Saturday basket

This greeted me first thing this morning when I came into the studio for the laptop. I've had a vision for a much larger utility quilt based on this design.

I was not feeling too precise this morning so, instead of the very straight and exact hand quilting that I want inside the color fields, I picked up the frolic below that's been languishing in the hoops waiting for my mood to improve. It did.




Both sides of my brain appear to be in working order despite the ongoing caloric overindulgence. Come Monday I am checking into food prison somewhere after a lengthy purge.

more snow carving

This one just out of the dryer and I am so delighted with the results. Overall it's 39"x42" .  I'm going back over the squares of color and doing some hand quilting in white to anchor the backing damask. More pictures when it's done.

The blocks of color are eight to ten inches wide and I have another 20 of them ready to be set in white.

One tiny corner of one piece of hand dyed fabric bled a small pink shadow less than one by one half inch. I've paved it over with an inset of white and gone back over the patch retracing the machine stitching that was there. If there's a better way of dealing with bleeding color, let me know.

Thanksgiving day

For the first time in adult memory I did not cook and serve a turkey for my crew at home. Instead we drove up into the north Georgia mountains to meet my future daughter-in-law's family for the first time.

It was almost balmy out so we ate outside on the deck and later gathered around a campfire out front.

The food was terrific, the company and setting even better. It felt great to be welcomed into this happy tribe.

The extent of my duties for the day? Open a bottle of wine!

writing in the snow

I had forgotten how expressive free motion quilting can be given the right combination of surface, thread and a well set-up machine.  I didn't even waste time with a practice piece, just jumped right in and before I knew I was speaking in tongues with the aliens... again.

this is inspiring me to think again about whether and how to use machine quilting on the big works in progress that are so stalled.

wonky snow jewel

To keep the frenzy of production work in perspective, I got the blue horse (or is it a blue cat?) out of the UFO pile and hooped it up. No more vacillating about machine or hand stitching this one will take more time - time that I am going to make and effort to give it.

Meanwhile, back at the factory, things are going smoothly because I am still working with the colors/fabric that appeal to me the most (there are two more courses of three not showing ) . The backing for this quilt is a beautiful damask tablecloth - not vintage, because it has to hold up to use - but with an exquisite pattern.

Tomorrow I will give the Janome a new needle, a quick cleaning and work some equally wonky white feathers in around the color blocks. Don't I sound confident?  I am NOT.

time well spent

Like Nellie, I'm turning out wonky log cabin blocks to be turned quickly into functional, warm quilts. These are going to be set in a dazzling field of white, like flowers in the snow.
It's satisfying work and adds up quickly to something that will matter, one way or another.

more shopkeeping

I'll be working on stocking up the store this weekend.

I've been digging through the bins and there are treasures galore! The holidays are upon us, like it or not.

More later!

the joy of being useful

Here they are, fresh from the dryer, all warm and nicely cobbled from the experience.



To me there is nothing quite as satisfying as completing a project that is useful, well made and fun to look at. Some little person is going to drag one of these two blankies around with them as long as they can get away with it. It will give warmth and comfort for many  years.

In my present frame of mind, all other studio activity seems self-indulgent and rather pointless.  These two will be for sale and I have another started that will be donated to the Red Cross hurricane relief.

I sent two quilts to Japan last year. I figure I owe NY at least the same effort.

enough digression

and monkey business, I have three large pieces in varying stages of completion and need to come back from fooling around.

two of the three are troubling me and and I don't want to rush into the home stretch on the third.  All this futzing around with blankies and obtuse techniques..I know what's really going on - stonewalling with the works in progress is all.

spectacle

Staggering around the internet yesterday I came across the blog of Sheila Frampton Cooper with great images the quilt festival in  Houston. One of the winners in particular slayed me - "ElaTED" by Ted Storm. I remember a similar fascination with another one of her quilts, "Nocturnal Garden".

Then this blog post at Wonkyworld came into my radar and I finally did some research on "broderie perse"

Are you shocked that I would be absorbed by something so traditional? I have always loved chintz-the colors, the gloss, they all appeal to the Magpie brain.

The technique of clipping elements out of the whole cloth and reorganizing them to my own satisfaction and all that obsessively tiny stitching has grabbed me by the tiny attention span. I watched the video four times and still cannot get the buttonhole stitch..maybe if I watched it in the mirror.

I found a half napkin with my embroidered initials in the scrap basket. The reverse applique Easter eggs were raided from another UFO and the cranes clipped out of a scrap of chintz gifted to me some time ago..there were only about four whole birds left because I've been using up wings on other things. It's my day off and all I wanted to do was a little hand stitching.