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Sunday, June 28, 2015

House of the Rising Sun


Pillows are super gratifying in that I can have an idea and then have a completed project within 12 hours, even adding a bit of sleep in the middle of working on the pillow
I pulled Alison Glass fabrics that reminded me of the ocean and sand.  
I cut strips with my rotary, but no ruler to have them odd shaped and give a little improv natural look to the landscape.







I quilted meandering lines in both areas, using a variegated blue thread on the ocean and a gold Aurifil thread in the sand section

As I stopped for the night, I was not sure how to complete the sky section of Chambray to make it stand out from the ocean. By the time I woke up I had decided on a sun rising (because I'm on the East Coast) 


I glued down the rising sun and stitched over it with free motion squiggles.  After quilting, with no backing, just batting, I trimmed to a 16" square to fill to a 14" pillow.


And now a finished improv pillow for a beach fan 

Friday, June 26, 2015

Tokyo Subway Map

Sometimes I make a quilt top with no idea how to quilt it, or what I'm going to do with the quilt.  Sometimes I just make the quilt top because I want to.  

I completed this top a few years ago, couldn't decide how to quilt it, or what to do about borders, so I  put it away.  Here is the post when I actually finished the top. I think there are 1600 2" squares in this top, it's a beautiful colorful pattern.




I came across the top about a month ago in my search for a Kona bundle (that I know I own, and still can't find) and knew immediately some matchstick quilting would be just the thing, and borders schmorders, who needs borders. But first I needed a back and maybe a huge label.


And some help with the basting (teach them young)


So here we are all nice and crinkly from washing, with a huge label so everyone knows her name. 


I quilted with 4 different Aurifil colors in a crosshatch pattern, not really a pattern though, I just quilted as I felt an area needed more.  Actually it's hard to stop matchsticking once you start, I want to do the whole thing, I made myself leave open spaces for this quilt, but I also tried to have every square touched with quilting. 





The Tokyo Subway Map pattern is available in Oh, Fransson (Elizabeth Hartman) website.  
I am pleased that I waited to quilt this until I had the perfect idea for quilting.  I know some people don't like to have incomplete projects, but I have to have the right feelings about a quilt to work on it.  Whether it's piecing or quilting, my interest needs to be piqued.  And now I have a beautiful finished quilt!