This is the quilt that is keeping me from starting my next project. It is about 37" wide and 44" high. I'm using my DM and putting lots of quilting on it which my body can only take for short spurts. Progress is slow. Also, my camera is still doing the blurry on some settings, so this picture is sharp, but the color is pretty good. Can you see the basting pins?
This close-up shows a bit of detail in one part that is finished.
The last picture is one flower my late-blooming amaryllis. Wanda's post reminded me to take a picture. There are two stalks, and the second one has yet to come fully into bloom, but this one has four massive flowers, each more than 7" across. It is totally amazing, considering I did everything wrong caring for it so it would even grow.
Back to the sewing machine... well, I have to buy groceries first. Life getting in the way of quilting - again!
Thanks for the comments and ideas about what to do with my circular Mariner's Compass. Julie sent me a few ideas, but it was this brief comment in her email that set my brain in motion: "or a setting sun with most of the sky above it filled with quilting..." and at that, I was opening my graphic arts program, importing the photo of this round flimsy, and playing.
This is what I came up with... and now am so excited to get it made. Of course it will need lots of quilting to define the water, and the colors are not right. I've some fabrics in my stash but may need more... hmm, challenges!
We have a large wall in our walkout that will be perfect for it. The top is 36" in diameter, so this one will be large! Thanks again, Julie, for that spark of an idea!
These days have been busy with many things, but I am quilting another UFO and it seems to be taking forever. Lots of thread, but I'm liking the results. No photo yet.
So here is a photo of another project. It is from a class and rather ordinary in the choices of colors and fabrics. I want to do something to make it more interesting. I could add beads, or maybe set it in an unusual way. I've sketched all sorts of possibilities, including a sling that holds it suspending like a big ball. This is sitting in my UFO bin because I'm feeling a bit brain-dead about it.
If anyone has any ideas, or links to another way to set a circle besides the ordinary methods, I'd love to see them. Or maybe some sort of addition or color surprise that makes this more snappy. The paper-piecing made the points perfect, but I'm looking for distinctive. Even ideas for off-the-wall ways to quilt it would be helpful. Challenging is okay!
After some fiddling, I took a new photo of DJ Edgy Friends and put it in the previous post to replace the fuzzy one. I also did a retake on the postcard landscape and will put it here so you can see the difference fuzz makes! It shows up most when you double-click and look at the mountains.
Finally this UFO is finished. I have to make a label, the easiest part, but other than that, it is finally done. The photo is blurry, something my camera has decided to do no matter the settings, so I need to get out the instruction book.
Anyway, I started it about the fall of 2004, got stalled, but decided no more quilts until this baby is done. There are nine DJ blocks (4 and 5 of two patterns), the four corners in the original DJ design, and all 52 triangles, only in two basic colors. I quilted it with swirls that are like the swirls in the darker fabric, not realizing it until after doing a few, and did basic outline/echo around the pieces in the triangles. The binding went on machine on front, by hand on the back because of that angled edge. Oh, I am happy!
After all the encouraging comments from the last post, I decided to read it again and realized how muddled it was. Sigh. The photo is the Dear Jane queen-size quilt that I completed a few years ago. The quilting on it is perfect because I sent it out and it was done by computer/long arm -- and it cost a bundle so it should be perfect!
A triangle border normally goes around a Dear Jane, but I didn't put them on mine. However, I decided to make them, all 52 of them. They are now done, but in different colors than this DJ quilt and in a setting and quilt all of their own. I'm calling it "Dear Jane and Her Edgy Friends." It is about 60+ inches square, sort of. If you go back a few posts, there are some pictures. It is two colors and I did a good job of the triangles. The quilting on it is what I'm not happy with. I did part on my HQ 16 and part on my DM (the detailed work in the triangles). It has taken so long, and I just want it done. It had been in my UFO pile for too long, causing lots of procrastination. So I determined to do nothing else until it is finished. Sigh... only 25 more triangles to quilt and then the binding and label.
Thanks to all for the cheerful and encouraging comments. It is great to be a quilter (even when I wish I could wrinkle my nose and this one would magically be totally completed!)
Since I've been busy quilting Dear Jane and Her Edgy Friends and not posted for ages, here is a photo of my Dear Jane with the 169 blocks. As you can see, I didn't lay it out or make it in the traditional manner. This works for our spare room queen bed.
I thought maybe I'd do another one sometime, but now that the border triangles are done (didn't put them on the first one) and the resulting top is being quilted, that might be abandoned. This pattern seems to take forever. So does the quilting, partly because I'm putting lots of stitches on it. I'm not happy with my workmanship, but that is what seeing computer quilting does to you... perfection, no skipped stitches, etc. After beating myself up and suffering from green-eyed monster bites, I've decided that the Dear Jane slogan is correct after all: Finished is Better than Perfect! I can live with that.
