Bloggers' Quilt Festival (#2 Tranquility)

I posted this tee-shirt memory quilt in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side. At the time I was thinking that I needed to post a recent quilt. Geez, you'd think I could think. Nope.

So anyway, choosing a second quilt was a little difficult. I like every one I make. Some more than others, of course. Tranquility is one of those more-than-others quilt. 

Lots of things about the quilt surprised me: the lime green worked, the background that looks different from my expectations, and my crazy, changing quilting motifs. Some of the motifs I came up with on the fly, right out of my own little head! 

All of it works so well, it's startling. I've promised myself I'll make another of these. (Maybe I should display it so I don't forget.) You can read more about Tranquility here.

    

	Quilt Stats
	Name:	Tranquility
	Size:	55 X 60
	Fabrics:	Scrap fabrics from stash
	Background:	Kona taupe + various scraps
	Binding:	Kona bison
	Pattern:	Improv blocks
	Quilting:	Custom free motion

Pop over to Amy's quilt festival. It's amazing how many beautiful quilts there are. The inspiration!

Tranquility ~~ a finish!

A finish, a finish. [Sing it with me, y'all]. A finish, a finish. It's the one that I wrote about here.

Finally, after sitting on the WIP table for months, then sitting on the long-arm waiting for thread and sitting while I cruised through Leah Day's website looking for quilting motifs, finally it's done. Done sitting, maybe? Ugh, no, now it's waiting on a photo shoot. 

I just couldn't wait to show you, so I had Richard hold it up...in front of his shed where dust and dirt were flying. Also, I realized too late that I hadn't even removed the markings. Yes, yes, I'm a mess. But I have a finish!

I wasn't liking those scrap taupes and beiges in the background... until I saw the pictures. Somehow they seem to float and throw shadows on the quilt. Don't be fooled--everything is pieced into the top and every inch of this baby is quilted, with the exception of the lime green bars and the smallest of taupe "droppings." 

I haven't counted how many different quilting motifs are on the quilt, but I really should do that if I can. Check out one little piece.

C

Quilt Stats
Name:	Tranquility
Size:	55 X 60
Fabrics:	Scrap fabrics from stash
Background:	Kona taupe + various scraps
Binding:	Kona bison
Pattern:	Improv blocks
Quilting:	Custom free motion

Linking up with

My Quilt Infatuation

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Crazy Mom Quilts 

Leah, thread, and a WIP

A couple of weeks ago I loaded a WIP that's been sitting for a while on the "to be quilted" pile. I had a fab time learning and practicing new motifs. Leah Day's quilting design gallery is my go-to inspiration site. She has 500 designs--imagine! 


I've written about motifs from her website here on "Crazy X" and here for "Math Is an Expletive."  Looking through the motifs and choosing the ones I want to try is a great pasttime when sitting in waiting rooms. In the past I'd draw the motifs on paper or a white board to get some muscle memory going, but now I just stitch. 

Sometimes I end up with a crazy mess, but those seem to disappear once I have lots of other quilting around them. I'm not much of a detail nut, so I tend to see the whole picture. Quite often one of her designs will inspire something new and different from me. That is pretty awesome!

Anyhoo, (sorry Leah's website is definitely a squirrel) I was almost finished and ran out of thread. I didn't even see that coming. Really, I was rolling along and suddenly I was not. I found another cone that was really close in color and decided to use that. But that did not work for long--I ran out again! Nothing in the entire studio would work after the second cone. Believe me, I tried.

That meant ordering thread online, and it came in today! 
If all goes well I'll have a finish in a day or two. Thanks to Superior Threads (not an affiliate) for their excellent service and prices. 
I love the thread.

I've purchased from Superior Threads at quilt shows, but this is the first time I've ordered online. Their website is user-friendly and talk about convenient since it just appeared at my door. That means I didn't have to haul thread around with me. 

As computer savvy as I think I am, I'm not much for shopping online. Are you an online shopper? If so, which companies do you use for quilting supplies?

New quilting motif and a huge quilt

Despite the horrible rain and flooding that's going on across the southern part of the state, we are relatively safe and dry. Our house is on the top of a hill and we have a small swamp at the bottom of the hill that can take huge amounts of water, so we don't have to worry about flooding. But there are many people to worry about and pray for. Already three have died and thousands of people have been evacuated and have lost homes. This link from weather.com shows how serious the flooding is and how dangerous: 

https://weather.com/news/weather/video/dangerous-flooding-is-headed-north 

Throughout the day more and more roads were closed, and we've gotten reports of people needing three or four hours to drive home in what would normally be a 45 minute drive because the traffic was so backed up and many roads were closed. Some of those are family members and friends, so I've been quilting and praying.

I loaded another quilt on the long-arm this morning. This one is a huge (king size) quilt for one of the boys and his wife.  I wrote about piecing it here, but it's been at least two weeks since then. In fact the quilt top sat pinned to the design wall for the entire week because I was trying to get started in school. There's no way that I can start school and find the energy to do anything when I get home.

After the top was loaded, I got started quilting and decided I had to figure out how to deal with this problem--puckering and bunching in some of the corners. 

I found that if I carefully quilted those corners so that the circle stitches landed right on the edges of the seam, the fabric lay flat and the excess somehow ended up inside of the circle. I used that method for every corner that wanted to pucker or bunch up.

Happily, they all look okay! I also cheated by mixing in some really big circles with the medium and small circles. It still took way longer than I thought it would, but I think that's because the quilt is so very wide. It's been a long, long time since I last quilted a king quilt.

I did eventually finish those circles and started working on a smaller section of matchsticks. I like this design and it goes much faster than you'd think, so I may use it again later in the quilt. 

To add another design element, I made the matchsticks of different lengths and left about 1/4 inch between them so that they have a "path" going through the design.

I do like this motif...what do you think? Can you see the curvy path between the stitching lines?

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: EMBROIDERY

I discovered a fabulous Pinterest board filled with embroidery stitches, designs, and patterns curated by JudyK. Oh Judy, the designs are absolutely stunning! I want (very much) to play with some embroidery for a while. Actually, I've spent the last 15 minutes toying with the idea of starting a small piece that could become a pincushion.

  

Once I started choosing pictures from Judy's board, I found it difficult to stop. There are almost 500 gorgeous pieces and tutorial photos. After pinning many to my own "embroidered, ribbonry" board, I decided to get back to the task at hand...quilts!

I think I've been gravitating toward circular designs, so maybe they are trying to tell me something. Do you think the circular designs in the embroideries may have influenced my quilt choices? lol Maybe I should change the post title.