alidiza

Monday, April 18, 2011

Quilting Love

Straight line quilting is mind-numbingly boring but it sure looks pretty. Thank God for Netflix on demand!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Saying bye-bye

Nicey Jane Stripper, a photo by alidiza on Flickr.

One last photo shoot before I send this off to the cutest baby ever. This one really grew on me but since I personalized the matching pillow it has to go.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Progress

My plan for last week worked pretty well. My L'Amour Twister is done and can disappear in to the closet until next Valentine's Day.

I basted the Amy Butler Love quilt and it will hopefully get quilted this week. I even finished the hand quilting project I was hoping to get to so that's ready for a binding. I didn't trim all those HSTs, but I decided it would be less tedious to trim them as I sewed the rows together. Plus I'm still playing with layouts so they still may get some frayed edges, that's my story and I'm sticking too it: )

Of course, with all this progress I had to go start something new... A friend is commisioning a quilt and this was along the lines of what I think she'd like. I'd done something similar a few years ago and dug in to my stash for almost all the fabrics. I don't usually work with batiks but they give it the watercolor effect I wanted. It's a mix of traditional 9 patches mixed in with some of Oh, Fransson's crazy 9 patch blocks. Hopefully my piecing is precise enough that you can tell where it's deliberately wonky.

I still had to do some of that trimming I was trying to avoid;-)

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

What I'm working on...

My theme for this week is "Just get it done!" I always have a bunch of projects going at once but even for me, things are getting out of control.

First up, handwork. Last week I made a bunch of mug mats out of old practice blocks for my binding demo at the NEMQG meeting so I wanted to get those finished up. All the bindings are on so it's just time to tack, tack, tack. 3 down, the L'Amour Twister I showed last week remains to be done.

Next, cutting. 200 Fig Tree HSTs waiting to be trimmed. I've added the new Buttercup and am still working on digging up a Fresh Cottons charm pack.

Lastly, basting. I finally picked up some Dream Orient batting so I'm ready to baste my Amy Butler Love quilt. I love Sharon Schamber's board technique! If you haven't tried it watch her video here. It is so much nicer than crawling around on the floor with safety pins!

Bonus points for basting another quilt top that's been sitting since September and finishing the hand quilting on a baby quilt that I can't even remember when I started;-)

Friday, March 25, 2011

Better late than never...

Well I finally quilted this. In the end I did the scallops which you can't even see at the moment because there hidden by the untacked binding: ) I'd tried them twice before and ripped them out both times but I decided to get over myself. I've been closely examining other people's quilting and realized they live with a little bit of sloppy... and you really don't notice it unless you're looking for it. I did a lot of practice rounds on muslin and I took it nice and slow and decided to just live with it. My TBQ list is just too long to have this sitting there just waiting for the border and I needed something to put binding on for my invisible finish demo at the next NEMQG meeting.

Now I need to get going on my Easter decorations. If I was smart I'd just skip ahead to 4th of July. I'd have a better chance of being done on time!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

WIP Wednesday

I've made something like 150 HSTs with Fig Tree Quilts charm packs of Mill House Inn (my personal favorite), Patisserie & Breakfast at Tiffany's pulling out a few colorways that don't play well with the others. I figure I need at least 200 for a bed sized quilt, maybe more depending on how big I want my borders to be, so I'm trying to get my hands on some Fresh Cottons and Buttercup charms. Not really my colors but it's intended to be a gift. Playing with layouts...