Raffle Quilt

I had the honor of quilting my Guild's annual raffle quilt, and I can't wait to show you pictures!

We live where deer and elk are seen daily in and around our yards, and quilts with a similar theme work very well for us each year.

From the proceeds of raffle ticket sales, we are able to give funds at the end of the year to a good many non-profit organizations in our area. We benefit the reading program at our local elementary school, a scholarship fund, food bank, humane society, public library and others. We were very proud last year to purchase pet respirators for use by our firefighters.

You can see a picture of the whole quilt on our website strawberrypatchers.com and see how you can purchase your raffle tickets for this beautiful quilt. Winner will be drawn and notified on December 3. 2015.

Solid Backing Fabrics

I used to be so afraid of them! Every teeny, tiny mistake would not only show, but almost be highlighted (Hey, look at me!). The busier the better was once my mantra concerning backing fabric. But, you have to work with what you are given, when quilting customer pieces.

Here are a couple of views of the front.

My customer sewed two strips of back fabric to the sides of a solid yellow to create her back. (Yes, it is a bright yellow, although for some reason, on one of the shots it looks like a cream color. Lighting is everything.) While she was in my studio, we decided on a silvery thread color, as there is a lot of silver and gray in the fabric collection.

I am so pleased with how this looks on the back! The silver thread is perfect! 

Creating and maintaining perfect stitch tension is crucial with solid fabrics, and I must give a shout out to Fil-Tec, the makers of Glide thread. Once you create the right tension, this thread will maintain it throughout the piece. Great customer service, too!

A note about the designs...So it would not look too scrappy, I made sure I used each quadrant design at least twice. And, of course the line work on the backgrounds helped maintain continuity, too.

Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles.

It takes away today's peace.

Forced Vacation

I haven't been able to quilt for two weeks due to searing pain along the outer edge (little finger to wrist) of my dominant hand. It came on slowly at first, then escalated to intense pain. It has taken me awhile to figure out why and how.

When I quilt tiny little designs (think pebbles) I work slowly, with clenched hands on the handles, especially when backtracking is involved. And, half of each pebble is backtracking! I know I'm not supposed to clench...but it is such intense work and I never quite feel like I'm in control. So, I hold on tighter.

I envy those quilters who can work up a design like pebbles, quickly and easily. But, that's not been my experience. One reason is that I do not have a stitch regulator and therefore must quilt the backtracking at essentially the same hand movement speed as the original line. I've worked ten years without stitch regulation and I still think I'm pretty good at it.

But, I didn't see this coming! I think it is similar to a tennis elbow, or the kind of injuries golfers get that is so like that. So, I had to lay off. Luckily, I had finished all the Christmas quilts that my customers needed by certain dates. Whew!

Not what I had in mind, I must say! I mean, if I wasn't going to be able to quilt, maybe I could catch up on all those other projects......oh, wait.....pain. Yeah, even holding a book open to read that first week was painful.

I won't go on about the herbal and homeopathic remedies I tried, because the only thing my hand needed was rest. But, at some point I've just got to get back to my job (and, my passion)!

My husband (the self-proclaimed “fixer”) came up with a great idea. If clenching my hand created this problem, like I think it did, what if we changed the size of the longarm handle? Make it bigger? So, I wrapped the handle with a strip of cotton batting, and held it in place with a piece of that stretchy ace bandage that sticks to itself. It is now almost 50% larger than it was before.

I've tried it....tentatively. Mainly because, while my hand is much better, there is still pain if I tighten my grip. The best part of the fix is that it constantly reminds me NOT to clench. I don't feel like I have the same control, but I will keep working with it until I do. Because, I really don't want to spend another two weeks like the last two!

Do You Quilt Christmas Presents?

I wish I had more time to do this sort of thing. Quilt things for presents, that is. I quilted one for my Guild Gift Exchange, but I did not get pics of it. The fabric had way too much going on and I'm afraid the quilting lines got lost.

This table runner is for a friend at Church. First, I found a sketch of a Celtic Cross on Pinterest. (Do you Pinterest? I could spend a lifetime there!)

This first picture is after quilting just the crosses. I struggled with the placement. Originally I was going to place one cross in the center, but a friend suggested two, one at each end.

This green fabric is Grunge, don't you love it?!! The designs show up so well, but there is still plenty of variation in the print.

Then I got down to the feathering. I did these all freehand, just chalking the spine lightly. I echoed the feather, which gave me a line to hit with my tight back-and-forth lines. Any time you are placing a dense fill behind a feather, it helps if you echo the feather. The fill meets the echo line and doesn't mess with the shape of the feather itself.

I hope you and your family and your dear friends have a warm and wonderful Christmas season! Thank you for following me these past two years, you are a blessing to me!

One terrific Christmas quilt

I was thrilled when this one arrived in my studio. Wonderful applique handwork. I knew it had to be quilted just so. No story here, just lots of photos.

First, the full view of the piece. It took a while to plan this, and then, it was redesigned when the first idea did not work!

More photos after it was done.

This is a closeup of the white poinsettia. This was the hardest part, as it was very hard to see how the petals overlapped when the hopping foot was hovering over them!

Finally, a look at all the tools that helped me along.

Behold the turtle...He only

makes progress when he sticks his neck out.