oh lookie lookie

oh, my friends - the great fun of starting a new project!  There just is nothing like it... I know you understand.


Here it is...

This is a very beautiful Madeira table runner, and I am having a fabulous time quilting it (and quilting it, and quilting it!  

Stay tuned for more photos!

Kate

THESE ARE MAKIN ME HAPPY !

Two big finishes today ! - - well, what I call a "stage " finish, like finishing the top, or finishing the quilting... not the "finish, finish" - - but I celebrate every chance I can !!

The quilting is finished on this piece - Bonnie Hunter's "Pineapple Crazy" - - those are five inch pineapple square s - and yes, I went crazy.  Now just need to trim up and bind...  it weighs a ton!


Another milestone was finishing this top...  a great men's or picnic quilt...  The denim came from a giant "score" of denim from Cone Mills in North Carolina, gotten when I lived near there - I love using it mixed with cotton in these great cuddle quilts - heavy but not too heavy, snuggly - just perfect...  The four-patch blocks were gifted to me by someone - I have no idea who - so this is pretty much a cost-free top - and I love the way the green plays against the blue denim... next to quilt..

What a great quilty Sunday !   Hope everyone else had as much fun as I did!

Kate

All Out of Sorts

I remember this phrase as a child... "all out of sorts"... well, that's me...........

Sorry to continue my little private pity party -  but...

yesterday I went to the Pacific International Quilt Festival...  it really is a fabulous festival, and it's just incredible that I can go there by just driving down to Santa Clara (one hour)...  the BART trains in San Francisco Bay are on strike, so the traffic was horrendous, but that was ok...

I took a lovely class with Pepper Cory from North Carolina...  fun, fun... hand piecing pineapple blocks the old fashioned way... I love classes without sewing machines - there's such a different mood - and people chat and talk with each other more...  here's my block att the end of the morning... 

 

and here is Pepper's quilt in progress - she told us that someone stole her original class sample, so she is slowly making a replacement... I have heard other teachers, say the same thing about things being stolen - oh my goodness, what has the world come to..................

So, the world was just fine and class ended at noon... and I decided to go down to the hall floor without having lunch...cause I didn't really like the selections at the little food court, and the lines were very long - big mistake - blood sugar plummet, mood drop...  not smart... (like I just got born yesterday and don't know to eat occasionally.

From the moment I entered the hall, everything was bad - it was jammed, jammed with people on lunch break from their classes - you just couldn't move.  Then I realized I didn't have my VISA card, having put it in my pocket at dinner the night before, so I couldn't buy anything - )omg, disaster.

So, I went to go take a photo of my quilt.

Now, ordinarily, just having a quilt accepted into AN INTERNATIONAL SHOW would have had me flying high ...  but............but.  but..........I found my little quilt, hanging next to a PERFECT QUILT - - - NOT JUST A PERFECT QUILT - - A PERFECT QUILT WITH A GIGNTIC BLUE RIBBON. 

Here's the perfect quilt... it's just gorgeous - fabulous piece of linen, great design, nearly perfect stitching.  Even her binding is just so perfect, and look how great it hangs on the rod - even her sleeve is working perfectly........

I took a picture of her ribbon - you know what they look like.................BIG, BLUE, GORGEOUS.

 

I really do love her quilt, and I know she didn't want to give me a pity party.

 

Beside my quilt, where hers had that GIGANTIC BLUE RIBBON... I got a PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH sign.

 

what?  you ask - didn't you take a photo of the quilt hanging?  no, cause the big blue ribbon would have shown up in the photo... and it wasn't my ribbon............

 

Didn't you take a photo of yourself standing beside it?  No, ditto the ribbon again...........

 

Instead, I found a quilt of a giant spider, and I took a photo of that - it seemed to fit my mood. FUNNY, NO RIBBON.  Very nice spider, though.

 

 

OK, enough pity party... good grief, an international show accepted my quilt...  All is good in the world.  I should have eaten lunch.  And, after I got home, I discovered my VISA card was in my purse the whole time - I could have shopped my way out of my troubles!

 

Today is a new day.

 

Kate

 

 

COMPULSIVE SEWING

OK, I'm feeling COMPULSIVE...........     rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

work is stressful..... very..... some people are not performing well, which is making it difficult for me to perform well.........you know how that goes................

DH is away, so I have to do all the house chores............grrrr

and the almighty mess in Washington DC is just more disgusting than I can begin to say............

so.............................I'm sewing - fast - - and loud - - and ripping through strip sets... 

first I quilted.................  this lovely top - on my George APQS machine - a real powerhouse - let out a lot of stress that way...  this little charity quilt is now ready to trim and bind...

 So then, I thought about taking out my handy dandy new camera and learning to use it - NO, NO, not ready to learn new technology - mind not calm enough.

So - out came the scrap drawer.............  For nearly four years, I have dutifully cut and saved my scraps in the Bonnie Hunter Scrap-Users Hoarders-System , filling up drawers, bags, and boxes of 2.5 inch strips, 1.5 inch strips, 3.5 inch strips - oh my my............. I never sewed a thing from any of it...

UNTIL THIS WEEK, AND NOW I CAN'T STOP....................

This is just one small part - 2.5 inch strips - boy I don't have enough neutrals - oh well, there's plenty in the stash... just cut it up................

first came strip sets, then cross-cuts, then sixteen patch units..............lots and LOTS of them.  Mystic just watched me with his big, amber eyes.........................

\\\\\\
 
 
 
 
 

NOW I HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF IRONING TO DO..............

..................and somehow, I still feel stressed.............

perhaps a margarita will do the trick.................. 


if it doesn't, I'm going to have a mountain of 16 patches..............

check in tomorrow to see if I have exploded................

Kate

A New Start !!! Fun, Fun

oh my, hello all...

This is what I got to start playing with today... ooh la la, I have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to work on this...

It's a table runner of vintage Madeira linen - isn't it gorgeous, gorgeous? 
I have mounted it on a piece of bronze Radiance, and have just started stitching around the embroidery.  Step One is stitching around every single embroidered leaf and stem... but it's so beautiful it doesn't seem challenging at all!

I've also been doing some little simple pieces for teaching samples.. a simple background pattern, a doily or hanky, and a simple center medallion...  A little beading will dress it up...

Havin' fun, havin' fun...  more photos to come as these and other projects proceed...  getting close to some major finishes!!

and the weekend is coming.

Kate

First You Open the Box

OK - I bit the bullet...  and bought a 'grown-up' camera - one that does not do everything automatically.  I want to be able to take better photos of my quilts - so I'm gonna buy some lights and a tripod and try to learn to do this correctly.

Now, I don't really enjoy learning a lot of new technical stuff... my life is just too full, and there is so little time left for quilting after work...  so, for the moment, I have only opened the box... 

and then, after opening the box, I ran off to the quilting machine and worked on this little charity top for Wrap-A-Smile.  Isn't it cute?  It has cows and ballerinas in it.   Someone else made the top, and sent to me for quilting... too fun.  It's in the washer right now being denuded of white kitty hair... Mystic can stand across the room from a quilt, and his hair jumps off him and the air current sucks it right across the room to a waiting quilt!! 

Maybe I should start reading the camera manual....

or I could sew some four-patches!!

Kate

Oh Boy Am I On a Roll Now !

Oh my friends, I am having so much fun... 

Last summer, I started two pieces in a workshop with Cindy Needham.  One was the piece called Mystic Glacier, that I wrote about in my last blog... now finished and the paperwork submitted for a juried show.  

Today I want to share some photos of the other piece.  It had a tortured beginning, but oh it is fun now...  here's a little sneak peak.   All the machine work is complete, and I am starting to sew on some highlight beading.

 

 

Here is the bottom - now you can see that this is a pillowcase... a vintage, lovely pillowcase.  I stuffed the batting inside, and put a piece of Gold Radiance at the bottom to highlight the crochetwork.  I still have work to do on the bottom so the back of the pillowcase does not show, and I have to disguise the shadowing of the Raadiance across the bottom -  I'll do that differently the next time I do a pillowcase!

 

 

 

 here's some detail...............

oh I love it, love it.

I also found some lovely vintage lace that will be added on this, and a lot more beading...  
fun, fun.... photos again when finished !!

oh so happy quilting,
Kate