Quilting is progressing better now that I can actually SEE again. I've really had trouble lately seeing what I was hand quilting on my music quilt. I blamed it on bad lighting, etc., but finally had the 'duh!" moment...I needed new glasses! My bifocals were failing me, and my non-bifocal hard contacts were TOTALLY failing me. I just bought my first pair of $9.95 drugstore reading glasses, and I feel like a new person! I wear them with my contacts and I can see to read and hand sew again. This will work until I can get to the eye doctor. Yahoo!
Between sessions of hand quilting, I have been doing some mindless scrappy piecing. My bulging scrap bins needed some reducing, and I have a couple of baby and graduation quilts to make.
I've been playing around with the blues strings and the bright chunks...very cheerful! While working on "Baltimore Rhapsody," my poor sewing machine has just been collecting dust.
I filled a dozen bobbins, and off I went. It's good to give the fingertips a little break from the constant pricking of the hand quilting.
The choice of color by my niece for her graduation quilt was blue/maroon, so I'm trying to decide between two scrappy projects, one using these paper pieced diamonds, the other based on one of Bonnie Hunter's fabulous scrappy designs from Quiltville.com.
Also, every now and then I get out my collection of Wonky Stars and make a few more. They are so much fun to make, and I am using very happy, chunky scraps to make them. Directions for making Wonky Stars is also on Quiltville.com.
I'm not sure exactly how they will end up being used, but as the number grows I think of possible arrangements in my head as I dreamily chain piece the star points on the 2.5 inch scrappy neutral squares.
I love the mindlessness of this ongoing project. My sewing machine is 6 feet from the washer/dryer, so it is a good project to leave out so that I can sit down for just a few minutes and get something accomplished without much thought.
I don't think too much about what colorful scrap goes where, and since the "background" is scrappy, I don't have to think about that either. This is another good, mindless project to balance the hand quilting of the music quilt (where I DO have to think...).
And until I got the reading glasses, accuracy was not an issue with this chunky, imprecise project. Ahh... I should care that I ended up with two checked white neutral pieces right beside each other...but I don't care enough to fix it, LOL!
I am alternating between the border and outline quilting of blocks on the music quilt. What was I thinking when I drafted this border? It's taking more time that I thought it would, but it is worth the effort.
It's still fun to make all the fruits and flowers come to life with a little quilting attention.
My almost-16-year-old daughter is keeping us plenty busy with end-of-the-year outings. Final band concert, being inducted into the National Honor Society, a dance, International Dinner, Korean Dinner, meetings about planning for college and looking for scholarships, field trips that need parental chaperoning...wow! And she was in the school play with a big part playing a nutty mother, Penny Sycamore ("You Can't Take It With You") - she was awesomely crazy. I hope she wasn't modeling her OWN mom...
So, I will keep on hand quilting this monster...hopefully I am getting close to done. I forgot how cumbersome hand quilting a 95" x 95" quilt can be with a hoop.
In the meantime, me and two quilts are off to the Shipshewana Quilt Show in June (Indiana)..."All Around the Town" and "Life of Riley - Mom's Civil War Bride Journey" were accepted into the juried show. That should be a lot of fun!
I am hoping to post more often and catch up on reading all of YOUR blogs, in addition to answering emails and comments.
In stitches,
Teresa :o)
