Pieceful Moments: April 2008

Friday, April 25, 2008

Tend and Befriend

Have you read that men and women handle stress differently? That doesn't come as any surprise to me! Men often respond with the 'fight or flight' method; women with the 'tend and befriend'. We want to nurture; give and receive support and encouragement and be there for each other. I get a good dose of that when I'm part of a Sew Day. No wonder I want Sew Days every other week!

Connie and Rosy came over, brought their handwork or their featherweight and we talked the day away.

I'd like to say this is a picture of Connie advising Rosy on the best way to take a quilting stitch when in fact we were all trying to figure out how to send a digital picture on Rosy's cell phone! I teased them about Sewing Bees in the past being a good place for women to share recipes and childcare advice, *now* look at us!

Connie's mini baskets

I spent most of the time trimming the HST's for the border on my Star Struck quilt. They're going to finish at 1-3/8" (!) and I decided that was just too small to use in a Sawtooth. And while I really like blue, this border audition said too much blue.

So at this point I plan on making a single row of pyramids, with the light or medium blue on the left so it looks like they're lit from the west. The following border will be a 30's yellow print, then bind with blue. It's amazing how different the actual layouts looked compared to the EQ drafts. EQ helps visualize ideas, but there's nothing like the real thing.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Lupin and Wine Barrels

One of the views during our neighborhood walk Sunday, in between April showers. :cD

Click to enlarge

Monday, April 21, 2008

President's Block 2008

My guild makes friendship blocks to thank the guild President for her year of service. Since we're the Ladies of the Lake Quilt guild, it only makes sense that the Lady of the Lake block is often chosen.

Where are my sunglasses? This thing is bright!

Successful Bishop Fan Quilting

The Nine Patch quilt is quilted, bound and labeled. It feels so great to follow this one through without any down time or distractions. Less really is more sometimes! It's going to the local Christian school's annual Dinner fund-raiser auction. Filed the paperwork this morning.

Click to enlarge

I found this great way to mark the fans. It came from a magazine back in the early 90's but I clipped it and knew *some* day I'd use this method.

These are the tools I used. A white chalk pencil, an eyebrow pencil to sharpen without a lot of breakage, a set of *washable* Crayola felt tips pens and a piece of plastic canvas. I decided how wide I wanted the arches on the fan and counted the number of holes on the canvas to match, in this case ten each.

Work from the bottom corner of your quilt. Pin the plastic canvas to the corner, angling the pin head away from the area to be marked. Place your chalk pencil or washable felt tip in the first hole the width you want your first arch, in my sample - 10. Hold the marking tool in the hole as you pivot the plastic canvas, creating the first arch. Return the plastic canvas to the starting point, move your marking tool to the next arch distance, in my sample - 20 and pivot again. Repeat until you have the desired number of arches. In the Ninepatch I used seven arches.

Mark arches across the bottom of the quilt. The next row begins with the pivot point of the plastic canvas in the valley created by the previous two sets of arches. Continue marking until your entire top is covered. Don't worry about partial arches or incomplete sets of arches, just let them fall where they will. Easy!

Since this was a learning piece I tried three different machine quilting styles. Free motion with the darning foot and feed dogs down, free motion with the darning foot and feed dogs up and the walking foot. Each one was a slight improvement on the previous approach. I finished it with the walking foot and it looked really good. The curves are gentle enough to follow and I didn't wobble on the line.