This is not the quilt I intended to make when I stepped into my studio the other day to work on something for Hannah.

The irony is not lost on me:  it’s for my sister’s daughter, and it is primarily BLUE.

What happened was this:  I found a chunk of the fabric I used for the border — it’s a black background with flowers and hearts and butterflies and ladybugs, and I thought “Gee, that blue fabric you got at Joann’s matches the blue perfectly.”  And it went from there.

No closeups:  the quilting is just a simple ribbon meander.  Plus none of the closeups really show the quilting detail.  I really like this rail fence arrangement — I like the illusions of pinwheels.  I’m actually pretty taken with the sheer simplicity of a rail fence lately — this is the 2nd rail fence I’ve made in the last few weeks.  Simple to make, and infinitely more interesting (to my eyes) than some of the patterns that seem to be so popular lately.

In other baby news, I have to share a picture of a hat that my Mom made for Hannah.  It is so stinking cute, I wish I could have one, but I know I would look ridiculous.  We tried to get one of the boys to model it, but had to resort to using a doll.  (My doll, not theirs…)

It’s from a book called Itty Bitty Hats by Susan B. Anderson.   So, so adorable.  I can’t wait until I have a picture of Hannah wearing her new hat.

Last thing for tonight:  I have to eat my words a bit.   Remember how I was talking about using Masterpiece thread on my longarm?  Well, after hearing from a few of you that you used it just fine on your longarms, I decided today to try it again on a different quilt.  The cone of green I have happens to be the perfect color for a quilt I’m doing, so I crossed my fingers and….it seems to be working ok-ish.  I think the difference is that I’m using it for some straight line quilting, adn I’m going a lot slower than I was going on that other quilt.  (The other quilt was a faster allover pattern).  It still seems a bit fragile, but it only broke once, so I guess I won’t completely ban Masterpiece thread from my longarm.

I will say two things:  it is very expensive, and I’ll probably continue to use it primarily for piecing and save it for special occasions on the longarm.  Also:  I still stand behind the idea that if you are trying to push the envelope and use a thread for something that it was not originally intended for, you should be prepared for the fact that it might not really work well and it isn’t worth beating your head against a brick wall over it.

I’ve got a bunch of other things to blog about, but I’m going try to do individual posts rather than one really long one.  Some tonight, some in the morning when I can take some pictures.

TTFN-

Suzanne