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

My landscape quilt

In my last post I mentioned that I had bought Landscape Quilts by Nancy Zieman and Natalie Sewell. It is a wonderful book and I love the techniques. They have a series of quilts to make to help you learn the techniques. So far I have only managed to make one but I have a few quilts in my mind for the future. I thought I would share the one that I made:


lorimn95

And some detail:

lorimn95


lorimn95

It's here! Umm. No it's not.

Yesterday I was very excited to find a package waiting for me at home -- a fabric package! When there was a sale on at Hancock's of Paducah, I ordered Kona Snow for the Blue Marquee quilt and the Single Wedding Ring, and some Kona black just to have on hand. It has taken a long time to get here because of the Christmas season,and I thought it was rather a coincidence that just after posting about Blue Marquee, the fabric I needed to finish it would come. Because of the cost of international shipping, I always ask the store to fill the shipping envelope to the full with fabric remnants so that I get my money's worth. However, when I opened the package, only the remnants were there. By themselves. Huh???

I wrote to Hancock's and there was a glitch putting together the order because of the backlogging of some fabrics. They will make up the shipping cost on the other part of my order that was backlogged. But, unfortunately, I am still not able to work on the Blue Marquee. Instead I am doing more half square triangles for the Single Wedding Ring Quilt. Since my piecing is not always accurate, I have cut the strips a bit bigger than required and have been cutting the finished HSTs down to correct size. I do love the quilt, but the extra trimming step is getting quite old! I have taken to leaving a pile of pieced but not trimmed fabrics on the kitchen table with my cutting mat. Every time I pass by I trim one or two. My poor family. I am sure that DH thought that giving me the dining room table for my sewing table would mean the rest of the apartment was free of quilting gear.

On a happy note, my family is now using my quilts! I love to see them curled up under the quilts. When I first started quilting, I basically made wall hangings. Then I took a long break from quilting while DS was young (about7 years!), and about 1 1/2 years ago was bitten by the quilt bug again. Since then I have been making lap quilts and throws. The first few turned out too small. Even DS wanted more quilt to cover himself up with!

The last 3 have been just about twin size, but I faced a new problem. My quilts were a bit on the stiff side, so DS preferred his store-bought comforter. :((. I finally figured out that the stiffness was partially because of a stiff fabric I had used, partially because of the combination of the batting and the quilting itself, but mainly because I had never gotten around to washing the quilts! You can tell laundry is high on my priority list, LOL. Now that they have been washed with fabric softener, they are getting full use. Yesterday, DS and DH both brought them to bed to sleep under after using them while watching tv. Unfortunately, I have no pictures. They are probably both grateful.

I also recently got another picture of a quilt in use. I made a pair of wall hanging for my mom and one of her friends, and mom sent a picture of it in its new home. I have only recently begun giving quilts away because I didn't think they were ready for 'prime time' as it were. They still aren't but I am now giving them away anyway. It is fun to see others enjoying the quilts. I made the pattern for this one myself based on pictures I had seen in Hancock's catalog and one the web. Here it is hanging up:

And some details of the quilting from the back and from the front before binding:

It's Done!

I got back last night from an extremely busy trip to Beijing, so there has been no quilting going on here for the last week. It was a very productive trip, though, and I got to see lots of good friends. I brought DS with me, even though all his friends would be in school. Luckily, he made some new friends, got to see some of the old ones, and had a good time until the second to the last day, when he got sick. He was okay for traveling last night, though, and we are both happy to be relaxing at home today.

This morning I was ready to get quilting, and I finished up the edges on Not Quite Amish that needed some extra quilting. I am not all that pleased with how the borders turned out, but it is done! I am sure my family won't mind. Here is its:

The full quilt.
I love how the "block" sections turned out. They are actually four blocks set together. It is a great quilt to make because it has so few pieces in the blocks and they come together really quickly. You could also set the blocks like pinwheels. Someday I will make one like that, too, but I am out of many of the fabrics I used, now.

The block detail and the quilting from the back. It seems the quilting always photographs better from the back! I actually like to use the back of the quilt to see how my quilting designs are evolving and to figure out where I will need more quilting or which motif will work best.

Opening

I have been browsing various quilt blogs for a while now, and I thought it was about time to try my own hand. I just came back from a work related trip that allowed me to visit the family of the woman that taught me to quilt. She has since passed away, but she was a wonderful, creative person who gave me a great gift with quilting. Though I took a rather long break from quilting when my son was young, I have recently come back to it with a vengence. Now, thanks to her generosity and kindness, I have a hobby that allows me to use my hands and my creativity, and that helps me to keep some balance in my life.

In starting this blog, I began to make a list of all the works I have in progress, and I found there is quite a collection! I am almost done with one quilt that I am calling "Not Quite Amish" or something like that. It is just lacking the binding, and possibly a bit more quilting, but I hope to post some pictures of it soon. What I can post now, though, is its sister quilt, "Almost Amish." I acquired some wonderful batiks and very bright prints that I wanted to find a use for, and this was the result. Fortunately or unfortunately, I accidently cut twice the number of patches I needed (I forgot the fabric was folded!). Not Quite Amish is the second quilt from that project, using the leftover blocks. There area also two very small wall hangings I have been able to make, still using the leftover blocks. Both these quilts have large open spaces for me to play with my machine quilting, my latest obsession.