Groovy!

I figured out a way to get my photos loaded - even while here at Gram's.

Yup, I found one of my memory sticks (thumb drives, for you techno geeks) at the bottom of my purse. I figured out I can transfer the photos from the SD card in the camera to the memory drive, then use the thumb drive to get the pictures loaded onto this ol' Mac (which doesn't like my card reader...but will recognize the memory drive).

At any rate, here are some current progress photos of the latest projects.

Dog 1 (as seen above), was something I began last year (I think it was last year) and then, for some reason, I lost interest and began another quilt project (or two) and picked up work on other projects I had long since put away. Well, I am back at work on ALL of those beautiful creatures, and happily fulfilling a promise I made to myself to finish things before taking off on another tangent.

That doesn't mean I am not still planning other colorful quilts to come, it simply means I am trying to clear my decks before creating more work and piles to move from here to there, taking up space and gumming up the works.

The safety pins are my basting tools - simply because I am too lazy to baste the entire quilt with needle and thread, only to apply more stitches to actually quilt it; the pins come out quickly enough as I work through an area. I draw the stippling lines onto the black pieced borders surrounding each dog motif, then quilt them before they can rub off. The stippling adds a great deal of texture and visual dimension to the squares.

Here is how it looks once quilted. The differences between the feathered quilt application on the white, and the tight meandering line of the stippling, makes the little dog patches 'pop!' As you can tell, I machine quilt, BUT I do so free-handed. The imperfections and unevenness gives it a charming look - I think.

Here's a shot at the back - you really get to see the stippling from this side.

I plan to keep working on this one and get as far as I can while I am away from home. At this time, I have three more black borders to stipple (draw out then quilt). From there I will move out to the small white squares and then onto the borders. That should all go very quickly. Once I am through quilting, I will make a sleeve for hanging and apply it just before binding. Hopefully, Dog 1 will be completed before the end of next week!

By the way...

I forgot to mention that I have also gotten back to work on the dog quilt (at long last), as well as making a stab at completing the orange and brown study piece so that I might be able to stretch it soon and get busy quilting it, too.

Too many begun works and not enough finality going on.

While waiting for Karl this week, I got a lot of handwork done so it wasn't all wasted time, and not a lot of gas was used running back and forth, either. I rolled the extra backing material to the front and slip stitched it in place to temporarily cover the edge of the top (to keep it from fraying) and to encase the crap polyester batting so it would stop shredding and getting all over everything (and into my eyes). Normally, I would never use poly batt, but it was in my supplies from years ago, and I couldn't see throwing it away and wasting it when I could use it in the sample wall hanging.

I located the final brown for the outer border for Orange/Brown 1; and yes, if you are keeping score, I have made another change to the way I planned to finish off the border.

What's new, right?

I will post a photo for you before the day is out so you can see where I am with it, and what I am planning. I want to get the back for it assembled while at Gram's and be able to stretch and pin it sometime early February when I can round up a couple sets of willing hands for the process.

I will also post a current photo of the first dog quilt (also a wall hanging) so you can see what has been accomplished with that one, too.

My lovely old friend, Bernina, is behaving badly and really needs an overhaul, but I hate the idea of parting with it for a week, so I am trying to get my piecing out of the way so while it is gone I can keep from sitting around rue-ing the lost time.

I also hate the idea of shelling out more money for repairs on the silly thing when the last repair shop didn't do the repairs right in the first place! All that money, and they went out of business before I went back to complain when the machine begain acting up shortly after getting it home and using it a month!

OK, enough for now...it's way past my bedtime, and I have a bunch to do early tomorrow, so I am out of here for the time being.

Been too long...here's some fluff

Hey, Mom, if you're looking for those photos I said were in the blog (and it turns out I was wrong), here they are! It seems I have been slacking on the blog lately. The pics are fairly self-explanatory, but I will elaborate a bit, for those who wonder how you get started.

I first decide which pattern quilt block to construct, generally with a color scheme in mind...or a theme of some sort. In the last couple of wall quilts, it has been animals - most specifically, dogs and cats. You find a base fabric, and then identify other complementary fabrics to fill in with.

Sometimes it does work better in the reverse - having the group of fill materials and then attempting to find that one great object material...but more often than not, you are working with a topic (main) fabric and finding the rest to support it. The most general exception is if you are constructing a scrap quilt, then there are very few rules or "restrictions" (especially when it's your imagination and colorful desires).

In the case of the first cat wall quilt, I found the first pattern I wanted to use to be too small to accomodate the cat print material - so I found a better-suited pattern to use. The colors of that material dictated the brighter primary palette for the complementary materials selected. Also, I had been looking at (and working with) the dog material on the much darker quilt for a short while, so making a brighter quilt next seemed almost necessary (to break up the color dolldrums I was suffering mentally).

Yes, I will be making a cat quilt using browns and or greys to hang with the nearly completed Dogs1 project. You can see the darker cat material in one of the photos in this set. Actually, if you click on the photo of white materials, you can see the darker cat material for the planned brown quilt in the upper right corner.

So, to date, you see the progression of the cat quilt (the first in a series) in planning and preparation, and below are a few of the first squares constructed from the many pieces cut of whites and creams and primary prints and solids. Soon, I will add a photo of the brown dog wall hanging in it's state of morphing - I began the quilting several days ago, and have a bit to do before I can begin to bind it for completion. My hope is to take it to a veteranarian's office (as a set with a cat quilt) to hang, and eventually sell. Whether the vet buys them outright, or allows me to hang them for viewing and for sale to a customer there is inconsequential. Just show me the money!

Oh my gosh! It's February!

Well, you have to love these unexpected (unscheduled) extra days out of school. A "snow day" for the grown ups - wahoo! Although, it did impede my ability to get signatures on the necessary paperwork for unemployment compensation to cover the past two weeks. [Sigh] Payment will be somewhat delayed, but I think everything will be alright.

Happily, the first (yes, that's right, the FIRST) restitution payment from the crackhead who broke into my home in 2004 showed up in the mailbox this week. Talk about your good timing. Thank you, God. Although it is a pittance compared to the overall amount awarded by the judge, I can use it every penny right now, so I am very thankful. I think it will be another year before anything else gets here from that source, and I haven't been holding my breath for anything all this time, so needless to say, this is a great thing.

The skeezer jumped bail the first time he was arrested...if he had been a good boy, I could have been paid the $1400 plus way back when. Ah well. There's a reason and a purpose to everything that happens, so let's strap ourselves in and enjoy the journey and see what's around the bend.

I began another small wall hanging as I was finishing the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt for a classmate - I came up with a funny thought/idea I hope pans out $-wise. There are numerous vet offices in the area (not to mention daycare centers and pediatrician offices), and JoAnn Fabric has quite the selection of animal prints on their shelves (and I have a good assortment of child-oriented prints in my collection), so why not make wall hangings and walk in 'armed' to see if one of those places may buy one for use in the outer office in place of artwork. It's worth a shot.

Anyhow, as I said, I began a new quilt top, based on dog print material, and all but finished assembling it today. Will apply the borders and attempt to stretch it on a backing piece before the weekend is over.

I also picked up cat material - though the pickings are slim in the non-cartoonish patterns for the feline set. The dog prints are rendered very realistically, but their ideas of "realistic" cat prints suck. I will do what I can with what I have, and will also start assembling quilts for the pediatric offices. Smaller quilts have a better chance of selling, so I will 'work small' for a while and make the best of the miniature palette. A fun challenge.

I have photos of the finished Sun Bonnet Sue (which really turned out beautifully), and pics of the interior portion of the dog blocks...all of which I can finally share, but the PhotoShop SW on the PC is screwing up the ability to use my Pentax card reader to download photos. Karl and I have worked out a routine whereby he downloads the pics to his PC, then to a flash drive, then onto this PC. A definite hassle, but at least it's a work-around. Will have to work out the kinks now in the system. I have posted a few - as you can see - if you want to see more of these or other quilt tops, please ask.

In the meanwhile, I am away from the keyboard and back to the needle and thread.

My love to all, and hugs and shiny thoughts all 'round.

Oh, and welcome to 2008, February.