Analyzing

I have been analyzing my quilt and my work area. There is always room for improvement.

I remember this top. It was a pattern that has a cut, sew, recut and turn all about and resew. Not doing those any more!!! It is well nigh impossible to control what goes where. So I spend the time saved ripping! I'm very happy putting patches in place and then walking back and forth to sew and keep things as best I can where they should be. But the most frustrating thing is the chopping off of corners. I can clip off points rather easily without actually doing them on purpose. :(

Then there are all the bias edges which if you look at the edge of the first picture of the quilt are significant. So significant I decided to remove some excess surgically. It would have been easier before I basted but I figured the grief of the puckers would be more than the discomfort of the operation. Aghhh!

Then I did my primary quick basting around the perimeter to see how flat it would be. Not too bad. I always use straight pins on the edge because I always do the edge first and it is quick and easy with relatively no loss of blood! ;^)

I also shifted my sewing cabinet to the side for better positioning. Nina's bed is flush with the cutting table. Then I dragged up the leaf on the table to get some more level surface on my left. My cutting mat makes for better sliding. I'll be getting the Rooster to help come up with a more permanent and larger work area sometime in the future.

I did end up putting my stool under the quilt that hung down as I feed the quilt. I think the ideal is a large square work surface with a cut out on the corner for standing. That would be just about perfect.

But that might take a bit more analyzing and I need to just quilt right now!

The B word

Yesterday's errands had me kinda frustrated with a lot of the traffic and construction in the city. But a 'mid course correction' made me stop and grab my camera. I AM supposed to be taking more photos. Winnipeg has some very lovely tree lined streets. The trees are fighting disease and environmental hazards but a view from the higher buildings shows lots of lovely green spaces. The canopy on this street said, Whoa, stop and sniff the crisp fall air! Breathe deeply and relax!

I was particularly searching for specialty threads and art supplies. Some for me and some for the grandkiddies! Didn't do well on finding thread but I did see another possible store on my way out for next time. I need to save up more money for paint sticks and I see they also carry the new pan pastels.

I joined the homeward hustle, picked up my stuff for the Monday quilt group and hustled right off to our bee. Lots of show and tell from the spirals class and the bird challenge. I forgot my bird challenge at home and totally forgot about using my camera. We basted one of my quilts and a couple of others.

This morning I found a dusting of the white stuff. BRRR

So for a good warm up I got the next quilt ready for basting.

I had friends for lunch and while I stirred the soup, they basted! It was a good trade.

I showed them the leftovers from the French Chicken quilt but with more blues. It is smaller and I should do it at the same time as it will use similar threads.

And that brings us up to date and ready for Wednesday's reveal

Comfort Quilt

I have all the triangles sewn for this comfort quilt. It is five feet by six feet, a good lap size.

I used a Hoffman floral, some of the scenic backing fabric which has horses, lots of green tone on tones and lots of blue tone on tones. To keep things casual I used some plaids and checks. I wanted a denim and green woods theme.

The backing is a scenic print with horses. Backing needs a good seam that is pressed open. The scenes run right along the selvage which I needed to trim off because I purposely have not washed this fabric. I do want some shrinkage to get a nice puckery effect but I don't want that selvage pulling up.
I decided to match the water ways more than the horses.

I am going to outline every triangle so I pinned inside every triangle.

I'll have one grand child for a few days and then the other but I do hope to make lots of progress as it is pretty straight forward quilting once I decide on my thread.