Success and .... delayed success

Exciting weekend!  We went to a small (and very specialized) fabric store this past Saturday: Batiks Galore.    http://www.batiksgalore.com/  is their website - check it out! They specialize in batiks, obviously.  :) 

It's a fabulous place, out in the middle of... well, not nowhere, but on county roads south of our area.  We spent lots of time hoping they had signs!  (They did).  The store is on the owner's ranch, just a little building a little distance from the house.  They have a quilt retreat location too, for those who are interested....  They could not have been nicer to us, let us roam, touch, fondle and pull fabrics left and right!  And I took pictures of their alpacas (yup, they raise alpacas, too!), but those didn't turn out very well.  I admit, I've never been to a quilt store with alpacas... cats?  yes.  dogs?  sure!  But alpacas are new for me!  There were other beasties out there - a mule (donkey? ugh.  I never remember the difference), a couple of horses... but alpaca!  Now I have an urge to make an alpaca quilt.  Or something.  I'll have to think about that.



Sea Glass block - my test piece



It was a great place, with fabulous fabric, so of course I got all the fabric I needed for my next quilt - which is currently going under the name "Sea Glass."  It MIGHT wind up being a stained glass quilt... we'll see.  I haven't decided yet. 





Sunday I got up late, turned my eyes and scissors to Sea Glass, got all the pieces cut out, and started piecing.  For once, I remembered chaining, and managed to get almost all the pieces put together on only 1 bobbin of thread!  I am halfway done with piecing the last seam on the blocks, and after that... sew the blocks together and I will have a completed top!  I bought enough extra fabric that I can piece together a back for it, and then worry about finishing it up....

I would like to get this one done so I have a nice finished quilt to show at the next class.  Hopefully I can teach the students this block and chaining and all sorts of interesting things.  (I may do another sample block in polka dots... just because).

On the delayed success front.... I fought Sugar Skulls to a standstill.  We were getting along fine.  And then the backing freaked out on me, bunched up, and didn't want to co-operate with quilting.  So... looks like I will be picking the stitching out and starting over with the quilting.  It upset me, because I honestly thought all the trials were over with that one!  (But, I haven't given up... it's just currently a UFO.  I'll go back to it soon-ish.... after I finish Little Moo... or something). 

But really, Sea Glass makes up for the delayed success of Sugar Skulls, so it was a good weekend!  (Not to mention we got rain, I got chores done, and even got to sleep in some!).

Friday already?!

Work has been ridiculously busy as of late!  Hopefully it will calm down some... however, that's no excuse for not working in the forge.  So last night I did!

Tackled Sugar Skulls last night, trying to get it to co-operate.  It's still fighting, but I think I might have it mostly tamed.  (Not quite saddle-broken yet, but willing to work with me?  Don't ask me where all these westerny metaphors are coming from....)  I've jazzed up Sugar Skulls with some flowers, because decorating altars and graves with flowers is also part of the Day of the Dead.  Each flower is appliqued using a different decorative stitch - just because I could.

From here, it's a matter of putting on the borders - for which I've chosen purple.  I stitched the flowers down with a variegated purple thread to help tie them all together.  Hopefully tonight I can get in the forge again and get the borders on, and then... then... start quilting?  Wow.  I'm going with a high loft batting this time, mostly so the skulls stand out in sharp relief.  Since this is pretty much a test piece, I'm not TERRIBLY concerned.  I will be doing a Sugar Skulls 2.0 sometime after... but there's already a line of quilts waiting in the wings.

Tomorrow, a trip to a store that specializes in batiks (squee!) to get fabric for a stained glass quilt, and then... home for measuring and cutting and so on and so forth....

For now, work, and measuring and cutting and planning... oh, the planning.

D and I are taking a trip soon-ish, to Mena, Arkansas.  Why?  Because there's a gorgeous little cabin there, and we have never been!  I can't think of a better reason, really!  There will be pictures, and quilt shops, and all sorts of things.  And D's parents checking on the house, forge, and cats while we're gone.

In random other insect observations... I know there's a lot of news about West Nile.  I know people have died from it, and that stinks.  D gets eaten up by mosquitos... they don't seem to like my taste much, though.  I hope that West Nile goes off soon - its peak, I believe I heard, was August and September, so we'll see.  I go out and water the little fruit trees right now, since the moquitos hang out in that part of the yard.  In the meantime, it's actually cooled down enough for the cicadas to start their mating songs.  The yellow jackets are still building nests, no matter how many times we knock them down!  Does anyone know what yellow jackets eat?  Are they actually GOOD for anything?  (I know they've got to be, but...)

Shay

Too Long Between Posts!

It's been a week already?!  Wow....

This weekend I was a traveling quilter - I went to see family on the other side of the state.  Much enjoyment was had, we had really tasty Tex-Mex food, and so forth.  And I got to do some open road driving. 

I love open road driving.  I like to drive.  I am a much better driver than passenger!  (I get bored easily).  So a trip that gets me out and away is a wonderful thing.

Apparently there are other people who feel the same way!  I saw this trailer out on the open road, somewhere in the middle of Texas.  It was brightly painted on all sides, but this is the only clear picture I could get safely.  What you don't see is the semi behind this trailer, next to me!

The other reason I like driving?  Going through the Texas Hill Country.  It's so beautifully wide open, with so much sky.  Not that there isn't sky in the city, but it's different.  More space, fewer people...  It's such a beautiful sight.  And very inspiring - my goal for myself - catch that spirit and that feeling in a quilt.  I don't know that I can do it, but I sure intend to try!  It's not just the color and the space - it's in the air, really.

So that was MY weekend.  D stayed home and worked on her quilt.  She's a lot further ahead now!  I can't wait to see the finished topper.

My sister handed over a quilt top she made several years ago for me to quilt.  Fortunately, there's no time limit, although I do want to get it back to her in a timely manner.  It feels wrong not to!  She is my sister, after all! 


My Sugar Skulls quilt is fighting me - it isn't coming together the way I want it to.  But I am not giving up.  I will defeat it!!  :) 

Shay

Anvil #1

I was gifted this little leatherworker's anvil some time ago.  It seems an appropriate thing to put in the quilt forge. 

Isn't it cute?  I hope to have more anvils out there soon.... if anyone knows where I can get a full-sized one to put in the corner and drape a quilt and hammer over, I'd love to know!

In the meantime, I am working on a pincushion shaped like an anvil.  I think I know how to do it.  Now it's just a matter of giving it a try!

Oh, and I finally got all the skulls cut out for Sugar Skull.  I guess that means this weekend I should start laying them out and sewing them back together again! 

I also was be-thumped by another quilt idea: since all of my grandparents' generation is now gone, I spent some time remembering what it was like at their homes over the years.  Combine that with a nice toasty summer, and lo and behold, another quilt. 

My grandparents moved a lot - fixing up houses, selling them for a profit, buying another one, repeat.... but they had two houses that I remember very well.  Both were in the country, with large pieces of land.  On one piece of land my grandfather and father built the house.  It's still there, by the way.  But the other thing the houses had in common, other than their rural nature, was the type of trees.  They both had pine trees.  My grandparents lived sort of on the edge of the Big Piney, in East Texas.  Whenever we would go visit them, there were certain things that always seemed to hold true: the sound of the hot summer wind in the pine trees, the sound of cicadas, and the sound of blue jays.

That is summer in Texas to me: pine trees, cicadas, and blue jays.  Where I live now doesn't have pine trees, but it has the other two.  So there's another quilt building in my mind; I have a rough sketch, and by Monday should have more than that!