Sunday, November 30, 2008

DONE! DONE! DONE!

I'm sitting here, stuffed again, feeling sluggish, and wondering why I ate so much! My ham is pretty much used up, except for the bone, wisely put in the freezer for potato soup another day, and I have beans and ham simmering on the stove, and have made corn bread for supper. Life is good.

Incidently, the beans were a gift from my LQS! Hey, the farmers grow beans around here! It's nice to live in such a friendly community.

Shirt Quilt #2 -- Yeah - DONE, and I can start another project. This is all washed (to eliminate water soluble basting thread) and crinkly, complete with my label, and YES, I like it as well as Shirt Quilt #1. Amazing how friendly those old shirt plaids are. This one is about 65" x 75" - a generous lap/nap size. I left the pocket unquilted.

I left the sashing unquilted until after all the blocks were quilted, and ran into some problems with puckers and pleats. Next time I will be sure to quilt them at the same time as the block quilting. However, no one is going to find them -- I just know they exist.

Below is what I thought was the perfect plan for quilting the blocks, but no matter what I did, I could NOT follow this! Practiced on paper, practiced on my MagnaDoodle, drew arrows on the stencil to help my brain, and even drew it out on the block, but the drawing got more complicated because I had to draw in both blue and in chalk. Finally gave it up and will attribute failure to a Senior Brain. Almost every block is quilted with a different pattern - good practice. Most of them are 'O.K', there is one ringer, and a couple are done brilliantly!

Saturday I visited my LQS and came home with this book. Hey, they give me a nice discount - I gotta buy something as a visit is worth a therapy session (so I've heard!) The author gives numerous practical drawings/quilting designs, where to start, where to end, etc. I'm enjoying this book, and have already figured out one previously confusing pattern.
It's good to be sewing again!

16 comments:

  1. The quilt looks fantastic! I don't think I could figure out that stencil either!

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  2. It looks great Elaine, and it's done!! the best thing!!

    I always quilt the border first and then the sashing, and last quilt the blocks. This will keep the quilt square and prevent most puckers.

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  3. I can't see how you would follow that quilt pattern. It seems a bit odd. It's more fun to do them all differently anyway.

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  4. The quilt looks wonderful....oh, and I just spent 5 whole minutes trying to figure out how to do the stencil as well. Couldn't get it either. :)
    dawn

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  5. Yup, I may just have to try one of these. Love that stencil!

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  6. Well your quilt is beautiful! Don't feel bad about that pattern for the quilting. It lloks like it would be a little tricky. I don't think there is any way to do it by machine without having to backtrack & double sew some lines.
    That makes it tougher.
    You did just fine!

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  7. Your quilt is so pretty--I like everything about it--the pattern, the colors, and the quilting. Beautiful! Supper sounded pretty good too...

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  8. Great quilt. I can just envision someone with the flu wrapped up in this quilt watching TV. The pocket would be used to hold flu essentials, such as tissues or nasal spray.

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  9. Thank you for the book. I will try to find a copy as I am looking for any help I can get on machine quilting!!

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  10. Nice shirt quilt #2! I'm interested to see how you like this book after using it. Do report!

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  11. I tried tracing that stencil with my cursor. Couldn't do it without backtracking or over sewing so don't feel bad. The quilt is lovely and I bet it is really soft, huh?

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  12. It looks great. I found a new to me book called Hooked on Feathers by Sally Terry and I LOVE IT! I can finally make something resembling a feather.

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  13. This quilt looks soo cosy! The kind that you would feel instantly comforted by. Does that make sense?LOL.

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  14. Your second quiltis a pretty as the first. Where is this quilt going? Is this a keeper? I have the machine quilting book and it is great. It opened up for me many possibilities for machine quilting. I am much more confident with trying something new and different.

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  15. This is GEORGEOUS!! Quilts from shirts look so cuddly too, like they've already been 'worn in' :)

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