Quilting Again

After a lapse of a couple weeks, I have had the Gammill humming again for the past two days. I finished the "music-themed" quilt. Have to admit, this is the first time I have ever had to charge a PITA charge. What's that, you ask? It means Pain in the A_ _! Not the customer, but the quilt was very challenging. I took a picture of the whole thing, but the computer is not recognizing the memory card that I used when I had the quilt pinned to the new design wall. The customer started quilting this project herself, but found she could not do what she wanted. PITA #1- the backing and batting was the same size as the top, making it hard to pin to the leaders. I sewed some muslin strips.

Here are some partial shots:

There are names of composers and musicians along the outer border. This was the biggest PITA! Many, many, starts and stops, and each little blub of thread shows well with this creamy yellow thread on black fabric.

There is an acoustic guitar to which I added wood grain lines. This part was not too hard, except that I had to research wooden guitars to see what kind of grain line they should have. Good thing...they are supposed to run straight along the length of the guitar, which is made up of three different pieces of wood on the top. Didn't JoAnn do a beautful job on the guitar?

The grand piano has music staffs running through it, to which I was supposed to add notes. But they did not show up too well, and were getting to be another PITA with stops and starts and burying threads. The customer stitched the staffs in a silver thread.

The bottom border of the quilt says "Strum those strings and tickle those ivories!" Much easier to do in cursive.

Today I pinned on the king-sized log cabin that I took in the day before my babysitting adventure. This one is in bright, happy colors, with my favorite kind of quilting: foliage, feathers,and some peacock feathers. There are some butterflies and dragonflies in one of the main prints, which looks like a Hoffman. I am using a Reed, or sort of yellow-green, King Tut cotton thread. So far, so good! And another quilt that is waiting will use the same thread and quilting style, so I should be able to transition to that one easily. This big boy is taking two bobbins to complete each pass on the long-arm. But I am enjoying it!