Goodness it's February already!

Well not only is it February, but February will be gone before we know it!  It's been another eventful week here and not just with quilting, even though there was some of that also.  I've been working on a quilt that I am doing for a lady in Rome.  Actually I thought I would be finished with it by now, but alas, it hasn't happened.  I decided to try something new, as in a new pattern, or maybe I need to rephrase that.  I purchased a video from a lady who does absolutely beautiful quilting, Lisa Calle.  This particular video is about how to decide what you are going to quilt on a quilt and how to design your quilting layout.  I really have felt that I was getting into a rut and wanted to do some new things.  I really don't want to do the same thing over and over on everyones quilts.  Quilts are so individual that I think they each need something that sets them apart from the crowd.  I've actually even signed up for a class coming up in March to learn some new techniques.

Well I digress..........Anyway I got this wonderful video and the instructor is showing how she comes up with some of her ideals and some of the things she uses and I was getting ready to put a new quilt on the machine so I though, well I'm going to try this.  Now that is when the problems started.  I have like never taken this long to get a quilt done (when I was working on it like I have this one).  But first I wanted to follow her directions and divide the quilt.  She says that your quilting will not show up as well unless there are dividing lines.  Well I had this really great ideal to do arcs on this quilt,  I got my design all ready and got my quilt on the machine and I was ready to start this.......Well, not quite, I soon discovered out of all the rulers I have I did not have the one I need to do the arcs because the blocks in this quilt are 18" blocks.  My arc rulers are 12" at the largest.  So then I decided to do straight lines.  Well this is much more difficult than arcs because they will all need to rise the same amount in the center or this will not look good.  I then had a lot of measuring to do.  Now I didn't have to make a lot of long marks, just dots, but the dots had to be in the right place or else I would not have a consistent pattern.  I really don't think that would have looked well at all!  So I had to measure and make marks.

She said to be sure and start in the center of the quilt, so I did. This really involves a lot of moving the quilt back and forth on the rollers. It's not at all like you just pin the quilt on and start on one side and work your way to the other. A lot more time consuming. In addition to that, I know that if I don't keep my work area fairly close to me then I wind up with a bad back ache and I hate to do that to myself, which means even more frequent rolling!

This is a picture of some of the marks that I had to make.

 

As you can see in the picture the marks are very small.  There are 30 blocks in this quilt and I had to measure to the center of each block and then I wanted the channel to travel from the corner up to  1 1/2" at the peak and then back down to the corner.  I wanted the channel to be about 1/4" wide which involved a real learning curve and I had to start marking the other 1/4" mark on the quilt to so the channels would be partially straight!  Wow, who knew this would wind up being this much work!

I wanted to put feathers in the blank space between the channels and between the border and the channel, I think this turned our really well.  Of course you can see in the first picture the feathers where they cross the block seams between the blocks.  This quilt has no sashing.  Still I'm liking the way this looks.

 

 

Now I'm really happy with the way this part is turning out.  I think the lady will be pleased when I get this finished, but as I said, a lot of work and a lot of measuring!  Now I started at the center and worked out to one side.  The video also said to go ahead and either pin baste your quilt if you had large areas between the channels.  Well I did have large spaces between the channels but instead of pin basting which I really am not a fan of doing anyway, I decided to go ahead and sew around the applique in the blocks.  The next step was suppose to be go around applique and specific blocks so I just decided to go ahead with that as my next step.

 

I decided that I wanted to go ahead and do the detail work on the appliqued pieces at the same time I was doing the outline work.

 

I really do like the way this is turning out also.  But another problem.  This is applique, and even though I spent extra time when I was putting the quilt on the machine to make sure all of the embroidery thread had the tails tucked under the applique, some of them sneaked out!  Drat and Darn!!, Double Darn even!!  I have to take a pin and work my way under the applique and pick the thread back down so it will be in under the appliqued piece or else the quilt looks like it has vericose veins!  There are some places that can not be done, since she just skipped over from one piece to the next and did not cut and tie the thread.  Oh well, nothing I can do about that.

 

Well yes I know I should have posted this first.  This is just a picture of the quilt before I started my quilting.

 

 

 

I have decided that I will do a small meandering pattern around the inside of the tulip blocks and I have an ideal for the border that I think will be nice and fairly easy to do.  First I need to finish the center of the quilt though and I'm just about half way through with that portion.  Next week is another week.

 

In addition to working on this quilt I've also managed to get the borders sewn on a quilt for the guild that is in line to be quilted.  Sorry I know it will not be ready for the next guild meeting.  No hope for that I don't think!  I've also been working on a t-shirt quilt being made out of a young lady's cheerleading uniforms, t-shirts, lots of bows and a couple of pictures and some ensignias from her high school.  Got the shirts all cut out and fused to the interfacing and trimmed to size.

 

I have two quilts that need to be repaired that are waiting for me in addition to another quilt waiting to go on the machine for a customer (it goes on next).  On top of all that I just picked up the t-shirts for another quilt for a customer.  So far I've done quilts for all of her boys as they graduated and got ready to go to college and she told me when the last boy graduated that she had some neices and nephews that she wanted to get quilts for so she brought the tees for one last week.

 

In addition to all of that I started taking a class at the senior center and we are going to be making a mystery quilt.  I really will have to work hard to keep up with this.  Sometimes I have a tendency to let those projects fall by the wayside and that is why I have so very many UFO's which is something I want to try to finish some of this year.

 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful week.  Happy quilting!