Thursday, September 30, 2010

Farewell, September

I survived my oral surgery on Tuesday (tooth extraction), and all I can say is, Yay! for general anesthesia!  I didn't feel so great afterwards, but actually better than when I had a raging infection in the tooth.  So, I'm getting back to normal now.  I'm just suffering with a miserable headache, but it's getting better.

Faultlines 18"w x 14.5"h

Since I haven't been in the quilt studio all week, I'm going to show one of my older quilts.  It's a little quilt that I made as part of my guild's color challenge, I think from about 10 years ago.  However, I'm not sure, as I didn't label the quilt.  (Another reason it's good to label quilts - getting forgetful!)  This was my first paint chip challenge.  We drew two colors of paint chips.  My two colors were very close - kind of  teal and turquoise.  But I really liked them.  I liked them so much, I made two quilts for this challenge, and my DD made one too!  (she wasn't even in the guild)  I'll be showing you the second quilt from this challenge in a few days.

This color was tough to find in fabric.  I did find a 4 color gradation packet, which was a life-saver.  I carried those paint chips around with me to all the quilt shops and quilt shows I went to that year, and eventually found enough fabrics.

Faultlines was my first idea, and I had fun with this.  It's all every-which-way, and it's tough to hang it on the wall straight!  I'm not so sure this photo is straight either.  Sometimes I hang it going in the other direction - it's kind of all-purpose that way.  *grin*


I embellished this with beads; it was my first time using beads.  I used teal beads on the black fabric and black beads on the turquiose fabric.  I don't think you can see this in the photo, but the black is densely quilting in a meandering pattern.

And I decided that using a decorative stitch was fun.  I was going for an "earthquake" idea, and  I thought this looked like the read-out on the earthquake detector machine.  We got used to seeing those on the news in California!



I really enjoyed everyone's answer to my question about quilting.  It seems like we all agonize over how to quilt our quilts.  It seems that some quilts will tell us what they want/need, and other quilts are not helpful! 

Whenever I get stuck on how to quilt, I usually fall back on the old patterns from the antique quilts, like the Baptist Fan, the hanging diamond and also cross-hatching.  You know, the patterns that ignore the peiced pattern and just go all over the quilt.  I still like those, and I think they look good on most quilts.  And I think they're more interesting than just meandering or stippling.  I guess some of it depends on whether you're hand or machine quilting, too.  I do all of my quilts by machine now, due to arthritis in my hands.  And, I'm lazy and want the quilt finished faster!   Do you have a favorite pattern you use?

I met my neighbor yesterday.  We've lived here for 3 years now, and we've waved to each other, but not really met.  She lives down at the other end of the street.  She was set up in her driveway, pin basting a quilt on a frame!  DH saw her when he went to get the mail, and made me come see her (even tho' I was not feeling well and was slopping around in my sweats, with goofy hair).  She's around 80, from what she said, and was getting ready to handquilt the quilt she'd made for her grandson.  It was a non-scrappy log cabin in black and white checkerboard with blues and greens - very modern looking.  Then she took me in her house to show me the queen-size quilt she made for another grandson.  She made this quilt, using black and white graphic prints instead of the indigos.  I loved it!  She's looking for a machine quilter to quilt this one for her, so I'll see what I can find out at quilt guild meeting tomorrow.  I'm really glad I went down the street to meet her! 

See you in October! 

10 comments:

  1. OUCH! So glad you got the tooth fixed - the dentist is not one of my favorite people, but thank goodness for them, right?
    I LOVE Faultlines. I love the colors, the beading, the quilting, all of it.
    I do have one staple stitch I fall back on when I need to - it's a small, curvy stitch on my machine, several different sizes of it and I can adjust it. It catches both sides of a seam and it's great when you don't want a pattern quilted. Once the quilt is washed it looks awesome.

    How very, very cool to meet a quilting neighbor - I met a friend on an international machine embroidery group online, turned out we live only a block away on the same street - she's my BF now! And our sons are great friends too.

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  2. Love the mixed blues on Faultline. Well done! How special to find a neighbor that quilts! Hope you mouth feels better soon. Enough is enough!

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  3. Faultline is lovely. Great blend of colours.

    A new quilting friend and she lives close by! Bet you two become best buddies!

    Hope you're feeling better.

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  4. How lovely to have a new quilting friend and I'm so glad you've got rid of that tooth, hope the head clears soon. Love your faultlines quilt and thank you for sharing the whole process I find that so interesting. Have a good weekend.

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  5. ouch - glad you're feeling better now! you know I always have the same go-to quilting option - love those fans!

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  6. Wow, you just never know who you might meet in your neighbourhood. I love this quilt and the idea of faultlines!!! It is a very special piece.
    I hope you are feeling better very soon ...
    Best wishes,
    Barbara

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  7. Hope that your mouth is feeling better now. Your quilt is so beautiful and the beading is wonderful. It's great that you have another quilter in your neighborhood.

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  8. Glad you have this problem tooth looked after. There's nothing worse....
    I love your earthquake quilt and the beading on it is great. I love the baptist fan and I'm doing it by hand on a scrappy 9 patch civil war quilt. I"ve never attempted it on my longarm.

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  9. OUCH...OUCH...your poor mouth/head/face and from what you said 'hair'!!!
    Your faultline is FAB....I agree turquoise is hard to find 'cause I'm hunting it ALL the time!!
    I think the beading is perfect!!
    Sounds like you have discovered an interesting neighbor there. Hopefully we will hear more about her from you!!

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  10. Nice, Sharon. Its interesting how fabrics colors can go in and out of fashion and be difficult to find. Your challenge turned out nicely.

    Went to "Quilting on the Grand" last week-end. Its a local quilt show done every two years, and the "Grand " refers to the Grand River for Which my town Grand Rapids was named. Forgot to bring my camera, but was told someone would be selling a CD with photos of the entrants...sponsored by West Michigan Quilt Guild - http://www.wmqg.org/index.html

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