Thursday on the Anvil

Hey, look at that!  Stuff actually done - totally completed and all!   Here's a hopefully halfway decent shot of Isaac's Storm, complete, bound, and hanging out with a quilt my Great-Aunt made for me years ago.  Hooray done! 

Managed to finish it late last night, but too lazy to find good light and take pics.  I need a better camera, quite frankly!  And to get my picture-taking set up finished.  Maybe this weekend, in the ridiculous Texas heat!

However, the Texas heat has also let me get this done:  here's a relative close-up of one of the two bluejay appliques for Texas Bluejay Summer.  He's pretty, isn't he? (Excsue the weird color on the background fabric... that's not so good...)  I'm remarkably proud of the duo of birdies, and can't wait to get this one on Middie Frank so I can quilt some heat waves into it and bind it and - hooray! - have another one done! 

 I spent a few minutes this afternoon after the day job piecing the back of the quilt - because I'm just like that, so it's all ready to go.  Just have to load up Frankie, and away we'll go!  Oh, yeah, and here's a shot of the whole top I took this afternoon, too.  Yeah, I need a better camera!

At any rate, there's the Thursday on the Anvil update!  It's nice and steamy, like a forge should be.  So, back to hammering out the next quilt.

Oh, but before I go.  I got to thinking while I was pressing seams (like I tend to do... my brain wanders).  Why do I quilt?  It's a question I want to ask the people who attend the first quilting class, so I should have an answer.  I have several, and have heard several in various areas... all of which are valid.  For me, it boils down to this: I can't paint, nor can I draw.  I CAN, however, get images from my head onto a quilt correctly.  It is the only medium I have discovered where the finished product IS what I see in my head.  Plus, I just can't seem to stop!

In the process of following this train of thought, my brain said "Oh, and besides... it's a useful skill to have come the zombie apocalypse.  People will still need bedding, and it would be a handy skill to barter!"  ... ...  Sometimes my brain makes me wonder. 

And now I am planning out a zombie apocalypse quilt....

*sigh*

Eh.  Back to the forge!

Shay

Boston Molasses Flood

As promised, here is the alternate color way for Isaac's Storm, called Boston Molasses Flood.  (Actually, BMF came first, but it's still being quilted.  Yay for hand quilting?)  This is an up close and slightly wonky shot of the quilting - since it's all about the Boston Molasses Flood (ew!) that sent a wave of molasses through parts of Boston in 1929 (If I remember correctly).  It may have happened in January, but the wave moved fast and struck hard. 

Other than that, it's Monday.  Which means work.  I have a migraine and really want to be at home sound asleep, medicated... but not today.  Too much work to do!  Maybe I can leave early... I hope.  If not, so be it!

Sunday Finish Line (Almost, Anyway)

Today was a day of finishing things (or getting close, anyway).  Yesterday was spent rampaging around East Texas, hitting estate sales and quilt shops with abandon.  Some success was had, and some non-success.  Got ignored at a quilt shop by two employees.  Completely ignored except for a glance up at us.  Really?  Are we too young??  Eh.  We didn't buy fabric there.  Bought it elsewhere, where the clerks were nice and said hello and such.  No big loss, really.  Found some lovely material for D's next quilt - she's designed one of sea life, and found the perfect material for the background.  Hooray!

So today D. worked on the sealife while I finally got a quilt on the mid-arm (my Middie Frank) and got busy.  Mind, this is my FIRST quilt on Frank.  It's definitely a learning experience!  But I could tell that by the end of it I was already more skilled than when I began, so that is very gratifying!  Here they are, Isaac's Storm and Middie Frank, hanging out together.  Oh, and look!  Scissors!  (I can NEVER find them when I need them.  I think I own a dozen pair, and STILL lose them all the time!).

So after four hours of standing and sewing with Middie Frank, Isaac was complete!  Hooray!  Except... I forgot the binding.  And don't have enough of the wave border fabric to make binding.  So... that will have to wait until tomorrow.  But that's okay.  I actually got work done, and ALMOST finished!

It's uneven in places, but here's a close-up of my very first attempt at Middie Frank.  Since this is Isaac's Storm (named after the book of the same name about the Galveston, TX hurricane of 1900), I thought I would quilt a spiral - the whole hurricane/cyclone thing.  It went PRETTY well.  Some of my arcs are a little flat, and some of them twitched a little, but since it's my first go, and I am not entering Isaac into competition, I am not concerned.  I finished a quilt on Frank!  That alone makes me almost giddy!

Tomorrow will be working on Texas Blue Jay Summer.  All I lack are the bluejays... they are in progress, and when I have them done, I will show them off!  I promise!  And I need to get a good pic of the other colorway for Isaac's Storm up, because of the OTHER thing I almost finished!

My first pattern is done, complete, printed, and so forth!  It's actually for Isaac's Storm, and I am hoping to get it to distributors soon.  So wish me luck!  (I don't expect to get rich, but it would be nice to have some patterns out there that are recognizably ME).

Thursday on the Anvil

Yesterday I promised pictures, so here they are!

This is Isaac's Storm - so named after the Galveston, TX hurricane of 1900 that killed approximately 10,000 people.  Yes.  10,000.  It's a matter of chaos, really... no one had ever encountered a hurricane quite like that one, and it was considered to be just another storm.  Obviously, it was not.

The title of the quilt comes from the book of the same name about the hurricane.  It's a good read, if disturbing, and I highly recommend it. 

There will be a pattern of this one for sale - along with another colorway or three....  :)  We're getting all the pesky details finalized right now.

Here is Texas Daycare.  Moo!  A little longhorn in his field, keeping company with the tree and the prickly pear.  To me, this is a good part of Texas, despite the fact that I grew up in San Antonio, where the nearest longhorns were a ways north in the Hill Country.  His pattern, too, is almost complete. 

Texas Daycare will be the first in the Texas series of quilts.  Mind, none of them are flag-waving, look-it's-the-Alamo, God-bless-Texas kinds of quilts.  They are each an aspect of Texas, a special small slice that covers PART of the Lone Star State.

Sugar Skulls is going to be second in that series, and it's to that end that I am working so hard to get all the skulls cut out and pieced back together. 




So there's the newest designs on the anvil.  For a Thursday update, not too shabby!