Three Fingers Lake Quilt

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Suzanne

This is the quilt that has been on the frame for a coon’s age. It’s beautiful, and turned out exactly the way my customer wanted it (I’m not bragging, she said those exact words, LOL), and it’s finally done:

I did all of the straight line stitching, freehand (well, with a ruler), around the dark and light blue chains. When you view the closeups, especially of the back, you can see just how much straight line quilting that was. Those squares are 1 inch finished. The block designs were stitched by the computer. They are meant for a Double Wedding Ring, and fit these spaces just perfectly. (The patterns are all designed by Anne Bright, Trellis Vines and Trellis Hearts).

There are a bunch of pictures, so I’m adding them in as a gallery, you can click on each thumbnail to get a closer look.

Can I just say, I love my Intelliquilter? Love. It.

edited to add: The pattern is from Judy Martin’s Log Cabin Quilt Book.

Oh, look, it’s “Take Really Out of Focus Pictures” Day

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Suzanne

Now, in theory I could try again to take IN focus pictures, but that would require changing socks again, and taking the memory card back out of the card reader and putting it into the camera and finding a spot with better light and…I just don’t have it in me.

These adorable socks are called Absinthe, the pattern is from Knitty.com. I even used the yarn that the pattern calls for, which is much prettier in person, vs. this lovely out of focus picture. I knit the plain toe section a little bit longer, and only did 4 repeats of the leg pattern (instead of 5) because I was running out of yarn, (thanks to making them longer in the foot…). My cabling still needs work, but I’m pretty happy with them.

I finished the second one on Sunday (the first has been done for awhile). Naturally, that meant I could start a new pair of socks (though I did finish knitting a Christmas present before I let myself start the new sock:

These are called Blueberry Bubbles. They are going to be stinking adorable. The cable just wiggles it’s way up the side of the sock, the right sock will be the mirror image. The cable pattern is super easy — no cable needle. You just pass a slipped stitch over two knit stitches, and then a yarn over in the next row. I’m using some hand-dyed yarn I bought online about a year ago. I had started different socks, but changed my mind. When I found this pattern, I knew this pair of socks is what this yarn really wanted to be.

Oh, and I might have ordered some yarn to make this sweater: Elphaba Pullover. In a dark green, though. Cause is’t Elphaba, don’t you know? **

But now, I must return to the customer quilting on the frame. IT is a beautiful quilt, but the stitch in the ditch is…tedious. More tedious than stitch in the ditch is normally, because it’s not long straight lines: it’s 1 inch or less lines. Stop and start and stop and start…and…you get the picture.

And I’m doing it uncaffeinated. I have gone cold turkey: I have not had a drop of Pepsi in 3 weeks.

I only mention this because I could REALLY use a Pepsi right now. Like, you might get me to agree to just about anything if you offered me a Pepsi. Well, maybe not ANYTHING, but…I can just about taste it, and feel the sugar rush and the caffeine rush and…yeah.

Like I said, I’m off the stuff, and I know that I will be a better, healthier person for doing so, but damn it. I WANT A PEPSI.

**In case you don’t know: in the book and musical “Wicked” Elphaba is the name given to the Wicked Witch of the West. She is green. Plus, there’s the whole Emerald City thing.

Even more quilting!

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Suzanne

I know: two posts in a row about QUILTING, it’s just crazy.

This is another repeat for my MQResource friends, but I think it’s worth it, it’s so cute:

ON this one, I tried to do the bows freehand and the one I did was…hooboy, it stank. Partly because I just charged right in and didn’t actually draw it out first (I know, duh!), but partly because bows aren’t my thing — I’ve tried them before and haven’t been happy. Instead: I let my Intelliquilter do the work on this one. The design is from Designs by Vickie, with some modifications that I made (cutting and pasting the streamers so there were 4 and it was centered). Could I, with practice and thought have done this freehand? Maybe. But there were 42 blocks, and…I was happy to let IQ take this one for me…

Proof that I quilt

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Suzanne

Every so often I have to post something that proves that I am, in fact, still a quilter: this is a repeat for my MQR friends, but for the rest of you, here’s a customer quilt that I just finished, in the midst of the musical chaos (click on the thumbnails to get the nice large pictures. The majority of the quilt is done freehand, with just simple guidelines drawn in for spacing. The egg and dart border and the holly leaves were done with the Intelliquilter.

Quiltmaker Alert

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Suzanne

I got my contributor’s copy a week or 2 ago, but my subscription copy came today:

check out Swirlabout on page 60, you might recognize the machine quilter’s name!

(Image is from and links to the Quiltmaker website. The quilt was designed by Scott Murkin.)

Isn’t it a great quilt??? It was hard to send it back. I quilted this right around the first of the year, and have just been waiting and waiting to be able to mention it.