A Finish!

String Thing 2
50 x 66 inches

 This quilt is finally finished - Yay!  I made these string blocks waaayyy back in the spring of 2009, during my retreat that was "The Great Spring String Fling".  My friend Katie and I made sooo many string blocks during that retreat.  We were trying to finish off those strings that I've toted around for 20 years or so.  I still have enough blocks like these to do another quilt, after making  I-don't-know-how-many quilts with strings.  I've got a bunch and Kate has a bunch too.

This photo doesn't do the quilt justice.  This quilt is pretty "loud", as my Mom used to say.  The strings aren't that bright, which is what led me to make this so loud.  I'm getting pretty tired of some of these strings and wanted to jazz them up some.  So, I went with this wild batik, a la Freddy Moran.  Trouble is, this batik will knock your eye out!   When I was showing my friend, she asked me if I was on drugs when I made this quilt!  Hee hee!  I still haven't decided quite how I feel about this quilt.  It may be one only a mother could love.  But it is filled with all sorts of memory fabrics.  So I'll enjoy looking at it.

As usual, Shari did a super job of quilting this.  I asked her for something that "went" with the batik and then something that didn't clash with the strings.  So she did this wonderful leafy vine on the strings....

...and then did this great swirly bit over the batik!  I love it!

(click for the closeup)

Here is the backing and the binding.  The backing was something from the stash that I had enough of.  And for the binding - well, I went through a lot of different colors trying to figure out what looked the best before I settled on this black & white plaid.  It gives an over-all impression of kind-of-grey, that I think works pretty well.

The other week The Kid and I went to W*lmart for some things.  I always check the fabric dept. - just in case.  Well, this time was a good one!  I found these 2 black & white dots that are good quality.  Check out the year on the selvage!

Then, doing some wandering around, I found these cool stickers that are for laptops.  I had the idea that maybe I could cut them apart and jazz up my machine with them.  They're removable stickers, so no long-term commitment, right?.

front with stickers and "jewels"

Well, here's my machine, all jazzed up.  I had fun doing this, and so far I'm enjoying looking at this too.  It gives me a flashback to my hippie youth.  (Ooops, just gave away my age!)

the end piece

The sticker doesn't fit perfectly, due to the curve in the machine, but it's close enough for government work, right?

the back of the machine

 Hope you have fun this week!