I’ve made my plans and reservations to go to A New Tradition in Quilting workshop with Diane Gaudynski at the Museum in Paducah in the beginning of March. Three whole days of quilting with my quilting idol! Woohoo! Not to mention a whole week in the States with my buddy Dawn since she’s taking the class as well! I decided yesterday that it was probably time to really start looking at the supply list and order some things, as well as piece the sample quilt that we’ll be using in class.

I did finally load EQ6 after the holidays, and I used it to redraft a pattern that I found in a quilt calendar. Diane said this pieced wall quilt needed to have a 12″ light colored square in the middle, so I made this block 24″ total, then added 3″ borders. The pic you see here is an exported .jpg file from EQ6, and the export feature is much improved in this version. I used to have to take a snapshot of the quilt, paste it into a graphics editor and save it in the size I wanted. With EQ6, I can just do an export, and the program will ask what format to export to (.bmp, .jpg, .gif, .tiff, .png are the choices) and then I can tell it how big I want the picture, and what resolution. Sooo much better!

The pic of the quilt was easy, the piecing was painful. My own fault, obviously, since the thing has these diagonal seams that have to match up. It’s done though, Read the rest of this entry »

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Here’s where I am with the quilting on the UFO Dresden Plate quilt (click for a bigger pic!):

I’m almost done with the feather quilting around the plates, and I’m ready to start on either the sashing or the stippling between the plates and the feathers. In the planning stages, I thought I’d quilt a small diagonal grid in the sashing, to echo the larger grid that’s in another part of the quilt, but now I’m not so sure I’m happy with the way it looks. Too much thread on the quilt, I think, and I can’t figure out what to do with the green cornerstones either, not to mention how long it’s going to take. I’ve only done the one piece of sashing this way, so I can still do the frog stitch and try something else, but the question is, what do I do?

Anybody have any ideas for a design for the sashing? It measures 2″ wide and the longest piece is 14″ (they vary since there are half blocks and those sashing pieces are 2″ x 7″). HELP!

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I have these lovely throw pillows on my couch and loveseat. Not quilted ones, just your average throw pillows with feathers inside, some in burgundy and some in jade green. These are luscious fabrics, too; the burgundy ones are taffeta, and the green ones are (were) silk dupioni. Therein lies the rub: the silk dupioni is not exactly durable fabric. I bought these pillow covers at a department store two or three years ago. If I’d made them myself to begin with, I’d either have not used the dupioni fabric at all, or I’d have backed it with something to keep it from falling apart so soon.

Surely in my copious fabric stash there would be something the right color and style. And how hard could a couple of pillow covers be, anyway?

They’ve been coming apart at the seams, literally, for a couple of years and I’ve been diligently looking for more in just the right shade of green, without luck at all. Today when I was putting the living room back together after the Christmas decorations came down, I decided I was never going to find the right covers to replace these tattered things, so I needed to just make my own. Surely in my copious fabric stash there would be something the right color and style. And how hard could a couple of pillow covers be, anyway? I do know how to make clothing and home dec items, after all, I did plenty of that kind of thing before I ever made quilts.

It’s amazing what you forget with time though. Read the rest of this entry »

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