Catching Up

Quilting news ahead...first things first, though. When I last posted several weeks ago, my dear friend Kathy was about to have a kidney removed. As of 2 days ago, she's home and doing well. Many thanks to everyone for all the good wishes and encouraging words! Kathy's cats survived (thank goodness, since my husband and I took care of them) but her croton plant did not. This is the second croton I've killed in the last few years. Both times, I watered all the other plants, but somehow missed the croton...which is one of the most colorful, vivid houseplants in existence. Go figure!


Speaking of colorful, right before Kathy's surgery I finished a double-layer fleece winter coat for our granddog Rue, after learning that Chihuahua breeds don't handle going out in cold weather well. Her mommy, my daughter-in-law Shannon, thinks Rue looks like a '70s model in this photo. I agree.

Other people teased that Rue needs a sombrero with this coat. Well, I can't make one of those :), but I did knit a sweater and a cape for less frigid days. Rue hasn't made it over here to try those on yet. When she does, there will be more photos.  :)



A few days later, Shannon and my son Alex came to our house bearing a gift....the best gift my husband and I have EVER, EVER received....



EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


















This will be our first grandchild (due March 15). Six weeks after receiving the news, I'm still pinching myself in disbelief and grinning to myself like an idiot. Today I was dancing in the grocery. In 2 or 3 weeks, we'll know the gender of our grandbaby. Which is a good thing, because I've come this close to making something in lavender and ruffles. Not because I'm hoping for a girl, but because I couldn't make those kinds of clothes for my two sons!

On to quilting projects/progress/news. Click on any of these photos to enlarge....

1.  Finished my 2nd quilt-as-you-go project for The Center for Women and Families here in our town. This quilt was pieced from remnants, scraps, and fat quarters, and was oh-so-fun to make on the 1958 Singer 403, the amazing machine my husband bought for 8 dollars at the thrift store.

front

back

2.  Began an underwater scene quilt.

first design

second design

in progress

 3.  Rock of Ages was awarded 2nd place at the 2014 Kentucky State Fair in the 'pictorial quilts' category. (You might recognize this quilt as the background on my blog.)

4.  SOLD Rock of Ages.
     (I kid you not. The quilt sold just 10 days after it received the ribbon...and the buyer had no idea. She had been keeping her eye on it in my Etsy shop for 2 months. The timing was purely coincidental.) Just for fun, here's a photo of the quilt in the designing/piecing stage.

5.  Sold New England Dawn (to the same buyer, 2 days after she bought Rock of Ages...needless to say, I felt both thrilled and very grateful). This, by the way, was the first quilt for which I made those machine-embroidered shrubs.

6.  Performed eye surgery on Lida Luna yesterday. She went from this (photo on left)....

                                         
                                           
                                             to this:
















The two eyes just didn't look right, as my sister Karen and my friend Kathy observed. I hadn't been entirely comfortable with two eyes, either, knowing that one should be almost out of view. Not to mention, Lida looked a tad cross-eyed with two. But I was also afraid that a single eye would look a little odd. As it turns out, I like the single eye a lot better. Also, the eye is now a silver bead instead of a black one. The black bead was a bit too in-your-face.

The AQS show in Chattanooga is just 2 weeks away! The Visit arrived safely for the competition. I can't wait to see all the wonderful quilts, and sure hope to run into some of you there.

Hooking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday. Check it out, Sarah is raffling off another beautiful quilt!

Have a wonderful weekend. We're due for lots of rain, but I'm ready for it after all this heat.

Linda

Leaving Lida

She's done! Lida Luna is finished at last. After cutting out a jillion sections of gradient batik for binding strips, then piecing them together so that the dark-, medium- and light-gray sections were positioned just so around the quilt, I machine stitched the whole strip onto the front--only to discover that after the first 2 feet or so, the sections had not landed where I'd planned. Seems I'd made a geometric miscalculation at the corners (let's leave it at that). Being in no mood to rip it out and start repiecing, I told myself the new arrangement looked better than the original, that fate had stepped in and improved my plan. Yep, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. So here's how it worked out (minus the pins at the top and my bad photo-crop job). 

 

Lida Luna by Linda Wulf Koenig, June 20, 2013

Lida's boa and tail feathers have been attached for some time now, but she just got her beak painted last night and her eyes sewn on this morning. By that time we'd bonded, so when I took her to Moore's Sewing and Learning Center this afternoon to put her on exhibit, it felt a little like taking a pet to the kennel for a long stay. I kept waiting to hear a screech from the trunk on the drive over.

 

So now she's hanging side-by-side with my previous landscape quilt, Rock of Ages.

 

 

If you're in or near the Louisville, KY area, stop in at Moore's and take a look. There is no way to convey the texture of a landscape quilt with a photo, it just doesn't translate. But here's a side-angled shot that at least hints at the dimensional effect of the bird's body, which was appliqued over two (graded) layers of extra batting. Still not entirely obvious, though, until you see it in person.

 

 



 

 And one more shot, a close-up of Lida the moonbird:

 

 

Darn it, it looks like her right eye needs to be moved a bit further from her beak. Oh well. As Rosanne Roseannadanna (Gilda Radner) of Saturday Night Live often complained in her nasal whine, "It's always something." That's ok, I'll fix it before Lida goes to a permanent home. For now, she and I can use a break from one another.

 

Meanwhile, I'm on to my next project. Don't tell Lida, but it involves a family of geese.

 

Hooking up here with Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday post, as Lida's completion is definitely a whoop whoop. Sarah's beautiful quilted pillow has spurred me to get that un-used pillow form out of storage and get busy.

 

Also hooking up here with Leah Day's FMQ Friday post. She's creating a specific space in her house for handsewing, and asking if we have a particular spot where we like to handsew. Interesting coincidence, as I've been debating whether or not to use this nook in the studio for that very thing. 

 

When the room was a bedroom for my boys, I made a cushion for the window seat (which is actually a storage bin my VVHH built). They could sit there and read or just stare out at the beautiful foliage between our house and the one next door. I'm not sure they actually did that, although somewhere there's a photo of the younger one climbing up there in his diaper. So now I'm considering making another cushion for it and using the space again for something other than storage (the bin is full of batting and that pillow form I mentioned). And the thread couldn't get much handier for handsewing, now could it?

Looking forward to seeing other folks' handsewing nooks over at Leah's site. Instructions for hooking up at her site and Sarah's are on their pages at the bottom of their posts (links above), and are very easy to follow. Check them out, along with their reader hookups. Inspiration abounds!

 

Happy summer, everybody!

 

Linda

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

What a Blockhead, Charlie Brown

Yesterday I would have been thrilled to report that Lida the moonbird is finally attached to her quilt, Lida Luna.

Today I'm a little less thrilled, because it hit me this morning that I did not block the quilt before attaching her.

Holy crap.

In the manifesto under my blog profile, I mention the fun, the challenges, and the 'aha moments' of landscape quilting. This will be one of the challenges.

I always block landscape quilts. Or at least I did until now. As any teacher of this particular quilting genre will tell you, it is a necessary step in getting the final piece to hang square, straight and flat against the wall. Blocking in this case means laying the quilt flat (or hanging it) against a firm, heat-resistant surface, pinning it down square, and steaming the holy heck out of it. After that, it sits, sometimes for a couple of days, untouched and unmoved (very important to prevent warping or uneven stretching) until it's completely dry.

I'll admit to being a bit distracted these days, with the studio move just completed and two trips in the offing (where the h*ll did my two bathing suits go???). Add to that the nagging feeling that Lida Luna has been, for various reasons, taking more time than I ever dreamed it would--hence the rush. It's not that I have a deadline; I don't (although Moore's Sewing & Learning Center has very kindly offered to exhibit it as soon as it's done). It's just that there are so many unmade quilts in my head, and ever since my 60th birthday last year, there seems to be some internal pressure that can almost qualify as a deadline--though one of my own making. The good news is, the same thing happened when I turned 50 (only then it was writing books instead of quilting), and after a couple of years I finally got past that time-crunch illusion. I'm looking forward to that downshift again this time around. What is it about decennial birthdays? The years in between never bother me, and it's never about 'growing old' for me, either. It's just the time thing. Grrrr.

Back to the quilt. Some might ask, why not steam it even though Lida is already attached? Answer: Lida would most likely wrinkle in a few places. Right now she's smooth and nicely rounded, puffed out with a couple of thin layers of batting between her and the quilt. There's also a good chance the acrylic yarn on her feathers would be affected (like, melted--or at least wilted), although you never touch the iron directly to the surface, and I would certainly test a yarn sample first. (It took 6 hours to attach those 30 or so little knitted lengths of yarn--you bet your booty I'd test it first!)

Ok, what about taking Lida off the quilt, steaming it, then re-attaching her? Answer: Are you crazy? Just kidding, and yes, this may sound stubborn, but after the long hours spent and the eyestrain and sore fingers endured to secure Lida firmly to the quilt, I'd sooner put the whole project on a shelf than detach her now. And it's so close to being finished...

Which leaves at least one more option, and it's the one I'm considering. Would it be possible to steam carefully around Lida without causing her to draw up and wrinkle? And even if she didn't, would the quilt then warp in her area because of the uneven shrinkage overall? Something tells me it might. Then again, would that matter, if the quilt hasn't yet been trimmed and squared?

This all boils down to the lesser of two evils. If I don't block the quilt, it may start out hanging flat and square but eventually stretch out of shape while hanging on the wall. If I do manage to block most of the quilt without crinkling Lida in the least, it may still be impossible to square. Remember, there is a lake in this quilt. One cardinal rule with landscape quilts portraying a water line or a horizon line is that the top and bottom of the quilt must be parallel to that line--and hence to each other. From there, you square your sides. This is sometimes trickier than it would seem and, with an unblocked area in the quilt, could be downright impossible. The result, as in the first scenario, is that the water line could look all wonky or the whole quilt could hang unevenly. Who wants a crooked or saggy quilt hanging on the wall?

Then again, any distortion after blocking could (crossing my fingers here) end up being so minimal that it's nearly unnoticeable after all's said and done. Considering that Lida is 16 inches long, that might be a stretch. No pun intended.

I'm trying to look at it this way: whichever way this goes, it will be a learning experience. (Gulp.)

Wish me luck...

Update, June 7:  I spent yesterday afternoon carefully blocking the areas around Lida. It might not be perfectly flat, but if I do a little bit of easing in a couple of areas, I think it will hang fine. Whew!! So since I have a little something to whoop-whoop about after all, I'm hooking up here with Whoop Whoop Fridays. Sarah has just finished a quilt that makes me happy just looking at it. Remember to also look below her post to see what her readers are working on. Lots of inspiration there! Also hooking up with Leah Day at FMQ Fridays. She's mulling over the importance (or lack thereof) of the occasional renegade stitch on her AMAZING quilt, Duchess Reigns. Check it out, and check out her hookups, too.

Linda

Lida-Loony

At last, some progress in the new quilting studio. Lida the bird has decided to (mostly) drop her diva-ish ways this week and cooperate. Between Floriani thread and plenty of little alcohol pads to periodically clean the fusible-web goo off the needle (always taking the needle out first), she's been transformed from view A to view B:

View A

View B

She has no eyes yet, and won't have until after she's attached to her free-motion quilt, Lida Luna--untrimmed and waiting on the design board (we don't have the new design wall finished, but my very versatile handy husband--VVHH from now on--is working on it):

Lida's beak will probably be painted either silver or a pearlescent white; otherwise it won't show up all that well against the sky.

The transformation wasn't exactly a cakewalk. There were hitches. The first issue was hand-tying knots in Floriani thread, which I'd never tried before. (I couldn't trust the lockstitches at the beginning and end of each row, most of them being right at the edges of Lida's body, which will soon be closely trimmed away from the stabilizer.) I used my usual hand-tying process, a reef (square) knot, the same configuration you use to keep your shoelaces from coming untied. A knot you can count on.

The joke was on me. While I was working on the second knot,
I literally watched the first knot come loose. I couldn't believe it! Square knots have never failed me with Isacord, Superior and YLI poly, Invisifil, or good ol' Coats & Clark--or my shoelaces. Not ever. However, Floriani embroidery thread is the most slippery thread I've ever used other than mono-poly. (UPDATE: I've since discovered that I may have all along been tying the 'reef' or 'square' knot wrong--oops--still, this thread is slippery enough that, as I said, it is the first to have made knots that I've ever actually watched come untied. END OF UPDATE.) Vexed (and somewhat indignant), I re-tightened the errant knot and then pulled out one of my favorite weapons--Fray Check. Oh yeah...take that, Floriani!! From then on, every knot got saturated with the stuff. And so far, they're all staying put. The great thing about Fray Check, besides checking (stopping) fraying, is that it's totally undetectable after it dries.

The second hitch was something already mentioned above, which is having to trim Lida away from the stabilizer. That's because in my anxiousness to get started, I accidentally pulled out a scrap of medium-weight Pellon interfacing instead of the scrap of tear-away stabilizer I'd meant to use. When the sinking feeling dawned on me halfway through these lines and rows that the stabilizer was handling more like interfacing, I tested a corner of it. Sure enough, it tore somewhat easily in one direction, but not in the other. At that point, Lida was beginning to make me loony. But I wasn't about to rip stitches and start over. Plugging away was the only option. So a close and cautious trim with the scissors will have to do. Once Lida is satin-stitched onto the quilt (over some batting to puff her out a bit), her edges should be invisible; otherwise, fabric markers can be used to touch up any white areas that might show through. Lesson learned, however. From now on I'll check the tear-ability first to make sure it's the right stabilizer. Duh.

Hooking up to Whoop Whoop Fridays, where Sarah has just finished a really cool project with the kids at her church. Be sure to look at some work by the folks who've hooked up below her post, too.

Also hooking up with Leah Day's FMQ Friday. Today Leah was in jail---no, not for real! Just read it. Very entertaining and encouraging.

And happy (almost) June!

Linda

Breaking the Ice

After posting photos of the new quilting studio last week, I was anxious to get up there and start work. However, I'd forgotten one 'minor' detail: the bedroom from which much of this equipment and all these supplies came was now a disaster. Granted, it was a disaster with a lot more space, but it was still a disaster. There were areas that had been so blocked in before, that dusting and vacuuming had become difficult if not impossible. Also, there were things I had modified for quilting and storage that could now go back to their original purpose. Until this old space got cleaned and reorganized (not nearly as fun as prepping the new space), it would be an unpleasant sight to go to bed to and especially to wake up to (pardon the prepositional ending). So mostly, that's what's been happening this week.
 
The bedroom went from these two views...

...back to this (minus the curtains I still need to wash and re-hang):

Ok, yay. I mean, YAY, "whoop whoop!" as Sarah would say! (And I've gotta paint that old chair something other than blue.) But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so even before any of that happened, I thought, all right, I'll just do one little thing in the new studio and then I'll get to work in the old bedroom. I trotted upstairs, sat down at the sewing machine and looked around--and realized that after all of this anticipation, work, and reorganization, I was feeling intimidated by the new space. What?? This was unexpected, a splash of cold water in my face. It was as if the new studio was saying, "Ok, kiddo, let's see what you can do, now that you've got me!" Yikes. So, pretending to be unconcerned, I pulled Lida the bird out to work on--and then remembered that, in all the hubbub with moving, I hadn't gotten around to buying the shiny black thread needed to outline her feathers. Crap. Back Lida went, into her plastic bag.

Nor did I feel ready to unroll the lizard mandala quilt-top or the lake quilt-top (and I know better than to force myself to work on something that isn't jiving with me at the moment). Looking around, my eyes lit on a box I hadn't opened since it was purchased over a year ago--the circular sewing attachment for my machine. Immediately, I thought of the fat quarter I had used a while back to experiment with Shiva Paintstiks. It had rubbings of sycamore and dogwood leaves from my front yard AND a circular design in the middle--a rubbing from a ceramic, Zodiac ash tray given to me in my smoking days of the 1970s. Circular...perfect! I used a variegated YLI thread in the top, and a solid Isacord in the bobbin. They stitched beautifully together.

 It's hard to tell without clicking on the photo, but the attachment worked great. It's not free-motion stitching, of course, but the rest of the piece will be.

 

The main thing is, this simple exercise not only taught me something new, it also broke the ice. No more intimidation!

 

In the meantime, my husband has been busy adding some things to the room. (I'm starting to think this should be his blog. :) First is the little table he made to fill in the space to the left of the sewing table:  

 





 

It turned out perfectly flush with the sewing table and the big maple table behind it. His measures are never off; he is amazingly thorough and precise. I know, I'm very fortunate! The next thing he did was frame a piece of pegboard and hang it above the cutting table. Here's the weird thing: just like the fat-quarter shelves, the yardage shelves and the thread shelves, the pegboard turned out to be exactly the size that was needed, just large enough for everything to fit. We had no way of knowing this beforehand. It just worked out, like the proverbial pieces of a puzzle falling into place. Then again, I don't believe in coincidence.

 

 

Then he hung the wall gecko that my son and daughter-in-law gave me for Mother's Day. As I mentioned in my last post, lizard is my totem animal. It symbolizes The Dreamer in some Native American folklore, so it seems very appropriate to have her mounted over the drawing table, where dreams becomes designs and designs eventually become quilts.

 

 

All that's left to do now is put up a design wall. We're working on putting materials together on the cheap for that--styrofoam insulation panels, corrugated board backing, and flannel covering. Meanwhile, I bought my shiny black thread and will resume work on Lida Luna, so there should be some actual free-motion quilting to show next time--it's been too long.

 

Hooking up here with Leah Day's new blog entry on FMQ Friday, 'Stitch for Fun, Not Perfection.' Good advice for me and I'm sure for many other quilters, as well. When you finish reading that (and viewing her amazing Duchess Reigns), be sure to look at the other quilters who are hooked up there; you'll see some amazing work. They never fail to inspire me. As do the hookups at Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday blog. Sarah has just reorganized her quilting studio, too, and judging from everything she's quilted this week, she was not intimidated by it AT ALL. (I'm following her example from now on.) Check it out!

 

Linda









Divas and Digs

I wish there were more progress to report on Lida Luna, but Lida the moonbird is proving to be Lida the Diva. I was so sure that metallic silver thread, bright and blingy against the medium-gray fabric of Lida's shoulders, would be the best choice for the scallop stitching on her feathers. Wrong-o. Unless the light shines on it at one particular angle, the silver thread doesn't even show. The scallop stitches (one of the rare instances I'll be using a built-in machine stitch on an otherwise free-motion landscape quilt) will have to be black, and fairly shiny.

The good news is, after 3 separate backorders totaling a 6-week delay, the carpet is being laid in the new studio this morning. A sort of oatmeal shade that goes by the inexplicable name of Lovesick (who names these colors, and what are they thinking?), it will be a nice, neutral, light-reflecting backdrop for all those colorful fabrics, paints and threads. Never have I been so happy to hear hammering and stapling at 8:00 a.m. For a little perspective on just how happy, here's a photo of what I've been waking up to every morning for the last few months:

That's because my 10' by 12' bedroom is also the studio. It started out lovely and non-cluttered, but that was before a second sewing machine, four drawer units, more design boards, and several tubs of fabric were added--all necessary and well-organized, but increasingly invasive. So much so, it's really begun to cramp--make that kill--any real creativity. Several times lately, I've walked in here to work on something, only to turn around and walk right back out. I'm a bit of a neatnik, after all, and this is the kind of scene that can send me over the edge. The only thing that's kept me from turning into a raving lunatic is knowing that this will all soon change. Thanks to my very handy and hardworking husband, and the son who moved out last September, by lunchtime today there will be, for the first time in nearly 40 years in this house, a room dedicated to nothing but designing, quilting, embroidering, and fabric painting. Oh hallelujah, glory be, and happy day!



During renovation (old carpet still in place)



There's a bathroom up there, too. Aside from the obvious advantage of that, I'll be able to paint fabric right over the bathtub and then rinse away the mess. For a neatnik, it doesn't get much better than that!







Tomorrow, after a bribery brunch (just kidding, they'd have done it for nothing), my two wonderful, strong sons will move the heavier items up to my new digs. Then comes the fun part: arranging and organizing. And last but far from least, quilting!

To read about someone who is making real progress with her free-motion project(s), head over to Leah Day's FMQ post. For added inspiration, check out the other blogs hooking up with her at the end of her post.

Also hooking up with Sarah for Whoop-whoop Friday, because she asked what made us dance the happy dance this week. If a new quilting studio doesn't qualify, I don't know what does. And check out all of her hookups!

And here's wishing a happy Mother's Day this Sunday to all of you moms!

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! 


Moving Ahead before Moving

Beginning to come out of a sinus/bronchial thing that's hijacked my life for a week now, I was determined today to do something besides cough and blow my nose. Even if it did take me twice as long as usual, due to foggy thinking.

The new studio isn't quite ready--no carpet yet, which is a must, due to the plywood floor. Can't stain that floor and make it look good, no way, no how. Just need to order the carpet, which we've already found at Home Depot--a short, dense pile that can in no way hide pins and needles (knock on wood!). Meanwhile, I'm struggling to do something, anything, creative in my little old bedroom space, where movement is now limited at best.

So out of purgatory today came one of my UFOs, a landscape quilt whose working title is Lida Luna. This is the quilt top (minus Lida, the focal point), which as of today is pieced, glued, and for the most part tacked down with mono-poly thread:

The focal point as I mentioned will be Lida (pronounced Leeda), the bird who will perch on the middle branch after the whole top is quilted. Here's Lida, who will get lots more embellishment, including eyes, once she's fused to the quilt:

 

Lida is 16 inches long and made of pieced cotton, fusible web, and some boa-eyelash type yarn for her feather-tips (you can see a sample of the yarn hanging from the clips on the design board). I knitted about 30 little pieces, each different lengths and made of two rows of knitting before binding off, then hand-sewed each little length of knitted 'feathers' onto the tips of Lida's fabric tail-feathers. And I couldn't resist giving her a boa!

Next up: choosing a backing, sandwiching the quilt, and pin-basting--which may have to be done in the dining room as with all my previous landscapes. But as far as the final quilting, it's looking like Lida Luna may be the first landscape to come out of the new studio! Lida was already kind of special to me (which I'll explain when I post the finished quilt), but that will make her even more so.