Spuds & Whimsy

Before starting this project during 'flu break'...

...I had started something that was supposed to be entirely whimsical.

Whimsical...mostly because of the snowflake background. Let's face it, it is just short of 'cartoony' for a landscape quilt. (Great for a Christmas quilt, though, which is probably the purpose of this fabric.)

Anyway, because of that, I felt no compunction about putting potatoes around the duck pond. Yep, those are spuds, from one of those 'food' fabrics that proliferated in the quilt world a few years back. I was actually going to call the quilt Spud Springs.

That all changed when VVHH (Very Versatile Handy Husband) took one look at it and said something about a man-made pond in the middle of the woods. The thing is, I had been okay with that concept (people do construct things in the woods sometimes--tree houses, gnome dwellings, spiritual grottoes), but after he pointed this out, I realized I was deliberately being a smart-ass.

Which is fine. I am a bit (or a lot) of a smart-ass, by nature. But just because your sky fabric is 'cartoony,' it doesn't mean the rest of the quilt has to be a joke.

So, the pond got changed to something more free-form and natural. (One of the trees was changed, too.)

All rocks but the long one are still spuds...just cut down to more rock-like shapes.

And in honor of our recently moved neighbors (please come back, Jennifer and James!), one of whom snapped a photo of a reclusive buck in the empty lot across the street from me (and next to them), this guy was added to the quilt.

The binding for this quilt is something I'd never tried before.

Do you see the brown 'piping' inside the red binding? Check out this wonderfully instructive video  to get that piping/flange look for your binding. It is SO easy with Margo Clabo's method (click here). Her tips also work wonderfully with regular binding!

Here's the finished quilt. The lighting is poor, but you get the idea.

VVHH is not entirely happy with this, by the way. He says he has trouble reconciling the whimsical snowflake sky with the more realistic deer and duck pond, as well as the horizon line and the lack of trees in the distance.

About an hour after he told me that, I remembered the first time he ever invited me to his painting studio at the art school where I met him in 1971. The painting he was working on at the time actually bothered me, because it made me feel claustrophobic, and I told him so. I recall him telling me he thought that was interesting.

What goes around, comes around. :D

Here's VVHH from our art school days, tripod in hand, on the way to photography class.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Linda

Power, Vibration and Morphing

She's alive!!! Finally on the downside of flu and a sinus infection, I'm thinking the best way to power through that kind of thing (besides medication) and join the living world again is to do what you love at every opportunity--even if it's only 10 or 15 minutes before you have to get prone with the tissue box again. That 'happy' vibration will do more than any over-the-counter or prescription medicine could begin to do. Happiness boosts your immune system, just as unhappiness depresses it.

What makes me happy is designing and making landscape quilts. No surprise there.

The aster quilt is presently rolled up and waiting to be bound and steam-blocked (it will take up about a quarter of the studio floor space, and I'm not in a position to let that happen yet).

Meanwhile, something new is steadily morphing on the design board.

Another winter scene

Will these horses work for this? I don't know, but we'll see.

Moon and bushes added. Plumb bob hung to determine exact position of horses.

Beginnings of a big tree. Bushes highlighted with white paint for snow.

One unusual thing occurred this week. Being too contagious to be around people, I photographed it from a studio window. Ever seen a live power line on the ground? I had never, so this was interesting (and a little frightening) to watch.

This unique fireworks display and the accompanying loud, ominous vibration and humming sound (think Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory) went on until the power company finally turned off the juice--which took them a lot longer than you might think, but I guess they had to figure out just where to turn it off. Meanwhile, the fire chief and more and more young firefighters showed up, ostensibly to determine no people or structures were endangered, but maybe also because most of them had never seen a live power line on the ground, either. They stood around a while and then left.

Our house was getting mighty chilly by the time power came back on at 2:00 a.m. Anyway, a large pine tree had fallen on the line, and is now waiting for hours of annoying chain-saw and chipper work to commence. Looking forward to that. Uh-huh.

That's it for now. Avoid live power lines and sneezing/coughing people, and have a great weekend.

Linda

Tips and Laughs

I'll just say it straight up: February has been one h*ll of a month. And since I'm behind on almost everything, including quilting, just thought I'd post a few stray tips that weren't included in some previous posts. (Also, I needed a laugh, and the last tip provided it.)

Warning: The first few tips are quilting/sewing related; the rest are not.

Tip 1:

Your ironing board can be used to support your quilt from the left side. Just adjust it a hair lower than your sewing table. Your quilt won't slide on the ironing board cover, so put a couple of sewing rulers on top of it, right sides up, so your surface will be level with the sewing table and your quilt will slide all you want.







Tip 2:

Actually this one has been posted before, but it's worth repeating. Save all those lettuce and mixed-greens containers to categorize quilt strips into groups of color and size. Then stack them, one inside the other (without lids), to save storage space.











Tip 3:

If you're using a sewing table and therefore do not need your machine's extension table, you can rig the extension table to keep your quilt from falling off the back end of your sewing table. I do have a very short wall back there. The extension table is turned up on its side on top of some storage containers, and is propped securely between the wall and the table edge. But even if I had no wall at all, there would be some way to make this work.




Tip 4:

Maybe don't wash your purchased pre-cuts. I'm a pre-washer, and this is the first time I ever bought pre-cuts, so I insisted on washing them in net laundry bags, and...well, you know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words....

(The two stacks in the foreground are already unraveled and pressed. And pressed, and pressed and pressed. If you have ever washed pre-cuts and had them turn out looking anything like they did before washing, I would love to hear from you.)


The next tip is mildly quilting-related.

Tip 5:

 Now and then, when your house is fairly clean and the lighting is nice, take a photo. This will give you something to aspire to (and to reassure you) when you are behind on everything and you think your house will never, ever look like something you'd want to live in again.

(High-contrast photos are great, by the way, because dust doesn't show.)











The last two tips are not quilting related.

Tip 6:

If someone tries to tell you that the newspaper used to be much larger and the headlines were just as alarming as they are these days, don't argue. You will lose.

(Yes, husband, I'm talking about you.  :)









Tip 7:

Yes, that's really our porch. (And I may have posted this before.)

If you put a fresh pumpkin on your porch for fall decoration, you get everything you deserve. Or at least the squirrel does.

I want my seeds back.












Looking forward to spring,
Linda

Slowly but Surely

"Slow and steady wins the race," according to Aesop in his famous fable, The Tortoise and the Hare.

Well it's a darned good thing, because that's pretty much all I can say about progress on the stripey-aster quilt. (No, I did not say stripey-a*s quilt, although it's tempting.)

Here's where it stands (or lies) for the moment...

...and if I knew how many knots I've buried at this point, I'd probably shoot myself. So much for making things easier on my shoulders by switching to feed dogs up and the dual feed system. The number of times thread had to be broken and knots had to be buried...well, like I said, it's better not counted.

There was one project completed just before that, made from the beautiful supplies that came in the December Quilty Box selection, chosen by Leah Day.

It was a relief to work on these blocks (small pieces, yay!). If I had this to do over, though, the bright green joining strips would be dark purple instead. Ah, well. I still like it, and it sure does brighten up our basement hallway!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Linda