Wow, it's been a long time since my last post! I had to literally knock down the cobwebs on my blog site! When I first decided to start this blog, I made a promise to myself not to let it become a ghost page like my FB account and yet here it is over a month since I wrote anything. However, in my defense it has been a busy month, of course the holidays keep us all busy but I have also been sewing several projects to give as christmas gifts and didn't want to post pictures of these until after gift giving....but it's close enough so here's what I've been doing.
The first project was done for my son's girlfriend, after she saw his monster-truck T-shirt quilt, she wanted to use her and her brother's HS/college shirts and make a quilt for her mother. Of course, I was happy to oblige. Now my son tells me her quilt looks better than his, (sigh). Honestly, these are not my favorite quilts to do, but I think this one turned out ok, and it will hold a special place for the recipient. Pieced with cotton and minky backing (ugh! I hate working with minky, but it's soooo soft and everyone loves it) The quilting was done with Quilters Choice cotton thread and Wonderfil Decobob (great stuff!) Swirling fill and random meandering, outlining and a couple of feathers. The quilt measures approx 65x65
This next quilt was pieced by my son for his girlfriend. It is very stunning! the fabrics are beautiful, cotton and radience, mostly black/brown/cream with a touch of purple. As I look at the picture it reminds me of tile flooring
Here I am doing the border, long feathers on a wavy spine, some peppling (which I need to continue to perfect). As I am still learning, well you know....practice makes perfect (or almost)
So my son and I had a discussion before I started this quilt on what type of thread to use, the density of stitching, he even picked out a stencil for the brown blocks....all of which I ignored. The Quilters choice cotton thread is like....well like in pictures matte or glossy finish, it's matte and I thought a beautiful trilobal poly would just glisten, and not just in brown, but to fill the block using a light lavendar the design would really sparkle...and the stencil was way too boring, so I designed my own feathery motif, also in the radience fabric blocks I started filling with arcs and not in the cotton cream thread he chose but again in the lavendar, over half way through the quilt, he comes downstairs and is..well.. pissed and disappointed and I felt like I had the wind knocked out of my sails, here I was feeling all creative and was thinking this is looking awesome but it wasn't what he envisioned. His words "how can you think of doing a customer quilt when you don't follow the wishes of the customer?" and "Why are you quilting this so much? I wanted it poofy!" Sometimes in life there is no turning around and this was one of those times. So, the quilting ideas for the sashing and the fill for the radience fabric blocks, gone. I completed the quilt, not to my total liking and probably not to my son's total liking either, hopefully his girlfriend will like it...as is. It's huge measuring 93x102
I designed this feathery motif and stitched it in Ricky Tims Art Studio Colors made by Superior threads..it does really sparkle :)
Rather boring arcs....not really where I wanted to stop quilting
The first project was done for my son's girlfriend, after she saw his monster-truck T-shirt quilt, she wanted to use her and her brother's HS/college shirts and make a quilt for her mother. Of course, I was happy to oblige. Now my son tells me her quilt looks better than his, (sigh). Honestly, these are not my favorite quilts to do, but I think this one turned out ok, and it will hold a special place for the recipient. Pieced with cotton and minky backing (ugh! I hate working with minky, but it's soooo soft and everyone loves it) The quilting was done with Quilters Choice cotton thread and Wonderfil Decobob (great stuff!) Swirling fill and random meandering, outlining and a couple of feathers. The quilt measures approx 65x65
This next quilt was pieced by my son for his girlfriend. It is very stunning! the fabrics are beautiful, cotton and radience, mostly black/brown/cream with a touch of purple. As I look at the picture it reminds me of tile flooring
All of this has taught me a valuable lesson. I know what it feels like to take a quilt to a longarmer for quilting and then getting it back only to be sorely disappointed. That somehow through mis-communication my ideas didn't get through. But I also now know to speak up and let my creativity serve and don't start Anything! until after speaking to the person. I'm not currently in business for quilting, but would like to be once I feel my skill level is up to that challenge.
Case in point... Here's a picture of a quilt Twisted Star that I wanted custom quilted and what I got back was a panto!!! UGH! how could that happen??? and the LA quilter made a huge mistake and wrinkled the backing fabric and then just left that large 2 foot wrinkle in place and had the audacity not to point it out..I found it later at home as I was applying the hanging sleeve for a show...yea, no winner here.
Ahh, so enough on that.....
This next quilt is for my son, it is the labyrinth pattern by Calico Carriage Quilt Designs, I wanted a super fast quilt with a lot of empty space for quilting. I really like how it turned out. It measures around 95x95. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to get it quilted, so his present is ..well an unfinished quilt...maybe I'll ask him how he wants it quilted. BAHAHAHAHA, just kidding! I'm doing it MY way. :)
And here's a picture of my little bite-y bunny, Louie, he though I was eating something good, not sour grapefruit!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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