Whoopty Doo, it's a Bloomin' Rose Quilt Party

Yep, we had it, the unveiling of the Bloomin' Rose Sigi block exchange. Last December for a present we gave to each one that wanted to participate, a quilt block with our signature on it. There were 16 that made and signed the blocks, well, mostly. We had some catching up to do today with the signatures, but, we got it done. We were to have 6 months to do something with them, or not. So it's June, that means party and Show and Tell. Show and Tell is the same as it was when you were in grade school. Since quilters are all children at heart and we never did grow up, we have Show and Tell.

Here is our lovely group of talented gals with their quilts they made:

Shirley our most wonderful Southern Bell Hostess

This is Carol one of our newer quilters that continues to amaze

This is Sherrill's quilt.

Evelyn is the Queen Bee of the guild.

Cici used the leaves to create a secondary element to the quilt.

Ginny used some fabric that had been on her shelf for the longest.

Joan is a master quilter and was the first to finish her quilt.

Yours truly

Deloris's lovely quilt

Dot's soft and lovely quilt, if you click on the picture you can see the unique sashing she did.

Mary's quilt, if a prize was awarded, she would have won.

Ruth's was the most planned to show off the signatures. All the signatures on the 4 roses were surrounded by butterflies.

It's always amazing to me how all these gals started out with the same blocks and all the finished quilts looked so different. Flowers on point or in square blocks; butterflies added, appliqued or pieced borders really brought out the colors of the quilt.

That's the beauty of quilting and the art in it. Our chance to be creative with a practical craft that we and our family can enjoy for years. We had the worlds best cake to eat and even the flowers wanted some. Good Food; Good Friends; Good Times...smile

Bloomin' Rose Complete

Quilting is daunting sometimes. I suppose that's why we have so many UFO's. Our eyes are bigger than our stomach-or so goes the old saying about filling your buffet plate too heavily for you to eat when you were a kid.

So it goes for our creative mind's eye with projects for quilting. We see so many possibilities and being an instant gratification kinda gal, I'm the first to admit to mumble, mumble projects in the closet in boxes, ready to pick up for completion...some day. You know, they don't go bad on the shelf!...smile. Anyway-this Bloomin' Rose quilt is a great easy project to finish-no matchy matchy-no perfection-just easy fun quilting making at it's best. And also best is the signature project-that being a block exchange with friends in my quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends. Now we all have a reminder of the laughter and all things quilters share with the signature of our quilting friends.

My new favorite thread for hand stitching is Essential from Connecting Threads. One of the gals in our group, Mary, discovered this website and purchased this very inexpensive thread for our members that wanted to split the mailing cost, I think each spool of 1200 yards, size 50 was only 1.25. Boy was I surprised when I grabbed the closest color to my binding (not the one pictured, I used that to show the label). In the past I've used a thread conditioner, called Thread Heaven, to keep my thread from twisting and knotting when hand stitching. This thread did not need it. It came off the spool beautifully and did not knot! I'm sure it's made more for the machine, but, upon my quick need to match thread to binding, as I'm under the deadline for our party on Tuesday this is a superb discovery, thanks Mary!

Quick movie review-The Good German-don't bother I finished the binding while I was watching The Good German-don't waist your time, unless you really like the film Noir genre, which I am a big fan of, also George Clooney and Kate Blanchet and Toby Macguire-it should have been great....alas...

Quick CD review: Instant Karma-relief for Darfur-Check it out!

On to all things quilting...smile. This is what it takes to finish a quilt: Essential Thread from Connecting Threads; Archival quality pen to make your label; the label itself.

Make it a great day!

Binding is on and I'm on to the Diamond in the Rough.

Binding is the final touch to make your quilt complete, er, well, almost, one must always, always, always put a label on a quilt. The future needs to know the story about this quilt-who made it; when it was made; etc.

Off my soap box about the labels.

I like a 2.25 inch binding. Fold it in half and sew this all around the edge. I don't trim the batting until after I've sewn on the binding.
Sew up to the corner, all the way to the turning point, then fold back and turn the corner and begin sewing again. If you need clarity, Fons and Porter sells a great cheat sheet, tool sort of thing for this. It's laminated and well worth the money. The back shows how to make continuous binding. The card/tool also shows a great trick for sewing the binding ends together.

I'm whip stitching it to finish while watching a movie called The Good German. I'll let you know if it's any good.

The Diamond in the rough has started out as a scrap quilt (excuse my dirty floor, must quilt, not clean right now...smile). I did end up buying some more scraps to match. How crazy is that? I wanted the scrappy, coordinated look I guess. Anyway, I wanted the sashing to look scrappy and was a bit befuddled at how to accomplish this. Until I read one of my really great blog inspirations (to the right), that being the Quilting Daze Blog. Funny thing is, she admitted to using another quilter's ideas and gave her full credit for the idea. I'm now giving full credit to the Daze for her sashing technique, that I'll employ in this quilt. Is that okay? Are not all quilt blocks a rendition of another quilter's work. If not today, then certainly in the 1920's or 1930's when a lot of these blocks were designed?

Even though quilting is a craft handed down through the years, I still like my technology today. I'm a full sensory kinda gal. This is me sewing the Diamond in the Rough with my noise canceling headphones on, which are plugged into my ipod. I keep these on when my DH is watching something on TV I'm not particularly interested in. He bought them for me for Mother's Day this year-yeah DH! Notice my big radio in the background-it is my daughter's-like mother, like daughter.

Happy Quilting!

It's binding time again...whoopee!

The Bloomin' Roses is complete, all that's left is the binding. This is my favorite time, cause it means it's done. I like a narrow binding, usually darker than the quilt. I think it gives it a nice frame of sorts, a finish, if you will, that holds in all the business of the quilt. Also, I like lots of quilting. In older quilts, those with the most quilting usually last longer. So, for me longevity of my work is important. That goes for the bright colors too. In a few years, those super bright colors will dull down to a lovely patina. That's joy for me now and joy for me later. Don't get me wrong, I like the civil war, warm palette, or the muted Japanese/ping colors also. They will only get richer looking, if it's good fabric. But, again, I think something deep down in us draws us to something, and for me it's bright and cheery colors...smile...

It took about a half a day to complete the machine quilting with this set up.

The back of my quilt is usually where you can really see the quilting. Not so much on this one. The pattern of the fabric is pretty busy. If you don't want to your stitches to show, choose a busy backing fabric. This is a flannel fabric, made by Marcus Brothers. It is the zodiac, I just like the interesting colors and symbols. Plus it's flannel, my favorite backing. I chose a variety of quilting designs, all free motion-don't like them templates or drawing lines. Again, this is not a piece for a contest, so I'm happy with some imperfections. It is done and that's always better than perfect. I did echo quilting around each flower and then created my own flower in the corner and finished with quilting in the ditch on the hourglass border.

The batting

inside the quilt sandwich is silk and I'll have to let you know how it feels under it. But, it sews like butter on the machine, I don't know about hand quilting. It is thin but gives enough body to the stitching that you can see the quilting quite well.

This is a picture this morning. No butterflies for me. The strawberries were there all day, but, I'm sure the raccoons came in the evening and ate them all. Oh well, next batch of fruit, I'll leave out again, and try to be vewy, vewy quite....hehehehe....smile

Butterflies, Bloomin Roses and Machine Quilting...

Shhhhhh....be vewy, vewy quite...we're hunting butterflies...hehehehe...Loonie Tunes...remember that saying?
Elmer J. Fudd?

Not really hunting, just trying to attract them. Since I've stopped feeding the birds, as they bring along various raccoons, squirrels and shrews, we have halted the bird seed. But, there is no end to my need for cheap entertainment, thus the strawberries. I understand that butterflies like very ripe fruit. My camera is at the ready, in case we get a lovely visitor.

Shrew you ask? Yes, in our house. My husband, daughter and I chased it all over our basement and DH was able to swish it out the door safely with a broom. Cute little critters, maybe they don't eat birdseed, but, one in the house was enough.

On to all things quilting...since our Bloomin' Roses are due for the Show and Tell party at one of our member's homes, I thought I'd show the final stages of completion. It's only taken me about a half a day to complete the quilting. I'm using the silk batting with this lap quilt. My machine seems to like the batting. It's very thin. The best test, for me is the cover test. How does it feel under the quilt. I'll let you know when I get there.Here's me in at the machine. There's really nothing more enjoyable than machine quilting, free motion. It is a lot like painting. The faster you go the easier it is. I don't like templates that much, but, I know they have a place and I've used them before. Whatever you do don't throw away the leftover batting. I like to use it in pillows. You can also hand sew the pieces together to use in another quilt. Just butt the edges up against each other and zigzag sew-trying not to create a lot of bulk. You then sandwich this in a regular quilt, nobody will know.

It's a beautiful day here in Kentucky, and it's summer so that means strawberries. Here's the fruity portion of strawberry shortcake. I've got a Bisquik mix to make later for the desert. For my homesick daughter in NYC, here's our summertime backyard in Crestwood, Kentucky, USA.

Is there nothing more poetic than wilting roses? These are Chelsea's favorite flowers,

they'd be happy if she was here...smile...

This, on the other hand, makes us very happy and very proud. Way to go Jennifer!

Happy Quilting....

Easing in the border for the Bloomin' Rose

It's just my luck the blocks for the border sewn together almost fit. But, I'll still need to adjust and ease in the border. As you can see the border for this quilt is just a bit large. So, I'll need to go back over some seams and take a larger seam-instead of the usual 1/4 inch, in order to make this border fit, I'm going back over a couple of blocks and take about 1/2 to 5/8 inch seam then it'll ease in and fit!

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!