Dagnabbit!!!!

I sewed through my middle finger. It hurts like a son of a gun. I guess I'm lucky it didn't go through my fingernail, instead piercing the cuticle and coming straight through and emerging through the pad of my finger. There was a lot of blood initially. I think I got the whole needle out of my finger (it was in two pieces, three if you count the part that was still attached to the machine) washed it with hydrogen peroxide, got the bleeding stopped, (managed to not get any blood on my quilt blocks, that's a ray of sunshine in this mess), used neosporin and a band-aid and now I hope I'm going to be fine. Ice and elevation to keep down the swelling, blah, blah, blah.


I thought you might prefer to see a picture of the weapon, rather than the flesh wound.

Finally I got back to the machine, inserted a new needle, rethreaded and tried it out. No stitch. It's not catching the bobbin thread. Remove the bobbin assembly, no stray threads, reassemble it and try again, now it works. Test and get a fine stitch. Start sewing and now I'm skipping stitches. Grrrr.

I was due for a cleaning anyway but I'd hate to think I ruined something. On the other hand, I have a surprise coming, hopefully this week. If it works out I won't miss this machine quite as much as I would otherwise.

Monthly Accounting and a Word About Batting

So, it's been a long time since I've made a list like this. I'm glad to say that most of the items from my last monthly accounting are truly finished, although one still sits waiting to be quilted.

Quilts tops that need basting, quilting and finishing:

Chocolate Covered Cherries (shown with its red backing fabric)

Sherwood Forest Romance

Briners' Picnic (yes, still)


WIPS that need piecing:

Hunter's Star (I pieced together the blocks I'd made and I love it but it needs to be bigger.

Green and white chain quilt (chain blocks are made, I need to cut the white blocks and piece them together)


It's not as big a list as usual. Maybe I've gotten better at narrowing my focus? I have other unfinished things that have been in a holding pattern for a while. But since I have no plan for them they don't make the list. Obviously there's a lot of quilting in my future.

I have the batting and backing for Chocolate Covered Cherries and Briners' Picnic so there's no reason I couldn't get serious about layering them this month. When I get the chain quilt pieced its going to make it to the top of the list since I"m making it as a gift for a friend. I don't know yet how big it's going to finish. Once I know for sure I'll be ordering the battings I need. I used a wool batting in Flying Rose and I love it! It's more expensive than the Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 which is what I have been using for the past several years but wool is LOVELY to work with and the finished quilt feels wonderful. As hubby says, $20 more per batting is a really a small fraction of the cost of the quilt. Sometimes I really love how he thinks

Quilts at the Capitol

Quilt guilds in Georgia were invited by the Georgia Quilt Council to make quilts to benefit the quilt museum. Today those quilts were displayed at the state capitol so of course the Mavens planned a field trip. Eventually they will be the opening collection for the museum and then they will be auctioned off. It was wonderful to see the quilts, so many of them were truly creative expressions of the guilds that made them. Here are some of my favorites:
















Various officials and Mrs. Deal (our governor's wife) were on hand to meet their constituents and so I got to have my picture taken with State Senator Chip Rogers in front of the ECQG quilt.

Mystery Solved: Sherwood Forest Romance

I finished applying the borders for my mystery quilt. This quilt is BIG (83 x 110) so big in fact that I had trouble finding a floor space large enough to lay it down on, you can see the borders are bunched up a bit in the picture. I think I might cut it down some in the end. I think there is too much green dwarfing the center of the quilt. If it were a light border as the original mystery called for and it could be quilted with a design to compliment the center design it would be wonderful to have a 10" border to work with but as things stand I think 8" might be sufficient. I'm going to put it aside in my pile of things to be quilted and make that call when I come to it again.

Putting this Debbie Caffrey mystery together was great fun. Thanks to Melinda and Maetha at Tiny Stitches for planning the mystery tour.

It's a Mystery

Last weekend I participated in the Tiny Stitches mystery project at Amicalola Falls. It was great, even though it's taken me all week to recover from it! Once again Maetha and Melinda chose a wonderful pattern from Debbie Caffrey. The green fabric really grabbed me when I was browsing the quilt shop. It dawned on me that although green is one of my favorite colors I've never done a quilt for myself that was predominantly green. The mystery clues called for a light background but I decided to make this fabric my background choice and I worked backwards from there. As I kept looking around the shop I was taken with a collection of florals featuring violets. I've always liked the way green and purple play together but I had an "aha" moment and remembered that I had yards and yards of a pretty floral at home that might work with the green. So, I bought a half yard of the green to come home and check against my stash. Sure enough the floral I had bought and hoarded worked beautifully.

Back to the quilt store to buy more green plus the red and cream fabrics. There was also plenty of homework, cutting the fabric and placing each "clue" into its own ziplock baggie. I have to say this kind of work really appeals to my sense of crazy.

I'm almost done with the quilt top, one more border to go. I'll show you the whole thing when it's finished.

Flying Rose, Finally!

She is finally finished! I'll be entering her in the ECQG show scheduled for this September.

I have gotten quite a few UFOs off my conscience in the past year and a half. I've also started a handful of other projects, of course. I've missed blogging and often thought of returning to it. I hope you enjoy seeing some of what I've been up to.

Autumn Apples

I have always wanted to make an applecore quilt. I saw templates similar to these years ago and have lamented many times not buying them when I first saw them. At the quilt show in September one of the vendors had this acrylic set and so of course I bought it.

I'm hoping to make a scrappy red, green and tan quilt. I have no deadline, it'll just be handwork for me to carry about and if it stays a UFO I'm okay with that.

Coneflowers

This is my completed quilt top "Coneflowers". It has some issues, places where the color selection might have been better. When I look at this picture as a thumbnail, it all works perfectly, but when you look at it full size (and when you look at the quilt) the transitions are not as nice and you don't see plainly where the petals join the center on the flower in the front. I am debating whether to change the fabrics, or live with it.

Next month ECQG is bringing Linda Fiedler in and she'll be teaching thread painting for one of her workshops. I might use this piece as an experiment for that technique. Perhaps I can shade some of those weaker transitions to help them along? For right now, I'm claiming a victory. I've taken a workshop and completed the top from that class in record time. Woohoo!

Picture Piecing with Ruth Powers

I felt really blessed to take Ruth Powers' Picture Piecing workshop last month. I'm trying to remember if I've ever been so eager to finish a workshop piece before, but I don't think I have. I showed you a fraction of the quilt yesterday.

The pattern is called "Coneflowers" and is really easy to put together. The challenge for me has been in the fabric selection. I love the way peach and brown work together, and I'm glad to be playing with it in this piece.

What Is It?

Can you guess what this is?

Hint: I took a workshop with the ECQG in September and this is a piece of the project from that class.