I'd blame it on the Bosa Nova, but it was really the full moon...

Honest. Since the full moon was the closest in 18 years, I had a brain tsunami.  I was muddled and my math errors were waaay worse than usual and I miscut the same fabric TWICE.  But it's over now, and I'm getting on with getting on.

I've been big stitch quilting a 3" hexagon quilt that I made with Inklingo (the blocks are 3", not the quilt ; )  ) and I'm really pleased with how it's turning out. 

It only took about 2 weeks to hand piece the top and I'm doing the quilting with size 16 Perle Cotton in a taupe color.  Almost done. 

Which is good, because I'm going to be dressed up in my winter gear mowing the lawn any minute!

Do you see how cold it is???????

Can you see the grass grow before your very eyes???????????  The dogs are going out and saying: "I don't like to pee when the grass rubs up against my belly, ya know."  Just sayin'.  I even bought a new Spring purse to cheer me up, and I can't bring myself to use it, cause the weather is too blah for it.  Maybe I'll save it for Easter.

When you were growing up, did you get a whole new outfit for Easter?  From underpants, slip, socks, dress, hat and shoes to gloves?  We did.  And then, what ever the weather was, you could wear white or patent leather shoes until Labor Day.  Yes, I'm getting old.  Tough.   My purse will have to do for this year, unless, maybe I treat myself to..........

If you don't want to listen to me muse, skip the next paragraph.

I wonder why I don't care to machine quilt.  I'm not good at it, yet, but I know it takes practice.  I'm not afraid of practice--look at how long I'm willing to practice hand quilting, big stitch or small.  And I hand piece, and applique.  I have a couple of lovely machines.  It's not the equipment.  Granted, my Sashiko machine is in the shop for who knows how long, and I do enjoy quilting on that.  Must be the way it looks after.  I enjoy looking at other good machine quilting, I just don't feel like mine should look like that.  That being said, it looks like my friend Cathy will have to wait a little longer for the quilt I made her for her birthday last year.  Bit stitch quilting, here I come. 

later.

linda

lucky you!

Why are you lucky?  'Cause I deleted all the blathery stuff I had started this post with and started over!  It's a snow day and I don't have to go to work.  The snow's not that bad, but blowing and drifting all over the roads makes travel not ideal.

I've gotten parts and pieces done.  I added almost 2 rounds to my starburst repro: 

Takes longer and longer to get around-duh to me.

Last Saturday I got a few more forget-me-nots and klosjes done:

I was talking to a friend about the little flowers, and I considered that each flower was "precious", but the quilt as a whole is not more precious than the individual flower.  She, who is very insightful, likened it to seeing a vibernum cluster, and each little flower is wondrous and precious, and each are equal, and God considers us each individually, while dealing with the whole. And that kind of broke my mind.  The fact that I consider each is precious and the whole no more so than the each of the individuals is a good bit of insight for me in just talking about fabric quilts.  The rest is something I have to ponder  for a while.

Then, in between all of these, we got the 2 puppies spayed.  Trying to keep them quiet is interesting.

But I still made time to get the stems for the Garden Club Blackbird table topper appliqued-almost.

  Should finish up today.  The layout was time-consuming, as the blocks are 20" ish- and there wasn't a large layout sheet to put the fabric over-just a graph.  I suppose I could have blown things up and taped, or redrawn it on a red dot tracing mesh, but that would take more time before I could start to sew, so I "approximated" stuff.  We'll see if I regret that when I'm done. 

Tomorrow I'm doing a full scale Inklingo demo, so I have to go get that ready.  And one more ding on me:  I finally found all the comments people had left on the blog:  here I thought I was all alone, and low and behold, people are reading it.  Thank you, thank you.  And I hope to answer comments from now on.

linda

something else new

I know I've said it before, but I have a short attention span.  Today's evidence:

 This is not really my fault.  This is Melanie's fault (one of my bosses at Good Wives).  She's been waltzing

in with her Grandmother's Flower Garden repro that she's working on, and

it's an easy one piece pattern. 

So, I wanted an easy one piece pattern, too, that was a repro.  Ergo......

I'm using Inklingo, and it's printing up great, and the piecing is so easy.  The diamond shape is from the FREE diamond, triangle square download.  The quilt I'm repro-ing is on page 80 of Classic Quilts from The American Museum in Britain.  It's called Sunburst Quilt, and it's from 1875-900.  Made by Elizabeth Mitchell(nee Cannon).  St. Cloud, MN.

The original has a yellow sateen background quilted in red thread.  Will I be so bold?  Time will tell. 

the real question is, when will it get finished?  Stay tuned......

linda

raspberry creams

I've been busy.  I've got a project done for the shop, but I also decided on what color combo I'm using for my pickled clams, aka raspberry creams.  Pink and brown!

At first I thought I'd just do a whole bunch of different colors, and so I grabbed the colors in the single above, and did it that way, and reversed.  Well, once I saw this, I was hooked and did several more lickety split.  Love it.  Now I'm collecting a bunch of pinks and browns to go with the ones I have.  What fun.  I also tried a larger piece of freezer paper for the Inklingo, using just one layer of the Reynolds freezer paper, and it worked beautifully.  Happy camper.  I can do 3 strips a nite and sew at least one and a half onto the clam the next.  I could do more, but for the two new puppies.  Pix to come!  Inklingo is the best!

later.

linda

Inklingo

I've talked about Inklingo before, I think.  Now I've got a button!!  Check it out on your right>
  If you've never been there before, check it out--that's right, just click on the button!  But I have to warn you.  It's addictive.  No more shape marking, no more templates.  Adaptable to all kinds of patterns.  And now you can design your own!  There are free design books available, free patterns.  You can even try it out for free!  Check out the "Support and Goodies" part of the dashboard.  Then go to "Shop and Freebies"  to see what's available.  Then join the yahoo group.  It's not for everybody--nothing is--but you can use it for hand or machine sewing--or a combo for both.  And the accuracy is to die for.

                                                       Check out this pickled clamshell!
   I'd never have attempted this before Inklingo.  But I'm so glad I get to play with it.  Now, if I could only decide on a color way.....
later.
linda

quick intro

I've been quilting since '75 and knitting since I was seven (yeah, in the old days when polyester yarn was new!).  I've had a number of lives and very happy where I am now.  I live surrounded by parks and farmland about 20 miles outside of Columbus, OH, but work one day a week at a lovely shop in Marion, OH, called Good Wives Co. , which deals with repro fabrics and furniture.  I work on their blog, make projects for them and myself and have projects stacked up like every good quilter should.  I'll be talking about what I'm doing on my own time for me, and yes, there will be cross-over with some of the shop stuff, but I'll try real hard to not be repetitive, or push stuff for the shop, as this is my space for showing and musing.  Yes, I muse. 
I must say that I have become addicted to a process/site called Inklingo.  I have no association other than being an avid fan.  As I like hand piecing but not marking, Inklingo is perfect, as you can have your printer put the marks right on your fabric, and never trace around a single template!   And it's all perfectly the same!   You can sew by machine, also, but I don't, yet.  Go there right now!  http://www.inklingo.com/ and join the yahoo group and check out the blogs and start sewing.  Which I'm going to do right now, because I was supposed to spend the day sewing, but instead designed this blog. 
More soon. And there will be photos, just not today.
linda