Do you know where your thread is?

I do.

To be clear, I know where my thread is.  I have no idea where yours is.

My thread was in numerous baskets spread around the room.  I sorted it by type, estimated how many boxes were needed, and went to Barnes and Noble to procure some cool, collapsible, magnetic boxes.  I'd been looking for an excuse to buy some.  The boxes were available in two different prints.  This one was my favorite.

This is my Aurifil thread in one of the boxes.  Notice that the inside of the box is pretty too.  The thread is not in sunlight, which is a plus. 

I have two more boxes of Aurifil, one box of YLI silk, one box of Superior King Tut, and a small box of miscellaneous thread.   This is an announcement, not a confession.  I have no remorse about owning all this thread.  The barn red in the bottom left, the rust in the bottom center, and the dark blue are standard colors that I use frequently as a murky quilter.  The bright yellow and lighter blues are perfect for baby quilts.  The others will be perfect for something someday in the middle of a snowstorm when I can't get to a quilt shop.

I freely admit that I sometimes have to open more than one box to find the thread I want, but at least I know that, for example, all the blue Aurifil is in one box.  This is thread I used for quilting.  When piecing, I normally use neutrals. 

I machine applique with a blanket stitch.  That requires a good assortment of colors.  To that end, I also own five sets of Aurifil thread in smaller spools.

Don't ask me what I'm going to do when I empty some of those smaller spools.  The ones that empty soonest will be the ones that I used the most and therefore need.  It stands to reason that they will have to be replaced.

A Few of My Favorite Things

This star block is possibly by favorite block if not my most favorite block.  It is easy to piece, especially when it is floating like this.  Once I start making them, I can't stop.  And that is why I had extra blocks from another project.  I love the block on point and not on point.  I like it scrappy and not scrappy. 

I love the fabrics in this one, but found it hard to mark the quilting design on the corner triangles.  I like to use the Clover white marking pen - the one where the marks come out with steam.  Instead I had to mark with a quilting pencil so this quilt was washed after it was bound.

At this point I have to mention that I experience terror when I mark with pencil because...what if it doesn't come out...ever? 

This next one was marked entirely with the white Clover pen.  There was no terror.  It hasn't been washed yet, but I think I might wash it anyway because I like how the other one looks with its crinkles.  Both quilts have Quilters' Dream Request cotton batting which is one of my two favorite battings.  (The other is Hobbs wool.)

If you look closely at both of these, you might be able to see the feathers which were quilted in a lovely gold Aurifil 50/2 cotton thread (#2975).  Aurifil 50/2 cotton thread is one of my favorite threads.  The gold is very nice for quilts with rich, strong colors.  (My other favorite thread is YLI 100 weight silk.)


I have one more of these 17" x 17" tops in progress.  I am chomping at the bit to work on it right now.  The End.

UFOs...Or a Study of Feathers

I made 7 small wall hangings to use up leftover blocks. (The one shown above is the second one.)  While marking the quilting designs on the first one, I decided to try quilting feathers in the border with only the spine marked. The reason - I love feathers; I hate marking them. My expectations were not very high for the first attempt, but - get ready - it didn't turn out bad at all. On to the next one. I expected it to be better than the first attempt, but that was not the case. Somehow the feathers got too long and the angles were not right. They started looking like fat little fingers or maybe sausages. Back to the drawing board.
With the third one, I started marking the first couple feathers on the spine. It helped me visualize the shape. There were still a few sausages, but it was much better.
I'm working on number four right now. If I was thinking that I had UFOs to finish, I wouldn't be excited. So instead I'm Monet doing a study of feathers.

If I can mark it, I can quilt it!

Life is so hard sometimes. First you have to decide how you want to quilt the quilt. Sometimes that is a challenge by itself, but eventually you decide. Then, unless you are very accomplished and can quilt without marking, you need to mark the quilting design on the quilt. Sometimes the shape you want to quilt is not a stencil; it's just a picture. It may or may not be the right size.

I was working on a 17"x 28" table runner with two 7 1/2" blocks set on point, setting triangles, and a border. I found a nice triangular stencil that was the perfect size for the larger setting triangles. It was a heart with feathers around it.  This one was traced from the purchased stencil.

I also wanted to use it in the smaller triangles. I did not want to run to the copy shop to reduce it. I did not want to check to see if the stencil was available in a smaller size. I wanted it NOW.

Last June I took two great classes with Hollice Turnbow at the NQA show in Columbus, OH. He taught us how to draft symmetrical designs and make our own stencils. I bought most of (The use of italics is an indication of where this is leading.) the supplies, but they were all still in pristine condition. I decided to draft the heart and feathers smaller. (Here I should mention that I have also taken multiple classes about drafting feathers, but haven't done that out of class either.)

I managed to draft the design in the right size. (I think I even did it the way we were taught.) It still wasn't a stencil. I almost used Golden Threads paper, but stopped myself because I feel that I lose a little accuracy with the paper. I forged ahead. I traced the smaller design on the template plastic. (Yes, I was able to find it.) I got out the knife and realized that I had never bought whatever you were supposed to cut the stencil on. I think it was a glass surface of some sort. At this point I had to improvise. I cut around the entire shape. Then I cut out a separate heart. I traced around the bigger shape. Then I positioned the heart in the center and traced around it. Then I had to do a little drafting of feather lines, but it was actually (get ready) EASY.  This one was marked from my makeshift stencil.  I think it looks good.  Hmmm...guess I need to work on removing the white markings.

Quilting the Three Musketeers

In early December one of the Hands All Around Quilt Guild show chairs asked if I would talk about machine quilting (on a home sewing machine) at our annual quilt show the first weekend in March. It sounded like fun; I said yes. For a few days I thought about this thing I'd agreed to do. I did not have prepared lectures about quilting. What exactly would I say? I would go to my closet to find a top that needed to be quilted. While quilting that top, words of wisdom would come to me. That was the plan.

The closet door opened and my eyes fell on a large lap size top made two years earlier. It was a guild block of the month project. The backing, batting, and binding were ready to go. It had nine 12" blocks set on point with plain alternate blocks, setting triangles, and a border. A perfect candidate in every way. I selected stencils for the alternate blocks and setting triangles. As I marked the quilt, I got excited about it and started wondering what the quilt would be named. Simultaneously, it struck me that, for unexplained reasons, I had made three sets of those 12" blocks and had assembled them using three different settings. Wouldn't it be "cool" to quilt all three of them and refer to them in my machine quilting talk? (Never mind the fact that I work full time and had only three months to do this.) The quilts could be named after something that came in threes - the 3 little pigs...the 3 wise men...THE 3 MUSKETEERS! That was it. They would be named Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

It took approximately 3-4 weeks to quilt each top. It was a lot of concentrated quilting, but words did come to me. It was fun to talk about my 3 musketeeers at the show. And since they were not IN the show, I already have 3 quilts I can enter in next year's show.

Perhaps someday I will make another series of quilts and name them after the 3 Stooges just because it would be so much fun to talk about quilts named Larry, Moe, and Curly!

Sweet Sixteen

No - I am not sweet sixteen. Keep reading.

How easily we are sidetracked! I stopped work on Tradition, the red and green applique quilt, while waiting to make sure I can get 3 more yards of the background fabric. A friend and I attended the NQA show for the first time this past June. While at the show, we attended the Little Quilt Auction. Afterwards I vowed to make a quilt for the auction in 2010. My friend emailed me about it on Saturday. I had a block selected and had reduced it to 4" finished size. I just hadn't started. Her email got me going!

I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I would make a quilt that I could enter in my local guild's miniature category. Then I would donate it to NQA. For the local show, the maximum block size is 4" and the maximum quilt size is 25" square. Last year the maximum Little Quilt size was 28" square. My first plan was to make nine of the 4" appliqued blocks, thinking that the quilt could be smaller than the maximum size. By the time I had made 5 blocks, I was addicted and decided to make 16 blocks...because they would fit and allow room for a border too. That was when I decided to name the quilt Sweet Sixteen.

I used assorted shirtings for the backgrounds of the blocks, just as I often do when making a bed quilt. The block is called Indiana Rose. There are 10 pieces to applique for each block. The leaves are all assorted greens. The flowers are varied. The flower in the middle has a tiny round center and those are varied too. I started by making a block with purple flowers and a blue center. I decided to blanket stitch the flowers, then the leaves, then the center. Because I had blue thread in the machine, I decided the next block would have blue flowers. I continued making blocks with the center determining the color for the next flower. Eventually I knew what color flower I wanted to do next so sometimes the flower for the next block determined the color for the center of the current block. This little game caused me to use some combinations that I might not have otherwise considered.

It would have been faster to fuse all the blocks, put a thread in my sewing machine, and blanket stitch all the blocks that had that color. But this is not about faster. I take delight in each block as I work on it. Sometimes people ask the question "Why do you quilt?" For a long time I thought it was because I bought fabric. Not true. I quilt because I feel joy in creating something that pleases me. If it brings someone else joy, that is a bonus.

Update on March 8, 2011. This quilt was the Viewers' Choice at the 2010 NQA show and did nicely at auction.

Where has the summer gone?

Amazing! Even though it isn't officially fall, it is time for school to start and that means fall to me.

To my surprise, I have accomplished some things since last spring. I FINALLY quilted the Paducah Nine-Patch top assembled quite a few years ago. It is quilted with simple straight line walking foot quilting, which is all it needed. It is happy to be finished!

I also quilted a Miss Rosie top that I made several years back. I think the pattern was called Pretty Maids. It is made in wonderfully murky eggplant, tan, gold, green fabrics, but I changed it to have a plainer, dark eggplant border so there would be spaces for some fancy quilting. The center is straight line walking foot. I called it "It Was a Dark and Murky Night." There were some blocks left over so they were assembled into a small table runner. The table runner will be donated to the Quilt Boutique at our local quilt show.

I made and quilted an appliqued quilt called Bird Haven. It has 9 appliqued blocks and is about 48" square. It was named in honor of Bird Haven Greenhouse and Conservatory in Joliet, IL. They will celebrate 80 years of continuous operation in 2010. I grew up in Joliet and have fond memories of visits to the greenhouse...but I was NOT there on opening day in 1930!

I made a lap size four-patch quilt to be donated through community projects of our local guild.

I joined a small group. Each of us plan to make a journal type quilt a month. This is meant to be a growth experience. I am planning to work on unmarked free motion quilting of objects like leaves, flowers, feathers, etc. I am using Dover Books for inspiration. The series will be called Without a Trace I, II, etc. I quilted a floral shape for the first one. It turned out well but I was not adventurous enough in my choice of thread.

But the main thing is that I have started my "big" project for the year. It is a red and green appliqued quilt based on my study of some antique quilts - pictures - I've not been able to see very many actual quilts. It will have nine 18" blocks in the center and a leafy border.

And...I had some excitement in June. A quilt that I entered in the NQA show placed second in the Bed Quilts, Mixed Techniques category.