VP2B

The roster for the many officers and committee chairpersons is complete for my guild's election, which is being held next month.  It's hard to get anyone to step up to the bat to be President, but Linda B did so with her customary grace and cheer.  I get to be VP next year, and as such, I will be in charge of finding teachers of interesting, repertoire-stretching techniques.  One of the things that my guild has not done much of is quilting with wool.  The darling little candle mat above by Bareroots Quilting will probably be one of our projects this year.

Our teacher for that project will be Debbie Powell, who runs "Miss Lou's", a quilting store  in Henderson, NC.  Debbie has consented to giving us her time on our schedule in March, 2012.  She doesn't sell fabric, but she does ALOT of teaching of quilting techniques.  And she has a private stash of felted wool that she uses to make up kits for her wool classes.

Just in case you don't know the difference between wool felt and felted wool, felted wool is woven cloth that has been shrunken with hot water and heat in the dryer.  Wool felt is random wool fibers that have been glopped together in a manufacturing process.  You can compare felted wool to wool felt much like you can compare a solid wood plank to a pressed wood item.

This Christmas holly in a pitcher is another project that the guild can vote on.  Debbie has lots of things she teaches, but we need to limit our class to one thing.  I thought this one was beautiful.  The designer is Sharon Stewart of Liberty Rose Patterns.

Lastly, this Tree of Life is from Nancy Johnson-Srebro's book, Big Block Quilts by Magic.  It has NO Y seams!  If the guild doesn't choose this one for a class, I may just buy that book myself and do this project.  I love no Y seams!  I couldn't find Nancy's web site for you to visit, but you can Google her or go to Amazon.com to find her books.

We're going to kick off the new guild year in September with a two day visit by one of my favorite quilt artists, Marilyn Doheny.  I'll show you some of her works tomorrow!

12 STEP PROGRAM

I think I am addicted to quilting.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I am.  If I go a day without doing it in some form or another, I go through withdrawal.

Case in point:  Joyce T gave me this large, queen size triple Irish chain quilt to do for her.  I have had a blast figuring out what to do on it and then applying the patterns in threads of gold and red and white.  Every day that didn't have an electric storm hovering nearby was used to "visit" and play with this quilt.

Because of other parts of my life needing attention from time to time, my joyful excursions into my lurkim during this time were limited to about 4 hours a day, which was fine for me since this stretched out my time working with this colorful and well made quilt, but eventually all good things must come to an end, and the quilt was finished.

Here's a closer look at the intersection of the chains and the center blocks.  Straightforward lines, neat and crisp, frame scrolls reminiscent of English garden gates.

There are quite a variety of ways of quilting Irish chains.  I chose patterns that were suggested by the actual architecture of the design.

The three outer borders were a delight to do.  Soft curls in red against a red background -- understated but effective in "ending" the chains.  The blue fabric had white roses in it;  I wanted a geometric zigzag here but opted instead for an undulating white one that borrowed from the rounded forms of the roses.  Click on the picture to see this border more easily.  The outermost border is very stylized tulips.  I liked these because they had petals like feathers, and I love feathers.

So now the quilt is finished, and Joyce will be picking it up tomorrow.  I'm very excited to show it to her, but I'm already feeling the withdrawal from my quilting "habit."

Guess I'd better open the box that came in the mail right before the holidays -- I'll bet there's a sure cure in there just waiting for  me!

CUTWORK CAPERS

I don't think of myself as stupid except when it comes to computers.  Then I would classify myself as "challenged", and then some.  Anytime I want to participate in some computer function, like this blog, I have to be walked through the process with a compassionate hand-holder, like Mary, who will patiently explain each step of the way until I get it through my dense noggin how to do it on my own.

Same thing for the software for my Husqvarna Viking Designer Diamond.  It's called 5D.  I bought the 5D Extra program and added Stitch Editor to that.  This past Tuesday I attended a lesson in Stitch Editor.

Now, before I tell you about that, let me tell you that my interpretation of what those 5 D's stand for is:  $$$dollars$$$, dumb, difficult, detailed and delightful.  I spent mucho dinero on this program, but not as much as people who bought the Pro program.  I feel totally imbecilic when I sit down to try to work with the program on my computer -- again, I need the hand holding.  The process is difficult if not impossible to figure out on your own:  hence, the lessons I have been taking for months.  The lessons are extremely detailed -- so much so that my brain refuses to digest them during lessons -- thank heavens for detailed handouts!  And delightful -- I'll bet you never thought I would add such a positive point at the end, did you?  But the end result of learning the lessons and finally applying them is delightful!

The "doily" above is my first lesson in adding cutwork needles to the steps in embroidery.  This pattern did not come with cutwork in mind.  It was just an embroidery pattern, but my teacher worked out how to edit the  pattern and add the steps and directions so that bits of the embroidery would be cut out -- i.e., cutwork. 

It took me the whole day yesterday to try to figure out this lesson.  Our assignment was to finish editing the pattern and save the work.  Not only did I finally figure it out and save it, I stitched it out as proof that even this 5D "challenged" damsel could GET IT -- at last!  And you can bet that this piece of work is going to end up on a T shirt or a bag or some other project.  It took WAYYYYY too long to do it to just put it away.

FIRST QUILT

Joyce T loves green, so when it came time for her to make her first quilt, she selected a green, tan and off white palette. She cut the squares, sewed them together, and, like we all do, put the quilt top away. Years pass. One day she digs it out of her closet and decides "I want to finish this." And guess who she brings it to? Right - me!

So, the way I usually do, I look at it for awhile and see what reaches out to me. The blocks aren't all that big, so quilting each independent space would be too dense and too busy. And what color should I use? The theme is definitely dominant in the green arena, but there are the off white and tan colors to deal with, too. I don't want something with too much contrast for these paler colors.

And then I notice: the lighter green is a soft, pale jade with darker viney scrolls through it. On the end of each tendril of the vine, a sort of heart-shaped darker leaf is found. Eureka! I search through my threads and come up with a soft, pale jade green thread that almost perfectly matches this fabric. And I quilt it with Sweethearts Garden, a lovely, whimsical vine with large simple leaves in which hearts are nestled. Here's a close up. You can see it even better if you click on the picture.

There. Done. And I think she will love it.

BEAUTIFUL BARGELLO

Janice S paid me the compliment of sending me one of her superb quilts -- a stunning bargello made from batiks with rich fall colors in them.  I mused over it for a day and realized that there is no appropriate pattern for a bargello that isn't linear, like stitch-in-the-ditch.  So I decided to use a wispy, wave-like pantograph in the center of the quilt.

This pattern didn't interfere with the impact of the bargello strips at all and allowed your eye to travel from one luscious curve to the dip and the next curve without hanging up on the quilting design.  So now I had to figure out what to do about the borders.

The borders were bold in their separation from the body of the quilt.  Janice had chosen a cream with gold swirls through it for the inner border, so I used a magnified version of the swirls to "end" the pantograph.  The outer border was black with gold curlicues and just needed a little texture to be able to give the quilt the final touch.  The pattern in the black portion is called Hazel Spice 2, and has a slightly formal appearance to it.  However, you can't see it well against the black-- just the texture, which is what I wanted anyway.

While my IQ was chugging away at Janice's quilt center pantograph, I was able to trim my own king size quilt and put the binding on it.  My quilt is just a giant Disappearing 9 Patch, which I happen to like very much when sashing is added.   It's nestling on my bed, even as we speak.  In case you're wondering, this huge quilt measures 110 x 120, and although it doesn't need shams or extra pillows, I have some leftover fabric that I think I will use for pillow cases.  Won't that be cute?

This has been a good day's work.  Janice's quilt is in the mail, and the next quilt is on the frame.  Off to the lurkim.

ONE DOWN, SEVEN TO GO!

Is there anything so wonderful as seeing the next generation complete a rite of passage, ready to begin the preparation for taking its place in the world?  This past weekend DH and I attended our eldest grandson's high school graduation.  Oh boy!  Did it ever bring back memories of his daddy's first day of school, first basketball game, first drum set, first girlfriend, high school graduation, college days and graduation from university, then police academy graduation, meeting his wife, having their first child, oh my!  What a long span of time!  Those forty plus years went like a flash.  In the picture above, beginning from the left, is brother Dalton, graduate Chris IV, mom Sheri, and dad Chris III. 

Proud grandparents:  DH and I with Chris IV.  This is one set of grandparents.  The next picture shows all of us, including Chris II, who was my first husband and the father of my children.  We all get along very well, by the way -- better than we did when we were married, I think.

Oh dear.  My blogspot won't let me download the picture of all the grandparents.  Well, here's Chris III (my son), Chris IV (my grandson) and Chris II (my ex). 

Now to concentrate on the next three grandsons as they head for middle school.  Three more high school graduations and four college graduations to go!

SUE B'S QUILT

I took a little trip over the past 5 days to see family and friends and to get my hair done correctly.  Yes, hair.  I have not found a completely acceptable hair dresser these past four years since we moved to EBF, VA, so every three to six months, I bite the economic bullet and go to the big city where I used to live and get a decent job done with my longtime favorite hair dresser, Katie, who makes me look like ME again instead of some frumpish backwoods denizen.

Having gotten that off my chest, here are the promised Sue B quilt pictures that I didn't have time to post before leaving on my marathon trip.

This wallhanging is about 36 x 36 and consists of 32  4" churndash blocks alternating with solid 4" patches surrounding a central appliqued 11" block.

I chose to quilt the solid patches with a cathedral windows motif, which made the quilt look like it had been embossed.  Those corner patches that are only 3/4 of a block were a doozie!  I had to fashion the pattern myself to make it fit into the 3/4 block at the same size as the pattern for the full blocks.  This was done with the aid of my ingenious IQ system for my longarm using a continuous curve approach.

Here is a close up of one of the 4" squares and the quilting in it.  You can enlarge it by clicking on it.

The applique outlining took the longest to do and required the most precision.  It helped her lovely design "pop", didn't it?

And now off to the laundry and my lurkim.