Sick Day

One of my favorite things about my current employer is that they roll vacation and sick leave into PTO - paid time off.  Unfortunately, for the first time in 4 years, I am squandering potential vacation time being sick.  Bah. Stupid head cold.

After a couple cups of coffee, I had enough energy to start piecing together some bits for the quilt backing for the Pickle Dish quilt.

Maybe after a nap I'll feel up to sandwiching this quilt.

Or maybe I'll just take another nap.

Flipping the Bird

Starting my Flamingo Finish post with the back side on grey.  I love this side too. Especially the fuschia binding.  I only wish it was sunnier when I took the pictures.

Still Love, Love, Love. Thank you Millie Marotta for including this design in your Animal Kingdom book.

I took several pictures trying to show the difference in texture between pre/post washing, but they are not apparent in the photos.  But the outcome is super cool.  Come to my house and I'll show you!

After quilting, this was 41x53 and after washing 39x 49.5.    The difference between the machine and hand quilting resulted in some challenging quilting.  I needed to pull in 3" on the outer edges, which meant that I was doing a lot of "gathering" rather than standard quilting.

So, for the record, machine vs hand quilting?  I always prefer hand.  But sometimes machine is the right tool for the job.

Flamingo update

I've made progress on the hand quilting on the background of the bird.  This was taken about noon on Saturday.  I got a couple hours worth done after that, and hope to finish up today.  I can't wait to see this after it's washed and crinkly.

My assistant keeps slowing me down.  She's not a "lap cat" unless I'm trying to quilt.

Flamingo Love

I skipped 2 motorcycle rides this weekend in order to make this bird.   Totally worth it.  I finished the FMQ late Sunday afternoon.  The fabric is actually a creamy-beige batik.  There is a fire to our East so my world is an odd shade of orange today.  

I would be done except I decided that it would really benefit from the texture of a hand-quilted background.  This will really stand out after it's washed as it is a cotton batting which will crinkle beautifully as it shrinks.  

And from the back.  (Medium grey fabric.)

Flamingo FMQ

Here's the progress at the end of bobbin #5.

Those lines are nowhere close to straight.  And I'm OK with that.  It looks amazing from 3 feet or more away.

I never imagined oval pebbling would be harder that trying to make little circles.

Flamingo 2

Drawing finished.  Not an exact copy of the original, but close enough to give it the same feel.
Transferred it to the fabric using a large window and a pencil.  Time to find a backing and thread the machine.  This is going to be fun!!!

Flamingo!

Taking a little break from my fun and hilarious life to get back to something creative. Two weeks ago, while on a mini-reunion trip with 2 of my childhood friends, I ended up at Powell's books in Portland.  While the "Super Smutty Sign Language" book was probably the most entertaining book purchased, I came home with several "Adult Coloring Books".  Contrary to what you might think, it did not include any nude body parts.  My non-quilting friends thought I had blown a gasket when I kept saying "This would be an AWESOME quilt!"

 Last weekend I bought 1.5 yards of a pale, beige batik while on a motorcycle ride to Halfway, OR.  Tonight I started sketching out one of my favorites from the Millie Marotta "Animal Kingdom, Color Me, Draw Me" book.  The body outline of my  bird is about 31" x 46".   What I love about her drawings is how easily they adapt to FMQ.  While her plan for the head/neck feathers are pointed and scale-like, I think that the photo confirms that it'll work with oval pebbling.  While she uses dashed lines for variation, I think I'll primarily use distance between stitching.  Once again, the proof is in the photo that this will work:  The lower beak looks darker, but is the same pen as the upper beak.  (I plan to fix the random directionality in the final beak).

I am SO excited about this, that I am turning down a ride with some of my absolutely favorite people in the world, on what is predicted to be a most gorgeous fall day in Idaho to get this party started.