Tour de Fibre - Day 3

Another hot, muggy day.  I finished quilting the center and one short border of the Jo Morton four-patch.  By then my hands were hurting, telling me it was time to stop quilting and give them a rest.  I marked the other short border, then set it aside for later, not wanting to do the math required to fit the stencil to the long sides.

I spent some time catching up on blog reading the rest of the morning, but I still have a LONG way to go to get caught up.

I  brought the plastic bag containing many small Jan Patek quilt kits down from upstairs, and started tracing applique pieces.  When I finished each packet I cut out the freezer paper templates then turned on the iron just long enough to press the templates to their respective fabrics.  When finished I turned off the iron and cut out each piece.  The pieces were carefully folded inside the pattern pages, the fabric scraps behind, and everything tucked back into the kit envelope.  I completed two, and have the paper templates for a third kit ready to iron onto the fabrics tomorrow.

Here are pictures of the two that are ready to go, and the third that is almost ready.  The first picture doesn't show the entire quilt, just the center.

I realize it is now July, and I've not yet done a "goals" post.  I'll do that tomorrow.

I love to hand quilt

It is so meditative and relaxing.  And time passes so quickly.  I started quilting "Hat Trick"at "Tangled Threads" last night.  I didn't want to stop when I got home so I settled into my sewing room chair, watched a couple of recorded TV shows, and quilted.  Got to bed WAY later than I should have.

Since I decided on a straight line grid for most of this, it would have been easy to finish with my Pfaff and its walking foot.  But I love the way hand quilting looks, and I love doing it.  I nearly finished this hoopful; at this rate I should have no trouble finishing this month.

It is hard to get a good picture of quilting, but this shows the stitches fairly well.

My work in the sewing room . . . .

has come to a screeching halt as I've been under the weather the last couple days.  I went to bed at 4:00 p.m. yesterday and got up at 10:00 this morning.   I hope this bug doesn't last long!

So . . . new plans for today.  I'm going to be on the couch in front of the fire, reading quilt history books and hand quilting.  I'm making good progress on "Emma's Quilt" - maybe I can finish it in the next few days.

Today needs to be a house day . . .

There is dirty laundry on the bedroom floor and the sheets need changing.  The laundry baskets in the garage are already overflowing.  The dining room table is covered with "stuff" that needs to be dealt with.  I need to get something out of the freezer to cook for dinner.

So what am I doing?  Procrastinating by reading email, blogs, and other quilty stuff on the computer.  And now I'm posting.  That is the last thing I'm going to do before getting to the stuff I should be doing.

Last night after I finished the quilt top and put the remaining fabric away, I took out my hand quilting.  It has been sitting in the corner for awhile calling to me, "I'm over half done!  Why don't you finish me?"  It's been at least 3-4 years since I did any hand quilting, and at first it seemed a bit clumsy.  My fingers had forgotten how.  After so many years I thought my hands would always have muscle memory for that process.  It returned after a half hour or so - thank goodness!

This is an OLD quilt top - 2002.  It's a Jo Morton design called "Emma's Quilt".  I took a class with Jo at a local "primitive" event.  It's amazing to see how my color sense has grown; this seems so very plain now with such few fabrics.  The fabric was old when I made the top, and not nearly as good in quality as I use now.  It still deserves to be finished.

I'm currently "quilting in the ditch", which I hate to do.  That's probably why this has sat unfinished for so long.  Once I finish this red and cream triangle border the outside border is all that is left.  I'm determined to push on to the finish.

I think I've settled on the fabrics I want to use for this quilt.  Do you remember this quilt top?  I made it in the first of four year-long quilt history classes with Eileen Trestain.  All the fabrics I used during this top were authentic reproductions of pre-1830's fabrics.  This was a time of bright, colorful fabrics and medallion quilts.  I have an entire shelf full of fabrics left over from that class that I think will work beautifully for "Stars and Sprigs".  Many of these are lights, so if I don't have enough choices for all the leaves I will supplement with fabrics from the 1830's and 1840's eras.  I will use a plain ecru background that Eileen says is the most like fabric from those eras.  I bought an entire bolt while I was taking the class.

And I just thought of one more thing I can do - print foundations for Civil War Diaries.  So I guess I'm still procrastinating.

Wednesday report

Lots of great things to report today! First of all is another finish - the third for July. This is Winter Dazzle, the only Thimbleberries quilt I ever pieced even though I went to club for about three years. I like Thimbleberries fabrics, but I prefer to mix other fabrics with them for accents here and there. This will become part of my Christmas decorations. It's just good to have it done - it's been hanging around since 2002.

After taking Winter Dazzle off Gandalf's frame I loaded Jo Morton's "Emma's Quilt" long enough to baste it for hand quilting. I took it with me when I left to spend yesterday with Joseph. I got a great start on the hand quilting during naptime. I'm really enjoying hand quilting again - no pain at all in my hands - the copper rings seem to really work! I'll take this with me camping this weekend. As it's small I'm hoping I can finish the quilting in time to bind it before the end of the month.

This morning was my fourth Weight Watchers meeting. I'm totally sold on going to meetings - I leave recharged and motivated. We have a great leader -she's kept 43.5 pounds off for 27 years now. She is so full of energy and enthusiasm! I was thrilled to find myself down three pounds this week - that's 6.6 pounds since I started going on July 2nd. The new jeans I bought during our anniversary trip in June are getting really loose. I know I can do this!

I'm heading upstairs to test some new thread on Gandalf. If he likes it I'm ordering it in lots of different colors. Then I head to Primitive Thimble for my Golden Age Random Sampler class with Eileen Trestain. Busy day ahead of me - I'd better get moving!

************

Gratitudes:

1. A clear vision of my personal goals

2. The incredible beauty of the state in which I live

3. State and national parks

4. Comfortable beds in the tent trailer

5. Firewood split and ready to load for our camping trip

Hand quilting progress

I'm enjoying hand quilting again so much! And there is no sign of any pain in my hands from arthritis - a definite miracle in my book. The first three fingers on my left hand are starting to develop their touch callouses again from being pricked a tiny bit with each stitch. As long as I quilt a little each day they will stay this way - getting tougher and tougher the longer I quilt.

At least one person commented that they liked the cable on the quilt sashing. I liked the cable also when I stitched the first one, but it wasn't in proportion to the width of the sashing. I was using a stencil, as this was before I learned to create my own quilting templates and stencils. When I'd finished two cables I realized the proportions were really bothering me. That's when I decided to quilt 1/4" from each edge. Much better as far as balancing the sashing quilting with the rest of the quilting, but rather strange looking. The more I looked at it the more I disliked it. The cable was slow going, so I finished the 1/4" from the seam stitching on all the sashings. Then I put it away for several years. When I got it back out last weekend I realized I still thought the sashing was very strange looking with a skinny cable running down between two straight lines of stitching. That's when I knew it was time to rip out the cable. If I were starting from scratch today I'd just draft a cable the width of the space between the two lines - too late now since the lines are stitched in every strip of sashing. The pencil I'm using is supposed to wash out - I sure hope it does! I have a fall back formula of dishwashing liquid and a couple other things for getting out pencil - just in case I need it.

The good news is the sashing quilted up WAY faster this way, and as of now is almost all done. That will leave a single row of blue stitching down the center of the narrow inner border, and something on the outer border. The quilting on this will be done soon - hooray! I guess I'd better start searching my stash for fabric that coordinates so I can have my binding ready.

I always handquilted my quilts almost to death, because I love the visual texture created when light hits the quilting. This quilt was no exception. I've posted a couple blocks so you could see the quilting - these are the best shots I could get.

It will be such a good thing to cross this one off my list of flimsies!

************

Gratitudes:

1. A cool morning breeze with just a hint of mist caressing my cheek

2. A fat, ripe Italian prune

3. Three quilt backings prepared and a fourth that needs only one seam stitched

4. Customer quilts coming in from several unexpected sources

5. Chili dogs for dinner - first time in ages!

Another finished flimsy

Tonight I finished the second string top. This is the first time I've made blocks with a specific color and width for the first diagonal string. I really like how it turned out! I like the first one I made too, but there's just something about the strong diagonal statement the red strings make. I know I'll make more tops similar to this as I have so many remaining strings. For now, however, the strings will be put away in favor of finishing more projects. I have 1016 mile-a-minute blocks that need to be sewn into quilt tops - that's the next thing on the menu.

This weekend we went out to Long Beach, Washington and spent time with Rick, Rebecca, Jeremy, Chelsea and Sophie. We stayed at Chelsea's mom's family place. I didn't take any pictures, but here is a picture of the view from the living room that I took there the first time we were all together. This time our weather was marvelous - high 80's with very little wind. Unusual for the beach! Unlike in the picture, the beach trail was dry so we took several walks to the ocean. Sophie got to play in the sand for the first time - she loved it! It was a wonderful relaxing weekend - so relaxing that I totally forgot to get out my camera! Chelsea and Jeremy were taking lots of pictures, so hopefully they will share. It was great having a weekend to watch Sophie play and cuddle her when she wasn't too busy exploring her world.

I spent a lot of time in a chair handquilting and just enjoying everyone's company. This is the first time in several years that I've done any handquilting - last time I tried the arthritis in my hands gave me a lot of trouble. Not a problem at all right now thanks to my copper rings, so I took full advantage of it. Here is a picture of the quilt I am working on. I finished quilting all the blocks, and started working on the sashing. I'd already quilted the sashing 1/4" from both long seams. I took out the two cables I'd quilted - I didn't like them from the minute I put them in because they looked funny in between the two rows of 1/4" stitching - and quilted a straight line down the middle of the sashing instead. Much better looking and much faster! I'm confident I can finish quilting this one by the end of the month - that will be such a good feeling! I think I started quilting it at least 5-6 years ago.

************

Gratitudes:

1. Wonderful weekend with family

2. A beautiful, healthy granddaughter

3. A walk on the beach trail with all my girls

A Flimsy Discovery

Reducing the number of my UFO's has been a goal of mine for the past several years. I started keeping track of UFO's in 2003 - the list from that year began with 68. 2004 began with 65 - doesn't look like much difference until I take into consideration the fact that I started 8 new projects that year.

2005 began with 45 - better, especially considering that I started 9 new projects in 2004. I began to see a problem - the list was never going to go down much if I kept starting new projects. So I tried to be good, starting only 2 new projects in 2005. I thought I'd learned my lesson but I guess not. I began 2006 with 49 and added 7 more during the year.

This year I started with 58 UFO's. I guess I've been kidding myself. Yes, I've been finishing, tossing or giving away UFO's - a total of 54 that have been either completed or given away since January 2003. However, since I started tracking I've reduced the yearly starting number by only 10. And since I've added 5 that I can remember this year - and I'm sure others that I can't remember, I'm not sure I'm making much progress at all!

This discovery has called for drastic action - thus my participating in two different UFO challenges this year as well as putting my list out in public for you all to see. I thought I was being good this year - I told myself that I had really started only two new projects - Joseph's quilt and the mid-century album quilt. That the scrap tops didn't count. Hah! Of course they count! What difference does it make if I start new quilts from yardage off the shelves or scraps from all my baskets and bins - they are still new quilts!

I thought I was still in good shape, however, because almost all my flimsies were ready and waiting to be quilted - batting cut to size and backs constructed. Who was I kidding? I discovered this might not be the case when I was looking for a couple UFO's I could finish quickly last weekend. This afternoon I've pulled everything off the shelves and taken stock - was I ever fooling myself. You see on the shelf the sum total of tops with batting and backing ready and waiting to be put on the machine - 6! Two of those - the Burgoyne Surrounded quilts - are basted together with Quilt Taks that must be removed before I can put them on the machine. A third has thread basting that must be removed. That leaves three that are really ready for quilting, plus second Christmas table runner that is on the machine and that is it! So much for thinking most all my flimsies were completely ready for quilting!

On the family room table you see the true state of affairs. Stacks of flimsies with neither backing nor batting ready. A few flimsies with batting but no backing. And on the floor a Double Irish Chain with the hand quilting started - exactly 4 motifs in alternate blocks. This one needs to have the hand quilted motifs finished and then I'll put it on Gandalf to machine quilt the rest. I didn't even show you the hand quilting project in my basket.

I guess I have some serious work ahead of me before I can proceed much further. I see a time of piecing many, many backs in my immediate future! One good thing anyway - that should clear out a little space on my fabric shelves!