Vertical Quilting Curve

I was looking at my Quilt Queue the other day, and I realized that I have been in QUITE the Finishing Frenzy this year. I have finished 12 quilting projects this year (9 quilts, 1 jacket, and 2 bags), and there will likely be at least two more finished by the end of December. And I have renewed excitement for the projects still in the Queue from earlier this year (I keep a paper list so that I can cross them off with a Sharpie and enjoy the thickness of the line as it strikes the UFO from my list). So that’s good.

Remaining on the list:

1. Nancy’s quilt (in the quilting process, about 20% quilted now)
2. Cinco de Mayo (in construction process — this is a Karen Stone pattern, and our last class is tomorrow evening. It’s a ton of work, but I really like how it’s coming along. I’m about halfway done with the blocks for this one)
3. Halloween (ready to be layered and quilted, needs batting)
4. Shifting Perspectives quilt of my own design (ready to be layered and quilted, needs batting and backing)
5. Dining Room Chair Covers out of UFO blocks from an old project that my mother (also a quilter) abandoned (I bought fabric for this the other day in my frenzy at the Quilt Shop)
6. Blue and Tan half-square triangles need to be constructed into a quilt top… These are leftovers from another project, and I want to put them into a quilt top and then paint a giant conch shell onto it before I layer it and quilt it… Just haven’t gotten around to it. I plan to put this quilt in next year’s silent auction at our church’s fundraiser in November

Not too bad, considering I started the year with lots of other ones on my list. Go me!

My mom says to be careful and not finish *everything*, because then I’ll be paralyzed by not having ANYthing partially done. Because she’s done that to herself, and then not known where to begin. I can understand how that might happen.

I went, um, a little bit nuts at the fabric store yesterday.
So I finally got all of the fabric washed and folded today. It’s going to take quite a while to iron it all and get it assimilated into my stash. Heh. That’s okay, though, right?

I’m kind of excited. That big stack of fabric looks so inviting on my dining room table. In fact, one of my cats discovered it and perched atop it for a while this evening. Even though it was folded smaller than she is — she just curled up as small as possible and didn’t worry about the catbits oozing off the sides. Apparently she loves quilter’s cotton as much as I do.

Anyone know good online resources for sewing machine needles, Mettler threads, Superior Threads, and Quilter’s Dream batting, since I’ve lost my local dealer and she is already OUT of all of these basics? (she has thread, of course — just not the piecing color I like to use)

I’ll research myself and get back to you if I find any great resources…

Everyone is getting fabric for Christmas this year. I went to the Quilt Shop’s Going Out of Business Sale today and spent more in one shot than I ever have before (except for the times I bought my machines).

Wow. But I have PLANS. I got some Paintstiks and some Tsusinek paints and some Angelina Fibers, and I’m excited to play!

I promised my friend Stacy this purse over two years ago. Had all the fabrics and embellishments sitting happily in a bag waiting for inspiration to strike.

Well, it struck. Here’s her bag, complete with fabric transfers of her family as the centers of the crazy patches.

(Apologies for the fingerprints on the door in the picture… can you tell I live with preschoolers?)

And the lining and pocket (and magnetic snap):

This is the “Isabella” purse from Barbara Randle’s book, but I wasn’t able to find it on her website. The dimensions are about 12″x5″x6″tall or so. It’s a pretty good size, and about the size of the purse that Stacy carries now (maybe a little shorter, but taller). There’s an acrylic bottom sewn into it so that it will keep its shape and not sag.

I made this Red Hot Chili Purse last weekend at a class at the local quilt shop (the one that I just found out is going out of business):

And the lining:

I chose a light lining color so that my stuff won’t get lost in the darkness of the large bag. Helen (my four-year-old) and I chose the chili pepper fabric, and on Friday of last week she helped me pick out all the other scraps from my stash to go with it. The main black fabric on the front flap was Helen’s idea — not something I would necessarily have grabbed, but it was PERFECT. And I used all of the rest that I had in my stash, and even had to put that green strip in to make it go as far as it did. Helen’s very good with color — always has been. As soon as she was able to walk around in the quilt shop, she’d pull fabrics that went together startlingly well. Granted, fabrics at the LQS generally DO go together pretty well, since Mary stocks her shop with complimentary fabrics, but still. Helen was too good at it too frequently for it to be a complete coincidence.

Anyway. Back to the purse. This is a Barbara Randle Mega/Diaper bag. I meant to make one while I was still carrying diaper bags (and I kinda still am, but time is running out on that), and now with the trend moving towards large purses I just went ahead and made it anyway. It’s large enough to carry all the bulky stuff I need to carry around — like my graphing calculator, for tutoring — without overflowing.

I strip-pieced the checkerboard border….

and I embroidered all of the leaves down under the tulle by using free-motion embroidery on my machine, feed dogs dropped:

Here it is after the embroidery part, with all of the pins removed, but before the borders went on…:

It went with me to Thanksgiving, and it’s still at my mom’s. But hopefully I’ll have some pictures to share of it completed soon. I used a walking foot to quilt the borders, which may have been a mistake — because of the lack of elasticity of the embroidered section, the borders skewed during quilting. I blame the walking foot, because I think I could have prevented it had I just been doing free-motion. I find it to be more forgiving.

The LQS (local quilting store) that has all the art supplies I need to do fun new stuff is going out of business in 6 weeks. The owner wants to be able to spend time at home and work on her own quilts for a change.

I am not amused.

Gotta find a new supplier. Hopefully someone will step up and we’ll have a continued source for these items. I wish I could, but there are several things preventing me from doing so:

1. Money. I don’t have it.
2. Time. I don’t have it.
3. Business sense. I don’t have it.

So I gotta depend on someone else. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I cut an 18″ wide strip of background fabric, and scattered the leaves on it today.

Then I put a Tulle Overlay on top of that, to hold the leave down so that they won’t move around, and they can’t be picked off by certain small children (not that I know any that would actually DO that, of course not).

Next was the pinning step. Every single leaf is pinned down, through the tulle, so that it won’t shift as I do free-motion embroidery to anchor it all down. The polka dots in this picture are the flat-head pins.

Tonight I’m going to start sewing it down. Wish me luck!

Coming soon to a table runner near you:

And no, they’re not real. I’m not a TOTAL freak. Ha!