Beautiful weekend in mountains

Friday in the northern NC mountains was a washout, with a much-needed drenching rain lasting all day. But Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous late summer days with a hint of autumn in the air. Saturday we picked up my dad in Boone and took him to lunch in Blowing Rock, NC, the inspirational village for the beloved Mitford series of novels by Jan Karon. We ate delicious sandwiches and took some photographs to mark my father's 84th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Pop!

We stopped at a store along the highway between Blowing Rock and Boone to check out these very unique benches, plant stands, and tables. They are made from trees that are from Indonesia. I believe they are called gembol trees. The trees have a long life of about one hundred years, and after they die they harden into a kind of petrified wood. If you find just the right spot to sit, they are quite comfortable.

I finished making a couple of coasters for our cabin from the improvisational quilt blocks I made this summer to try out some of Vikki Pignatelli's techniques. I did not think I would ever make a whole quilt out of these little "improvisational log cabin" blocks, but they are just right for coasters for a cup of coffee in the cabin. I finished these with Vikki's envelope-type backing.

Quilted with a pine meander design from Darlene Epps' freehand book.

The second one is quilted with a freehand fern all-over design. I used a King Tut green variegated thread for both.

I went for a nature walk with my camera Sunday morning and was rewarded with some outstanding shots of the sun shining on the last of summer's wildflowers and the beginnings of autumn color in the foliage.

Poke berries

Blue asters

My Star Dances is Done

All done! This little quilt is no longer a square! I followed Vikki's step-by-step instructions in Quilting by Improvisation to make a faux binding and envelope finish for the little guy. Basically, you draw the inner border shape that you like, cut freezer paper templates for each side, cut each border and turn under the edge that covers the quilt, and stitch down with invisible stitching. Then you draw the outer border shape on the quilt, baste it so you can see it from the other side, and sew on the backing fabric stitching just inside the basting line. Cut a slit to turn it inside out, seal up the slit with fusible tape, and cover it with the hanging sleeve. I am pretty happy with this first attempt, and will try this technique again, I'm sure!

Today is my baby's birthday...always my baby although he is about six-five and now twenty-six years old! Happy birthday, Dave! You have turned out pretty darn good!

Star Dance Progress, and A Good Coffee Table for an avid Reader and Quilter

You may remember the little art quilt I started as my first sample project from Vikki Pignatelli's Quilting by Improvisation. I decided to attempt quilting it on the Gammill with metallic thread. Well, this is an experimental piece, right? I had only done one other quilt on the longarm using shiny threads. The thread has to ravel a long way on the Gammill from the spool to the needle. I had good luck with Superior metallic gold and Glitter silver. The narrower spools such as Sulky had much more breakage. After quilting the "dancing" I took it off the machine, and will finish some free motion in the dark areas on my trusty old Bernina 1260. I really did not fuss too much about the tension, because I am going to use Vikki's faux binding method to finish the piece. The quilting was only done through the top and the batting. A fabric backing will cover all the little blobs and pokies when it is finished. Look out for some surprises, because this little quilt is no "square!"


This is what the back looks like now. Not so good, but it won't matter with this new method.

We went furniture shopping in the mountains last weekend and got some great new pieces for the cabin. They are handmade solid wood cabinets. One is an oak double-door cupboard, and one looks like a computer wall unit with hutch and lower cabinet. But, it has glass-fronted cabinets and doors of all sizes. While we were there we finally bought a new coffee table for our home. Isn't this one perfect for someone constantly thumbing through quilt mags, working on stitchery, doing crossword puzzles, or reading novels? Lots of storage space to hide it all. This is another hand-made oak piece. We got all of it at Antiques on Main in West Jefferson, but they are not antiques.

A Day of Fiber Fun

Yesterday was one of those miserably hot and humid days that we often experience here in the southern US. Just too hot to handle a big quilt. My sewing room is on the third floor, actually a converted attic space. Even though it is air-conditioned, it never really gets cool on days when it is in the mid-nineties. So, I decided to play with small pieces. I found a small piece of Sulky Solvy water-soluble stabilizer, and made a small sample of Fantasy Fabric using fibers, ribbons, shiny thread, and Angelina. This piece is very small, maybe four by six inches. It looks like ocean to me! And each side looks a little different, because I used turquoise thread on top and a lime green on the bottom.

While I had the Angelina handy, I tried fusing some to Bounce dryer sheets, to get a sort of transparent shimmery stuff. I also fused some Angelina to bright hand-dyed fabric, along with some silk sari ribbon that has a silver center. I used Bo-Nash powder to fuse all this to the fabric. These might make good postcard backgrounds.

Then I fused some Angelina'ed fabric and laundry sheets to a leftover piece of Timtex, the stiff interfacing I use in fabric postcards. I made some funky-shaped bookmarks, then added some beads.

Then I remembered my vow to do all the sample projects in Vikki Pignatelli's book Quilting by Improvisation, and went to the section on improvising blocks. This time I used a light stabilizer by Sulky, and made improvisational log cabins. You just cut the strips for each round in a funky manner, iron under the edge that will cover the previous round, and stitch down with an invisible zigzag or blanket stitch. I got two of these done. I used darks on the center and outer layers, and light or bright greens on the second layer. This might look kind of woodsy if I ever finish enough to make a quilt.

Doing the Happy Star Dance

This afternoon I followed the directions in Quilting By Improvisation to make this curved star with flames, called "My Star Dances" in the book. Vikki Pignatelli's instructions are very clear, with lots of photos and step-by-steps. I was fairly satisfied with my results, although I had a bit of fullness in the red part of the star. I will quilt it, probably on the Gammill, then add a faced backing in a curvy shape. My biggest problem today was that I burned my left ring finger on the steam iron when I was turning one of the seams under. Nice blister! HMMN, maybe the messy glue stick is not such a bad alternative.

What to do with old quilt magazines?

Yesterday I went upstairs to sew the binding on Lily's quilt, but was stopped by the pile of old quilt magazines that I had pulled out last Thursday for the guild's silent auction. I decided not to haul any mags in for the auction, but did clear out about eight books that I never refer to. The mags were from 2000-2002. I went through all the Quilters' Newsletters and pulled out articles to keep, and actually filed them alphabetically in folders. I still have a pile a foot high to deal with.

Then, I decided to start a different project that I got excited about after watching her on The Quilt Show. I bought Vikki Pignatelli's book, Quilting by Improvisation, and have now created the freezer paper pattern for "My Star Dances." This project introduces her method of piecing with curves. I am excited to try it, because she does not use any glue stick or glue like other methods I have tried and don't like. I end up with glue all over my hands, table, tools, you name it! Vicki uses a lightweight stabilizer and freezer paper. Usually Vikki just irons down the fabric to the stabilizer, using the freezer paper pattern on top as a guide. She recommends using Stitch Witchery on the narrow roll when it is necessary to fix the seam allowance in place. We will see how successful I am with this method. The possiblilities for artistic quilting are endless if you can sew anything you can draw! In fact, I hope to take this book and go through it step by step to learn all her methods. One of my quilting groups has issued a challenge to make a leaf art quilt by our fall quarterly meeting. Maybe I will come up with something original by then!

My new book arrived yesterday- and what a treasure! Quilting by Improvisation: Exploring Curves, Openwork and Dimension by Vikki Pignatelli. In addition to instruction on curved piecing, there are lessons about color, use of sheer overlays, fabric manipulation, making lace and latticework, border options, and lots of finishing options for irregular-shape quilts. Oh, boy, can't wait to get started! Vikki autographed my book with the comment, "May these pages feed the fire of your creativity and stretch your imagination to the limit."

Yesterday I decided to do a little maintenance on my Gammill. I got a whole bird's nest of threads that were stuck between my front wheels and the track. The last issue of Unlimited Possibilities had a very helpful article about maintenance on the rotary tensioner. Using the instructions in UP, I changed the felt pads in my tension, which had not been changed in four years. Guess what- they looked just like the ones in the photo captioned "Need to be changed." Black gunk all around the edges of the white felt pads. I hope they will do more articles like this one with step-by-step photos and instructions.

I started working on a customer quilt that is done in the Harvest Spice fabrics. She wanted Pine green thread, which contrasts greatly with the tan and beige backing fabric. She picked out a Line Dancing pattern that I had not used before. I love all these Diana Phillips designs, but this one did not look pretty on the back. Instead of curving around the seams, you had to backtrack along the seam lines. I ripped out the ones I did, and will use a more forgiving design since it shows so much on the back. The customer is traveling in India or somewhere, so I hope this is the right decision.

I hope everyone had a pleasant mother's day. I spent most of the day painting in the mountain cabin, but we got home in time for a LOVELY dinner out at Carabba's with son Dave and DIL Emily. They got me a sun hat that reminds me of one that I wore when Charlie and I were dating- big floppy brim. I am looking forward to wearing that at Sunset Beach next month! My other son sent the perfect card. They will be joining us at the beach in June with the grandchildren- can't wait!

Let me tell you about the wonderful ride through the mountain trails on our Gator Saturday night. We are so fortunate that my sister Katy and her husband have about sixty acres of mountain land, and have permission from neighboring land owners to ride on the roads through their Christmas tree farms. A trip "to the top" is always the highlight of our mountain weekends. This time we got to the top and a big deer was right in the road. We sat there and watched a spectacular sunset, then rode to the next scenic spot which we call "Katy's favorite place." From there we can see a beautiful vista. To our surprise, someone was putting on a fireworks display! So we enjoyed that as the darkness fell, then drove down along the creek. Katy and I both were looking at the brilliant planet shining above us, when to our surprise, it looked like a piece of the planet broke off and flew across the sky! What in the world??? Then the light appeared to be a weird triangular-shaped plane. It had appeared out of darkness like it came from nowhere. We both thought the same thing...Stealth bomber! But why would a Stealth be doing its thing over the northwestern mountains of North Carolina? It did not occur to me until the next morning...there was a race in Darlington, SC this weekend. They usually have a Stealth do a flyover at the opening ceremonies. It would be a hop, skip, and a jump for a Stealth! Very cool! We hear the race was delayed Saturday due to rain, but we had a beautiful clear night for the pilot to soar through.

I just bought ANOTHER quilt book!

Have you become a member of The Quilt Show yet? I joined as a Gold Star member, but really have not browsed the site much until the last few days. I have uploaded four of my quilts to the picture gallery. When you do that, your quilt images are shown at the very beginning of the gallery pages. Yesterday, I got a nice note from a quilter who had seen my pictures. After a few e-mails back and forth, she sent me a picture of a postcard she made with silhouettes of her grandchildren. It is stunning- and she kindly sent me the instructions for her process. She used black Ultrasuede for the silhouettes. Next time I am around Avery and Lily, I will be trying to get them to hold still long enough to take their portraits for silhouettes. Thanks, Margo!

I actually watched one of the shows with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson this morning. It featured quilter Vikki Pignatelli, who is best known for quilting with curves. She demonstrated her techniques and showed some of her stunning quilts. They are very organic, with lots of trees, leaves, water lilies...she must be a fellow nature lover. So, I ordered her book Quilting By Improvisation, and now must visit a fabric store not only for Ultrasuede, but also interfacing for her techniques.

I actually am trying not to purchase so many books with quilt patterns, but I think that one that teaches the process to make original quilts is going to be valuable.

Do you like Ricky Tims? I have quilting friends who are wild about his quilts and techniques, and others who don't care for him. I took a daylong workshop with him several years ago, and I thought he could not have been any nicer. He explained things well and gave you time to work on them before going on to the next step. I have two of his DVD's, which are also very good instructional videos. His hand-dyed fabric is gloriously rich and colorful, although pricey at $25.00 per yard. Sometimes he has specials and you can get it for $20.00 and hoard it for a very special project. Ricky lectured and played piano at the guild meeting the night before the workshop on Harmonic Convergence. He also played for us during the workshop. Oh, did I mention I purchased one of his music CD's? I guess you could say I am a fan. In fact, before he became famous, I clipped a photo of one of his quilts from a magazine, and it has been on my inspiration wall (meaning, thumb tacked behind my sewing machine table) ever since. At the workshop, he used MY sewing machine to demonstrate, and he took a photo of one of MY quilts that I brought for show and tell! How cool is that?

Okay, I know you are looking for the latest nature photographs from my North Carolina home. The baby bluebird is now displaying blue feathers, and the other egg was a dud- never hatched. The north side of my house is looking splendid with the viburnum, rhododendron, and pyracantha in bloom against the backdrop of a lovely hemlock.