Carolina Lily Quilt Progress

Yesterday I finished the quilting on the bed quilt for my granddaughter Lily's room. Although she is just a year old, there is a queen-sized bed in her room (for visiting grandparents!) Her other grandma saved me a yard of each fabric used in her nursery furnishings, and I made a bed topper using their fabric and others from my stash. The center medallion is North Carolina Lily, an obvious choice! The surrounding blocks are Yellow Brick Road pattern blocks, with a few leftover patchwork blocks thrown in. I did two feathers around the border. I am still going to try to scallop the border.

The quilting is all freehand, heavily influenced by designs in Nichole Webb's Garden Branching book. I added some butterflies and even wrote Lily's name in a few of the dark green blocks.

I also finished quilting two pillow tops made from leftover YBR blocks. I used the Flurry of Angels feather from Nichole Webb and Jamie Wallen's book No Boundaries (now out of print.) I am thinking of embellishing these pillows with a ruffled edge.

Introducing Violette

Yesterday I almost finished quilting my current project, a bed quilt for my granddaughter Lily's room. I am kind of proud of myself for sticking with this to get it done. I hope to finish the last three borders today. I just got an e-mail coupon for a fabric discount at my LQS, Quilts Like Crazy, so I will probably head over there tomorrow for some binding fabric. Quilts Like Crazy is owned by my friend and founder of our quilt bee, Nancy Pease, who is a very artistic person and fabulous quilter and teacher.

Speaking of artistic people, I have added links to Violette's website and blog. I found her through an article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine. Remember my little art quilt, named A-Muse-ing Violette? That quilt was inspired by a line drawing by Violette Clark of British Columbia. Check out her website for lots of colorful inspiration, including her painted house which was featured on a Canadian TV program. Too bad they did not feature her painted and glittered van, as well!

Heading for the Big Apple

I have spent the last two days quilting on the queen bed quilt for Lily's room. I am doing freehand vines, leaves, flowers, and feathers over most of the quilt. I spent a whole day trying to figure out how to mark the border for scallops. Duh- how did I ever make it through graduate school? I finally marked them with chalk, and am having a feather go around the outer curve.

We had three great days in the mountains last weekend, and even got a nice thundershower every day to help water the baby Christmas trees, grass, and flowers we have planted. It is dry in that part of the state as well. When we got home, a nice thunderstorm followed us and brought some welcome rain.

I am so excited---Found out yesterday that my husband has been invited to New York for a business trip in October. We have had some lovely trips across the country over the years, but not many lately. This one should be excellent- it is being held in the Waldorf Astoria, of all places! Not too shabby. I am saving my $$$ for some shopping and fun. We have had two other trips to New York, during which we visited the MOMA, toured Radio City Music Hall, went to Broadway shows, and did lots of walking. Last time we also paid homage to Ground Zero, a very sobering visit. The only plan I know of on the agenda is dinner at the University Club, which should be a treat. Actually, it is a little-known fact that NYC is my hometown! I was born in Manhattan, and my dad worked there for twenty-two years before relocating to Raleigh. We lived in the suburbs of New York and New Jersey until I was fifteen. So I have been there many times, but only twice since becoming an adult. Charlie actually knows the city much better than I do, because he had to stay there for about a month when he was training to be a stockbroker.

Actually, the MOMA visit was one of the highlights of my first trip back, but last time it was temporarily housed in Queens due to building renovations. I had been dying to see the Monet triptych of water lilies that takes up a wall the size of a ballroom. I surprised myself by preferring some of the other works I saw, such as colorful works by Matisse and Gauguin. But the piece de resistance for me was The Starry Night by Van Gogh. It had its own bench in front of the painting, where I sat and contemplated this gorgeous work with tears in my eyes at its perfection.

New WIP photos

Here is a photo of my green quilt after quilting. I have tentatively decided to call it Carolina Woodland Spring. I think I will like this one better after using my inks and colored pencils to give some life to the light green background. (It is lime green fleece showing through a white batiste top.) I think I may cut the border of green squares in an irregular shape, and I definitely plan to add some embellishments such as beads and embroidery. Those dogwood blooms need some yellow centers. I attempted McTavishing around the center square, freehand flowers and swirls around the white border, and line dancing in the green squares. Right now I don't exactly love this quilt (It's not easy being green?) but I think it has potential. Well, at least I can hang it up for St. Patrick's Day!

I finally took some pictures of the quilt top made from Lilly Pulitzer fabrics. I purchased the fat quarters on e-Bay to make this quilt for my daughter-in-law's sister. She had all her bridesmaids choose Lilly dresses for her beach wedding. These fabrics are fun to work with, in tropical colors with funky flowers and animals. The fabric is lovely and soft and tightly woven. Even more fun, try to find the name "Lilly" in each of her designs. I will have to make an outfit for my granddaughter Lily using some of these, even though the spelling is not quite the same.

Here is the top, with LP fabrics framed by various black-and-white batiks and prints. I plan to use the black polka dot for the outer border.

Here is the skirt I bought at Goodwill that has shimmery rayon flowers embroidered. I am considering using them in the border somehow.

Green quilt taking a bath

Yesterday I finished quilting the green trapunto quilt with the dogwood blossoms in the center. Now it is having its second soak in the bathtub to remove the water-soluble thread and the markings. When I took it out the first time, the water was peacock blue. I think this is from some of my painted fabrics that I made years ago with Setacolor paint. Anyway, I will probably end up painting the quilted motifs in this one. The green areas that are not trapuntoed are not as bright as I would like, and some of the other quilts I have made with this technique look much better after painting. I will post a pic when it is dry. See examples below:

"Spring Greens"

This one had lime green felt under white batiste and cutaway trapunto. On my current project I used lime green velour instead.

"Summer Jewels"

I had to change the name of this one after painting. At first I called it "Pastel Jewels." The colored flowers on the pre-painting photo are colored felt trapunto under white batiste top.

"Something Girly"

I really did not want to paint this one, because it is much larger than the first two. But, in the soaking process, some yellow dye went into the white areas and would not come out. The painting was to cover that boo-boo, but I think it really made this quilt come to life. I used Tsukineko inks and colored pencils to fill in the quilted flowers, leaves, and swirls.

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.

Sharon Schamber Site and Tutorials

Have you visited Sharon Schamber's website recently? She has always been generous about posting step-by-step tutorials with photos on her webshots or webpages. Apparently she is getting ready to launch her new computer video network--- seems to be the latest hot phase for quilting information. Anyway, her sign-up page has some really cool You Tube links which show her quilting in fast forward to classical music. I have signed up for the network. Hope this does not turn out to be another pay-for-view like The Quilt Show. Here is my favorite of her videos, called "Dancing Feathers."