End of June

Whoops!! I didn't mean the end of me, although I think that is coming pretty soon. No It's the end of the month of June. Half way through this year. Not too long ago I was wondering what this year would bring.

I have some more pictures today of my progress on the memorial quilt. I hope you won't get bored with what I'm doing, as I'll be working on this for some time. One is of a dresser scarf that my Grandmother, Mary Weiss did somewhere around the early 1930's. I never thought I would be using these precious pieces in this way. But, anyway, I made a copy of one of the motifs and put it on a patch for the Memorial Quilt. I had a heck of a time trying to find the right color of fibers to use. I wound up with Needle and Neccesities (Orange) and DMC for the green. I have not really worked with #5 perle that much, but that is what was used on the scarf, so I wanted to keep it as close to the original as I could. I think the orange is a little dark, but then I guess you have to take in consideration fading over the years.

After I do some more seam treatments I want to do a fan. that should be interesting. anyway, let's see where these pictures turn up in this blog. I hope at the end. I need to find out how to place the pictures where you want them. Another project.

Another Patch

As I was working on this patch, I've learned several things which I will tell you about in a minute. First I want to tell you about this patch. In my Mother's house there was always a vase with silk flower red poppies, wheat and blue cornflowers. One day she told me that they reminded her of the fields where she used to live in Germany. And when we were on a trip up the Rhine river I saw such a field. I could see why they had made such and inpression on her. So in memory of my Mother I stitched this patch and decided that I would call this a Memorial quilt rather than a whole quilt. Didn't know exactly what to call it before, but memorial seems to fit it rather nicely.

Some things I've learned while working this patch.

1. This has always confused me as to what you call this little piece of fabric. So now I have it straight. The whole piece is called a block and the small pieces in it are a patch.

2. I think that when working the satin stitch as a filler, silk floss lies better than cotton floss to fill in the area.

3. Perle cotton looks better when doing the leaf stitch than cotton floss.

One thing for sure I will be learning a lot of things while doing this. I'm going to make up some 8" blocks to work on and then attach them to the foundation muslin. I think that will be easier then trying to hold on to all this fabric while stitching. So here is a picture of my latest patch. I hope you like it.

More on the whole quilt

Ok Here goes, I hope these pictures will be in the right order. I've spent the last 4 days working on this. The ideas just seem to keep coming. I was in a slump there for awhile. Anyway, This first picture with the paisley is from Martha Stewart Living latest issue. I just loved the design and it was easy to stitch. It's amazing where you can find inspiration.

The second picture has a couple of new seam embellishments. The picture that is pinned on the black patch is something I'm playing with. I'll tell more about that when I get it finished.

And the last is a motif from "Motifs for Crazy Quilting by J. Marsha Michler.

So there are my accomplishments for this week.

I hope you like them

Start of Memorial Quilt

Ok! I'm off on the Memorial quilt. this is just a start,

most of this is just pinned in place. I think I can soften the square lines., as I don't want that blocky look. I'm waiting on some more fabric from Thread Art. For some reason it's stuck in Houston while they check the origin of the package?? What ever that means, since Thread Art is located in Cypress, TX. Very Annoying. Don't they know their holding up progress here. I ordered some gold dupioni, I think I will use alot of that.

Anyway, I just wanted to get a start on this to see if I could do it. I have to get busy and do the blocks to send to my girls who are helping me with this. I've done some pieces with motifs on them that I will add in as I go. So we'll see what happens. I forgot to mention the the purple heart in the middle is a free design from "Bird Brain Designs" (NAYY) but Robin and Tina do some wonderful patterns in redwork and wool felt. Some of you may have seen them at the different sewing and craft shows as they travel the US with their wares. This month Robin has a wonderful dragonfly in her free design. Their site addy is www.birdbraindesigns.net I attended their first retreat last year and had a wonderful time. Hope to get back to do that again in the future. I'll post more as I go and perhaps post pictures of some of the motifs I've done.

I have to keep looking at this as one piece at a time, or I'll never get it finished. So I hope you will keep checking back to watch and comment on my progress.