Decent Feathers

I had a weekend of small victories on the WIP front.

As for feathers...by jove, I think I've got it!  Two bits of advice that I picked up on line that helped are 1) making the feathers smaller  2) spend a lot of time drawing them on paper before going to the fabric.

I also discovered that the amount of fabric to hold on to makes a difference as well.  The outer edges of this practice panel are less impressive than this center section.

I have 27 state blocks quilted.

I had been doing a row or two of echo stitching on each block, but leaving the connecting bits to finish later.  I am now pretty comfortable with how the overall flow of the quilt is going to go and I've been adding the fill as I go.

I learned on my last quilt with wool batting that manipulating the distance between quilting  creates more textural difference than with cotton or bamboo batting.  I am using that to my advantage.

I finally got serious about organizing my HST project by arranging 10 red and 10 white squares in piles that I can grab and throw in my purse to work on anytime I have a spare moment.  I had a total panic moment when I discovered that I was nearly out of white-on-white fabric. (I buy it on sale in 6-10 yard pieces since I use it for everything.)  Fortunately, I found a couple big pieces that were in "project" boxes.  336 HST finished, 600 prepped.

   Speaking of which, I've managed to reorganize some project boxes.  I moved all the red batiks that I've been collecting for some undecided project in with about 1/2 the green batik fat quarters that were for a leaf motif quilt I haven't gotten around to designing.   When I found the rogue white-on-whites, I prepped 10 squares for the Benjamin Biggs quilt.   They are all living happily together in my circa 1969 Groovy Suitcase.

While I have successfully avoided buying any fabric for months, I have already spent $21 this week on needles.
The good news is that I finally found the perfect combination for quilting this quilt.

A traditional length quilting needle (on the right) is perfect for making 1-2 stitches at a time.  It needs to be very sharp since there are many seams go go through, not to mention the "paint" on the white background.  The coated Coats & Clark quilting thread I had in the stash is thicker than standard threads, so my solution is the Clover Black Gold size 10.

A sturdy applique needle (10 or 11 depending on the brand) is great for the long straight sections.  I can load 4-5 stitches on at a time, which keeps the lines significantly straighter.

WIP on Wed - Aug 17 Hexies

I'm slowly making progress on the hexi quilt.  I am still very pleased with the design (based upon an antique original) but now that I have what is to be the width of the quilt, am quite concerned with it's small size (only 46 inches).  I guess that means some borders and some very challenging color matching. 

As I was hunkered down on the couch Saturday watching cooking shows, I was amused by the assortment of eclectronic gagets that were starting to accumulate around me.  And I was pleased to be sitting on the Joseph's Coat quilt that was left of the couch/futon after a guest had come to visit.

The other accomplishment of the week was back to school registration and shopping for Skater Girl.  We had surprising success finding "chill" clothes at one thrift store.  And I just might have snagged this great piece of retro fabric for my stash.  Don't you just love it???

Wedding Ring

The piecing is done!!!

Sadly, I can't even mark this off my WIP list, as it was a quilt that was in the planning stages that simply bullied its way to the front of the line.  And it still needs quilting.

Fortunately, after I took the picture for the progress update, I was able to figure out a way to put together what I had without having to unstitch anything.  The bad news is that process involved spreading out all the pieces on the floor and stitching 2 together and putting them back in place, since "the save" involved pieces that were in random orientation.  Aerobic piecing (stitch, iron, place, pick up next 2, repeat).  Now it's nicely ironed and folded and put away until fall since I want to lap quilt this one, which is something I'm not inclined to do with temps in the high 90's F. 

While all the scraps are out, I'm working on piecing them together for a variation of a mono-chromatic crazy quilt.  I'm calling this bonus quilt a "Grooms Quilt" so I can give the couple his & hers quilts for the wedding.  Hers will say "Welcome to the family!"  and his "Because we know that you'll be sleeping on the couch."

Now to figure out what it was that I was working on before I got distracted by this project.