Whole Cloth Quilt

I have been toying with the idea for several years now of making a wholecloth quilt. Tonight I spent a bit of time looking at photos on the internet and in my own stash of books and pictures from quilt shows. I have two different wholecloth tops in my studio that are just begging to be done. One is a golden beige fabric and the other a plain off-white. I have thought about just loading one of them on my machine and simply designing as I go. It might be really interesting and definitely a challenge I would enjoy. But would it turn out? I wish I had several weeks to put all these design ideas I have in my head down on cloth. I'm still thinking -- just don't know where it will take me! (The photo is of some design play done while my sister was here last year)

Lazy Day

Some days are just meant for relaxing. Today is one of them. I got up early, walked, weeded some in the garden, then went a met friends for coffee. After that it was a little more garden work and finishing the most recent customer quilt. I also worked on the design for a memory garden I'm creating in the back corner of our yard. There was time to surf the web, catch up on a few blogs and just sit on the swing in the backyard. A lazy day; a relaxing day; pretty much a perfect day. Here's the view from our backyard swing. The kids are catching some sun and my daughters dog, Junebug, is seeing what kind of mischief she can find. It looks like summer is finally here!

Basket Quilt

I finished this basket quilt last year. After looking at it for months I knew it had to be changed. It was the corner blocks in the border that were all wrong. They just did nothing for the quilt. I think having the borders without the blocks would have looked best but there wasn't enough fabric leftover for that so I played around with some ideas and fabrics and finally came up with new blocks. The small checker board of black and creams sets off those corners and I think the contrast is much better. Now I can get this quilted and actually be happy with it!

Leah's Spring is published

The magazine finally arrived that has an article and photo on Leah's Spring quilt. It's exciting to see it published, but more than seeing the quilt in a magazine is knowing that it's another opportunity to tell a little of the story of her precious life.

Done at last

I can take a big sigh of relief -- this quilt is finished. There was many hours that went into quilting this one, but it turned out beautifully. I'm happy with the designs that were quilted on it. I love the scalloped edge and the dresden plate in the center. This is a quilt I would like to make. Maybe someday. When a quilt is this heavily quilted and the back is a plain muslin, the back becomes a work of art too. I love it.

Loving This Quilt

Sometimes I get drawn into a quilt. I really liked this quilt before I started to work on it, but as I've been quilting it I find myself really, really liking it. I can tell; I didn't plan to spend much time quilting today but I kept finding myself at the machine thinking of one more design that would look nice in a particular area. There's already a lot of hours into this quilt but it's worth the extra effort. And by the way, I did figure out what to put in the T blocks. The area around the T blocks will still need more quilting but I'm satisfied with the design that went in the block.

Challenge of Design

I put this quilt on this morning. It's very large, a lot of open spaces, an exquisitely done quilt. It will most likely be on my machine for about a week. Not only because of it size, but it will require a lot of design work and that takes time. Sometimes the time is just spent in thinking. I did the top scalloped border and then when I got to the T-blocks I just couldn't see anything to quilt on them. Finding a design for that block online, I printed out a bunch of the blocks in black and white and then drew design ideas. Still wasn't convinced that any of them were right. I don't want to spend too many hours trying to figure this out. Hopefully I can sleep on my ideas tonight and know in the morning what I want to do! I'll post more as this quilt progresses and then it's final pictures. It is really beautiful.

This Week's Work

These two quilts were done this week. The blue and teal quilt had some rectangles that were made from silk. I have worked with silk before and it can be hard to piece and keep from fraying. This quilter put small strips of fusible interfacing in the seam allowance of each silk piece. A lot of work, but it should help. I quilted straight lines down the silk pieces and then put a fern design through the center. I think it turned out beautifully. The other quilt was large, but since it was mostly an overall design it was only a half day's work. I really like the design that went in the narrow borders.

What's In A Name?

I was curious today what would come up if I typed in machine quilting Tualatin OR in a Google search. The first page had me listed on three different business directories as a machine shop! That explains why I sometimes get calls from engine supply places looking for new business. One guy recently started his sales pitch and then midway through a sentence there was this pause and then he said "I'm just looking at your name, and I take it you don't service cars or sell parts -- you have the word quilting in your name", he started to laugh and said his wife quilts and that he could understand completely if I didn't want to purchase any mechanic tools from him. I guess when you have the word machine in your business name it's going to mean a lot of other things besides quilting. Maybe I'll get out in my husband's shop and try out a few tools!

View from my studio windows

I know I've mentioned several times how blessed I feel to be able to have such a beautiful studio to work in. Not only is it great in the actual studio, but I love the view from the windows. The back windows look out at the garden and the chicken coop. Two of my other loves in life -- gardening and chickens! The side windows look out at the patio and deck with the pots and hanging baskets of flowers. It's wonderful!