Weekend Projects

We decided to stay home from the mountains this weekend and get some things done at home. For example, we had a willow tree in the front of the yard that suffered from a killing frost last Easter, and resurrection of the tree was looking more and more unlikely. Charlie cut that down while the pit bull puppy across the street escaped from its fenced yard and tried to bite the chainsaw. Not the most intelligent creature, but very friendly considering its species.

In addition to going out to eat twice and having grilled steaks at home Sunday night, it was very pleasant to sit on our front porch and drink some wine Saturday night.

Since this was a "free" weekend at home, I decided to play with some of my projects. I got the border sewed on the North Carolina Lily bed quilt, and am going to attempt to scallop the edges. I pulled a purchased quilt off a guest bed to see if I can copy its border and make it fit my quilt.

I also finished the Lilly Pulitzer fabric top except for the borders. I am going to use black with white polka dots. I paid a visit to our local Goodwill store, which is in a high-end development, and is sometimes like shopping at a department store. I found a fuchsia skirt with amazing embroidered flowers, and might do some reverse applique to add some of those motifs to the border. Ha- I could call it Lilly Pulitzer Goes Slumming!

Then, I started thinking about the challenge quilt that I have to finish for the Carolina Long-arm Show in September. I am leaning toward freehand flowers and fauna. But, in case I decided to go with a more formal quilt job, I drew the same star and border on a piece of muslin, and marked some trapunto designs for practice. I sewed them yesterday with Vanish Extra wash- away thread, and started trimming the batting around the trapunto designs. I already snipped the top once, so I probably am not going to use this technique!

Finally, I thought I would experiment with thread painting on Solvy Water-Soluble stabilizer on the long-arm. I had this idea that perhaps I could stitch hummingbirds on the Solvy, then attach them to the quilt. Well, this technique needs some refinement! I used two layers of Solvy, drew my designs with washable markers, and started stitching. Right away I shredded the Solvy on the first design. I switched to a smaller needle (3.5) which worked better, but I still had shredding. I was using Permacore thread because I had that in the color I wanted, but I think it is too thick. Anyway, I now have these funny-looking little thread objects! I might try doing this on my Bernina sewing machine which would take more time, but probably wouldn't tear the Solvy. Plus, I have better luck using specialty threads on it.