fun, multi-hued and multi-hilled landscapes I've seen in landscape-quilting books, using this little sketch I'd made on a notepad a couple of weeks back.

After scanning and enlarging it on 4 sheets of printer paper, I traced the sketch on clear vinyl and laid it over a piece of muslin. Out came the iron, all of my paper-backed fusible web, and a drawer full of batik fat quarters. I wanted lots of jewel-like colors and maybe even a sort of stained-glass look for this little piece. By Wednesday evening, I had a quilt top temporarily fused (and pinned when I ran out of Steam-a-Seam2) to the muslin on my design board. Remember, the black lines are actually on the vinyl overlay. But I like them so much that I'm considering black satin-stitch on all the raw edges. It really does make it look a little like stained glass!


  




It's amazing how color can perk up your mood. This is only about 15" x 22," so it won't take long to quilt. I guess it's one of those unplanned little bonuses you get when you act on impulse--a change in scenery, a boost in energy, and an item to add to your inventory if you sell your work (which I do) or give as a gift. Having spent only a few very fun hours piecing this, I'm not emotionally attached to it, so it won't be hard to let it go once it's quilted and bound. And it's small enough that if I do decide to hang on to it, wall space won't be an issue. Especially in the new studio. (Which, by the way, is only waiting for new carpet--which we ordered from Home Depot with the exciting prospect of quick delivery and installation. Nope. Turns out the factory was fresh out of that color and it would be another 3 weeks just to get it milled and delivered to the warehouse. Then we'll schedule the installation. So, maybe next month. Crossing my fingers.)

Be sure to check out the quilting blogs that are linked up to Leah Day's post, using the link above. Better make a cup of coffee or tea first, though. These folks do amazing work, and you're going to want to settle in for a while to peruse it all. Have fun, and if you're a free-motion quilter and blogger, be sure to link up yourself!