New Year's Resolution Quilts 1 & 2

I finished two bad luck quilts. The first one is called "If You Hand Someone Scissors, You Will Argue With Them Later". In my family, if someone needs a pair of scissors, you lay them on the table for them to pick up. It is bad luck to hand someone a pair of scissors. The background is foundation pieced. The scissors are needle turn applique. It is machine quilted. That bead in the middle of the scissors is actually a brad from the scrap book section. I punched a hole in the quilt and placed an eyelet there for the brad. This quilt is 100% from my stash. The big lesson I learned here is once you trim a quilt, you can't untrim it.

The second quilt is called, "Don't Spill the Salt". I think most people know that it is bad luck to spill salt. The background is hand pieced and the salt shaker is needle turn applique. The quilt is machine and hand quilted. And it is hand beaded. The big lesson I learned here is that you don't have to take things so literally. Actually, I think I may have known that. But I was reminded of that lesson in the quest for beads that look like salt. I had white beads that were too clear, or too big, or the wrong shape. I couldn't get them to work. I tried the pink beads just to see if they were the size I wanted, and really liked the effect. So I used them. There was no reason to use white beads. The only thing I bought for this quilt was the black thread for the salt shaker. The embroidery is too tiny for you to see how bad I am at french knots. I really like the back of this one. It has that whole "book of shadows" effect I was going for. Maybe I've seen one too many episodes of "Charmed".


On baby blanket front, I have 8 panels down and one to go. The only panel left is the center popcorn stitch panel. Yippee.

When You Assume...You Make a Blanket Out of Panels

I don't think I've been doing anything interesting to report on lately. I've just been doing what I do. I finished another background for my New Year's Resolution quilts. These are pretty much going to be applique quilts, and I've been putting the backgrounds together. I haven't decided how to bind the quilts. Whether they will be self bound like a pillow case or if I will apply binding. This is kind of a crucial decision because I can't do any quilting in the meantime. I only have one more background to put together, so I better make a decision soon.

I've also been working on a baby blanket. I know it looks like a scarf. But it is a fisherman's sweater pattern that is worked in panels which are then sewn together. Believe me, I didn't know that when I picked the pattern. I didn't bother to read it before I started working on it. I just assumed it was worked as one piece. I actually had the yarn tied on when I looked at the pattern and realized it was worked in panels. Now I have to pay attention to things like the gauge - which I never do. It's a blanket, who cares? I just crochet them until they are blanket sized. But now all of the panels will need to be the same size, so I'm actually going to have to pay attention to what I'm doing. Not to mention the sewing at the end. Yes, I'm that lazy. I actually thought about picking a different pattern, but I really like this one so I'm forging ahead.

That's it. See, I told you.

A Y-Seam Is Thing of Beauty That Is A Joy to Behold

I have two projects that will probably take 100 years to finish. One is my coffee quilt. It took 60 years to decide on a design, another 45 to pick out the fabrics, and I have been piecing it since the dawn of time. Not easy since I was only born in 1972. It is progressing so slowly because I get distracted by other projects and set the Coffee Quilt aside. I think I finished 3 or 4 other projects in the time I have been working on this one. But I recently picked it up again. I can't seem to get to my other projects because I just don't have time right now. The coffee quilt is hand pieced so I can work on it while the baby naps or plays or destroys the house. This is what I mean about hand work being easier. Kevin's quilt is waiting to be machine quilted and the foundation piecing needs to be completed on the Weeping quilt. I can't work on the machine AND watch the baby unroll the jumbo roll of toilet paper. The fabric for the artichoke quilt needs to be painted but there is no way I'm breaking out the paints while you-know-who is awake. So you see the advantage of hand piecing?

Anywho, the coffee quilt is made up of diamonds (it's a coffee quilt because of the colors). Originally it was going to be a traditional baby block quilt. I know. I don't know why it took so long to come up with that. I have about a bajillion bably blocks to sew. Here's what they look like put together:


This is going to seem weird to some people, but I really like Y-seams. They give me and odd sense of satisfaction. To me, this is a thing of beauty.


Then I got bored and started making blocks that look like this:


So who knows what the quilt is going to end up looking like. I'm kind of curious to see myself. The other 100 year quilt is from Jinny Beyer's book and it is blue. It is also hand pieced diamonds. I can't show you a picture becasuse the pieces are safely in their case, buried under a pile of stuff. If I pull the case out, I run the risk of the pile collapsing and being trapped under a pile of UFO's. Then the baby and the cats would take possession of the house.