Happy Easter ~ Happy Spring. Its a freakin' white-out. No sunny blue skies this Easter. Almost all the snow had melted off of our lawn before it started snowing today. Not only that the north east wind we are getting has turned -10 into -18. We did have temperatures on the plus side of zero just a couple days ago.
I feel like a jinx. Yes, it's my fault its snowing because I've been playing with summer fabrics. Cutting out pieces of beautiful, bright blue fabrics to go with the summer designer prints I've been hoarding in my stash. Just yesterday I decided to take a break from cutting out to do a little sewing. Just wanted to add a sash to the yellow print to see what it would look like.
The blue panel blocks are a very irregular size so I used butcher wrap to cut out templates. Ever make templates and then have your ruler slip so that you ever so slightly nick off a portion of your template? Sigh. You would think fabric designers; specifically panel prints would take measurements into consideration. These blocks have a finished measurement of 10.75 x 10.75.
I almost can't believe it myself - the Decade Quilt is finished and lying on my bed! All hand quilted. I decided to quicken the process seeing as the backing I bought was 108" wide and I had plenty of fabric on all four sides: I trimmed the backing to 1 1/4" and pressed it in half and pressed it from front to back to create the seam binding. This I did not sew by hand. Although a tad bulky and awkward I managed to sew the seam binding in place. And the quilting frame has now been removed from my living room. Yay!
I have already picked out 7 or 8 blues from my fabric stash for a beach themed quilt - some actually look like water - to use with Summertime panel fabric by Denyse Klette for Elizabeth's Studio llc:
and two other patterned pieces by Mary Stewart for Elizabeth's Studio llc. that I forgot I even owned (the fruit ladies in blue and in yellow)!!
Aren't they a hoot? I only have half a yard of each of the fruit ladies fabric and can't see myself cutting these. Going to be tough coming up with a quilt design that gets the most out of these fabrics.
I think I should name the current quilt I'm working on, "The Decade Quilt" because I started it so very long ago. It is supposed to be for my bed so it was easy to put aside (and forget about) for years at a time! I cannot begin to count the number of baby quilts and gift quilts that I have made since I started the Decade Quilt. It started out by adapting a designer's collection of 2.5" pre-cut strips and finding complementary fabrics to go with it. The center piece was a pattern I found in a quilting magazine about 7 or 8 years ago called, "Wiggle Worms". As it suggests, it was a pattern for a child's size quilt. I enlarged it until I couldn't go any further and had to design around it with complementary fabrics so I could make it fit a queen size bed.
I decided 2018 was the year to get this bad boy finished so I've been pushing myself and finally reached the stage that I could make the 'quilt sandwich':
When there is not a table large enough and only one person to do the job, I find clearing a space on the floor is the easiest way to make the sandwich. Painter's tape really helps to pull the quilt backer fabric taut and keep it from sliding around while I smooth out the next two layers and use a couple hundred safety pins to keep everything pulled tight.
Now comes the part that may just take another decade ... this queen size quilt is too large to machine quilt so I'm going to have to hand quilt this puppy. Sigh. Wish me luck.
