Making Progress

I've been working on my quilt since Friday night. It's now the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Technically the Labor Day Weekend is over and we've missed hurricane Gustav. Time marches on.

This quilt is really a mindless meander, or perhaps a purposeful practice. My girlfriend called it a messy masterpiece! And questioned my sanity for all the detail work. I'm still in the middle of the process. (photo shows it rolled up on the quilting frame) And the verdict is still out! I've come to the conclusion that's what separates the masters from the hopefuls...the masters of our craft plan and visualize before ever touching a needle to the fabric...people like me just go for it. Big difference with the end result. Maybe I'm thinking that not trying to be perfect takes the pressure off - who knows! My creative side is still trying to discover my own personal style...so I do what any good student does, I mimic those who have succeeded. Gosh I'm too tired to get into deep thinking - perhaps another time!

Kinda funny that I've done the signature area before the quilt is finished. A result of trying to reduce thread changes I think. Also because I had my son working with me off and on today. He's a self-proclaimed artist and I lean on his opinion a lot. We combined our talents tonight. He drew out a traditional tattoo rose similar to the one he wears so I could add my tribute to my dad.

By the way, Jake just started a blog tonight at my urging. Why not take a peak and see what's on his mind Shaggy's Art We have high hopes of combining our efforts on future projects. I'll try to remember to get a photo of his tattoo honoring my dad and either post it here or ask him to post it on his blog.

Time to turn off the studio lights and call it good.

Quilter's Block

Wow, haven't had this happen in awhile. I have no idea what I want to do on this quilt. Funny, all this time I thought it was emotions that have kept me from quilting my "Starry Starry Night" but I think it's really because I just didn't know what to do with it! Writer's Block meet Quilter's Block -- you are kissing cousins.

It's really a "nothing" sort of quilt. Oh I do think it's pretty, but not really anything special. Just memories, and I realize that in itself makes it special...but from a quilting view point there's nothing special about this quilt.

I did get it loaded last night - oh, notice that the border has changed since my original photo taken December 2003 I posted yesterday...so somewhere in the past year or so I decided to redo the borders. That in itself was some positive progress in working through the emotions of this quilt. I made small strips out of the rectangles I took off then joined them together for a scrappy narrow border. I still have more leftovers, can't decide if they will be a scrappy binding or what...but that's a decision to be made later -- goodness! I need ideas on how to quilt this quilt!

The top actually measures 70 x 82 - I would have like to made it bigger but could no longer get the beautiful black batik. Believe me, I searched! That outer border is pieced from 2 x 4's that were left over from the blocks! It worked. Lots of seams, but it lays flat! Which in and of itself is a small miracle.

Well, today I managed to use my trusty mono-thread to stitch in the ditch along the bright narrow border and around each star to stabilize the quilt. By the way, it really wasn't that emotional for me. I turned on my iPod full of praise and worship songs and focused on the blessings of today as well as the memories of yesterday, without dwelling on the "sad" part.

I have quilted three out of the four borders (and yes, I turned the quilt) and have one more to go before I tackle the interior. By the way, I did the ba-bump feathers -- if you're familiar with Jamie Wallen's teaching this is a take off of one of his feathers...photos to follow later for those of you clueless to my expression of "ba-bump". Just imagine a feather that really looks like a molar at the end and you'll get a visual. It's a narrow border so I marked a soft wavy line for my spine (with chalk) and ba-bumped away (grin).

Oh, and did I mention that I'm using Hobbs Tuscany Wool batting?! I love that batting - even here in hot humid Houston it's the best to sleep under. It's as light as a feather and breathable. Most of my personal quilts have the Tuscany Wool in them. This special quilt is no exception.

So, as I'm turning the quilt and thinking of all sorts of things to do I notice that I just love the way the wool makes the fabric seem softer somehow...and I'm thinking, do I want a dense quilt? I love dense quilting...but am thinking I want more "poof" in this quilt, feel more of the wool...hum...that's my problem. I don't remember how to do light custom. My thoughts for this quilt ran more towards a chance to play around with different design elements and somehow connect them with loops and swirls...sorta like how the night sky is full of constellations and yet are all connected...but then there's the draw of the poof. It's soooo soft..

So that's where I'm at...do I want to do light and fluffy or dense and interesting at the risk of being flat? Running the risk, actually, of just making a mess of this quilt. And this is just considering the black background! Goodness I don't know yet what I want to do in the stars. I thought about multiple thread changes and do Jamie's Flurry of Angels - very appropriate for the memories associated with this quilt...and yet, I sorta just want to leave the stars unquilted...or maybe treat this like a sampler and make every star different. oh the decisions! Oh the pressure (grin) I really wanted to work on it this weekend (as publicly declared) and try to finish up a long overdue project...but I'm tempted to take it off the frame and save it for another time (I think that's also called procrastination).

Maybe if I slept on it I'll wake up inspired. I hope it doesn't keep me awake thinking of it! And people wonder sometimes why it takes so long to get their quilts back to them....I remember hanging one quilt top in my studio for 36 hours just studying the quilt and trying to decide what to do (of course I was working on another one, a panto, while trying to decide how to custom quilt the hanging one). It's not easy. Creativity, I believe, is a gift from God...but sometimes I can't seem to plug in immediately. I've had folks tell me that they aren't creative...I tend to argue that thought - my point being...if we believe in a Creator, the One who put it all together with unspeakable amount of creativity, and if we take to heart that we are created in HIS image, then it goes without saying that we have the gift of creativity from Him -- oh, I can't make something out of nothing like God - I must start with something -- for example fabric -- but I can use the materials He's provided and the spark of imagination He provides to come up with something considered creative....therefore, with this reasoning, we all are creative because we have inherited that trait from our Creator God in whose image we are created. Makes sense don't ya think?

Hum..now if I can just quit trying so hard and let His creativity flow through me I'm sure I can finish this quilt...it may not be traditional or a show stopper, but I'm sure it will be creative...maybe like " a quilt that only the maker could love" -- but after all, who am I doing this for? Me and my Creator, and I think He'll like it. Daddy's are like that, so I'm sure my heavenly Father is too -- He delights in His children.

With that said...I can't wait until time to turn on my machine tomorrow after worship service and family lunch to see where the creative spirit leads. I'm sure it will be interesting to say the least -- maybe some lessons learned on what not to do on a customer quilt (grin) who knows what tomorrow will bring! But I know who holds my tomorrows!!

In My Spare Time

The large quilt, Hop Around Nashville, was on my frame from Monday afternoon until 7:30 PM Friday night. I called on Saturday at 9:30 AM to arrange getting it to the shop when they opened at 10. The owner asked if I could possibly have time to do the hand-sewn side of the binding - her previous instructions were to do the one side machine attached...and could that be done by the afternoon as she had a granddaughter's birthday party to attend before heading out of town early on Sunday...of course! 94 x 118 = 424 liner inches and I did it! Check out all the detailed photos in my webshot album.

By 5 o'clock I was on my own clock and ready to do something fun. So why not make a baby quilt? My oldest son's friend was a new daddy as of Friday and I just knew that new baby girl needed a quilt. When they were over earlier last week, the soon to be daddy was admiring the quilt on the frame and commented how much he loved seeing what I was working on. All the more reason to share my talent - it's great being appreciated!

This is where those 5" pre-cut charm packs come in handy! I knew I didn't have a lot of time, but I did have the weekend!

As I don't know the mother very well and didn't know the nursery colors I decided to just be bold! My local shop carries a lot of the charm packs but the only one that caught my eye was the one labeled Fresh Squeeze (by Moda fabrics) and I knew that would work..

So ta da....here's Fresh Squeezed Baby pieced Saturday night and quilted after church on Sunday afternoon. It's 30 x 43, a nice size don't you think? I used Quilters Dream Angel batting, a first for me. It quilted up nicely and I like the fact that I'm giving something that is "flame retardant".

Even though this was a "fast" quilt, I didn't want it to look too thrown together, so I just had to have that excuse to put feathers around the border. Just wouldn't seem right without feathers. And I love any excuse to use a stripe for the binding.

I will see my son tomorrow and he will deliver it to the new baby. I hope they like it and it is used. This isn't an heirloom quilt by any means, just a gift of love...again my hope is that it is used and washed a lot! Who knows, one day it might be her dolly's quilt. That would make me smile!

Auditioning Designs

Currently I am working on a beautiful 12 block sampler. It's a huge quilt, 94 x 118. The blocks are set on point with 15" alternating blocks and setting triangles that leave a lot of room for beautiful heirloom feathers -- something I dearly love to quilt!

As mentioned in a previous post, it takes quite a while to load a quilt prior to ever taking the first stitch. This quilt, including some marking of the large blocks prior to loading, took 2 hours before I was able to start the quilting process.

Here's a photo of the quilt draped over my frame prior to loading.

I first used a mononylon thread to stitch in the ditch (SID) to stabilize the quilt as well as add dimension to the overall quilting process. I prefer to use the "invisible" thread especially when the adjoining colors are so contrasting. Hides a multitude of sins. Especially if the seams are not properly pressed to provide a proper ditch to stitch in. This varies from quilt to quilt and even within the same quilt, so best to err on the safe side and use invisible thread. SID is not hard, just very time consuming and requires an extended base and ruler for the process - which took almost 4 hours. Lots of stops, starts, and advancing the quilt on the frame. Not to mention the wear and tear on my neck and shoulders from keeping a constant speed and constant pressure on the ruler to assure as straight lines as possible. It's my least favorite part of the quilting, especially since I blew out my shoulder last year loosing range of motion for about 2 months, but an heirloom quilt demands no less! It's what I would do on my own quilt, and my motto is to treat every quilt as if it were my own.

This particular quilt will have multiple thread changes -- I prefer to use a matching thread to assure that the quilting is complementing the piecing and not over taking it. Sometimes the quilting is king sometimes the piecing. A lot depends upon the quilt and the customer's taste. As I've quilted numerous samplers for this customer, I know she prefers matching thread.

Since the quilt is now stabilized I can advance it back and forth without the worry of puckers or pleats in the quilt top or back, thus allowing me to work with one color throughout the quilt before having to change thread colors. Had the quilt not be stabilized I would be limited to the exposed area on the frame and would be changing thread colors numerous times throughout the quilting process. Advancing to the next area, and repeating all over again.

Today I worked on the cream colored areas of the quilt. I don't have a photo of the alternating blocks, will take that tomorrow. But I do have a photo of how I audition designs.

I have a clear piece of acrylic that I use like a dry erase board. I placed blue painters tape along the edges as a visual reminder to NOT draw on the quilt top -- dry erase markers do not come out of fabric (ask me how I know). I then place this drawing surface over my quilt and doodle. Trust me, I quilt better than I draw.

Once I decided on the design for this setting triangle I then used my circle templates and marked the spine with a blue water soluble pen to keep the design for all four corners consistent.

I then freehanded the feather design, working each corner one after another in an effort to remember the design and keep it fairly consistent - as consistent as one can be free handing!

Once my large blocks were done I began to work on the 12 blocks. Remember, I'm working with the cream colored thread only. As I come to each block I need to come up with some sort of idea of how I want to quilt it. I doodle, erase, and doodle some more. Everything is "inspired" and done at the machine, I'm not one to draw out the whole quilt ahead of time. My customers trust my instincts and allow me the freedom for their quilt top to become my canvas for my "art". It's always a challenge to come up with something new on each block - but that's the beauty of a sampler and the fun of being the quilter.

Since there will be multiple color changes and since I don't have the best memory, I take a photo of my design so when I come back to that block with the second color I remember what I previously decided I was going to do with that block....here are a few of my plans that I will implement tomorrow as I continue to work on this quilt.

Stay tuned for more photos of this quilt. After the blocks are done I will then do the borders. This particular quilt requires "turning" -- a process that will be explained later.