My Quilted Symphony is DONE! I Think???



From the book quilted symphony by Gloria Loughman



So... I think my Quilted Symphony quilt is FINALLY DONE!  This project ended up taking a looong time, especially for how small it is!  12.5" x 21".  It took so long I was beginning to think it was going to become a UFO.  I kept waiting for it to speak to me, you know, tell me what it wanted me to do with it.  One day I walked by and it SHOUTED at me, "I've been hanging here so long my colors are starting to FADE."  I gave it a closer look and thought, "Yep, it's starting to fade."  As the days continued to slip by it would occasionally whisper, "I really am fading."  Those aren't the words I had been waiting to hear!

One day I got bored and pulled it off the design wall and started doing some quilting stitches on it.  A few stitches is all it took for the piece to start talking to me.  I guess it needed to know I was actually going to try and finish it. 

I started stitching one section at a time.  As I was doing the quilting my mind started seeing places where embellishments could be added.  But, wait... Gloria's book is full of these quilts she and her students have done.  There are pages and pages of photo examples and NONE OF THEM are embellished with anything other than thread!

Every section kept asking for embellishments!  So I started adding some yarns.  Pretty soon every section had yarn above it and below it.  All colors of yarn.  Funny how now there was no problem with choosing colors like there was in the beginning!

It didn't seem to matter that Gloria and all the others didn't use beads and trinkets to embellish their pieces.  Every piece of yarn, little bead, button and trinket I sewed on seemed to work okay on this quilt!

So I kept going.  Stitching and adding THINGS.  I didn't know I had so MANY things I could add to a quilt top.  I am, after all, NOT an embellisher!  Every once in awhile I'll add a button or bead here or there.  But REALLY, I'm not an embellisher.

I even found myself wandering the isles of JoAnn's looking for something a little special that I could sew on this quilt!  And it was actually as if the quilt was there with me, helping me find THINGS. 

Maybe... at this point in my life as a quilter I can start to say, "Sometimes I get a little carried away with embellishing the surface of a piece if the piece tells me it wants embellishments."

During the embellishing process I took the project to a sewing day with friends.  I showed them what I was doing with all these THINGS and asked if it was too much.  They didn't think so.  In fact, they actually encouraged the process and donated some beads from their collection that they thought would be PERFECT.  I sewed them on and they are... PERFECT!

And the embellishing didn't stop!  There are even beads on the BACK!  I should never have used a button hole stitch as quilting.  It should have been done before I layered the quilt.  A few years ago I took a class taught by Karen Fisher.  She shared with us a piece that had an unpleasing area on the back so she covered it up with EMBELLISHMENTS.  So I though maybe embellishments would make this yucky part look like it's special, you know, PLANNED.

And then, there's always the label.  This is only embellished with thread.  If you have read earlier posts on this project you may remember I lost my sun at one point.  So I made another sun and then wouldn't you know it, I found the lost one.  It must be one of Murphy's Laws, as soon as you get a new one you find the old one.  Now what am I going to do with a lost and found sun?  Sew it on the label!

Amy Butler Apron

My youngest daughter had a birthday this month (she's 31 now!).  There are times in the lives of people younger than myself that I find it more difficult to figure out what they would appreciate receiving as a gift.  This dilemma seems to begin when they are teenagers.  I mean REALLY, what do you give a teenager?  I could share some of my age old wisdom... Give them some life advice... But those never go over well.  When they get out on their own and start building a life it gets a little easier.  Then you can get them cool things for their new life as an adult.  When they seem to have their living quarters filled they start appreciating personal things that they haven't been able to purchase in awhile because they have to pay bills every month.  HAHA!  Then they go into the 30 somethings and it seems to become harder again.

This daughter just relocated to another state and it seems that every time I talked with her she was sharing a new recipe.  This is the daughter that DOESN'T COOK!  Recently she asked me to make her a Potato Bag (which I blogged about).  So I thought if she is getting into all this cooking and asked for a Potato Bag MAYBE she would like an apron!  So I collected all the supplies and made her an apron.

Pattern Domestic Goddess Aprons by Amy Butler Designs.  Print fabric comes from the Cook's Kitchen collection by Makower uk.  The orange accent fabric if from the Puzzle Pieces collection by Moda fabrics.

The pattern calls for the long ties to be placed on the half apron but I put them on the bodice apron.  I find it much easier to tie in front of me rather than behind my back.  Isn't having to tie behind your back kinda like a test in dexterity?  I need to SEE what I'm doing!  When you get a project done you HAVE TO try it on and SEE what it looks like!  I was surprised when I tried it on and discovered it has an umpire waist (is it even called an umpire waist these days?)  The picture on the pattern looks like it ties around the waist NOT right under the BOOBS!  Oh well, it's DONE.  As you can see it has a little towel loop, which I thought was a handy feature.

If I ever make another one I'll make the bodice BIGGER, the overall length shorter and the towel loop closer to the center.  This towel loop puts the towel under your elbow which was awkward feeling.

Her comment when asked how she liked it, "It will fit the boyfriend great."  I guess that means she has already given up her cooking career and it's now on the boyfriends list of responsibilities!

Pocket Commotion

Have you seen this pattern?  Motion Commotion by Suzanne McNeill http://www.d-originals.com/.  During one of my online surfing moments it appealed to me.  And I thought it was a good candidate for a potential class because a lot of people are intimidated by curved piecing.  The description of the pattern said, "Easy Pattern with Straight Seams that Look Curvy!"  An enticing description.  It arrived in my mailbox quickly and upon receiving it I realized that is was made using precuts, either a layer cake or four charm packs.  Perfect!  My focus was to create classes using precuts.  So many of us are drawn to purchase precuts but are lost when it comes to using them.  AND I just happen to have a Tonga Treats Lollipop layer cake which is what was used for one of the quilts on the pattern cover.  This just keeps getting better!

So, here's my finished quilt.  Of course I can never seem to make a quilt according to the pattern and this was no exception.  There are an extra six blocks in my version cuz I wanted it a little BIGGER (from 46"x64" to 56"x65").  Of course, that meant a layer cake was not BIG enough so I had to pull coordinating fabrics from my very limited supply of batiks (REALLY! I have a VERY SMALL stash of batiks).  AND the thing that I thought was VERY CLEVER was that I made some of the blocks dimensional, 12 blocks have pocket!  But then... all those clever little pockets made the quilting process more difficult.  :-(  And then... when I was searching for a picture of the pattern to post here for you I discovered a video the designer made showing you how to make the blocks with pocket!  Oh well, so much for being clever.

I am not intimidated by curved piecing and for me it was more difficult to use this technique to create the illusion of curved piecing than it is to do curved piecing.

And I happen to be a label maker.  For me the label is part of making a quilt.  As you can see I titled this quilt Pocket Commotion (because I was proud of the pockets and they did cause some quilting commotion).  Often times my labels contain more info than this one.  Such as who it was made for or what inspired the design if it's one of my originals.  They are always printed on my home printer using a word doc program.  Sometimes I include a printed picture representing the theme or a pieced block from the quilt front and I've also done applique work on labels.  Labels are like little quilts!

Potato Bag

Several (or what some would call MANY) months ago my youngest daughter (the one that DOESN'T sew) asked me to make her a potato bag.  I'm sure you know what these are... a container made of cloth that one uses to successfully microwave potatoes... think baked potato.  Funny how times change... I don't think my mother ever BAKED a potato in her life (at least not the part of her life when I lived with her).  She said, "It takes to long and runs up the electric bill!".  Evidently there are others out there that felt the same way as dear ol' mom and one of them came up with a way to modernize the process using a microwave. 

Several months ago (NOT MANY) I purchased a couple fat quarters to make dear daughter her potato bag.  One fabric is a potato print (how original) and the other is a print of corn on the cob.  Corn on the cob because, in case you didn't know... these little bags also work well for cooking corn on the cob in the microwave.  This daughter does not have many domestic bones and I thought using prints that represent the foods that can be cooked in the bag would be helpful to her.  The only other things needed was some leftover binding and batting from other projects.

Finally!  A project that got completed (in a timely manner) instead of becoming an addition to the UFO pile!  The finished size is 12"x9", big enough for three good size potatoes.  One for her and each of her two roommates.  As for dear ol' mom... sometimes I imagine her watching over me amazed at the new fangled way some things get done today.

LongArm Quilting

Yesterday my friend Jane came over and spent the day with me and the longarm.  Jane, being the best Grandma ever, made a patriotic quilt top for each of her 5 grandsons.  Like most quilters I know, Jane is a checkbook quilter and would rather piece a top than do the quilting.  But she is also an adventuresome kinda gal and took me up on the offer to come give the longarm quilting experience a try.  Jane picked a panto with a meandering star design and used blue thread.  They were a perfect match for this quilt top. 

Jane and the longarm played very well together and her quilt top was finished in no time.  We even had a nice leisurely lunch at Tott's Asian Diner around the corner from my house.  We got the quilt squared and ready for binding.  She hoped to get a binding sewn on before her head hit the pillow so she could take it to her R.U.A. Quilter friendship group today and show them that she really is a QUILTER! 

I think Jane may come back (at least four more times) and quilt that pile of patriotic quilts!

Quilted Symphony Update

Today as I stood in front of the design wall gazing at what is currently hanging there (my Quilted Symphony project) waiting so patiently for me to give it life, the thought crossed my mind that I had not shared my progress with the blogging world in awhile.  So here it is.  My Quilted Symphony project has been down off the design wall a few times since my last post about it.  As you can see it is now one piece instead of several little sections.  I've done some surface embellishing with yarns and have some quilting stitches in it.  I'll post some close ups as I get farther along with my progress.  Speaking of progress... I know you are probably thinking, "Enough already! Just finish it!"  I think my creative juices have sat still for so long (it has been 3 or 4 years-so long I've lost track of the time) that I think they appear to just be running at a trickle these days.  I guess it's like that saying I've heard throughout my life, "Use it or lose it."

Gilbert Quilt Show

Yesterday a friend and I spent a few hours at the Gilbert Historical Museum.  http://www.gilbertmuseum.org/  I go there every year about this time to tour their annual Quilt Show.  The show offers up some eye candy that makes ya say Ohhhh... Ahhhh....  If you are into old quilts there are always a lot of those and more hand quilting than I've seen at any other show.  Of course, there are also art quilts scattered throughout by some local artist that we quilters recognize the names of like Susan Vassallo and Vicki Bohnhoff.  It's not a BIG show but still enjoyable.  If you're interested in checking out the show you still have time.  The show runs until May 31.  Cost of admission is a mere $5 and that included access to all the museum exhibits.

 While at the show I always stop in and see the gals that do hand quilting at the museum.  These ladies have been getting together at the museum every Tuesday and Thursday for years.  They usually always have two frames up and each loaded with a vintage quilt they are working on.  They are always friendly with visitors and very willing to show and tell what they are working on.  People send them quilts from all over the country to be hand quilted.  If you've got an old quilt you'd like to have them quilt, there is a two year waiting list.  All the monies charged for their beautiful hand quilting is donated to the museum.