Between snowmageddon, being sick, general craziness with a new puppy in the hours . . . I finally finished this batik beauty. As usual, Michele’s is wonderful.
She finally let me use king tut variegated thread on a piece and I think it came out lovely. Lots of ruler work, templates and stitch in the ditch. But mark this one in the done column,.
I am sooooo excited to finally be able to post the cub scout quilt I quilted for Susan Van Kirk Beyer and her Cub Scout pack. Their Blue & Gold event was last night and the quilt was finally presented to Matt. This is a signature quilt where all the cubs signed the quilt as a gift for their out going CubMaster. Susan points are beautiful. The colors chosen fit the scouting theme to a dream.
The quilting pattern is my swirls and stars. The gold thread brings out the golds in the fabric. I made a special point to not quilt over any of the cub scout names. 
My new camera is helping to take some fantastic pictures this vacation break. But my favorite is getting the boys with the dogs.
So. . . just how do you add borders or make a quilt bigger without creating that friendly wave. Once you get the technique, you’ll be so much happier with your final quilt.
First, let’s start with the definition. The “friendly wave” is a quilt that ruffles at the edges. This is caused by a couple of things:
For me, I am not a very precise piecer. So my early quilts were extremely friendly. As you can see in this picture, the edges of my blocks are very jagged.
As I add the white border on my strips I am conscious to 1) make sure the border is placed at the smallest point of the neighboring block and 2) don’t pull the border to “make it fit”. When you push to make the fabric go in different directions, you end up stretching the fabric. This stretching is what causes the wave.
The longer the seam you will be sewing the more I would urge you to pin your pieces before you sew. This lets you keep control of the parts as you push the fabric through the sewing machine.
Once the seam is complete, use your ruler and trim the excess so you don’t have color fade through to the front of your quilt top.
In the end, this process takes a bit more time, but if you are challenged creating a “perfect” 1/4 inch seam ( LIKE ME!!! ) both you and your machine quilter will be happy with how your quilt turns out.
With the new puppy in the house, Buck has felt a little hen pecked. With my new camera I was able to catch this great photo. I am thinking it would make a great art piece.
This was one of my early raw edge appliqué pieces. I finally put it on the rack and finished it.
I was inspired by Ruth McDowell. But she has all those precise seams. Nota my cup o tea.
Last year, while spending a much needed girl weekend in Milwaukee with Sharon, we found Grinch fabric. Of course it has been sitting on the “project to be named later” shelf since then. In a moment of inspiration, I started randomly cutting the panels out. No measuring, no plan other than lets strip piece this sucker.
Two tops later, both are actually quilted and only need the binding sewn on.
Lessons learned.
1) batting has an up and down side. When you put the batting upside down, it is harder to quilt.
2) 40 weight variegated thread is really cool, but with batting and flannel backing, You Will get “pokies”. They stick out and yes they do look annoying
3) even if you think you can finish the quilt with the last bobbin of thread, the damn thing runs out 4 inches from the end and you still have to re-load bobbins
4) you have to listen to Christmas music when quilting Christmas quilts. It’s a rule. That and Harry Connick Jr croons very nicely.
I can’t wait for show and tell tomorrow!!!!!
I finished another client quilt last night. A cute little rose garden. We used a rose color thread and the hardest part to quilt was actually over the paisley print. The color simply faded in!!
Turned out great. I can’t wait to give them back to her.
I was busy quilting most of the weekend. I finished 2 quilts. The first was a black, white quilt with red pinwheels. This piece is so graphic and fun. I quilted with black thread. Just saying that finding and burying those bad boys was a bit of a challenge.
Because the thread just fads in I had a dandy of a time trying to figure out if it was the fabric or thread. Now my eyes need a rest.
Yesterday I moved all the Christmas plates to the front of the cupboard. This is actually quite an undertaking. 1) all the regular plates have to be clean. That way you don’t have to reach to the very back to put the odd ones away. 2) regular plates come out and then the decorative ones get stacked just so. 3) since a lot of them have metal gilding on them, the non metal ones have to be on the top shelf so boyz will grab those first for microwave usage.
The linens are ready to go. Some of the quilted ones are showing their age, but I still love using them so it is hard to let them go.
Time to settle in for Sunday morning coffee before a trip to dog park with Rob and Buck.
