Thing-a-day.com

Here’s my reason for not posting yesterday:

Rimsky the Siberian Forest Cat followed me up to my studio and made himself at home as I prepared tree branches for the quilt. No, I couldn’t disrupt his nap to put the branchs on the quilt and take a picture. So today I am reporting two rounds of 20-minute sessions.

I had decided that making the branches brown would be better, and sure enough, it proves to be so. Today I made some leaves by first seaming two piece of fabric together, then ironing freezer paper leaf shaped cutouts onto the wrong side of the fabrcis, trimming about 1/4″ seam allowance and pressing, then gluing it to the backside.

Now I’m thinking I need real trees rather than the sapling sized trees I have now. Which brings up the question of whether I want the trees to stop within the frame of the quilt, or go past as if one is looking through the trees. I’ll mull over that. Lots more leaves to make anyway. And more birds. I did hear a Pileated Woodpecket while I was last at the property. Not to mention the Sandhill Cranes migrating overhead…

I added yet another row to the background of my house study bird quilt today. Now it’s ready for the applique!

Thing-a_day was down last night so i didn’t get to post this:

The new batch of batik fabrics arrived from Hancock’s of Paducah yesterday, so today I turned my attention back to this quilt. I am hoping to get it done in time for a hanging at a quilt show in New York State at the end of March. They have requested an exhibit of my bird quilts. I wrote a book of paper pieced bird quilts, but this is quite different, so it’d be fun to add it to the mix.

I made two more background strips–the top two. And I quickly made a piece of bias for a tree just to give my brain a beginning taste of what it is looking like. I’m thinking I’ll switch from green to bark colors, but at this point, it gives me insight into how it is coming along. I’ll make one more row of background–at least that was the original plan.

Today I made another row for the background of my birds-in-the-woods quilt that is a color and feeling study for the new house we’re building this spring. I had made the pieces for the birds last week 9eyes and beaks to come), so a laid them down to get an idea of how the quilt is becoming. (Sounds awkward, but I mean what I wrote.) I ordered fabrics for a greener row below and then three rows above to work into blues, so the color choices for the birds will still work on other sections of the background whereas they melt into these. As per an earlier “thing” post, there will be vertical branches for the birds to sit on once I get the backgound pieces down and put together.

 P.S. I went up to the cabinet shop which is on the way to our property today for my first serious decision-making venture. Afterwards I drove up to the property. saw a pileated Woodpecker, herard Nuthatches and most likely Downies, and heard and then saw Sandhill Cranes flying over the mountain. Makes the heart soar!

This evening I added the lavendar outer border to my Shop Window Quilt.

It was easy to make. The pies are first sewn together–just striaght seams. And then I ironed them to freezer paper rings and pressed the raw inside and outside edges of the rings to the back. The freezer paper makes it easy. Then I set up my Bernina to sew a stitch that makes two straight stitches and then one to the side to sew the ring to the background. Using invisible thread, you can hardly see it. With the rings sewn to the blocks, I sewed the blaocks together and added the borders.

Now the quilt top is ready to go off to Mavis Rosbach of Quiltbird Studio who will work her magic in long arm quilting it.

This is a patch. I made it by scanning some art from a vintage children’s book and printing it onto iron-on transfer paper. (You can buy it at craft stores.) I ironed the art onto some fabric which I then sewed onto this little case. I’m going to use the case to hold spools of thread and bobbins when I’m on the go.