Blocked!

Usually on Monday I am raring to get into the studio and start working. I had lots of things I could work on, and new ideas that were begging to get started. I just could not make myself start on any of them. Maybe its because I was feeling extra stiff–yes, we’ll blame it on that. I went to the gym and spent a good long time on the bike and in the pool.

Monday night I FINALLY finished stitching on this little piece–inspired by the cover art on the latest issue of Quilting Arts magazine and my planned trip to rug hooking camp. Stitching on wool seemed like the perfect travel project. But filling every square inch of this little piece with stitches took FOREVER. And what the heck was I going to do with it?

Well….C., the same new friend from my SLO workshops who suggested the fabric to frame my little embroidered piece, took this wool embroidery and folded it and suggested making a needle-keeper (is that what they’re called?)

So that’s what I did. Tuesday morning I had a plan. I decided to line it with a really pretty piece of dyed wool, and stitch those two pieces together with blanket stitch.

I didn’t want to sew the sides up, because I wanted to be able to lay it flat to see the design as a whole. Then I realized I wanted a pocket for my thimble, so there was the perfect scrap of fabric just laying on the cutting table, waiting for me.

This was just the little jump start I needed. I spent the rest of the day in the studio, working on a project that I was quite enthused about… I’ll tell you more about that next time 🙂

Ghosts of Quilting Past

Oh my my my. I showed the fire quilt to MLG (master landscape guy) and that gave him the idea that he could buy a baby quilt for his new grand baby from me. I have lots of unfinished quilt tops, and was pretty sure one or two might work for babies, so I said I’d look around and show him what I had available the following week. I looked in my quilting closet and found a few, and then went out to the storage shed to look through the bins that were out there.

If ever I thought my art quilting had not improved over the years, I found proof in those boxes. In the “what was I thinking of” category, there were several almost completed “art quilts.” Distressing. Too bad to even share on this blog.

But the good news was, it also made me look at all of my many unfinished projects, and I found a fair amount of really nice, traditional type quilt tops.

I found a top that MLG liked for his grand baby, featuring plants and birds 🙂

And I found this little piece that was essentially completed. I was enamored of buttons at one point, and had quite a collection. And just playing with colors and wool and thread. Yesterday afternoon I quilted the straight lines  on the background, and then decided that I liked the backing fabric for a binding. I went to my chair to hand sew the binding on, and there was this hank of perle cotton on the arm of the chair. Hmmm. That would be a fun way to sew the binding down.

And ta! da! A little fun piece is finished.

Close ups:

You can see I sewed the wool squares on by hand and by machine. Also, notice how the wool squares are “wonky.” Wool tends to want to stretch out of shape while you’re sewing it. That’s okay with me, but I’m not sure what you would do if you didn’t want that to happen. Maybe use fusible?

Anyway, this look has given me a lot of quilting to think about and hopefully work on. Best stop writing and get to work!