Sunday, May 22, 2016

Finished my nosegay quilt


with the scalloped border.  But, I put it away without taking a picture.

I find that my taste in quilting is changing a little.  I look at the tops hanging up downstairs and am no longer content to just embrace a fabric line, quickly piece it from someone else's pattern, and then lightly quilt it.

I have tops that I'm no longer "in love" with.  They don't express the quilter I've become.  I'm giving one of them to a group that machine quilts things for the Festival of the Trees.  Maybe they'll want more than one.

I used to feel true bliss as I sat in front of my sewing machine and cranked out top after top.  Now I want what I do to be an expression of who I am, how I feel about things, and I want it to say something that will be important to the next generation that inherits it.

I guess that's a lot to ask.

I am no longer content to just check off the items on my mental list.  I don't want what I do to just be another finish in the long line of finishes.

And, that's the way I feel about my most recent completed project.  Nothing special . . . just done.
Robin

Monday, May 9, 2016

A head start on my summer goal


If I had my way I'd be quilting all day, every day, (except Sunday) and would be doing a daily show 'n tell here on the blog.  Wouldn't that be amazing?

Well, I can't complain.  I do quilt most days at the frames and can do applique a few days a week.

 But, most of my attention lately has been assembling photos from years past.  The stack above is from 2002.  You can see a new daughter-in-law, my sister and I at the last of the 14 quilt shops (Village Dry Goods in Brigham City, Ut) in the Wasatch Front Shop Hop. There's a signed picture of Jim Shea who won Gold in the skeleton event in the 2002 Olympics here in the Salt Lake area. My daughter#1 is there with two other competitors who went to the Goodwill Games in Venezuela and she won Gold in Karate.  There's always eating pictures because we seem to gather frequently around food.

I am determined to get caught up.  It is so different now that we have digital pictures.  I lost quite a few pictures when my computer crashed in 2008.  Thanks goodness others were taking pictures too.

I think I'm going to continue to do albums (not scrapbooking - just labeled photos) through 2010 and then I'm going to compile the pictures and order books from Shutterfly or similar places.

After I finish my family I'll go on to me as a child.  Thank goodness there aren't quite as many pictures there.  

And then it's on to my parents' family pictures.  It's a big big project............................  but, won't I feel good when it's all done.?

The bonus is remembering all the sweet and tender memories we have made as a family.  The things that make us who we are.

Love my family,
Robin

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Not my first rodeo


I have been quilting on my Welsh Study II off an on since Christmas.  It is taking a long time because of the intense quilting.  I wanted to do a knife edge binding since that would be appropriate for a Welsh quilt.  BUT, I designed the little quilt to have a sawtooth outer border and didn't realize that that would make for a very bumpy and difficult binding until I had finished most of the quilting.

Once I realized my error, I did what any normal quilter would do, I rolled it up and stuffed it in the downstairs closet and went on to the next project.

The border space for the next quilting marathon.

I had calmed down enough to be sane after two months so, I retrieved it from it's dark corner to come up with a solution.  I knew I had to add another border of some kind and it would be a wrestling match with all the backing and batting attached too.  I seem to find the hardest way to do things.

I dug through my stash to see if I had anything that would match some of the colors already in the top.  Luckily I found a yard of the original toile I had already used in this quilt.  It's a miniature print that I bought in the last century.  (It was kind of fun to say that - ha!)

I cut a 2" strip and put it around the quilt but not before I had to deal with the wavy sawtooth border GASP!  Why do we do this to ourselves?

There is still a little too much fullness in that sawtooth border that I hope will quilt out.

I think it looks pretty good and will look great once it is quilted.  When I'm finished then I can do the right kind of binding for it.  And, hopefully, I won't have any other concerns to slow me down.




This was the "supposed" relief project I turned to in my frustration over the sawtooth border debacle.  I have been quilting on this at the frames (a quilt that has it's own misguided history) and am over 2/3rds  done.  I was hoping to get it done by April 30th and it May 1st today but I'm still chugging along.

If I didn't love my sport i.e. quilting so much, I'd have given up long ago.
Robin

Ongoing progress

I finished the center with the gifts and put on a double star border.  It now measure 48" square. Now I'm at a standstill. . .  I&#...