March 27, 2011

Party in the back

Over the past few days I've asked three friends and two friendly strangers to hold this quilt up for me to photograph. And what do I do? I show you a picture of it on my very orange floor. Does this make me a jerk? Say no.


Baby quilts are easy to photograph. Big quilts are work to photograph.


I know one person who didn't mind though. (I know it looks like she's falling but it's really just run-of-the-mill toddler wildness because there's a quilt on the floor and I'm totally rolling on it!).


So this is the back of my quilt for Project Modern. It's 65x80 inches. I put hours and hours of work into the top and I threw the back together in about one tenth the time and I'd say I like both sides equally well. Figures! The back incorporates some of the scraps from the front.  My first instinct was to make it just all gray, but I've been noticing that around our house the backs of quilts are facing up just as often as the front, so I'm glad I took a little time with it.


For some reason this reminds me of some of Brian Eno's music, the way different patterns align with each other in a progressive fashion. Ok, that doesn't make sense. But it still reminds me of his music.


I simply had to free motion quilt the lines instead of using a walking foot. I think it was worth it, but there were a couple puckers and a little pulling on the right side of the quilt. I'm sure it will feel just perfectly snuggly at bedtime though. Ahhhh....It seems this blog has slowed to a trickle lately and I'm pretty sure I'll never catch up on my own blog reading and emails, but I hope you're all doing well!

March 22, 2011

Stacks


 I would have never predicted this. My fabric is all folded. Weird.


I came home from an all-day sew with the Portland Modern Quilt Guild (which was super fun) and after the kid was asleep I went right back to playing with fabric. This kind of thing only happens in the lull between the end of one project and the start of four more.  I guess seeing enough of you orderly quilters with your neatly folded stacks is rubbing off on me!

March 18, 2011

A hundred times

I didn't make this. But you may see something familiar here.


A very kind blog reader named Pam emailed to ask if she could use the design from this quilt for a charity quilt she was making. And I said "of course!" and in what seemed no time at all, this picture was in my inbox. This is about a hundred times more amazing than my little doll blanket. I love the colors, the free piecing, everything! I mean my goodness, that cat! I never even thought of that. The quilt is called "Crazy Animal Stars" and is 55" square.

Pam doesn't have a blog so she said I could feature her photo here. I'm feeling awash with the magic of connecting online. Thank you Pam!

March 15, 2011

Back in the saddle


I'm quilting in my new sewing room for the first time. I'm happy I've learned to prewind some bobbins before I start stitching. It makes me so much calmer when one runs out to have another ready to go.

There's something so comforting about getting the gloves on and placing the scissors around my neck on their elastic. It's my quilting uniform. This time I'm also wearing a tape measure to periodically check the spacing of my lines.

My new space is working really well. This table is much more stable than my old drafting table. It doesn't start shaking when I get clipping along! I also slid my ironing board underneath the table to support my quilt on the left side, which means less battling the weight of the quilt. The ironing board isn't made to sit this low so it's being propped up by a little side table on one end and a drawer on the other!

 
A shot of the back side. Quilting with variably spaced straight* lines and little extras thrown in for interest. My machine Bernie and I are having a nice time of communion now that her pedal is not overheating. She starts skipping stitches to remind me to clean out the fluff. She'll break the thread if I'm putting too much stress on the quilt. I'm 2/3 of the way done and planning to bring it to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Thursday. I hope your quilting is going as smoothly!
 
*lines may not actually be straight.

March 10, 2011

Put five birds on it


I cut out a bunch of pattern pieces to make some Spool birds ages ago. And when we put the tree on the toddler's wall I figured some birds were called for. So I dragged them out and let her pick out the fabrics that she wanted.

These birds are kind of fussy. Hard to turn, hard to stuff, hard to close up their ever lovin tails! But the end result is so sweet...


We'll hang them up soon. And by "we", I think I mean "my husband". I'm busy finishing up my Project Modern quilt. It's killing me not to blog about it, but I feel like I need to wait.... everyone's being real hush hush about their submissions, I'm gonna pretend to fit in. So that's all the sewing I've got to share for now!