I bought this fabric in July in preparation for the next quilt we are going to make. I mentioned earlier that we were searching for pattern ideas to make a quilt for N’s brother for his wedding — we finally settled on a modified version of “Drunk Love Two-Tone” from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book. Instead of two colors we are going with 3 (two blues and a green) and some patterned/colored highlights.
Making this quilt with more than two colors has really complicated things. Since the pieces have to be cut individually I had to plan out ahead of time how many of each color I would need. I laid the quilt pattern out in Adobe Illustrator (image above) to get a good balance of the three colors and then made spreadsheets to keep track of what had been cut. Cutting pieces seemed to take forever but we have *mostly* finished (I still need to cut the highlights) and I am finally on to the sewing.
Can you see it? There is a pile of sewn pieces on my desk and a pile of cut pieces on my work table. I’ve done a fair amount of crafting this summer but I haven’t written much about it. I think I can attribute this largely due to the lack of good lighting in my apartment. With N’s new job and long commute our evenings are more condensed and progress on the quilt primarily happens after 9pm (which doesn’t help the lighting situation either).
Even in the dim evening lighting (and less than perfect focus) I still love my desk. I can’t get over how cute the sewing machine is. Apparently other people agree with me, they put the same machine on the cover of ReadyMade for the August/September issue! It is working like a champ too which is good because my singer 301 is skipping stitches. I don’t know if I need to find someone to take a look at it but all of my attempts to modify tension controls and change needles and thread have failed to solve the problem. I’m not sure what we are going to do when we get to quilting everything together because there is no way the whole quilt is going to pass under the arm of my tiny featherweight! Does anyone have thoughts or suggestions for my ailing machine?
It is hot today. Not soul-sucking humid and dirty New York City hot, but unseasonaly and uncomfortably hot. The National Weather Service has the official condition listed as “Hot” with a red picture of a sun. I am hiding in my cave-like apartment and the cat is sleeping in the darkest place he can find. I went outside to water my plants (poor things) in spite of the fact that we are in a drought and under water rationing. And yet I am sitting here thinking about quilts.
The last thing I want to do right now is turn on an iron or sit with a quilt in my lap sewing, but N’s brother is getting married in the fall and we have been planning to make them a quilt as a wedding gift. The quilt we made last summer was a rare opportunity where N wanted to make something crafty together and the couple seemed to really appreciate receiving a handmade gift of such a scale. The wedding is in October and while that is not quite around the corner yet I have a feeling summer is going to be over before I blink my eyes so I need to get moving on the project. Here are some thoughts I’m having:
1. Run and Fall, 2. amy butler doing turning 20, plus some, 3. Orange / Yellow Joel Dewberry Quilt: Front, 4. conran quilt - part of top, 5. coin quilt - top finished!, 6. sprout quilt mockup, 7. belle quilt - quilt top, 8. IMG_6008, 9. quilt front, 10. Amy Butler Happy Hour quilt, 11. Orange & Brown Quilt, 12. 19th Century Sampler, 13. Flying Geese Quilt, 14. Queen Size Love Bead Quilt Top, 15. orange, yellow, and green baby quilt, inspired by DS “couldn’t keep it to myself”, 16. finished Ice Pops quilt, 17. Roots, 18. Hop, Skip, Jump Quilt, 19. quilt top, 20. finished brick road quilt, 21. handkerchief corners quilt, 22. Big Zig, 23. what a bunch of squares quilt, 24. red and white Hop Skip and a Jump baby quilt, 25. Zig-Zag Quilt Top, 26. On the big-boy bed, 27. Horizons Quilt Front, 28. quilt, 29. skyline quilt, 30. Run and Fall, 31. Drunk Love 2-tone, 32. On and On, 33. Roots, 34. Coulden’t keep it to myself, 35. Ice Pops Baby Quilt - Front, 36. Completed quilt - Optical Squares
Published on October 16, 2007
in Quilting.
The wedding quilt: “What a Bunch of Squares” pattern from Denyse Schmidt Quilts
with a pieced back. It is machine quilted with unevenly spaced vertical lines and I added an embroidered patch with the names of the recipients and their wedding date. Most of the work was completed in the span of a month (actually, most of it the first week) - check out the progress in blogland and on flickr.
I really like it, and while its a big weight off my shoulders to have it done Im sad to give it away!
Im slowly getting better… This is one strand of domestic white top and one of something grey– honestly I dont really know. Im just practicing with all the pieces of roving ive got in my bag. I have also been really enjoying spinning some merino roving dyed by Karrie.
This weekend I received a package in the mail (always exciting) with musk ox fiber my friends found in Alaska while doing field work. So exciting! Its got some plant material in it and smells like animal, but its much cleaner than you might expect to find. The cat is pretty interested in the smell and spent a good 10 min sniffing around after I opened the envelop. Im going to need to find myself some cards that can handle it.
I also have for you today an indication that we have made progress on the wedding quilt
and a furrier version
We have actually finished all of the sewing and just need to snip off the tails of thread hanging out and take some photos before we can deliver it. Winter is coming at some point (its even supposed to rain today) and they might need it!
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