I’ve finished quilting another Folk Art Flower’s quilt. This quilt was made in a block party at Ruth’s Stitchery by Jean. I discussed the designer etc. in this post. This quilt is a different colorway and it is interesting to compare the difference with the previous quilt. The quilting is not much different, however I did use different freehand designs in the borders.
I have one more of these on my schedule to quilt in the near future.
I’ve finished another UFO quilt top. I think this time it is less a cause for rejoicing and more a reason for contemplation. I found the parts for this quilt in a box in the closet while I was looking for something else. It is somewhere between 9 and 12 years old, since I was making it when we lived in California. When I found it in the box, the center was together and the 16 squares to make the outside border were also completed. I remember thinking of throwing it in the trash at one point in time, because I didn’t have the directions for finishing it. I did this quilt as a free online mystery through Sunbonnet Sleuth. When I found the pieces this time, I decided to search the Internet to see if I could find a picture of the quilt. I can’t believe there was one there! I took the parts to my sewing area and laid them on my light table and there they have sat until this week.
Guy will tell you, I will cover any horizontal surface, and it was finally time to start uncovering some of those surfaces in my sewing area. I picked up the parts from this quilt and decided that rather than finding somewhere to stash it, I’d finish it. Besides sewing is always more fun than cleaning.
This is the final quilt top.
I had the pieces spread out on the floor when Guy came home Monday night. His first question was, “Do you ever get to where you don’t like a project you started?” My answer was yes and in fact this was one of those projects. His next questions was, “Why do you spend the limited amount of time you have for working on your stuff on something you don’t like?” I really didn’t have a good answer for that other than it was so close to finished, it seemed a waste to trash it. His final question, “Are you picking the low hanging fruit?” Huh? Sorry, I’d never heard that expression. He explained they use it at work meaning doing the easiest thing just so you can say you finished something. My answer — maybe.
So what have I learned from this quilt? Why doesn’t it do much for me?
All that said, the quilt has grown on me slightly since the top is finished. It will go into the “waiting for quilting” pile until I want to try some new technique on it.
Guy did have one more question. Do I ever do a project just so I will have something to post on my blog? I think I can safely say no, however it does motivate me to get something done so I have something to write about.
Before I start talking about the main subject, I wanted to give an update on yesterday’s post. I heard from Robyn at Bird Brain Designs less than 24 hours after sending an email. I call that GOOD customer service. There is a mistake in the pattern and she will be correcting it as soon as her sample comes back from a show. I know some of you were eying that pattern after seeing it here, so just a heads up. She said I was the first person to contact her about it and she was horribly embarrassed, but thankful to know about it.
On to the subject of this post –
I FINISHED a UFO!!! It isn’t a quilt, but it has been waiting for at least 4 years. I started working on this shirt while I still had a sewing room. In other words before Nolan decided he needed his own room. It was put aside while I worked on moving out of that room to the basement and while I painted for him. It just didn’t get picked back up again until recently.
I bought the pattern as a boxed kit with the fabrics for the applique. It also has the fabric for a small wall hanging, which I apparently cut and fused while working on the shirt. The pattern was from The Whole Country Caboodle, but I didn’t see it there when I looked today.
This is fused machine applique. I used a blanket stitch with matching cotton thread. Here’s a close up .
– edited –
I thought I was finished until I loaded my close up and realized I hadn’t given the chick his top knot. I’ve switched close up pictures, but if you look close at the full picture you can see the dots where it needed to be stitched.
Block 5 is finished as of today. Which means I’m over half way through the embroidery.
I am ready to start on the 6th block, but I read through the directions and the colors for the flowers in no way relate to the actual flowers in the pattern. I’ve emailed Bird Brain designs asking for corrections for that block. I’m hoping to hear back from them soon.
I’ve been visiting many blogs in which people discuss the beautiful gardening/landscaping they are doing. It still isn’t warm enough for that here with snow storms and daffodils just peeking out. It really doesn’t matter for me, because when plants see me coming they wither and die.
I did about the extent of my gardening today. I needed some little gifts for the teachers at school. Would you believe there are some of them that don’t care for chocolate?! Purple seems to be the favorite color among those teachers, so I picked up a pack of Pansy’s and some little pots. I also bought ribbon, but when I made a bow for the pot it just didn’t add anything. Sometimes simple is best. I still have two plants that I need to pot and see if they survive me. It’s a good thing my husband takes care of our plants, or we would be surrounded by brown twigs.
My friend Bobbie made this quilt in a guild class a few years ago. She wanted to add some thread painting, but was unsure how it would look. She asked me about embroidering a design on it instead. We looked through the designs I had, and decided to use this Hibiscus from the Bernina “Floral Beauties” collection. 
I enlarged the design as much as I could while still having it fit the hoop. (By the way those designs are supposed to look sketchy, enlarging did not affect the density.) Bobbie wanted the flower to be done all in greens with a touch of yellow. This project has sat here for at least two or three months, but I finally stitched out a test on some of her scraps last month. I was starting to feel a little guilty and so hooped the quilt and stitched it out. This quilt appears to have been a quilt as you go project so it already had batting and a backing. It has enough body that I was able to load it in the hoop and stitch the design without a stabilizer.
Bobbie is supposed to come over tomorrow to work on something else, so unless she reads this tonight it will be a surprise that it is finished. As long as she can get here. A “lovely” Spring storm started a little while ago. The picture is out the back door and after maybe 45 minutes. Color class has been postponed for the night. We are supposed to get up to 5 inches between now and sometime tomorrow morning. Monument’s prediction is 8 inches, so I’m happy to not have to drive home from there in the dark tonight.
I posted last week about the start of my Tetrad project. I pulled out my nicely quilted piece this morning and started using inks to color it in. I wasn’t getting the effect I was visualizing so I switched to paint. In my opinion, I completely ruined it with the paint. It was putrid! I won’t even show you how it looked. I was back to square one. I was thinking about colored pencils at this point. I traced the same picture onto fabric again. I have customer quilts on both longarms so decided to do the quilting free motion on one of my domestic machines. I still had embroidery thread sitting out from one of my last projects so decided to use that instead of the fine white thread. I started putting details in with the embroidery thread and it just went from there. I ended up with a thread painted project instead of using any type of pigment. I held it up for my oldest son when he came home and he thought it was painted, so I guess I can call that a success.
Here is the final product — the colors in my tetrad are red, green, blue violet and yellow orange. Click on the picture to enlarge it.
I try to avoid the candy aisle in stores because I certainly don’t need the temptation. The candy near check outs is bad enough. However, I was looking at the stock of inexpensive DVDs in a store this week and right next to that display was a display of theatre type candy. I let the boys each choose one, and I couldn’t resist trying these new Skittles.
They were pretty good. A chewy candy rather than the usual melt in your mouth chocolate. Nolan helped me identify what the “Brownie Batter” reminded me of — Tootsie Rolls.
I checked the regular size bagged Skittles at the grocery store and they didn’t have this flavor, so perhaps it is only available in Theatre size.
Today is my sister’s birthday. She was born on Easter morning when I was a little over two years old. I remember just snippets of going to the hospital, I think it may have been when she came home. If my mom was anything like I was when my second was born, she was expecting another similar to the first. That couldn’t have been more wrong. Actually my parents were expecting a boy, they only had a boy’s name selected. My dad was logging in Alaska when my sister was born in Oregon. When my mom called to tell him and ask about a name they had a bad connection. He finally told her to name my sister whatever she wanted.
I can remember watching her take a nap when she was a little older and stroking her soft little hands. I’m still drawn to baby hands.
This is a picture of Sheila and me when she was almost one so that would make me three.
As you can see she had dark curly hair and I had straight blond hair. The contrasts didn’t stop there. Sheila had a bubbly personality and I was very serious as a child. People do not forget Sheila once they meet her. She got every drop of musical talent. Do you know how frustrating it is to sit and practice at the piano and have your younger sister just listen and then come play it better than you ever could? She had a fantastic imagination. She used to talk about her “other” family. She could sit and tell stories for hours.
It wasn’t all a bed of roses. We fought like crazy when we were kids. Her first year in college we roomed together. My dad didn’t think we would last the year. We did, and had apparently out grown the fighting. Now we are very good friends even though we live 1000 miles apart.
By the way when I talked to her tonight, I found out she spent her birthday visiting four quilt shops (she decided a few years ago she likes piecing quilts even though she hated sewing when she was a kid — I loved it.) and she cooked her own birthday meal! I told you she liked to cook and would sometimes choose to cook rather than go out — even on her birthday!
Happy Birthday Sheila.
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