Moving Right Along

My attempt to regain some sense of normalcy after the wedding resulted in laying myself flat with the flu (I knew I forgot something....my freakin' flu shot!!!). But by Friday, I was feeling well enough to sit at the sewing machine for a couple hours, and I've been at it for a few hours today. Only two blocks left to quilt on the Halloween quilt and it's on to binding. Happily I will have a couple of OPAM finishes for October. Not too shabby.

My big score this month was adding this book to my collection. Long out of print, and selling for $95, I posted an ISO ad on the 'Sew Its For Sale' Yahoo Group, and a lovely woman in California sold me a mint, hard cover, first edition that doesn't even look like it was read for what she paid for the book  15 years ago.  I'm so excited to have this book because it's the handbook for putting together a free-form Gee's Bend kind of quilt, which is on my quilt bucket list. And I'm especially happy that there are quilters out there who are happy to share resources without taking advantage.

When you're home sick and you just don't feel like making messes, you tend to read, and I dove into a stack of books I borrowed from the Guild library about One Block Wonders. I guess they're kind of related to Kaleidoscopes. You take one fabric and hack it up and rearrange the pieces so the pattern is unrecognizable but artistically pleasing. Then you include a piece of what the real fabric looks like on the back and everyone oohs and ahs and goes, "OMG! That's freakin' amazing!". I want to do that. (I want to do everything, why wouldn't I want to do that?)  Fabric.com had a killer sale earlier this week (another advantage of being sick....computer time in bed), so I grabbed some Alexander Henry fabric that just might work for this. I will say that I have a gut feeling that this is going to be one of those projects I'll be sorry I started, but we shall see. Quilting techniques are kind of like artichokes....you've got to try it once--you might love it.

And since there was a sale, and since I am expanding my horizons, I thought I'd play around with a little 'ombre'...I just like saying that word.....'ahhm-bray'.  And this is going to be my 'ahhm-bray poochie' project, whatever it turns out to be.

While I'm adding projects to the heap, why not a black and yellow quilt?  Here's the first two half yards to start that collection. Now I've got something to look for on the Florida trip. (As if I needed a mission to visit quilt shops).

That was a quick catch-up, and now I'm off to finish these last two blocks so I can bind these babies (yep, the pumpkin table quilt is still raggedy).

Watch This Space! Entertaining Wedding Story To Come

I'm baackk!!!! And it feels good. Well, okay, I'm almost back. The MIL leaves tomorrow--don't get me wrong, it's okay that she's here, she's invited, she's not an imposition....but sometimes you just want your houseguests gone so you can not worry about being 'on' all the time. Also, I'm dealing with one last little wedding clean up issue and then I can work on running around planning our trip to Florida next month (and hopefully another one in January).

You know how it seems that every wedding has a story...and most of those stories involve something that happened the night before the wedding? Like at my SIL's wedding the guys went out after the rehearsal dinner, across from the hotel (which, come to think of it was a Hilton), and one of the groomsmen was a Cincinnati Bengal and people just wanted to pick a fight because he was a Cincinnati Bengal in Bethesda, MD, and the next day there was a lot of jockeying around with bottles of Maybelline trying to cover black eyes and such.....

Well, we got us one humdinger of a wedding story, also involving a Hilton Hotel (Hampton Inn), also involving groomsmen, also after the rehearsal dinner, though instead of rated R for violence, this one's rated X for sex (Hell-o!! Got your attention now, didn't I?). Seriously. But, before I can regale you with some hilariously entertaining prose, I'm going extend a courtesy to Hilton and allow them to submit an alternate ending, so hang tight.

Not to worry, there will be a story, and I promise, you will be amused (most certainly grossed out, but definitely amused) ,

The wedding was beautiful, the breakfast was great, the cake stunning, and I'm glad I've only got the one daughter. Onward and upward.

Good Class Today

I woke up this morning and thought that I am one lucky quilter. How many quilters get up on Sunday morning and have to decide whether they're going to their class with Mimi Dietrich ( Renowned author and Baltimore Album Quilter) or whether they'll instead go to their class with Sharon Schamber (World Renowned Free Motion Quilter, 3 time winner at Houston  (last year's best of show)/2 time winner at Paducah)? I live in a great city with great resources.

I went to Sharon's class, and while I felt bad skipping Mimi's class...that one's monthly, so I can catch up with Mimi next month. It was quite interesting, and a bit different from any other class I've taken.

Sharon has a rather unique way of teaching you to think about the process and develop 'body memory' (which, amazingly, the hubs knew what that was). Basically, the thought process is that you need to do something 12-40 times in order to remember it. (That explains why I seem to know the words to EVERY song I heard on the radio between the ages of 12-15---what else did I have to do, but listen to music and sing along...I couldn't drive!).

It was fun, she was entertaining, and most importantly, I learned a few things. Not only do I have a good start at quilting feathers, but I now know how to use two 3" wide by 1/2" (various length) boards to baste a quilt...no pins, perfect sandwich. in just a little more time than it would take to insert safety pins. There's some videos on this on YouTube, check them out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA&noredirect=1.

I wouldn't have believed  that using a needle and thread to baste a quilt wouldn't take a week, and I'm looking forward to trying this out on a future quilt. I learned the herringbone stitch is the go to hand stitch for this, and I also learned that there are 'basting' needles. (who knew?!).

With the basting and the lectures, there was little time to stitch, but I did get in a little bit of feathering:

Not great, but not bad. There'll be plenty of time for practice after the wedding. (T minus 6 days and counting!)