Bloomin' Rose Border

Decisions, decisions, decisions, this a quilter's life. I don't care if it' s a traditional quilt or a contemporary quilt, it's all the same, choices must be made and balance is a key element. For this quilt I've chosen an hourglass border. Since this is a scrap quilt, balancing the color is an important element. Here I've laid out the blocks and am trying to balance the pink, green, beige, etc., that surround the quilt. Besides the balance of color, sewing will be done, in order to make the border fit the quilt. Sometimes you have to ease something in to a quilt, a lot of the time this is necessary for a pieced border. Just like in basic sewing, which is where I know a lot of quilter's begin their obsession with fabric, seams and zippers, etc., must be eased into the project. Easing a border is simply increasing or decreasing a seam in order for the project to fit. I'll demonstrate on a later blog. Happy Quilting!

Auditioning fabric/borders for The Bloomin' Rose

Watching a quilt come together is a wonderful thing. Just knowing it's almost done is uplifting to me. Putting on the binding is my favorite part, because that means it's practically on my lap in time for morning coffee comfort. Or, the quilt could be on my bed, where a quilt is always beautiful. And, dare I say it-it could be on the wall...smile.

The auditioning of fabric-no this is not a play about fabric or quilters-has led me to choose from my stash, this stripe. Auditioning fabrics means holding fabric up to other fabrics for your perusal-a visual of the quilt in your minds eye, before you do all the work. Of course you can always cheat and buy a kit of the material already selected, but where's the fun in that? I say that, even though I've been known to do buy a kit. That being said, selecting/auditioning fabrics is something I really enjoy. Back to this quilt, one of my favorite inner borders is a stripe and here it is again. This is our signature quilt for our group, Northeast Quilting Friends. We will have a party at the end of June and all the tops are due for display at that time. I don't know if I'll get it quilted by then, but, right now all I need is another border and it's done! You can audition quilt block designs. I thought I'd make pinwheels for this border, but, when I auditioned this hourglass type of block, I like the way it mimics the pieced roses and the quilt spoke to me and said that's it! Decision made, that was that!

As of late, life has gotten in the way of my quilting and that's okay, but, I do have some catchin' up to do. Whoopee! I think I'll look for a lovely backing at Lavender's next week and I'll be using the silk batting, I've been dying to use.

Lavender's quilt shop and more...

Once again our quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends, is traveling to interesting places for the enrichment of our hobby. That enrichment includes, this time, a 300 mile round trip. While we are not usually a long distance traveling group, we do, once a year, make this annual trek and have done so for the last 3 years. So if you or your group are looking for a wonderful time to share together, here is our prescription for what ales some quilters-that being not enough laughter and not enough fabric...er, I think I'm not lacking either of those, but, never can get enough of a good thing!

Itinerary for a quilting good time:

9:00 Leave Northeast Christian Church parking lot

10:30 to 11:00 Arrive: Wilderness Road Quilt Company This is a first class quilt shop with a Bernina dealership. They have the latest and greatest of new fabric and notions, as well as yarn.

12:00 Leave: Wilderness Road for Bread of Life restaurant

12:30 to 1:00 Arrive: Bread of Life restaurant. This is a regular country food restaurant to benefits the local community with a buffet and menu and oh yes, shopping.

2:00 Leave: Bread of Life for Lavender's quilt shop

2:30 Arrive: Lavender's quilt shop-this is a cash/checks only establishment-keep those credit cards in your purse. This year every yard of fabric in the shop is $2.75, during the month of June.

3:30 Leave: Lavender's for Quilt King Products

4:00 Arrive: Quilt King Products This store is an interesting mix of farm clothing/accessories and very inexpensive fabric and batting as well as notions, very unique and fun.

5:00 Leave: Quilt King Products for Louisville

6:30 Arrive: at church (home)

Battle at Kruger

Watch it till the end. We always watch out for our babies!

Funny Commercial: Wife Goes Shopping

Besides making impulsive fabric buys, there can be other surprises on the credit card bill...

Sewing is a pressing matter...

The Bloomin' Rose Signature quilt block exchange quilt top, is mostly done. I need to pick out a couple of borders and add some leaves and the top is complete.

Last Christmas, 2006, for a present from our group members, we all made 16 blocks and signed them. With lots of excitement and laughter we sat in a circle and exchanged the colorful blocks with the other members that participated. This was a wonderful way to get a little something from everyone, without spending any money. That time of year we spend so much on our families and we all had fabric, of course, so we made these easy blocks for our exchange. After the exchange, each member was on their own to decide how to put the blocks together in a quilt. I've seen butterflies and flowers and some very creative borders. We will be having our party for the unveiling of the quilt tops in June. I can't wait to see what everyone has done.

I'm sure all you quilters know how important it is to set your seams. First using the cotton setting, and I like to use steam, on the side just sewn press and then open and press to either side of the seam. Shadowing is a factor-don't press to the light side. Here's my Bloomin' Rose bloomin'.

This makes 2 quilts in the queue almost ready for quilting. I might be sending some quilts out for quilting, if I stay this prolific.


Springtime in Kentucky is to be the theme in our quilt challenge for the Quilter's Day Out quilt challenge, March, 2008. I can't say what my design is going to be. I've thrown out all kinds of hints to the ladies in the guild. They think I've given them all my secrets, but, ole Julie ain't telling all she knows...hehe...smile...

Double Secret Quilt Productions will unveil that little jewel later on. Does anyone remember that phrase? Double Secret? Where did that come from? I just made the name of that "quilt company" up. I don't have one, just like to quilt for fun. Maybe someday...naahhhh...smile

NYC, Quilt show and Job Shadowing...smile

This is what quilting looked like in the 1850's. Can you imagine? All that stiffness, not to mention how hot it must have been under those skirts. This is a picture at the Chester County Historical Society's quilt show. This is an excellent show and I highly recommend going. It is not large, but it has very well documented information about the quilts and the makers of the quilts. Sorry about the glare on this civil war era quilt, but, it was in a glass case...anyway, it was beautifully made in the mid 1800's. I really like the printed pictures in the centers of the blocks.

I've always liked making feathers in my machine quilting designs, but, I'm going to try this willow tree designthat was hand quilted in a whole cloth white quilt from 1802. It was a little discolored with age, but, you could see the detail of the quilting very well.

The collection included a lot of fund raising signature quilts.

The skill of the signatures is amazingly beautiful in it's own right. These 1800's beauties haven't been seen in 10 years and are only on display until September. Besides the quilts, there is a wonderful grandfather clock collection from the 1700's to 1800's. Lot's of eye candy here.

We made the trip to New York City, in order to bring our daughter, Chelsea, to Columbia University. Oh and guess what...IT'S FLEET WEEK!

Just another thing to add to the list of worries about her time away from us...yikes! She's supposed to be at the American Natural History Museum learn about a meteorite. She wants to be a geologist. I hope there's not a lot of distractions...yeah right! Our other daughter, Jennifer, was thinking about being a teacher and she got to shadow her aunt Kathy while she taught a special needs class in Pennsylvania. If you or your kids are considering a profession, this is a wonderful way to get some insight into a given field. Just spending a day at work with someone, might not give the complete story, but, it'll give a good sample. She has lots to consider. The job of being an English teacher failed in comparison to being a French teacher after a day spent observing, at least as far as my dd was concerned. She also was interested in being an English as a Second Language teacher. Oh well, it's another cog in the wheel of the decision making clock...smile.