Am I Done Yet?

Posted on May 23, 2007 by Suzanne

Oy.

I think I’m making this too hard. In fact, I know I am. It’s gotten so bad this week that I have resorted to doing laundry and cleaning the house in order to avoid finishing this quilt.

Please ignore the phantom chalk lines that appear at the bottom left and bottom right. They were an experiment in potentially trimming the quilt to a funky shape.

Also ignore the yellow pin heads at the top of the quilt. The quilt is pinned onto my design wall. It’s too heavy to stick on it’s own.

You can’t tell in this picture, but the feathers are outlined with a couched-on sparkly madeira thread. You can see a closeup of the small heart in a post from a few days ago.

I’ve wanted to do some beading, or some crystals, or ….something….but I think right now that what I’m doing is trying to embellish for the sake of embellishment. And I most certainly don’t want to fall into that trap.

I’m just worried that as it is, it looks unfinished. Like I just quilted a big heart, and then pebbled around it. I’m worried about that left-hand corner being too big and looking empty. I’ve played with some beading ideas, including a beaded echo of the assymetrical heart motif down in the left-hand corner, but it was looking….stupid….

I’ve had trouble getting a good picture of it that is true to the color and shows off the quilting. The picture above makes it look much brighter than it is — the red wool I used is a very dark red. I’ve thought maybe it needs some more sparkle, but maybe the couched thread is enough.

What I think I’m going to do right now is go couch on some more of the Madeira thread around the inside of the binding. And then I’m going to call it done….unless somebody comes up with some brilliant idea for me. Something brilliant but simple that can be accomplished today or tomorrow, because this crazy thing has to be on it’s way to Kansas City right now! That isn’t too much to ask for, is it?

Monday Again?

Posted on May 21, 2007 by Suzanne

Good grief, how did it get to be Monday again? And not only that: this is the boys last week of school. Well, they have to go back next Tuesday for Track and Field Day, but that doesn’t really count. Only a few more days of being 2nd graders. Weird. I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for summer vacation already, but oh well, time and tide wait for no woman, right?

I didn’t manage to take a 26 Things photo yesterday, but I thought of one that I had already taken that I could use for the world Tangle. I posted this on the blog before:

Tangle

I convinced my lovely assistant to pose for a entry on the 26 Things list, so you get to see Katie twice today:

Nose

You could almost hear her thinking “Mom, why are you bugging me? Why do you keep taking my picture? Will you get out of my face already?”

I got the binding done on my red wholecloth today. I couldn’t get a picture of the whole thing in my studio — it’s too dark — I need to take it out in the sun, I think. I finished couching the sparkly stuff (I think Vicki said that what she sent me was from Madeira), but now I’m stuck. And I need to get unstuck really soon. Like tomorrow. This crazy thing has to be in the mail by the end of the week. I want to do some more embellishment, but I don’t know what. I don’t know if I’m trying to hard, or if I just haven’t hit on the right thing yet. It’s hanging on my design wall again, and I’ll keep contemplating it while I work on a quilt for a customer.

Time to take the boys to piano lessons — last lesson for the year!

TTFN-

Suzanne

Under the Weather

Posted on April 29, 2007 by Suzanne

I’ve been a little under the weather this week, which is why some of my posts this week were a little crabby, and why I just didn’t even bother posting the last 2 days. Instead, I’ve been sewing. I showed off my page spread for my ABC RR in my previous post, but I thought I’d also show off the quilt top I finished yesterday.

It’s based on the pattern StarStruck found at Bonnie Hunter’s website.

You can click on the photo to view it larger. This is my 2nd StarStruck. It’s a fun pattern to put together — a good stashbuster. I do like how this turned out, but I think I like the green with red accents version that I did previously. I think there might be *too* much red in this one.

It looks pretty wonky, but it’s just hanging on my design wall, it is actually straight….

Thanks to some antibiotics, I’m feeling much better, so hopefully I’ll be more productive and less crabby this week.

TTFN-

Suzanne

I heart beads

Posted on April 26, 2007 by Suzanne

So after I got through whining about my fusible web tracing issues from yesterday, I went back to the studio to try again. THis time I managed to get it right. I’m making this piece up as I go along, so once the letters were fused, and I did a quick zig-zag in matching thread, I had to decide what was next.

Beads.

Figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

I had this red bead mix that is packed with various shades of red (true red, pinky-red, purpley-red, goldish red, matte, shiny, silver-lined, clear). So, I started picking up groups of 2 or 3 beads (stab the needle in, whatever comes out on the needle is what gets sewn on), and began outlining the Q. Between last night and this afternoon, I’ve got the “C” and the “Q” outlined.

Yum.

I adore beads.

Don’t know what exactly I’m going to do with the all of the plain white fabric in the rest of the block, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something. Maybe more beads.

In case you are wondering, Salt Creek Quilt Company is the name of my business, thus the reason for the letters.

(Don’t forget to click to view them full size. These tiny thumbnails do not do the beads justice.)

I think I need more beads. Anybody want to share their favorite bead source(s)?

Thanks,

Suzanne

Bead overload

Posted on April 19, 2007 by Suzanne

So this crazy red wholecloth I’m working on has suggested to me that it might want some beads.

(Yes, my quilts talk to me. Don’t yours talk to you? Sometimes I’m not sure if I should listen to my quilts or not. Listening to them sometimes gets me into trouble. More often than not, though, the quilt is right about what it wants.)

Where was I? Ah yes: beads.

I already have a bunch of red beads (thanks to some stash enhancing before Christmas), but I decided I needed a better variety before deciding what to put on the quilt.

I had to get groceries today (we were out of some really important stuff like Lucky Charms), so while in Waterloo I visited Hobby Lobby. I found a bunch of red beads that I ~~needed~~ wanted, and also some cool clear plastic stacky thingies to put my beads in. (The plastic thingies all screw together and have one lid per size).

Now, as you look at this picture you have to remember that I already had about 2/3rds of these beads:

To me, this is a lot of red beads for one person to own. I suspect that some of you are agreeing, but others of you are probably thinking "Sheesh, she’s an amateur." I think it’s probably time for me to start buying beads of other colors, though.

I messed around a little with what beads might work. The problem with beads is that I find that I really need to actually sew the beads on to see if they actually look good or not. Laying them on top just isn’t quite enough for me to visualize. I’ve got an idea, but I need to do some experimenting to see if it’ll work or not. I just hope that I have enough of the beads that I think I’ve chosen (which are ones that I purchased today, so it was worth the trip).

Now, I need to start planning projects to use all of those other red beads that I am the proud owner of….

Back to pebbles — see you tomorrow!

Suzanne