![]() ! Just arrived ! Stunningly beautiful, Dorothy. Dorothy says this will have hot pink flannel backing! Erica is Dorothy's granddaughter. Oct 31: Quilt top arrived. Backing is coming soon.
Nov 13: Pink flannel backing is here. Nov 14: IQ programmed. Dorothy decided on the dense side of medium for this quilt, softening it with Quilter's Dream Deluxe cotton batting. Everything is prepped, loaded & ready to baste. Another nuance is a Scripture quote Dorothy incorporated into the backing loaded so it is centered on the right side of the quilt. I hope I got that right, pun intended too. Nov 15: Quilting. Nov 16: Quilted & shipped.
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![]() Some people hand piece because they feel that is the way to do it. Cindy Dodd does it because she is confined to her recliner. Absolutely gorgeous. I'll longarm this & Laura Mourning will research and finish this quilt with a scalloped border attached by machine and then hand finished. Oct 16: First contact by phone--just the way I like it! LOL She decided on Deb's Swirls for her panto. I have been contracted to piece the backing and do the scalloped edge bias binding for her. I am sub-contracting the binding to Laura Mourning so I can focus on longarming.
Oct 17: Received Cindy's preview picture. WOW! I showed Cindy how these quilts are classically done with special patterns just for Double Wedding Rings. She fell in love with Donna Kleinke's Carmen's Roses for Double Wedding Ring blocks. Gone is the idea of using a pantograph. Oct 20: Quilt top arrived. Backing will come later but this baby is in the queue! Oct 22: Backing & binding are here. Nov 05: Time to get started on this beautiful quilt. Pieced the backing. Preparing the top. Everything is ready to load. And loaded. I have done just enough to know this is a doable project but it will take time. Everywhere there is stitching, I have to first carve out the area on the quilt where it will go by clicking points along the perimeter. Not hard...just takes time. I am also doing, not stitch in the ditch, but stitching just inside each side of the rings. These too have to be carved out & there is a lot of that to do. I wish I could master free hand stitching for this but I am terrible at it. (Just check my efforts to freehand baste the sides of your quilts. On second thought, don't. LOL) Nov 06: Checked the back side this morning--should have done it right away yesterday. I'm not smilin' so something needs fixin'--just not sure what is best. Hmmm. After much thinking it over, Cindy decided she would rather have white thread top and back since there is plenty of color already. Nov 07: Many hours later I finally gotten all the colored thread out. Most the pattern is double stitched and the computer slows down and makes an extra tiny stitches at the points so this was aggravating to say to the least to take out the stitches but it is done now. Will start again when I get up the nerve. Have done the first row of melons-white on white. Nov 08: Have now done first row of roses. Made it past the 1/2 way point. Nov 09: Working on the last half of the quilt. And finished. Nov 10: After a few morning photos, I shipped the quilt & binding material to Laura Mourning in SC to add a scalloped binding. Nov 14: Laura received the quilt. Nov 27: Laura reports that she is making progress on the binding though interrupted by Thanksgiving, etc. Dec 08: Laura shipped the quilt to Cindy. Dec 10: Cindy received her quilt. "The quilt arrived a few hours ago. It is absolutely beautiful!! You and Laura did a magnificent job turning my little quilt top into a beautiful work of art! I am very pleased with what you have done with it. Thank you so much!" On Cody's blog, Tim says: Thanks for doing this for Cody!! Cody keeps the apartment at Walter Reed very cold so the quilt is much appreciated by everyone :) Later Tim writes: His Mom will be the one using the quilt most likely as Cody stays very hot with the all of the medications he is taking. Because he stays so hot, he keeps the air conditioning very low and freezes his Mom. Tim Cody Hmmm. Sounds to me like Cody's Mom needs her own quilt! Anyone interested? If so, I will longarm it for free. THAT WAS FAST! Laura Mourning has decided to make a quilt for Cody's Mom and already has it planned out. Thanks, Laura! Thus L&L Quilts--totally unofficial--is born. Laura is also the angel who is going to do the binding on both of these quilts. She too is a 24/7 caregiver so she knows what it's like--joys, stress, exhaustion, etc. Quilting keeps her sane or so she says. ![]() The quilt is here for Nancy who is Cody's Mom. Laura Mourning pieced this beautiful quilt. She will also bind it and then ship it Nancy. Oct 16: Around this time Laura was shopping and planning the quilt top.
Oct 29: The quilt is here. Nov 01: Quilting day. Using a beautiful and fast meander called Bird Bath. I considered something more elaborate but decided the fabric is elaborate enough. Will use Dream Orient silk batting. Loading. Quilting. Still quilting. Still quilting. LOL. Almost done. Finished. Nov 02: Shipped to Laura to do the binding. Nov 08: Laura finished the binding & thus the quilt. Nov 10: Laura's binding photos (collage here). Nov 17-21: Cody (and Nancy) were in the hospital. Nov 20: Nancy picked up her quilt from the post office. Nov 22: They made it home for Thanksgiving. Nov 27: Received a nice note from Nancy: "It is beautiful and the colors that I love!" ![]() Laura Mourning has been working on this in her spare time of which there is very little. I love those blocks for Halloween--really adds to the overall effect. Oct 05: We were talking IQ patterns.
Oct 12: Quilt top arrived. Still talking IQ pattern. "Something swirly." Oct 13: Going with Deb's Swirls so the back can be used when not Halloween. Very Clever. Jan 22, 2013: Laura requested I return her quilt top so she could make modifications. It will be fun to see what she does with it. Oct 10: Plugging away. My goof is fixed and now history. Had to make a couple of changes on the order of the strips & now ready to sew them. Finished the day starting round 9. Oct 11: Finished through round 14. Oct 12: Added last four rounds. The quilt top center is ready for borders. Squaring this top before adding borders is going to be a bit tricky to put it mildly. I roughly squared it several rounds ago but I left well over an inch for later more careful squaring. Started working on that this evening but I am out of steam now. In addition to this quilt, I have had several projects going requiring paid help. That of course frees me to keep sewing but it also means lots of interruptions. Once I get this top done, it will be time to design the IQ layout. Oct 13: Squaring before adding borders. Thanks for the tips, Joan! Got the two inner borders on. One to go. Oct 14: Nine days from start to finish--way more than I expected. Next I need to program IQ. Sadly a friend left me high and dry on an outdoors project that I must now attempt to do alone before any rains come again. Oh dear! Oct 15: My first complete draft of the IQ Overlay is done. I'll see if I still like it in the morning. I am wide open to suggestions on this. Oct 16: I have been testing various thread colors and weights today. I have decided to order So Fine! black for all the stitching, front and back, except the outer border. I have some So Fine! thread in house that I think tops that off nicely. Thus, this project will not be quilted until early November.
Sept 28: A friend volunteered to do the binding. Oh yes! (Dec: Decided to do my own.)
Oct 05: Piecing begins. Trimmed the bandana so the Psalm is centered. Oct 06: Cutting & sewing strips one at a time. Made it through round 4. The outer border is beginning to get wavy so I may have to redo some it ... tomorrow. Oct 07: A new day. Yep, redoing that 4th border to flatten it out. Can't bear to think how bad things would get by the outer round if I don't. This will take a lot longer than I thought. Such is piecing but I want to keep my longarmer happy! LOL From this point forward I am going to do several strips at once hoping for less waving. Well, that only worked kinda well because I reached the side borders and goofed up the top and bottom of that last round (6). I didn't have quite enough fabric and then goofed up what I had when I tried to make it work. So back to the store Tuesday (closed Monday) hoping they have more. Another idea brewing too. So I didn't get nearly as far as I hoped but I can still cut strips if I dare. This thing is tricky or else I just am not being very clever. Oct 08: Got all the strips cut. My goof led me to modify my plan a bit. Oct 09: Bought the rest of the fabric I need for the revised plan. Keep thinking about what IQ patterns to use. Found some that may work in the file below. ![]() Just stunning. Here the quilt speaks for itself so will quilt with black Bottom Line thread which has the best blend. Oct 20: Final picture Oct 03: Quilt arrived
Oct 05: Posting first pictures Oct 10: Laura has finalized her pattern selection. Oct 18: Prepped and loaded.Basting is next ... done. IQ is programmed There are two way to load a quilt top. The way I usually do it is to pin the bottom edge to a canvas and roll it up. I am going to float this one which means to let it hang loose over the front bar like the batting does. This give a little more leeway for the nuances of the pieced top. It is also a good method for small quilts, i.e. I did Laura's first three quilts the same way because they were small. More about density. Laura want medium density with curves about 1" apart. I tried everything from 14" rows down to 8.5" rows. 9" looked the best overall. Oct 19: Quilted. ![]() "I made the blue quilt last year ..." I am so thinking block patterns quilted with matching blue thread in the white on-point blocks with a meander panto in the 5-patch blocks. Hmmm. What to put in the white triangles and on the three borders? Need a theme to do this right. Or just keep it elegantly simple using a beautiful panto all over in white using So Fine! thread. Anything curvy would compliment these squares. Oct 03: Quilt arrived
Oct 05: First pictures posted Oct 10: Laura has selected her layout -- a panto center with a border Oct 20: Been working on the IQ pattern today. The border Laura decided on is more complicated than a single border so I am still working on it. The backing is partially loaded. Oct 21:Tasks completed today: post IQ layout, finished loading the back, cut the batting and loaded it, ironed the quilt top (numerous times) which led to smoothing some of the borders for the custom work to look good, loaded the quilt top. Oct 22: Changed the thread and basted the top & down one side when I noticed I had forgotten to check for loose blue thread. I took the basting out & rolled the quilt back out all the way to the top basting. Removed the threads I saw show through and proceeded to trim loose blue threads everywhere. Still at it--this extra challenge of the day. I probably won't catch all of them but it won't be for lack of trying. I got the top border done and it is already 8:30 pm. After all that trimming, be darn if I didn't have to stop and fish out 2 threads while quilting the border. Gotta quit and do something besides quilting for awhile. Oct 23: Please read the comment about loose threads. Worked on the center section today. Still have a couple of rows to go. Oct 24: Finished center section and bottom border. Oct 25: Working on side borders. And finished! Will try for a on-the-bed photo in the morning before I ship. ![]() Terrie McCoy has given us a sneak preview of her quilt top & the pattern she used. Terrie, bless her heart, down-sized her quilt so it would fit on my machine. Instead, she wants a border that complements but is distinct from the panto for the rest of the quilt. Such incredible piecing! This kind of quilt terrifies me! Nonetheless, the quilt absolutely speaks for itself. So Fine! white thread to quietly quilt the dragonflies with medium density. Sept 22: I first heard from Terrie & she already knew what patterns she wanted. Her quilt was too wide for my machine so she set about revising it so I could do it for her. Wow!
Sept 30: Received Terrie's picture of her quilt and started this post. Oct 01: Quilt shipped here. Oct 04: The quilt has arrived. Oct 26: Backing & batting are loaded. Quilt top is ready to load. IQ is roughly programmed. Doing an EQ7 rendition to help get an idea of pattern sizes. Oct 27: Finished the IQ programming. The quilt is loaded and basted. Oct 28:Experimented with a fancy border ... Oct 29: Removing the entire border after removing half of it yesterday. Still have half to go this morning. Am I a bit scared to try a third time? You bet! Oct 30: I have admitted my limitations and Terrie has agreed for me to do a panto. Even so I am looking at well over three hours of stitching time which means 8+ hours total. Made it half way. Oct 31: I have made it past the half way point. Will finish today one way or the other. And so I did. Finished. |
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