Hello...hello...hello.........

My poor little neglected blog.  Moving and quitting my job really took the wind out of my sails!  I have been starting to sew again though.  Now it's time to get organized and motivated!

Ah, Affairs of the Heart... On top of my general inability to find enough time to sew lately, I've been torturing myself with indecision about that project and have finally come to a decision I can live with.

Since my blocks are meant for a quilt for my young daughter, I have been very concerned with how practical or durable the blocks are. I really hate the ones that I did on the machine, and I don't feel that the embroidery is especially durable either way. But since they are beautiful and I am stubborn, I have decided to do 9 of my favorite blocks by hand and make them into a wall hanging for my daughter. Then I'm going to take the rest of the pink and purple batiks I bought for that project and make a twin-sized variation of the Civil War Love Letters quilt. Since that one will be paper pieced on the machine it will be much more practical for a little girl, and it will still have a "love" theme. I'm going to make the heart center medallion variation. I'm going to do it on my own schedule and only do the blocks I want to do for my specific quilt. I think I might start a personal diary thread to post my pictures and progress so that I can get all the encouragement and feedback that this board offers without having to follow along on a BOM.

Anyway - that is the plan! If only I can get Penny Haren done.... Here are some pictures of the blocks I've completed recently.  I'm sure I've missed some, so I'll post a group shot soon.

 

I guess I just like things to take longer...

I made an executive decision last night.

While trying to machine stitch my second "Baby Love" quilt block I was increasingly frustrated because I couldn't get my machine applique to look nice.  Even using invisible thread and size 70 topstitching needles,  all I see is unsightly needle holes.  And I don't like the idea of all that monofilament holding my daughter's quilt together anyway.  I tried a satin stitch with matching threads, which I actually liked better - but not really.

So, even though this will be a quilt for a child, I'm going to do it by hand.  In my frustration, I started just sewing down my applique pieces by hand and it looked so much nicer!  And truly invisible!  I'm not going to do needle turn - I'm doing that on my tile quilt and that is enough of that.  I'm going to continue to use plastic templates and starch to prepare the applique pieces; I'm going to continue to use Elmer's school glue to paste them down on the background, but then I'm going to hand stitch.

So basically, I made two more practice blocks!  I'm going to have to do the first block over - even though the needle holes weren't as bad on it, and obviously I'm going to have to re-prepare block number two.

Whatever - I've got nothing better to do anyway.  We're only selling our house and moving in less than two months.  Oh, and don't forget the trip to Italy in May.  Yeah, nothing better to do.

I did sandwich Peter's dinosaur quilt last night.  The minky shed all over the place when I cut it but the cleaning people are coming today.  And, we got an offer on our house yesterday, so hopefully that will work out and clean minkyless floors won't matter so much anymore!

Baby Love!

Tonight, while watching my Gators win against BYU in the NCAA tournament (Go Gators!), I finished up the first block of Ginger's "Baby Love" Affairs of the Heart quilt. This is actually a different block than the one I posted earlier, although I used the same fabrics because I liked my color choices. The one I posted a few days ago used fusible web to attach the pieces. I ended up using that as a practice block to try some different satin stitch techniques, but I didn't really like any of them. I was very concerned about fraying since this is for a child though, so I redid the block with a different technique. I made plastic templates and used heavy starch to turn the edges of my applique pieces under. Then, I used clear monofilament and a narrow zig zag stitch to attach the pieces to the background. The blocks will be 12 inches, so I've enlarged the pattern to 175%.

The most time consuming part was the embroidery - it took forever! There is an awful lot of it on a 12" block. I did get faster by the end of the block though. The embroidery brought back wonderful memories of my Grammy teaching me to embroider when I was little - and all the cute mushroom garden pillows that we made together (hey - it was the '70s - and all the appliances were avocado - it was all very stylish!).

Baby Love - Block #9

A close up of some of the embroidery.

Because I'm a dork and I think it is kind of interesting - here is the back...

I'm really happy with how this block turned out.  If I can keep it up, this will be a lovely quilt.  

The official schedule for the group that is working through the book online doesn't start until June, but since we are moving in June I want to get a few blocks done now so that I don't fall behind before we start.   I may try to do 2 or 3 more in April.

Affairs of the Heart

Here is the last of my current long-term projects.  I just can't seem to resist a challenge!  A group on the QB is working through the book "Affairs of the Heart" starting in June.  I plan to join them!

The quilt in the book is made from 7" blocks and features a black background with batik needle-turn appliqued floral/heart motifs.  I've decided that I want to make this a bed quilt for my daughter for when she graduates from a toddler to a twin bed, so I've made some modifications.  Ginger's "Baby Love" quilt will be a bit different than the pattern in the book.  I've blown up all of the blocks to a 12" size and I'll be using a white background because I think that is a little more appropriate for a little girl (and our white cat who would be sure to gravitate toward any dark quilt!). I'll be changing the layout a bit since the quilt in the book is square and I need a twin bed sized rectangle.  Also, instead of needle-turn, I'll be doing machine applique to make the quilt more sturdy and washable.  The blocks also feature embroidery - fun and different!

I haven't sewn the shapes down yet, I've just used fusible web to stick them to the background, but here is my first block, just to give an idea of my colors and what the blocks look like.  This is block #9 in the book.

AOTH Block #9 - fused but not sewn or embroidered.  It's hard to see, but you can almost see the outline of where the embroidery swirls will go.  I have it lightly sketched in.  The swirls on the background will be done in green.  There are also swirls on the pink hearts and I will do those in either a lighter pink or a purple.  Still thinking on that.

I bought a bunch of dark green embroidery floss to make leafy tendrils out of my embroidery.  I like that except where is lays on top of an appliqued shape.  I may end up using various colors and not just green.  In the book the quilt has only gold embroidery.  Nice on a black background, but I thought that I needed more/deeper color on the white.

I ordered a bunch of thread from ConnectingThreads.com (my fave!) and as soon as I get all those colors in, I will start satin stitching these shapes down.  I have done some practicing - but my practice block is a bit of a debacle and not worth showing.  I was trying lots of things and wasn't using the right color thread.  I hope to have this block done soon since the QB group is starting in June and we are moving in June.  I want to have a couple-block head start so that ultimately I am not behind!