Oops. But it's done!

I finished up my Butterfly Trails quilt! I was so eager to get it finished that I decided to do the binding by machine, which was probably a mistake on this quilt. The binding is scrappy, so I had a hard time finding thread that would blend in on all the fabrics, and the backing is light, so if I was off at all, it showed on the back. I need much more practice on machine binding!

I was up fairly late putting the binding on, so I was tired when went to put pictures of the quilt up. I had some computer glitches while doing this, and when I tried to fix the problem, I accidentally deleted my entire webshots folder of completed quilts! I put the pictures I had on this computer up, but there are still a lot of gaps! If I have time I will get the rest back up over the next day or two.

All that said, here is my completed Butterfly Trails. I still needs washing and a trim of stray threads (why do they always show up so clearly on photos, but not in person?). There are lots of detailed pictures in my Finished Quilts webshots folder starting here if you are interested.


lorimn95


lorimn95

Shhhh!

Don't tell DH. I was trimming up my quilt and forgot exactly where my cutting mat ended, cutting an inch or two on the table. Luckily, it was our granite kitchen peninsula, not our wooden floor or wooden dining room table! It did a lot more damage to my rotary blade than to the table -- there is a slight scratch in what I think is a protective coating, but that is it. Better be more careful next time!

I have been sewing up the binding together the binding for this quilt, going through all my blues, blue-greens and purples to find 2 1/2" strips and bits and pieces that are too small to be used in other quilts, concentrating on those fabrics that I have either had for ages and am tired of, or that I wonder why I bought in the first place. My stash is pretty small and good fabric is hard to come by, so I really don't like to use good fabric for the binding. I realize that it is important to use good quality since it will get worn out faster than other parts, but still!

Hopefully I will have a picture of the completed quilt for WIP Wednesday.

Butterfly Trails Quilted!

Today was a good quilting day. I just finished up quilting Butterfly Trails. Now it only needs squaring up and binding. I am not sure what to do about binding. I was assuming I would use my leftover Kona Snow, but now that I actually think about it, the outside of the quilt is in blue scraps, and a white binding will not work. I am going to have to go through all my blues to see what blue I am willing to use up in binding.

I thought I was going to be in trouble finishing the quilting because I ran out of the finer light grey thread I bought on a trip a few months ago. I had another grey thread, but it was thicker and a bit too dark, and after quilting a section with it, I wan't too happy (but not unhappy enough to tear it all out either).

Then I remembered I had white silk thread on hand from a dismal silk quilt made a few years ago. I think that Diane Gaudinsky recommends silk thread, and maybe Karen McTavish, too. It was wonderful to quilt with. It is very fine and backtracking doesn't show at all. I only had 2 partial spools that started with 200 meters, so I was afraid it wouldn't be enough. I ran out of the thinner bobbin thread but found an old light grey polyester that was pretty fine, so I continued with that in the bobbin. Actually, I could have used it on the top as well because the color was okay, but luckily the silk thread worked out.

This was my first time using fine threads. The only threads available local are quite thick and linty. I am going to have to buy a major supply of some thinner threads because I loved how the quilting turned out. I don't have a picture of the quilt today, but I will try to get one tomorrow.

Christmas in February!

My family got me a gift certificate for quilting things for Christmas, and my gifts arrived today! Hurray! There were all kinds of sales at the end of December, so I ordered from a bunch of different online stores and had everything shipped to my mom, who shipped them on to me. In addition to fabric, I got the Ricky Tims video Grande Finale, as well as a bunch of quilting notions. I love the fabrics, and I am excited to give all the notions a try.

I was away for the last 5 days, so I haven't been able to do any quilting. The trip was for work and was very productive, but I am exhausted! I have today off, so I had hoped to finish up the quilting on the Butterflies in Flight/Butterfly Trails quilt (opinions on the name welcome!), but it is not to be. I am so tired that my quilting is just not going well. I keep missing intersections and making wobbly lines. Time for some blogging instead. Hopefully by later in the afternoon I will be able to do some decent quilting.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who made such encouraging comments about my Blue Marquee/Butterfly Trails quilt from WIP Wednesday. Joyce asked about the flowers and butterflies, and whether they were applique or embroidery or from existing fabrics. Actually, they are cut out from various fabrics I had on hand, so I believe that makes those bits broderie perse (?). Two summers ago when I was in the US, I got a copy of Landscape Quilts by Nancy Zieman and Natalie Sewell. I absolutely fell in love with their quilts and determined to make one. Now, I am not really a floral fabric person, naturally leaning more to textures and batiks, but I bought a ton of floral FQs in preparation for future landscape quilts (despite the fact that what I really wanted to do was some forest scenes).

I used a variation on their landscape technique, basically cutting out the motifs from the fabrics and layering them on the quilt. They say not to use stablizer because in a landscape quilt you use a lot of layers, but I fused the stablizer to the fabric, cut out the motifs and then fused them to the quilt. It is great fun playing with the motifs and figuring where they will go. I then just straight stitched around the motifs in the closest thing I had to matching thread. Simple and fun!

Progress on the Blue Marquee

which, I think will be known as "Butterfly Trails" or "Butterflies in Flight" or something like that. I have been pretty busy this week so I haven't been able to do as much on it as I wanted, and the rest of the week is even busier, so I am posting my WIP first thing in the morning. Here is a picture to show a bit of the shape it is taking. I have a wonderful dragonfly stencil I wanted to use on this quilt, too, but now I can't seem to see where to use it. We'll see.


lorimn95


lorimn95

I figured it out

I am so excited about my Blue Marquee quilt because I have figured out what to do with all that white. I found some fusible web, so I am going to be adding applique, but I will not reveal my design yet. I think it will be fun, though.

It is my first time using fusible web, so I did some experimenting on leftover scraps. The only problem is that my quilt is already basted. I have decided not to unbaste the whole thing but just to unbaste the borders when I am ready to fuse the applique pieces. I was so eager to try the applique that I did all the basic grid quilting at record pace. Then I unpinned the border, folded the backing and batting back and fused the applique to the border. I re-basted the border and free-motion stitched around the motif edges. Although there will be some fraying, it turned out pretty well and just looks like a quilting design on the back, so I think that is the way I will be going on this quilt.

I am not nearly as excited about my red Out of the Box quilt -- the evil Red Monster I posted about yesterday. I originally intended to hand quilt it with parallel lines in the background and motifs in the squares, and I got about 1/3 of the way through before abandoning hand quilting. Parallel lines have got to be the world's most boring motif to quilt by machine. They are also considerably more difficult to do well than I thought. My supposedly parallel lines seem to wander here and there. I have decided to throw in some random changes in direction and odd geometric motifs here and there to hide how awful my parallel lines are. I am thinking I should eventually give this quilt away, but I feel bad for whoever receives it!

I have -- or should I say had? -- a fantasy of doing an intricate whole-cloth wall hanging with very variations on traditional motifs including cross hatching -- that dream is now dead. I have no desire to do so many parallel lines again! I still may do my whole cloth quilt, but crosshatching and channels will be a very small part of it!

So, in all it's glory, the Red Monster. It has a lot of threads because of the basting for hand quilting, and you can't see the quilting (probably a good thing!). I can't wait for it to be done!

And its better loved brother, with my son's feet:

lorimn95

Thanks, Becky and Sophie!

Sophie shared the photo of sidewalk tiles from yesterday's post over at the quilting forum at About, and Becky (Rabidquilter) actually drafted some blocks based on the tile. They are wonderful! Check them out in this thread at About. Now I will really have to try making the block! But not until I finish the other works in progress!

Here is a quick picture of the top I finished up yesterday. I didn't get any time for quilting beyond piecing the back for the quilt. I am rather uninspired on the quilting at this point. In my recent quilts I have used a lot of freehand "background motifs" and my version of McTavishing, so that the quilts are quite densely quilted. I am thinking of leaving the blue parts unquilted because there are so many seam allowances, and possibly using different block motifs in each of the smaller and larger plain squares. It would look great with trapunto in each of the larger white squares, but I am not sure that I am up for so much trapunto, especially as I don't have any water soluble thread and have to pick out all my basting stitches. Any ideas for quilting would be very welcome!

It arrived! This time it really did.

My Kona Snow order arrived! I wasn't able to do much with it during the week because of work, but today I have been able to work on my Blue Marquee quilt. I now have a finished top, after only a little work last night and most of the day today. DS and DH were both out, so I had no distractions from quilting. There was a bit of a delay and a near disaster on this quilt. As I was putting on the borders, our helper (one of the benefits of living in this part of the world is being able to have help for cleaning and ironing) offered to iron the border I had just put on. That allowed me to work on the next border, which still required some piecing. But she burned it! She felt really bad, and so did I. I am glad I still had plenty of fabric left, though. I took off the border and cut off the burned part. There is still a smaller burn on one of the plain blocks, but we used bleach on the cut off piece of border and it turned out fine, so I will bleach the spot on the block as well.

This has got to be one of the best scrap-busting quilts around. It goes together so quickly, and you don't really have to worry much about accuracy. I found a white and green stripped flannel fabric here for the backing. It is not a fabric I would normally have chosen, but it fits the spring feeling I want for the quilt and it is soo soft! I think this will turn out to be one of the family's favorite quilts to snuggle under. I don't have a picture of the top yet, but I do have a few pictures of life in Macau.

The picture at the top of the post is of tiling on the one of the sidewalks downtown. Wouldn't it make a great quilt block? Perhaps because of the Portuguese influence in Macau, there are a lot of tiled areas. Buildings use a lot of marble and granite for flooring, and they can be a great source for ideas for quilt blocks, too.

The two other pictures are of shops. See the birds hanging in the one on the left? People still take their birds out for walks and keep them at the store with them, then take them home at night. You can hear the birds singing as you shop.

Then there is this shop. What can I say? Would you buy anything from this shop?