Quilting is Complete

This morning I finished with the free-motion quilting on this quilt.



I still have some threads to bury but I do believe that once that is done I can move on to squaring up and finishing. I love lots of quilting, as you can see in the photos.

I received my Christmas present from myself in yesterday's mail. I bought myself one of the Bendable Bright Lights (seen here). I got it all hooked up last evening and WOW! was that a bright discovery. I can't believe the light this little thing puts out. I had seen lots of other sewers sharing on their blogs about how much they liked these, so I just had to see what all the hullabaloo was about. I did notice one thing: at first I had it pointing directly where the needle is going up and down. Well the bright light was reflecting off the shiny metal of my presser foot and giving my eyes quite a strain. I started playing around with the light position and found that if I shine it on the fabric that is in front of the presser foot that it works better for me. I was beginning to wonder if I would need to wear sunglasses to be able to use this thing. I guess there is a learning curve to everything and all in all I am going to be very happy with this handy tool. So my review of this product is a big thumbs up.

Way Back When

I mentioned some time ago that I was working a mixed-media triptych painting. I can now show you these paintings that I created for my son's Christmas present. Since I didn't want to take the chance that my son might see these on my blog, I thought I should wait until he received them before sharing them here with you. I must have did a good job as he really likes them.

I'm not happy with how they appear in the photo. The far left one has a bit more burgundy/maroon in it and the middle one shows more blue in the photo and really is a slight bit more green.

Creative Cue

I like drawing and sketching and don't do it often enough. Drawing is one of those activities that improves over time. The more you practice, the better it gets.

I've always enjoyed seeing other artists' sketches and drawings too. A few of the bloggers that I follow have taken part in sketching to a theme word and I always enjoy seeing the sketch they create from a word prompt. I thought this would be fun and I decided to do something similar myself starting in 2010.

I happened to mention this idea to Sue and she said this interested her too. And then we got to thinking that maybe others would enjoy something similar. So we came up with Creative Cue.

Read all about it here (click the image):

Quilting

I started the quilting on my watermelon quilt.


I had originally thought that I'd machine quilt all of it, but once I started looking at it and deciding what I wanted to do, I came to the conclusion that I will need to do a little hand quilting. The center squares are where I'm doing this. Because of the quilting design I wanted to do, I decided that doing it by hand would be better than all the stopping and starting by machine.

I would like to wish all of you who stop by to read my ramblings a very Merry Christmas. I'm not sure if you all celebrate Christmas, but if you do I hope yours is a safe, happy, and healthy holiday. I know there are many areas in the US right now that are making holiday travel unsafe. We are in a snow storm area for the next couple of days, from what the weather people are saying. So be safe and smart out there please!

Backing and Basting

Today I found some time to get into the studio. I couldn't find a piece of fabric large enough to use for the backing on my quilt. So I pieced together some of the discarded fabrics from the project and created a strip. I then used a fabric that worked, colorwise, and that I had enough of to piece with this strip to create my back.


Next I did the basting. It's now ready to quilt.

Next Round

I've added another border around this quilt. I'm happy with this and think I am going to stop there. At this point it measures approximately 35" square--a really good size for me to quilt on my sewing machine. This quilt has been so much fun.


I just had to snap the next photo of Zoey while she was napping. Life must be good!


Hey, did you notice my new blog look? I felt it was time for a change so I fiddled around with my blog template and came up with this.

Sewing Along

I made a little progress on this quilt this week. I lengthened the borders and then attached them to the central section.

Every time I look at this piece, I'm reminded of/or think of watermelons. I've kind of got two names going around in my head for this one so far. Watermelon Bubblegum and Watermelon Slices. I imagine one of these will stick more than the other by the time I'm done, hopefully. Or, perhaps another will sneak into my brain and tease me.

I think I want to add more to this quilt. I am thinking along the lines of some black and white fabrics and some more painted fabrics like in the center. I ran out of one of those paint colors though, but never fear, it should appear at my door today or tomorrow and then I can get some more painted up for this quilt.

Did you realize that Christmas is one week from today? Happy Weekend!