The End of My Stitchin’ Vacation

 

After a brief interlude of cutting applique pieces, it is time to return to my sewing machine and put in some serious time finishing the free motion quilting on “Rainy Garden Windows”. I have about 14 more of these flowers to quilt. There are 49 altogether. Fortunately, I did not have any wild ideas about finishing this in time for the fair. It would have never happened.

There is still a bit of disappearing marker remaining on this one, but it does make it easier to see the lines of stitching.

I start out by drawing a circle around the base of a large spool of thread.

Then I crosshatch the center of the flower.

That being completed, I circle around the crosshatching with an additional circle. From there, I proceed around the circle, adding the flower petals.

Another view…

A lot of work for a quilting design that will just sort of blend into the batiks.

Cutting Applique Leaves

 

After all the intense free motion quilting I have been doing lately, it feels especially good to just cut fabric. These leaves will be part of the applique that go on top of my whimsical sky background.

I first cut a template of construction paper. Then I grabbed a sheet of Lite Steam-A-Seam 2. If you haven’t tried Lite Steam-A-Seam 2, or the original Steam-A-Seam 2, you are in for a real treat. The repositionable fusible mesh is sandwiched between two layers of parchment type paper and stays sticky until you are ready to iron it down and make a permanent bond.

After tracing around my leaf template on one side of the parchment-web-parchment sandwich with a pencil, I roughly cut the leaves apart. They I laid them on the various scraps and pieces of green fabric that looked promising, pinned, then cut carefully on my pencil lines. At that point, the fabric leaves can simply stay pinned to the sandwich until you are ready to stick them to the background fabric, or you can peel off one piece of the parchment paper and stick the leaf to the fusible web. Either way works.

Once these leaves are permanently fused to the background sky, I plan on satin stitching around them. Although the stitching will essentially cover the raw edges, I always trickle a thin bead of Fray Check around the outside edges first to avoid the headaches of the inevitable “fuzzy edges”. Occasionally, I still find myself trimming a few straying threads on the edges with some tiny sharp scissors.

What we quilters will do for perfection!

Kern County Fair 2013

 

This evening I visited the Kern County Fair with five girlfriends. They are gracious supporters of my quilting and insisted that we stop by the quilts first thing.

A little bird had called me on Tuesday and told me about this surprise: First place and the Golden Needle Award.

Just when I was fairly certain that an art quilt would not do well in a traditional setting such as our county fair, I was proven wrong.

This is a close-up of the quilt. I re-did the thread painting in the center of the angel’s trumpet several times until I was finally satisfied with it. Definitely a learning experience.

My friend, Robin, took this sweet picture.

The snail’s trail received a second place in professional machine piecing/quilting.

There was lots of great food at the fair. Vicky had a yummy cinnamon roll. I had a great Basque dinner. I had scrimped on food all day so I could enjoy that meal!

Check out Vicky’s cinnamon roll…

Before we knew it, the sky was dark, and it was time to go home.

Bug in the Clouds

 

This background applique has been waiting a very long time for me to finish some other projects that were smoking on the front burner. I can’t tell you how glad I am to get back to this whimsical piece.

Many months ago, I had actually gotten to a sticky place on a tight needle turn applique curve and was more than happy to put the whole thing aside.

With “Oolong Trail” recently finished, I pulled this puppy out of the closet and carted it off to work with me this week. It only took about 20 minutes of my lunch hour to work that obnoxious “bug” out of the clouds. Funny how it seemed like such an insurmountable obstacle just a few months before.

Now I am jazzed and ready to continue adding layers to the clouds. The bottom half is not going to have near as much detail as the top so should go a little more quickly.

 

This older post shows a picture of the borders, which are already completed:

http://quiltedtimeposts.blogspot.com/2012/07/dont-blink.html

This post shows earlier pictures of the sky applique:

http://quiltedtimeposts.blogspot.com/2012/08/whimsical-sky.html

Asian Mug Rug

 

A colleague at work did me a HUGE favor this past week, so a token of my appreciation was definitely in order.

I happened to know that the person likes Asian designs in neutral colors. My Asian scrap box was overflowing with just the right fabrics—already cut in strips anywhere from 3/4 to 2” wide.

Since I am always short of time, I decided to make a mug rug that I could piece and quilt at the same time.

First I cut a 12” square of batting and a 12” square of Pellon Décor Bond. I really could have gone a little smaller on that because I ultimately ended up trimming to 10” square.

I layered the Décor Bond on the bottom, then the batting, and finally chose two strips of fabric that I thought had a nice contrast. The Décor Bond has a fusible layer on one side. I never bother to fuse it at all. I just use it to provide stability.

Keeping the strips positioned across the diagonal, I flipped the gold strip on top of the black strip so that the right sides were together. Since the strips are of different widths, only one side can be aligned. With a walking foot, I stitched along the two aligned edges, stitching through the batting and Décor Bond at the same time. I did pin the strips down a bit before stitching, but not a whole lot.

When I finished stitching, I opened up the two strips and pressed with an iron.

Next I added a strip to the other side of the black strip, which was basically the center of the design. The seam on that one and the remainder of strips on that side of the mug rug end up flipping in the opposite direction as did the gold strip.

I continued adding strips to both sides…

Until my piece looked like this.

Using a rotary cutter, I trimmed to 10” square. I then centered a 12” square piece of fabric behind it and brought the edges forward to form the binding.

The black fabric makes it a little difficult to see how I accomplished this, so I am attaching a link to a similar project that shows the binding process.

http://quiltedtimeposts.blogspot.com/2013/02/rosy-mug-rug.html

I still have a huge stash of fabric strips.

The Rose Box

 

For years I have been collecting rose prints. Not really sure what I was going to be doing with them, but I must have been going somewhere.

Of course, every valued collection needs a proper place of its own. My rose collection lives in a small trunk I bought at Big Lots—a great store, by the way, to buy home decorating items cheap.

Here is the trunk with most of the fabric removed.

This is an indication of how much fabric was stuffed in that one box.

Another view…

What am I doing with this? Toying with the idea of expanding a bit on a fancy little mug rug I made toward the beginning of this year. Not much bigger. Still experimenting. I need a break after all those snails and feathers!

For instructions, click here:

http://quiltedtimeposts.blogspot.com/2013/02/outlining-roses-in-free-motion.html

and here:

http://quiltedtimeposts.blogspot.com/2013/02/rosy-mug-rug.html

End of the “Oolong Trail”

 

Since I am getting all sorts of worried notes about my absence on Facebook from my relatives, I guess it is about time this quilt is finished. They should know by now that my nose and fingers have been buried in fabric. I am very predictable.

The only thing left to do is put a label on the back. I am not bothering with a sleeve right now because the fair committee doesn’t have enough room to hang each entry so that the entire quilt can be viewed. Instead, they just sort of drape them over wooden stands. Everything always looks nice, though.

I have decided to call this one “Oolong Trail” since the Snail’s Trail blocks are constructed with Asian fabrics and it took me an oolong time to do all that feathery quilting.

My girlfriends and I are already making our plans about all the things we want to do at the fair. I think sampling food is very high on their list. Should be fun!

Only 2 1/2 More Feathers To Go!

 

Fortunately, my fair entry is cooperating, and I am moving right along. This is my first project quilting feathers, and I am rather amazed that I am finishing at all. There are 25 blocks, with each block requiring two feathers. Then there is the continuous feathery swag that goes completely around the outside.

With nine days left to turn in my entry and only 2 1/2 feathers yet to be completed, I think I am going to make it.

I still have some thread ends to unravel and bury in the batting, but I have been trying to keep on top of that as I quilted along. Nothing worse than a rat’s nest at the very end!

Although my learning curve was pretty steep at the beginning, I have come to enjoy feathering. Of course, it’s just like any other quilting skill—once you start to get fairly good at it, the quilt is just about finished.

Fear not. I have a couple other quilt tops coming down the pike that I think would benefit from a few feathers

A Cage of Beauty

 

Sorry I have not been posting much as of late. The last several weeks, I have felt as though I am in a beautiful prison of my own design.

The Kern County Fair is coming quickly, and I made the bold decision to enter something that wasn’t quite finished. Guaranteed to light the fire beneath me. The good news is that I can see light at the end of the tunnel, and I still have until September 13th to drop it off at the fairgrounds. Hopefully, I won’t look too frazzled!

I will be soooo glad to get out of this cage.