Loose Ends

The last three weeks have been a time to tie up loose ends:

1. Giving the blue jay a focus in Asters. (Click to enlarge.)

The joined acorns were cut from a printed cotton. The single acorn was put together and painted on wood-grain-patterned fabric with fusible web backing.

2. Label made and sewn onto Nordic Night.

For this one, I used a photo taken before the horses and the tree were added, and the quilt top was still on the design wall. I love doing this as a bit of a surprise for the buyer of the quilt. It's a good reminder that the finished work is a collection of many fabric elements and that it didn't just all come together overnight.

3. Label made and sewn onto Mallards.

For this one, a photo from the finished quilt was used.







4. Sewing together every leftover scrap of sky fabric I had.

This may have been one of my goofier ideas. It took a whole lot of trimming, piecing and pressing.

This sky conglomeration may need to be turned upside down to make sense in a landscape--oranges at the bottom. We'll see what happens with this, if anything.

5. Rescuing a UFO from the closet (and actually doing something with it).

Progress has been made since then, but I'm not really looking for stellar results. Just having fun with it, and hoping it turns out pretty. Working title is "Kissing Geckos."

6. Finally managing to take a straight-on shot of Asters in its entirety (including acorns).

In the end, it was photographed on the floor, the only place I could get far enough away from it to take a decent shot. I almost cut off the top, but it's actually all there.

7. Giving Asters a haircut and a shave...speaking of loose ends. Or in other words, trimming loose fibers from the raw applique edges and oh-so-carefully sticky-rolling lint off the quilt.

[Also, browning out two little lines of light-blue thread on the tree branches (hence, the brown Sharpie). Sometimes it's a lot more practical, when quilting, to cross on over into another area instead of breaking thread or going way, way around the thing you're crossing. As long as the thread is lighter than the thing you're crossing, you're good. Just remember to color the thread later. Cheating? Nope. Just common sense.]



8. Packing up Asters for shipping. Yep, it leaves here tonight and will hang in my sister-in-law's house in Maine. I'm pretty happy that this particular quilt isn't leaving the family.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and if you're betting on a horse in the Kentucky Derby, best of luck!

Linda

Nordic Night

This week, a finish for the winter landscape shown in progress two blogs posts ago.

Nordic Night, 22" wide by 39" high

This shot shows the quilting a little better:

It's hard to tell, but the border is a deep purple, and the binding is not just gray, but blue-gray.

The moon and the main part of the horse section were cut from what I think is a Timeless Treasures fabric. Several bushes were added from the same fabric and embellished with white paint.

My one regret is that the bare tree (cut and pieced from a Northcott Mills Stonehenge fabric) has no snow in the crotches. I did experiment with that in a couple of ways but wasn't happy with the results. I'll have to work on that process for future winter scenes.

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OFF SUBJECT: The Lucy drawer has another additon. VVHH thinks it's ugly, but I think it's cute.

The yarn is from Deborah Norville's Serenity Chunky Sprinkles line, and is quite 'furry.' I got a good chuckle when it finally occurred to me why I felt as if I'd seen something vaguely like it before....

...which is only fitting for Lucy from Grandma. I got you, babe.  <3

Have a wonderful weekend!

Linda

The Aster Quilt

This week saw the finish of the aster quilt -- except for a hanging sleeve and a label. As the quilt is 54 inches wide, the sleeve will be attached in two parts, in case the hanging rod has a center bracket.

The brown foreground 'grounded' the whole quilt. Without it, everything appeared to be floating in mid-air.

There's no place in my house to hang the quilt for a straight-on photograph, but this angle at least shows the quilted texture fairly well.

The blue jay was originally meant to stand next to the oak leaf--which is supposed to be lying on the ground (in an 'artistic license' sort of way). After all, the lower orange/brown/gold area represents the middle ground, covered in fallen leaves.

However, the oak leaf, despite its accompanying shadow and all my middle-ground stitching, still appears to be floating down toward the foreground (see caption under photo). Consequently, when the jay was positioned next to the leaf as planned, he appeared to be perched in mid-air! So instead, he has ended up in the only spot that makes any sense, all things considered; however, he looks a little disoriented now that he's no longer focusing on what might be under that leaf. Maybe there's a nut or a seed on the (brown) ground we can't see. I'm tempted to applique one. So maybe this quilt isn't quite finished after all!

The back turned out fairly nice. Not that it's any big deal, but I do like the texture.

Time for Blocking

Two things are on the agenda for this week and next.

First: Finishing another winter scene. This (incomplete) photo was taken at an angle, because it shows the quilting better than does my straight-on shot. The sky is simply stippled. I'm trying to decide whether the quilt needs a border before binding. There is enough backing and batting for a narrow one.

It was fun and fairly quick to quilt, with invisible thread on top and only one color in the bobbin. I had always been afraid that invisible thread would be too hard on the machine's tension disks, but during a phone call last week to my dealer (Moore's Sewing and Learning Center), I was assured that some of the newer, softer invisible threads are quite safe. They said Glynnis (their award-winning in-house embroiderer/quilter) uses Superior Threads Mono-poly all the time in the same model machine I use. Knowing Glynnis and her exquisite work, and having some of that very thread in my stash, I let go my fear and got to work.

And, wow. I had forgotten how much faster a landscape quilt goes when you're not stopping to change thread and bobbins every few minutes! The bobbin thread, by the way, was Superior's Bottom Line. The only other thread used on top was for a few lines of satin stitching, and that was Floriani embroidery thread. It was the perfect shade, a very pale blue, and it stitched out beautifully and has the perfect sheen against the blue-white snow fabric.

Second on the agenda: The aster quilt. It was finally laid out on the floor yesterday for blocking.

Blue jay to be added later.

It is larger than most of my quilts. Remembering all too well the neck, shoulder and arm issues that occurred after hovering a heavy steam iron for an hour-and-a-half over my last large quilt, I decided no way was I repeating that experience.

So, for the first time ever, after rolling the quilt out like a pie crust to smooth it (using a pool noodle--no kidding) and T-pinning it square, I simply covered it with some old white towels....

...and sprayed them with one of those pump-type garden sprayers. Not until they were wet, though; just good and damp. When the quilt is completely dry, I hope it will be as nicely blocked as it would have been by steaming. We'll find out.

After that, the winter scene was steam-blocked with the iron (no problem for that quilt, as I was standing, and the quilt is fairly small) on my 'blocking box' on top of the cutting table.

This hand-painted blue jay will be fused onto the aster quilt after squaring, trimming and binding. He's been hanging out on the design wall all this time.

That's it for now...

...except to say that my only grandchild is one year old today, Friday, March 18! Here she is, doing her own version of blocking (no sound). Happy birthday, sweet Lucy!!

Everyone have a great weekend--spring is here!! Well, at least in this half of the world.  :)

Linda