Becky's quilt obsession

Thanks for the nice comments about my QOV – plain, simple, instead of boring. I’m always amazed at the difference quilting makes. There is a book by Lee Cleland of this title, and I’m always amazed at the difference. I put the lime green binding on this quilt at retreat, and received many oohs and ahs about it, nearly all about the quilting. The texture certainly changes the plainness. I had just about enough fabric left for a pillowcase. So, my adventure into modern quilting wasn’t a waste of time, it just shows that quilting is much more than just piecing. I had a good time at retreat, but was also ready to come home. I missed my tall cutting table more than anything else. I bought a layer cake of some fun fabrics and made the blocks for one of those funny four patches that has the you tube video about it. The blocks didn’t turn out exactly square, so I will need to fix that. I just can’t make myself fudge that much. I also need to put them on a design wall so the colors are so...

I used a pattern out of a modern quilt book and pieced this top for a QOV. DH said it was dull (he knows better than to say ugly), I’m thinking boring. There’s 2 more rows over the back side of Black Bart. I have the wave Circle Lord templates on Bart, but I’m thinking this will need spirals to become un-boring. I would have started last night, but couldn’t find any backing in the stash for it. I’ll go by Linda’s house today and she thinks she has something that will work. I have a bunch of backings, but the only one to work with these colors is a cream piece, and we’ve been warned away from that with QOV. I guess I need to make a trip to FabriQuilt (it’s here in Kansas City) and pick up a bolt of generic backing for QOV. I did have a large bright blue piece that I usually use on them, but it wouldn’t go with this soft turquoise.  It’s a little large for QOV – should end up about 70 x 90 before quilting, but the Kansas ones are for a returning group, so maybe someone can use it at...

Such a wonderful start to my day. Roses arrived from my DH – he always sends a day ahead as you receive the best roses then. I then opened my inbox, and there were more emails than I’ve ever received at once asking for a copy of a PDF file I made of paper-pieced houses. If you are here looking for them, they are now in the Yahoo group Stashbuster files. I completed the components for the second “round” of the JN Lone Star, and I now like it. The dark second background brings out the center first star. I have another ongoing project I could use your opinion on. I bought these old kaleidoscope blocks on eBay a long time ago. I took some of them apart and remade them a bit – only recutting the center part, leaving the second round and the corners alone. They started out, and are ending up several different sizes, from 8 to 9+ inches. In the picture the pink one lower right is one of the originals and you can see that it is very wavy. The others I have remade. I thought about setting th...

These are the last two strippy charity quilts for my January quilting marathon. The one on the right I had to redo every seam, then I added the borders. The small one on the left was good! Only the second one of the bunch that was ready to quilt as is. I had some Connecting Threads black and white fabric that made my eyes swirl and gave me a bit of vertigo that I knew I couldn’t use in large amounts. It worked well for the binding on these, and it used up most of that piece of fabric. I loved the mainly white fabric in the small one, it says moo, moo, all over it. I used red Sew Fine thread on these, and the Circle Lord Cosmos panto boards for the pattern. I thought about trying free motion, but since it was January 31st when I quilted these I thought done was a better choice. I used a Hobbs organic cotton batting that has been around a while, and these turned out very flat. They are in the wash now, and will hopefully plump up a bit. I don’t think I’ll try anymore of that batting. It...

I was sewing along, putting on binding, and kept hearing something bump. I reset the bobbin, and finally looked at the back of the machine. The green thread had fallen over on the power strip, so I set it back some, and sewed some more. It kept bumping, and I finally investigated. While the fly wheel (I think that’s what it’s called) was still on, I was pulling out the thread that was wrapped around until it broke. Then DH popped the cover off the wheel, and I was trying to cut and pull out thread, and it still wasn’t coming out very well. There is a large screw holding the wheel to the drive shaft – or whatever that’s called – and he gingerly tried  turning it – it worked – and the wheel came off. This is what it looked like when he took it off. That cone of green thread (Superior Sew Fine) had been nearly full. I usually use that thread on the Black Bart (longarm), but it matched the previous binding. Strong thread - it never broke until I  pulled too hard trying to remove ...

These are part of what I’ve done this week. The “Shirts and Pants” quilt that I bordered, and a Strippy with Diego are finished. My DGD#2 was here all week (sick) and she told me that Diego was definitely a boy quilt, not a girl quilt. I have a love affair with spiral quilting. I did it on all three of these. I was going to do a pantograph on the bottom one, but after I started I didn’t like it so ripped it out and used the spirals. This bottom quilt was one of the 42 x 72 strippys that I decided to add borders to bring it out to a better size. There really is light brown and green in the main print. I had a hard time coming up with border fabric for it out of my stash. I hope to trim and bind it later today. I have 2 more tops ready to load on Black Bart. They are fun ones – red, black, and white. I resewed seams and added borders to one, the other only needed pressing as I will leave it kid size. I have one more that I pulled to work on. It needs all the seams resewn and then a bo...

Last year I offered to quilt some tops that were donated after the tsunami. Then shoulder stuff happened, then other things. To make a long story short, I’ve now started on them. I had expected tops ready for quilting, but since I don’t quilt for others, I guess I don’t have an appreciation for how some toppers prepare their quilts. I’ve done quite a bit of work on the few tops I’ve worked with, some of work at my own choosing. I quilted some Heartstrings tops last, and sent them to Las Vegas for the VA hospital. Since I think they are still short, I was looking at this box of tops to see if I could add borders to some to make them large enough for VA needs. (I figure the Japanese quilters have taken care of the tsunami victims by now.)  I had navy fabric that worked with the first top, and there weren’t but a few tiny flowers in the strippy parts, so I added borders to it. The second top was obviously of kid fabrics, so I left it as is. It was the only one in the box that was nic...