A Plea for Haiti Orphans!

My dear daughter-in-law forwarded this plea from her good friend who was in the process of adopting a Haitian orphan when the earthquake struck. Please, take a few minutes to write or call your representatives!

   -- Joanna

Letter from the mom who is adopting:

Email text you are welcome to use or copy:

The Haiti orphans don’t have a lot of time!  Food and water is still not reaching them and the babies will start to die soon.  Many have already begun the adoption process and their American parents want to rescue them now!

I implore you, PLEASE act quickly on authorizing these “humanitarian paroles” or visas to get these children here and safe before it’s too late!  Every second counts for those precious babies.

UFO Finished!

Yesterday I finished the free-motion quilting on this project and began hand sewing the binding. Finished the binding watching the morning shows and football (temporarily changed allegance and rooted for the Vikings!).

This is one of the reasons I made the commitment to learn free-motion quilting. I pieced this little quilt perhaps three years ago. So long ago I've forgotten where I got the pattern. The fabric was leftovers from my Christmas Cat quilt (still not finished ... waiting for the skill to improve more). It's been sitting in one of several UFO piles.

This combines straight line and free-motion quilting. I secured the gold border using stitch in the ditch. The red and floral blocks had straight line stitching. The free-motion stitching was leaves in the gold areas and then flowers in the brown blocks and around the quilt in the red border. I used gold-orange-red varigated thread.

I'm really pleased with the result!

I'm going to use this as a table topper and concert picnic quilt. I've named it "The Haiti Quilt" as the colors remind me of the Caribbean and much of the free-motion quilting was completed while watching the news coverage of the horrific earthquake destruction in Haiti.

If anyone recognizes the pattern/designer, please let me know so I can offer attribution adn thanks for a great pattern.

Not My Colors?

 

Several weeks ago, when I was at Girls Night Out, I was looking at the Hoffman Bali Pops and a friend commented that one I was holding didn't look like my colors. She was right. I rarely buy or work in pastels.

So I bought the pastel package.

Saturday morning I decided I needed a change of pace from free-motion quilting practice. I pulled out the Bali Pops and began sewing strips together. What a dream on the Juki! They went together quickly in a pattern from the Quilters Market Strippers Club. Just a few more seams and it will be ready to decide on borders.

With a few exceptions, I don't decide on borders until the piece is ready. I may have a concept in advance, but the final decision comes when I can step back and look at the project. Borders can change the entire look of a quilt. With this one, they will help pull out on or two specific colors. I'm thinking of a cream inner border and a blue or green outer border.

It's exciting seeing this come to fruition! And I really like the pastels.

What do you think? Is this my colors or not?

Enjoying the Process

 

It's tax season! That means the start of 10+ hour work days. Ther's just a peek of daylight when I leave home and it's O'dark Late when I arrive back. Emotionally exhausting days yet satisfying in many ways.

After I arrive home I make a quick dinner, check e-mail, then relax in front of the living room TV for a time. Most often when the clock shows 9:00 am I say "Bed...Bed!" and Sargeant and Mizzy Paws head to the bedroom. Mizzy has to curl up on HER pillow next to me and Sargeant snuggles under the covers next to me. If I stay up any later they're likely to head to bed and give me "where were you?" looks.

My time for quilting is in the morning. This week I'm managed to spend anywhere from 15 minutes (today) to an hour in the studio. I'm finished with the straight stitching and ready for the free-motion quilting. I started with one concept (free-motion over the entire top) and it's evolved to straight stitching with limited free-motion. Maybe I will finish this weekend.

My time in the studio has been spent enjoying the process and learning the machine. I removed my speed control and have gotten pretty good at foot control. I take pleasure in committing the hiding of my threads to muscle memory. I enjoy the feel of the fabric, the sound of the machine, the visual patterns of the fabric.

It's a good preparation for the work day!

What If?

 

In addition to not knowing how to free-motion quilt, there's another reason I've been a topper: I absolutely hate preparing a top for quilting!

My table space is limited, as is my floor space. I've tried using the kitchen for quilt preparation. It has lovely tile but getting ready is a pain. No matter how clean the floor, I have to clean it again. Then there's the agony of getting down on hands and knees to tape down the backing, betting and top. All the time fending off the quilt inspectors. I've had disasters too. I tried fusible spray and ended up trying to get it off the tile. Not fun.

Then there was the time I decided to try the fusible batting. Can you guess what happens when you use steam on a tile floor? Not good.

So tops have remained tops and I've learned the joy of working small. I've evolved a technique of using either Misty Fuse or Steam-A-Seam2 to fuse my layers together. Works great but it's not for a lap size quilt.

Over the holidays I've watched videos by Sharon Schamber and Carol Taylor. Sharon does hand basting using boards to keep the layers smooth. Carol uses photo fix spray for everything. Most other quilting gurus advocate pinning in one form or another.

I couldn't find photo fix spray so decided to take another chance on the adhesive quilt spray. I did decide to try starching my top and back, as Sharon Schamber recommends. I typically prefer Best Press but "what if....?" The worst that could happen is that I'd ruin this project quilt. That's unlikely to happen.

The spray worked well! Even so, once the layers were together I decided to go ahead and pin as well. The pins aren't as close together as recommended (hand width). The layers also weren't moving around.

I've started stitching in the ditch and, so far, I'm pleased with the results. I'm getting better at changing tension.

Another "what if?" is the thread I'm using for this project. Instead of my usual King Tut I'm using Signature Pixelles Size 30 Triobel Polyester on the top and Signature Size 40 Cotton in the bobbin. So much for not combining polyester and cotton. It's working well so far and I like the results.

Batting is Warm and Natural. I was going to try bamboo batting but the quilt spray recommends cotton only. I'll experiment with the bamboo at another time.

Veggie Quilt #1

 
Happy New Year!

I hope your first day of the New Year 2010 has been as satisfying as mine. I managed to stay awake long enough to see the ball drop from Times Square and sip a glass of champagne. Then a solid seven hours sleep before waking. I watched the Rose Bowl parade and then went to prepare my potluck dish for an afternoon gathering with friends.

Lots of time to go into the studio and practice green thread free-motion quilting in my little quilt series.

That's when I had the "aha" moment. A little quilt would make a perfect hostess gift. I shuffled the pile and found the quilt pictured. All done except for quilting in the orange area. I added a quick fused binding. It's a bit larger than I would like so I will experiment with other bindings in the rest of this series.

The finishing touch was to put on a label. Some time ago I used one of my graphics programs to print a sheet of labels. I have had the sheet pinned to my design wall where I can quickly add this finishing touch that is so often forgotten. This was the last one on the sheet so I'll design a new one for 2010.

After photographing the front I also snapped shots of the back. I can view my work in my graphics program (I use the free program Picasa from Google most of the time as it is quick and does a good job on simple editing.) Using the zoom feature I can examine my stitches far more easily than just looking at the actual quilt. It's a good measure of the quality of my work, especially since I'm progressing through these little quilts one thread color at a time.

This little quilt now belongs to my good friend Kellie.