Prep Time

The Grab Bag Challenge quilt needs to be done by a week from Monday, so it's high time to start quilting it. Tempus is fugiting, as my mother used to say. I thought I'd document my steps in prepping this quilt.

When I sandwich a quilt for quilting, I like to really secure the backing, to make sure there are no tucks on the backside of the quilt. I stretch the fabric taut and secure it to the worktable with clamps, fabric wrong side up, of course (Yes, I have pinned entire quilts before realizing the backing fabric was flipped the wrong way). And yes, that's my ever-present soda...


One side of the fabric had to be taped to the table because I didn't move all my %$&# off the far end of the table. (Poor work habits.)


I usually press the batting and then smooth it over the backing, . Then the quilt top is laid on top, smoothed out and straight,with a couple inches of batting and backing hang out on all sides. I spread out a handful of safety pins and get busy.





I usually begin pinning in the center, and pin diagonals corner to corner, then fill in with more safety pins. My pins are roughly 4 or 5 inches apart across the quilt top.


I'm not a huge gadget person but I do love this pin closing tool, called the Kwik Klip. Saves the manicure, such as it is.


This quilt is wall-hanging size, so it didn't take long to pin. For larger quilts, the quilt sandwich-in-progress will need to be moved, so that outer edges can be pinned. For these later stages of pinning, I don't always re-secure the backing with the clamps. I just make sure that things are smooth in all the layers.


With the pinning completed, I was auditioning threads, trying to decide how adventurous to get, mindful of the deadline looming. Couching? Bobbin work? How ambitious am I? How crazy am I?

Rush Job

Daughter Caro flew in, arriving in the wee hours this morning, with her maid of honor dress for a friend's wedding Friday afternoon--that's tomorrow. Guess who gets to alter it and make it all perfect.




I took a day of vacation for this. LOL Labor of love, of course.

Thinking Out Loud

I hate working to deadline but I'm fast procrastinating myself into the kind of corner I detest most--one of my own making.

I'm taking part in a challenge through the Milwaukee Art Quilters. It's a grab bag challenge--participants exchanged brown paper bags of fabrics, scraps, and threads. The idea was to use 50% of the contents in the making of a quilt, due completed at the September 8 meeting. I got moving with an idea during the spring and my top has been pieced since June. And there's where all meaningful activity ceased.

I knew there were some significant areas of solid black, an opportunity for some showy quilting. I had the idea to do some feathers and vine-y shapes. Could be interesting.... But this would involve marking and measuring. And I'm getting lazier by the day. So I procrastinated.

Tonight I decided I HAD to get moving; at least develop a plan. So I played with a flexible curve and some leafy shapes.


I sketched a bit and then decided it's just not the look I want. Too traditional and static and prosaic. I don't want to dip any feet into traditional quilting designs with this piece. And mostly I don't want to mark for quilting.

I dragged out some old Visions books for inspiration

(although it's pretty sparse quilting in some of those) and decided I'll take my cue from the jutting angles of the piecing and wing some angular stitching, kind of echo-y, kind of not.



I have rayon threads in a couple shades of green and a great variegated purple. I'm liking this and I think I can work with it, and work relatively quickly.

Bottom line--I can procrastinate a bit more. And that's good because this upcoming will be a craaaazy weekend, with Caro and her fiance visiting, a wedding to attend, and a party to host here. Once all this is out of the way, I'll get down to business. I promise.

Wedding Shawl

Blocking is SO magical. This shawl looked good to me right off the needles. But blocking added the finish and the polish, straightening out the wiggles and irregularities.

(And note the little watcher in the doorway in the pictures above...)


Can't believe I'm saying this but I'm ready to dive right back into another project with Kidsilk Haze. Only the next one will be for ME.

Score!

Today was the first Maxwell Street Days I've been able to attend this year. This event is held one weekend a month during the summer, in a local park. It's a huge flea market--antiques, collectibles, luggage, clothing, produce, flowers. You name it--cool to tacky, ridiculous to sublime.

I dropped Lucy off at her beauty shop appointment and headed to Maxwell Street. Some days you browse and find nothing; sometimes you hit the jackpot. Today was a born-under-a-lucky-star kind of day. The haul:

A pair of never used pillowcases embroidered in orange. These will be great in one of the bedrooms.


And I'm thinking that an orange quilt for this bedroom needs to go on the agenda too.

Next I found a blue and white transferware platter. Very decorative, but I think I'll be actually using this one. You know what they say in quilting about "all reds go together"? Well, all blue and white china goes together too.


Next, I stumbled across this lovably tacky paint-by-numbers horse picture. Framed and everything! What's not to love? Tonight this is already hanging on a wall here.


I was about to leave when I noticed one last table of vintage-type stuff. I spied something that made my heart pound and my knees go weak--a large Purinton Apple pitcher, which had been marked down twice and was now at a rock-bottom bargain price. I NEVER find deals like this.


I tried to keep my voice casual as I asked the seller what was wrong with the pitcher? She said nothing, it's just time to move it. Um.....yes! Time to move it TO MY HOUSE to join my hutch full of this pattern of pottery! This pattern doesn't turn up often here in Wisconsin--Purinton was Pennsylvania-made and not too much of it seems to have found its way west.

Woo hoo! Great day...

Some Points

Non-fiber goings on around here; some points to bring everyone up to date:

1. The new library website has been successfully launched and is working, although I'm not satisfied with how it looks in some browsers. The solution is simple. Everybody needs to get a computer just like mine. Seriously, some tweaking is still needed, but the major nightmare is over.

2. My DD took the Bar Exam a couple weeks back. Votive candles were burned, looks were cast heavenward, rosaries were jingled, novenas were contemplated (oh no--does that give me a "novena-thickened accent"??) We all survived, although results won't be known for a few months.

3. The deer ate, and continue to eat, the tops off all our tomato plants. Believe it or not, THIS is a tomato plant:

There will be a sum total of about two tomatoes this year from our garden. Is this pathetic or what?

Doggone those deer, anyway, even though the fawns are so darn cute as they leap and gambol around.

4. And I wonder where this hosta went??


5. But there IS pesto!

6. And blueberries!


6. Summer is W O N D E R F U L. Nothing like a warm midnight stroll with Lucy, every star in the heavens twinkling away. And August twinkling is way better than January twinkling, IMHO.

Blocking

Tonight I laundered the wedding shawl and blocked it. Pardon the workmanlike pictures--these old beach towels are very handy for this sort of thing but don't add much glamor or ambiance to the scene.

It's certainly true that having the right equipment makes the job easier. So glad I splurged on a set of blocking wires. My LYS didn't know what they were when I ordered them--thank goodness for the great wealth of knitting bloggers educating us all and leading the way. The owner of the LYS was very excited when she saw them and was sure she'd be able to sell more of them. I guess so!


I'm sorry not to have provided more details on the wedding shawl project in my last post. I've been living with this WIP for so long, it almost seems like everyone knows all about it and is sick to death of hearing me whine about it.


The pattern is called Shoulder Shawl in Syrian Pattern and is taken from the wonderful book Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby.

I took one look at this book last summer and knew it was a keeper. There are many, many intriguing shawl and scarf patterns, many of them truly makable, all of them gorgeous. And the author provides a wealth of information and tips on knitting lace, selecting yarn, how lace works, and even on (gulp) designing your own lace. When I saw her tips on how to knit lace to make it look antique, Ms. Sowerby had me in the palm of her hand.

The yarn I used is Rowan Kidsilk Haze, which is a combination of silk and mohair. Yes, it was a little intimidating, but I'm very, very glad I tried it. The color is cream, and I used three balls of the yarn. I would advise anyone making this shawl to purchase four balls, just to be on the safe side. I used size 7 US needles.

A Lapful of Froth

The wedding shawl is finished. The knitting part, that is. After being on the needles since last September (it was begun the weekend we visited the crazy shrine with the statues of Jesus with Lincoln and Washington, for those of you who have been with me for awhile...), it all badly needs a dunk in some Orvus and then blocking, of course.

Say it with me: Hallelujah!

Despite my initial butterflies in the stomach, this project was fun. The ethereal Kidsilk Haze yarn knit up into something like frothy bubbles. And once I got over my initial terror over using this yarn, I settled into enjoying the airiness of it all. Not all knitting is heavy and thick.

Learning curves....

Every row of the main part of the shawl began with a yarn over. In the Ravelry forums, knitters were asking, "Is that a typo?" No, not a typo--actually a pretty good idea. Later on, it made picking up stitches along the edges easy.


There was the knit-on border that had me scared to pieces for a couple months. After some experimentation with leftover sock yarn, the light bulb clicked on in my head and this bit of knitting ended up being fun. I even learned how to fudge a stitch or two. (A good skill to keep handy.)

I won't be intimidated by a knit-on border ever again. I hope.



The Kidsilk Haze yarn--a fuzzy threadlike confection of mohair and silk--really had me worried, but it worked out well too. Moral of the story: you just have to plunge in and try.



More pictures once it's blocked, and I'm pretty sure blocking will take care of the wiggles along the edging.

D.O.N.E!

Delectable Mountains is finished!





The action of the snappy colors and of all those half-square triangles were all greatly enhanced by the quilting of Marge West. Big props to her.






This quilt has been a year in the making, catch as catch can. 99% of the work was done on the road, at retreats. So it wasn't instant gratification or Quilt-in-a-Day. But I loved making it, in these happy colors and fabrics. And the gratification was really all throughout the process.



Which is why we make quilts, right?

Quilts in the Park

One of my markers for summer is the annual Quilts in the Park, a small show by a group of quilt shops in the region. This year's show was in a park in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. It was a perfect day for an outing like this--soft and sunny and breezy.



The vendors are prepared with plenty of fat quarters, kitted patterns, and gifty items, and are usually offering demos of whatever technique is new and trendy.









I stayed strong--I certainly DO NOT need to buy a kit for ANY quilt. But you know how it is--resolutions of frugality can break down in the face of extreme temptation. There was one kit that was so tempting...


Maybe not the greatest picture. But we loved the faded blues and reds and the use of large scale fabrics. My friend Renee succumbed and bought the kit, and plans to make it when we do our week in Boulder Junction in September.

I do not need this kit. I do not need this kit.

Sigh.

We met up with friends and finished with a great lunch and a bit of impromptu S&T at a riverfront restaurant in Fort Atkinson.



Hope everyone else is having a weekend as gorgeous as this one is here.