Mary's Death by Half Square

A lot has happened in a week.  A lot of quilting that is!

Here is Mary's quilt, she is calling it Death by Half Square.  I love that name, when you see how many little pieces are in this quilt you'll understand a little better.  Also, I know what happened the day Mary was rushing to finish this quilt to bring to me.  She almost sliced off her finger.  Almost... whew!

So here is the quilt before any quilting... wow right?  This was the 2009 Block of the Month for the Quilt Show, called Stars for a New Day, designed by Sue Garman.  I did not know this, a wonderful facebook friend let me know all the details, including the fact that the pattern is available at Quakertown Quilts.

So... that's a lot of pieces right?  And in all that piecing one of the borders had a tiny little booboo.  No worries, after a couple of quick emails with Mary I fixed it.  I couldn't possibly leave a little mistake, especially since it only took less than a hour to fix.

Then came the ditch work... ehhh... not my favorite thing, but totally necessary on this quilt.

Two days later ditch work was done and I was ready to quilt!  Not sure if it was two full days, or two ADD days, but it was two calendar days, that's for sure!

And about a week later it was finally finished!  What a beautiful quilt.  Thank you Mary for allowing me to stitch on this beauty!  Here's the full view, some details (look at that fabulous Glide thread), and of course, a peek at the back!

 

See... I told you a whole lot of stitching was going on last week!

Quilt with no name...

hmm... this is a somewhat ADD prone story (just warning you ahead of time) - it all goes back to September. I quilted a quilt for Margy of the JaM Patch. It was made up of the most beautiful neutral batiks ever, okay, maybe not ever, but the most beautiful neutrals that I had seen in a very long time. Margy's quilt turned out beautiful (see the detail pic) and had me thinking about all those beautiful batiks... and thinking, and thinking, and then WHAM it hit me... a JaM Patch field trip!

So now it is October. I ran to the patch for a somewhat planned field trip... purchased a lovely "Vanilla Latte" Strip-tease bun by Island Batiks. Yes, I now had my fingers wrapped around these neutral beauties. Then, I decided on the border fabric... Khaki in the Gee's Bend fabric line by Windham Fabrics. Now they call it khaki, I call it the most wonderful light grey. It looks almost like suede. I can add in that since then I have purchased this same grey fabric two more times (three in total) -- at this point I should have just purchased an entire bolt. So I spent the day piecing away... the result - a finished quilt made from the strip bun and Gee's Bend solid. Looks like a simple, every-day quilt -- which is what I had intended for its use. Well, this quilt hung in my studio for a little over a month. In that time I had numerous compliments on it, so a little voice started humming in the back of my mind that perhaps this quilt should go on to bigger and better things. Yep, it did, it got folded up and put on the notorious back burner.

Well, last week rolled around -- I pulled it out and marked it up in preparation for quilting at the end of the month. I posted pictures of it on my facebook account hoping for some help with names, because as of right now this is the quilt with no name. So, it is all marked up and ready to be quilted as soon as I'm ready -- well, we all know the best laid plans often go awry, and they did! My favorite thread company, Fil-Tec, emailed me and asked if I had any quilts showcasing their threads that they could possibly use in their booth during shows. I told them they were more than welcome to use the same quilt from last year, and I was scheduling myself for quilting at the end of the month so I might be able to squeeze another quilt in there. Well, it just happened I had also left Friday, Saturday, and Sunday open for my own quilting. Now remember, I have already marked the no-name quilt up, and I already had a name request thrown out there on facebook. So what do I do... grab a piece of fabric and mark it up using a modified version of the mark-up on the no-name quilt. So I spent the weekend quilting what is now know as Fil-Tecian Feathers, a beautiful wholecloth for Fil-Tec to use for this years show season. Here are the front and back views of this awesome quilt (Glide Thread with magna-glide bobbins):

So... instead of loading my no-name quilt on the 24th, it went up yesterday. If it turns out as well as I see it in my head, life will be good and it will go on to show land. If not, it was an interesting story and will go on to live as an amazing every-day quilt! Oh, any and all name suggestions are more than welcome because quilt with no name just doesn't sound so great (hint hint)!

Houston Hang... almost

Wow... International Quilt Festival - the quilt show of quilt shows! I have yet to enter a quilt at Houston... perhaps 2011 will be my year, not sure, we will have to wait and see. But, I have officially "hung" at Houston this year... not in the show, in Fil-Tec's booth. Previously, I had made a quilt for them to use in their booth at shows -- who knew I'd make it to Houston! In my little world this is a big thing!!

Here's a picture of Fil-Tec's booth with my quilt in the background (white with appliqued flowers).

Thanks so much to Kathy for snapping the picture for me since I wasn't able to attend! Check out Kathy's website when you get a chance. And as always, check out Fil-Tec's website and try Glide thread!