Thursday, February 07, 2013

Thursday UFO Sightings


Let's start at the end, shall we? Here's a nice little stack of 5, count 'em, 5, quilts with binding sewn down on one side, just waiting to have the second side sewn.

By hand.

Can you say, hours and hours of work? I knew you could.

But Friday night is Quilknittys, a monthly gathering of assorted quilters and knitters (and many of us do both) at Casa de Pugs. So  these will come with me, and with any luck I'll get at least a couple of them done. This is kind of a motley crew of projects:

The little Christmas tree, for instance, is one of the Tub UFOs. Not sure how else to refer to them! This one, once the binding is sewn down, could be considered finished. However, the quilting on it is pretty sparse and it definitely looks right now like, well, a poor little waif of a quilt.

I was thinking some gold thread quilting, maybe in loops and curlicues to look like a garland and perhaps some lights on the tree.

Maybe a few buttons or beads too. The green print is old-fashioned children and it's quite charming. (The back is pastel-ish old-fashioned Santas and trees and very Victorian-woodcut feeling. You can see a bit of it in the stack of quilts.)

Whatever I  ultimately decide to do with it, it will be much more pleasant to work on it with a neat finished edge, rather than raggedy batting and knotted threads.

Same goes for the quilt I'm calling Peacock Feathers and Tulips--because that's what the two prints in it are. I can tell from the wispies around t he outside that it's got some good old Mountain Mist poly batting--kind of thin, but it does make for a nice hand to the quilt.
I'm currently planning quite a bit more quilting on it. The main pattern doesn't really show up, and of course I can't remember if that was the original plan or not.

I'm liking it a lot, though, and I think the wide border will be really fun to doodle in. Right now I'm thinking something vaguely tulip-y and/or peacock feather-y. Have to see what inspiration strikes!

Now, the Trip Around the World baby quilt will be completely finished once the binding's sewn down. I was able to get the whole thing cross-hatched between last night and today.

So this calls for a tea break, right? A nice hot cuppa and a couple of macarons.

Yum.

 
The challenge is not to eat up the entire package in the first sitting. So far, so good.

Back to the quilts. Here's a little wall hanging that was made in Sylvia Einstein's class at Asilomar a few years back. You can't really tell from the picture, especially from this angle, but they're supposed to be trees. The washed-out looking picture is its back--has some doodled leaves and hearts, from my class last year with Sue Rasmussen. I really enjoyed doing this and am looking forward to doing some more quilting in the tree blocks as well.


By the way, I don't know if you know this, but if  you click on one of the pictures, it will link you to a full-sized slideshow of all the pictures in the post.

So this has been my Thursday. While I was doing these projects, I was also wrangling laundry, which is nearly done. I'll finish that up tomorrow.

So naturally I needed to start a new project. Bet  you can guess what it is! Another one of those kind of quick and relatively easy ones, and just look at the stack of fabrics it will use up! Not to mention that whole stack of batting squares!

This one's going to be a surprise for Debby, aka D2 (Daughter #2 if you don't remember my quaint little numbering system for the kidlets...). It's perfectly safe mentioning it here, because for one t hing she doesn't read the blog, and for another thing, she asked me to make it for her. I had made a smaller one which I sent to her granddaughter Paige, and that was a big success. (I also sent smaller ragg quilts to her other two grandchildren, who seem to like them as well! So far,  though, no requests from their mommies. Good thing...although I do have quite a bit more flannel...)

So that's my Thursday. Now relaxing with a nice glass of white zin, Project Runway on the TV, and some knitting. On sleeve #3 of the 8 I need to finish the 4 little sweaters...

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