Quilt made a visit

Our next door neighbor popped by yesterday with her 2 year old daughter in the stroller. It seems that Sadie, now quite a talker, is quite partial to the quilt she had with her. "See, it has my name," she reported, flipping it to the heart-shaped label on the back.

"I know," was my reply, "I put it there when you were born."

Flag in sunshine and shaddow

Talk about cutting it close. I finished this one, after having it in the frame for most of the year, on the morning of July 4. This one is a stretch for me. I don't own many of these countrified, "browned", homespun sorts of fabrics, and I'd never pushed the limits f what would read as a light before. Just goes to show that maroon on cream is "white" if you try hard enough.

The design comes from a very old book of patriotic quilts that I bought used.

About 3.5' x 4.5'

Learned something today

Reversable binding--see: www.thequiltshow.com/os/blog.php/blog_id/3901

I don't tend to make reversable quilts, but she also shows a way of using your binding as your label which is worth tucking away in the back of your mind too. Thanks, Sharon Pederson!

great rolled edge on serger

I'm making a dress for an upcoming formal dinner. The fabric is a very slinky, stretchy synthetic knit so one has to think long and hard about how to finish the sleeves and hem. I decided to use a serged, rolled hem using wooly nylon on my overlocker.

In the construction of the dress I used quite a bit of clear swimsuit elastic in the serged seams (worked great!). No gaps in the cross-over neckline, no stretched shoulder seams etc. The instructions didn't call for it but it might have been hopeless without it.

So now it is time to roll the hems. On a practice piece I found everything was working correctly except that I was getting a slightly wavy result (not what I wanted). So I tried a test using a thin strip of water soluble stablizer beneath the fabric. Fantastic result. Fed really well and the rolled hem is flat.

By the by, I had thought I'd do some of the construction on my sewing machine. I put in a fine ball point needle and couldn't get it to cooperate. It stiched perfectly on a woven cotton sample piece but was skipping stitches like mad when I tried the jersey. I gave up and constructed the dress entirely on the overlocker. Anyone with an explanation is encouraged to speak up.

Queensland Dreaming in Tasmania

My former work colleague Cath recently had twins. She lives in Tasmania these days and was able to take a snapshot of the quilt I sent to her which is now in situ in the babies' room.

This rather wild outing is called Queensland Dreaming.

Lone Star in progress

I'm taking a class at Smith & Owen on Lone Star quilts. I've picked up a few great techniques (particularly a way of doing Y seams that is much better than most I've seen) and had fun working with batiks.

I bought the book on little Lone Stars , too.

Tulips and Lemons

Another Piece of Cake design turned up in a magazine while all the applique supplies are still out in the studio, so I used some fabrics that went into a recent quilt (that one I designed a few years back but they are similar in some respects). Might turn into a table topper.



Now I'm preping for another class (on a Lone Star), and I've decided to use batiks, so "now for something completely different!"