The Quilt-Mobile Lady

I admit it. In retirement, I have become something of a recluse. Make that "The Quilting Hermit of Wake Forest." I spent decades getting up early in the morning and working all day. When you teach, your entire day has to be planned to the last detail. You have to constantly keep children on task and engaged in learning, dealing with behavior and motivation. There is a lot of talking. I mean, you have to talk all the time. The first day of school I would always come home with sore lips, really, from talking so much. I totally enjoy the luxury of not having to rush around in the morning. I also enjoy being in my home and working on my own in peace and quiet. But, I do miss the daily contact with my teaching buddies, and all the funny and endearing things the kids say and do.


Actually, I am sending out my resume to try to land a teaching job again. No need for me to be sitting home lolling around with my husband's income facing uncertainty due to Wall Street's downward spiral. My timing on spending a huge chunk of my savings to remodel the downstairs was spectacularly bad.

Anyway, yesterday, it was time to venture away from home and into the Big City (Raleigh.) I loaded up Sweet Sue the Suburu and went on an outing. First stop, to Jean and Gary's house in North Raleigh to deliver her Oak Leaves quilt. Then, to meet with Karen at an elementary school in Raleigh where she was attending an all-day workshop. I managed to meet her in the school parking lot to deliver her three quilts. Not the strangest quilt delivery: I have dropped quilts off at a day spa and in the Best Buy lot. Since I live about fourteen miles north of Raleigh, I try to deliver quilts if I am going to town anyway, and save my clients a little gas money.

Finally, to West Raleigh to deliver Carolina Woodland Spring to the North Carolina State Fair. What a great surprise to find two very friendly, cheerful, ladies working at the quilt drop-off table. They actually seemed to like quilts, and were very complimentary about my entry. In the past there was a stone-faced old sourpuss. I don't know what happened to her, but I didn't miss her.

After that, it was a short drive to the Whole Foods store, where I selected a delicious Hazelnut-Chicken Salad and a big square of a spicy cornbread. MMMMNNN, much better than my usual yogurt.

And, since it was on the way home, a nice trip to the Triangle Town Center mall to look for surprises from Barnes and Noble and Old Navy to take to South Carolina with me when I visit my son's family in a couple of weeks.

I finally found copies of both the new Gifts and Studios magazines from Quilting Arts. Maybe someday I will finish my sewing room redo. Great eye candy in both issues!

Here is a fun little child's quilt that I just finished for Teresa, a new customer. She is a fabulous piecer. I mean, perfect! She brought me two very similar quilts. I started with the smaller of the two. It has bright commercial prints framed with black polka dot fabric and a rainbow stripe border. Many of the prints are curvy swirls and fun snakes. Now, you know I am not at all fond of snakes, but these are very cute, colorful, and non-menacing. So, I did freehand quilting with lots of swirls and curves.

I did not think I would have time to do the second one today, because we planned to leave for the mountains at noon. DH just called and says the phones are ringing non-stop (he's a stock broker) and he wants to stay and answer all the clients' questions and concerns. So, up I go to work on the next quilt. Hope you all have a safe and happy weekend!

Quilting over the Label

Have just finished quilting a very pretty quilt for my friend Jean. She is incredibly generous to her nieces and nephews, making each of them a beautiful quilt for graduation. This one is a "Washington's Puzzle" pattern made in Oak Leaves and Reels fabric. The border is a print that looks like half-square triangles- great time-saver!

She chose an overall freehand with oak leaves and other leafy designs. I like the fact that Jean sews her labels on the back prior to the quilting. She does not care if it is centered, but the label is not likely to be removed if it is quilted right in to the backing.

I am still fooling around with my new Neocolor 2 Watersoluble wax crayons. Here is some color applied to dry muslin. I drew in some seaweed-looking lines in green over the blues.

Here is the same piece after applying a wet brush. Pretty!

Then I enlarged and added more form to the seaweed with Tsukineko inks to form my version of a kelp forest.

This is just for fun, but it might make its way into an art quilt or some fabric postcards.

If anyone is keeping up with my remodeling saga:

Days until client party: 23

Kitchen painting- done

Kitchen floor- done with beautiful porcelain tile

Kitchen counters- none! They made a template yesterday and had to take off the counters.

Kitchen sink and running water- none! Had to get an undermount sink for the new counters. They are supposed to install counters, sink, and backsplash next week.

Living room, foyer, and dining room floors- none! Now I have to wait for an inspector to come out and examine the faulty wood product that is still nailed to the floor, even though the new wood has been delivered and the old wood hauled off. This is annoying! I want my floor back!

Pink Artist Project Count-Down

It's official...my little pink wall hanging is one of the many prizes to be awarded on October 16 for contributors to the Pink Artist Project.

Monica updated the list of prizes on her blog. Of course, the main attraction is the Love Squared doll, who is quilted, beaded and embellished beyond belief. Her skirt is made from 2-inch squares donated by 180 artists.

All you have to do is make a donation via Paypal to the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer fund by clicking on the sidebar on Monica's blog. For every $10 donation, you earn two chances to win a prize. The list now includes jewelry, purses, artwork, journals, and lots of other hand-made items donated by artists.

If you don't use Paypal, she has her address on the sidebar to mail money order donations. Don't forget, October 15 is the deadline to be part of the Pink Artist Drawing!

In other news, my guild sold every quilt that was auctioned off last Saturday at the Heritage Days event. They raised over $6000 through the quilt auction, and still have the "opportunity" quilt proceeds to add to the total when all the tickets have been sold. So, "Ring of Peace" has a new home. I don't know how much it sold for, but I hope it has a happy new home---and won't be used as a pot holder or hot pad! LOL! I did put instructions on the label to avoid water and direct sunlight.

ATQ Goes to the Mountains

After a stressful week at home wondering if we would ever have a floor, if Wachovia was failing, was becoming Citigroup, or was now Wells Fargo, Mr. Quilty and I headed for the hills for a little mountain therapy. Perfect weather, golden sunshine, crisp mornings, cloudless skies, and autumn color beginning to color the hillsides...yes, that did it for us!It was so beautiful that we took longer, scenic routes to go to town on Saturday morning for our errands. I spotted the quilted garage doors and barn art as we were on Rt. 16 after getting off the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway. Not sure about the white on the red barn wall. Surely not gang graffiti???
Here is Mr. Quilty stopping at our favorite produce store. I love the displays of mums, pumpkins, and bountiful vegetable harvests.


When we got back to our cabin, I planted a few dozen mixed daffodils. Charlie did a little hunting (again, no danger to the deer population from his efforts) and I stitched my two little quilt bindings down while sitting outside near the bird feeder. The chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, and a few little woodpeckers emptied the feeder in one day. Then I grabbed my camera and went off with Maggy to take pictures of the pond and creek area, where no one hunts. Perfect for restoring one's good mood, with the sun warm on my back and post-card beauty everywhere I looked.

In addition to the fall color, I loved seeing the reflections of the sky and trees in the water.
The pond below our cabin was looking very serene in the golden light.

On Saturday night, we rode in the Gator to the top of the mountain for an unobstructed view of the stars. It was a great night for shooting stars. The next afternoon we also enjoyed a ride through the Christmas tree farms and along the creek.
On the way home, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway again. Here is one Happy Little Cloud in the blue sky (RIP, Bob Ross!)

The clouds were starting to roll across the valley as we headed down the hill. What a beautiful weekend of R&R!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

Okay, I know it is really Thursday, but I did not have the bindings sewn on yesterday!

Here is my little green trapunto quilt, with a shiny metallic fabric binding applied to the top and ready to be hemmed to the back. I came across this fabric in my stash when I was searching for something to make the birthday crown for my father's birthday. It is from the same line, but looks more like a colorwash of pastels along with the gold. There are a few Swarovski crystals here and there, but I am thinking of adding something else to add shine to the top. Glittery paint? The tinting of these motifs was accomplished with Tsukineko inks and colored pencils.


And here is its mate, with the same shiny binding. I also added Swarovski crystals, which were not in place last time I showed this WIP. This is the one tinted with Neocolor II watercolor crayons. I have been heat-setting with my iron using parchment paper as a cover.

Now I have something to stitch tonight when I go to my bee meeting. I never mind hemming the binding to the back. Although, often on these little quilts, I have opted to stitch down a fiber or ribbon binding instead of the traditional double-fold binding. Just had to use this gorgeous fabric on these two!


For information on how these quilts were made with sheer top, cutaway trapunto and shadow trapunto, see my post of August 27.

Quilt Therapy

I have been quilting, quilting, the last two days. The title of this post explains part of the reason that I have almost finished three quilts in three days. More about the reason for therapy after the quilting part.

I finished my friend Karen's T-shirt quilt that will be a gift for her husband. I would name this quilt, "Labor of Love," if it were mine. Imagine working hard in the construction industry all year, getting a couple weeks off, and spending part of it sleeping on church floors and pews while fixing houses in poverty- or disaster-stricken areas. I admire the folks who can do this. The t-shirts in this quilts are all from various Reach construction missions over the years.

Can you tell these are authentic souvenirs of a construction project? There are little traces of paint, stain, grout, whatever, on many of the shirts.

I decided to do a right-angle meander, which is new for me. I thought the linear design mimics the skyline of the cities on some of the shirts, and also brings to mind boards and schematic drawings.

I have also added some basic tool outlines in the tan outer border between shirt designs.

I'm afraid most of my tools look like they have been dropped from the scaffold and bounced on the concrete, but I think they will at least be recognizable.

The third of Karen's quilts is a pastel Take Five quilt in Wizard of Oz fabrics. Very fun and quite feminine after working in tans with carpenter's tools, LOL! This one is getting fantasy flowers worthy of the Land of Oz, and some starbursts and other fun designs. I only have one more pass to go, but just couldn't do any more today.

So, why call this frenzy of long-arm quilting "therapy?" Well, don't want to be a "whiner," but this has not been the best of weeks. The main reason is that Wall Street has reached Main Street at this address. Did I mention that my husband is a stockbroker? He and others had to watch the market collapse when it became obvious that the government economic package would not pass. Before the day was over, Wachovia Bank had been purchased so it would not fail. That hit a lot of the stockbrokers at Wachovia Securities very hard in the wallet. But they are not unemployed since the Securities is a separate entity.

So, he comes home Monday in a state of semi-shock, and due to our remodeling project, can't even crawl into the Man-Chair and watch his beloved TV or reach for one of his fourteen remotes. So we sat on the porch until sunset, and then watched Dancing with the Stars while we drank wine on the bed.

Yesterday, good progress was being made on the floors. Here is how it looked at about 2:30 when Scary Tattoo Guy called me downstairs. I thought it looked shiny and gorgeous.

He announced he was stopping work because of a defective product, and was calling his supervisor to come out. Turns out the wood was not milled correctly, because there were gaps where it was supposed to join.

The supervisor agreed. I was now feeling doubly sick, and went back out to see about replacing the wood. I chose a different kind which is almost twice as expensive, hoping that it would be better. I don't know anything about construction and flooring. So confusing! It will be at least another week or two before we start up again.

Meantime, here is what the comfort of home looks like as my poor husband comes home from the trenches in this grim week of explaining to all his clients what is happening to their investments.

The front entrance with the most of the 31 cases of unused wood piled up in the dining room and the scuffed-up tar paper exposed.The floor that he laid is covering part of the living room, followed by new tar paper and plywood sub-floor.I know, at least I have a roof over my head, electricity, and no flood damage. And things will get done some day. In time for our client appreciation party on November 1? Looking doubtful!

Well, the sun has come out. Think it's time for me and Maggy to go exploring around the yard. A little nature therapy!

Bright College Quilt and First Customer Quilt

Yesterday, it was wonderful to let the floor guy do his sawing and hammering thing downstairs while I did my quilting thing upstairs. I chose to get back in the swing with this very cheerful Wolfpack Stack and Slash quilt, shown draped over the machine. The topper is a friend of mine from our days at North Carolina State University. We had talked on the phone several times before she showed up at my door with her first two quilts...and we recognized each other! This will be my fourth quilt for her, and the fifth is pinned on the frame.


Once again I was able to use designs from the book, 250 Continuous Line Quilting Designs by Laura Lee Fritz to add a few surprises to this overall meander. She had a few fox and coyote designs that I decided could pass for wolves. Here is a view of a howling wolf from the back.



I also wrote the word Wolfpack in one area in cursive. This quilt top had so many busy fabrics that there were not too many areas where any special designs would show.

One down, two more to go for Karen. Next up is a T-shirt quilt. This one should be very special. Her husband has participated in many missions to repair homes for the underprivileged through a church group. Each year there was a T-shirt for the volunteers. Some of the shirts bear evidence of the hard work done by this team. I have already made some patterns on Golden Threads paper of hammers, saws, wrenches and nails from the same book by Laura Lee Fritz. I have never actually quilted a T-shirt quilt, although my very first customer quilt in 2003 had a little of everything.

I expect there were some T-shirt blocks on there. I bought my Gammill from Linda Taylor in Texas, mainly so I could get the two free days of classes with her. Well, those two free days cost me about a thousand dollars by the time I bought plane tickets, rented a car, and paid for room and board and an extra day's class. Anyway, here was this package sitting on my front porch when I got home. This quilt was to be used as a chuppah, or canopy, for a wedding ceremony, then as a wall quilt. The bride's mother had elicited blocks from family and friends. They included beads, photo transfers, artwork, buttons, and yes, chains, watches and jewelry. I had to get right on the phone to Linda Taylor while she still remembered me and ask how I could quilt this thing without throwing out the timing on my machine as I hit a chunk of metal!

It actually came out kind of pretty, and I'm sure it was a wonderful and meaningful gift for the bride and groom. Don't look too closely at the quilting, but I guess it wasn't too bad for a newbie.