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It is officially my favorite day of the year! The first day the peonies bloom. Last year it happened on May 28, so it looks like my garden is about 10 days earlier than usual due to a very mild winter and spring.
The irises are blooming as well.
I wish I could say that my garden always looks great, but the truth is that it only looks good for about a week in the spring. This is the week!
Like any other industry, there are many apps targeted toward quilters. What apps on my phone do I use most for quilting? Not the ones designed for quilters. The two I use most often:
1. The Sirius Satellite Radio app. While quilting on my longarm I listen to Sirius and many different podcasts.
2. The flashlight app. Why? Because it is dark under my quilting frame, and I want to check on the stitches on the back of the quilts that I am working on.
Since I almost always have my phone on me (see #1), it is very easy to turn on the flashlight and check underneath to make sure my tension and stitches are still complying to my wishes.
This is what I see when I crouch down and peer underneath the quilt. (Although the flashlight isn’t actually on here, because my camera flash was enough light to see what was going on.)
I am pretty sure the inventors of the flashlight app did not envision illuminating quilting stitches to be one of its uses!
Do any of you use the apps that are really designed for quilting??
Remember back in January when I started making string blocks because I did not know what else to do with myself? Well it is now four months later and Strung Along is finished. She sure did string me along for a few months to see if I would end up liking her or not. I do, especially now that she is quilted.
Strung Along by Timna Tarr
Strung Along detail
I am not done with strings. I have a new string quilt in mind that I will get started on tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Two of my friends and Round Robin members, Ann Feitelson and Ronna Erickson, occasionally make quilts together. For the last few years their collaborative quilts have been finalists in the American Quilter’s Society’s “New Quilts from an Old Favorite” contest. The 2012 contest theme was Baskets. Ann and Ronna came up with a stunner, Basket Weave. You can read their process in the book Baskets: New Quilts From an Old Favorite.
Basket Weave by Ann Feitelson & Ronna Erickson
Well, Ann did not have baskets out of her system, so she made another quilt. She is right now in the middle of quilting it.
Basket WeaveII by Ann Feitelson
Ann auditions many, many blocks for her pieces, which means she often has many, many blocks left over. After Basket Weave II, she had 114 extra baskets and was kind enough to let me take them home. It was so much fun to play with beautiful blocks that were already constructed. The hard part was done! This is what I came up with. A little quilt that is about 36″x41″.
Basket Weave III by Ann Feitelson & Timna Tarr
I am now going to pass the quilt top back to Ann for her to do with as she wishes. There are still 24 basket blocks left over. Maybe there will be a fourth basket quilt??
This is completely my own speculation, but perhaps the first graduate thesis on the Modern Quilt Guild and the modern quilting movement has just been written. Ellen Rushman did a fantastic job of compiling the thoughts of many different women involved in modern quilting. I was one of the women interviewed, but I won’t tell you my pseudonym. You will have to read the paper and figure it out for yourself.
I spent the last two days at a workshop taught by one of my favorite quilters, Gwen Marston. The topic was Liberated Log Cabins. Gwen’s teaching style is exactly the style that works for me – she showed us some of her quilts, did some short technique demonstrations throughout the two days, and just let everyone get to work. Gwen was great about circulating around the room to help, critique, or just encourage people along.
Gwen left some of her quilts up on the wall for inspiration.
The workshop did start with a minor hiccup. We were evacuated due to a gas leak in the building, but found refuge in a restaurant across the street for a couple of hours. You have never seen a bunch of quilt ladies grab their purses and move so quickly as when they are yelled at to “leave the building immediately”.
I made one small top that I am happy with. It is about 11″x14″.
And some blocks that I am not so happy with. I will play with them some more and see what I can do with them. All in all a successful weekend.
My daughter, S., spent the night at my parents’ house a couple of days ago. While there, she and Grandma made a quilt. S. picked out the fabrics, arranged the layout, sewed the pieces with the old treadle machine, and hand quilted some bold stitches. Today I helped her put the binding on (using a newfangled electric sewing machine).
She really liked ironing.
Finally I asked her a few questions. She requested editorial approval, as she did not trust that I would transcribe her answers correctly.
Did you like making the quilt?
It was…good. And not that fun.Did you like doing it with Grandma?
Yeah.Did you like doing it with Mom?
Naaah.What was your favorite part?
My favorite part was sewing the blocks together.Is there anything else you would like to say about your quilt?
I like it. I don’t love it.Is there anything else you would like to say about quilting?
Quilting is boring. You have to sew where the blue line is. You have to take out the pins. You have to push it down when there’s bumps. I shouldn’t have made it so long. It should be shorter. I should have done a pattern. Blue, purple, blue, purple. In my experience, wanting to change what you have just completed is the genesis of the next quilt. That’s ok with me as long as Grandma is supervising.
Quilting is underway on the string quilt. I think I like this quilt again.
It’s baby season again, and time for a little quilt for a new baby girl. I did not know she was a girl when I made the quilt, so it was fun to keep the quilt gender neutral. I started with one Moda charm pack, but what was I thinking, that is not enough fabric for a quilt. (Actually I know what I was thinking….I had my daughter and husband with me so I grabbed a pack that I liked so we could move along quickly, and I did not think about quantity). I added in some of my stash fabrics and I think the results are fun and cheery.
Who doesn’t love a zebra print on the back?
| © Copyright 2012 Timna Tarr, Q Tailored Quilts. All Rights Reserved. |
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