Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Yesterday was a fun day in the studio. On my "to do" list was placemats for the dining room table & kitchen island. Since it's nautical themed, I chose a simple anchor for the center & rope around the perimeter. Dug out some light blue batik & started drawing out the area & stenciling all the placemats (all 10 of them!) Then got to thinking I needed a table runner for the center of the table. What to do? Think, think, think......I thought I'd use the anchors & rope like on the placemats, but the runner is going to be 60" long. Hmmmm....... Well, lets go explore my library for ideas. Oh! Mariner's Compass! I'll put that in the center & anchors on either end with the rope surround! Cool! Then I remembered an interesting tutorial I had seen on Quiltingboard.com just last week about a dresden plate with spikes! Off to the computer to find it. In the tutorial, all the spikes are the same length. I wanted more of the Mariner's compass look, so I varied them to two sizes, tall & short & alternated them. Here's the result!

Monday, February 25, 2013

Well, I see it's been 3 weeks since I posted anything! Didn't realize I'd been without the main computer that long! I could have posted with the ipad or laptop, but it's a real pain!

I correspond regularly with some other longarm quilters. Some have blogs, some don't. Anyway, a couple of us have been taking classes on Craftsy to better design & quilt. One thing about quilting, it's never a destination, it's always a journey! And we so enjoy the ride!  What a couple of us are doing is designing wholecloth quilts. Not huge ones, but nice wallhanging size. Or at least  mine is! The one element we have in common is roses being used as medallions. We all admire Irena Bluhm's techniques, but want to take it further. So, instead of piecing quilts, we're painting them!
Here's a sample of the painted center. Not perfect, but it's a work in progress. I did several samples & did each one with a different technique. The one I like the best is the Derwent Inktense pencils. But instead of using water to turn them into ink, I used a fabric medium. The water made the colors bleed too much, but the medium kept the ink right where I wanted it.
I'm already on the 2nd draft of the quilt. Too many aspects of the 1st draft I wanted to throw out, so I started over. Here's a corner from the first draft that has the possiblity of staying in the quilt. With some modifications, of course.
Stay tuned! There's more to come!!

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Well, color me happy! I just took the QOV from the Craftsy class by Kimmer Brunner off Queenie! Now to trim & bind it! That'll cross one off my February list!!
All kidding aside, this pattern may have been easy peasy for Kimmy, but it was sure a big learning curve for me! I learned a lot on this one. First of all, have your drawing, design, whatever you want to all it, always handy for reference.  On that, make sure you identify what rulers or templates your using for each area to quilt! If you use the wrong one, you wind up frogging!  (ask me how I know!)  This one had a whole lot of starts & stops, so you get real good at them after awhile. I also learned a whole bunch about Queenie too. She's a pretty basic machine. Only "bell" she's got is stitch regulator & needle up/down. I discovered that I can play with her on/off switch to get my bobbin thread up top so now I don't have to go to the back of her & turn the fly wheel!! Hooray!! Getting really good at turning her on/off without looking, either. Well, enough. Suffice it to say, I learned a WHOLE lot on this quilt. So now, here it is!!

Friday, February 1, 2013

February goals

I forgot to include the goals for February in the post yesterday!

1. Finish the QOV on Queenie right now, get it bound.

2. Quilt customer baby quilt

3. Get the other 2 scrappies finished pieced, quilted & binding on.

4. Finish New Years QOV. Have blocks done, need to get it put together, quilted, binding on.

5. Quilt the Queen size Delectable Mountains & binding.

6. Get Santa finished put together!

7. Continue design work on new wholecloth wallhanging.

8. Work on coloring the baby quilt sized wholecloth.

9. Find time to work on Grandma's Flower Garden!!


Is that enough to keep me busy this month??