Wednesday, April 1, 2009

What I've been doing............



Well, my fingers are sore and my knees have given up completely. But my two least favorite things to do are behind me, marking a quilt design and basting a quilt sandwich. I gave up trying to sew/baste. My poor knees just wouldn't take it so I safety pin basted after stretching and pinning the sandwich to my carpteting. And this is a king sized quilt so I did a lot of crawling that day.

Marking, I ended up using two different marking products on "Wish You Were Here" quilt. Yep, I gave it a name. Anyway, I used Pounce on the darker fabrics and a quilting pencil on the lighter fabrics so that worked out well. I am trying Pounce for the first time. I love it. It does just what it sez it will do. Hard to believe a little powder will stay even with a lot of handling. The pencil I use is called Ultimate Marking Pencil For Quilters and Crafters. Kind of pricey and I've had it a long time so I don't remember where I purchased this but it gives a very fine line so I love that. My Pounced lines are thick but that's the fault of the stencil I used. I'll remember that next time, not that it's much of a problem.



And I love my PVC quilting frame. Maybe one of my favorite quilty tools ever.






And when my fingers just can't take anymore for awhile, I've been working on this little cutey for Easter. I have a bit more detail to embroider before she's finished. Crying out for her nose, isn't she? But I'm having fun with that big ricrac. I want to get some of the newer really jumbo jumbo ricrac that's out now to play with on a kids quilt one of these days. Have you seen it? It's huge ricrac. Here's my Easter bunny eating a slice of watermelon.

7 comments:

  1. Gosh, you've been busy. You mentioned that you safety pin your quilt together on the carpet. I've tried this, but it drives me crazy when the pins get stuck in the carpet. Try laying the quilt out on the basement floor. Your pins will never get stuck again and will slide easily. Also just wanted to say thank you for becoming a follower of my extremely crafty blog.

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  2. Such a cute bunny! I love the rick rack too.

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  3. Thanks,Jean. I really like how ric rac jazzes things up. I'm anxious to try some on a baby quilt one of these days.
    chris

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  4. Hi, Michele, I know what you're talking about. It can be tricky with the carpet. Unfortunately, I don't have a "hard" floor surface to work on so this was my only option for such a large quilt. First I use t-pins to pin the outside edges of backing fabric to the carpet, then I t-pin the batting down along it's outside edges and get those nice and smooth and taught. Then I do the same with the top, safety pinning from the center out. It worked really well, I was happy to see. Normally on such a large quilt, I prefer to sew baste, I dont' trust that many safety pins but my old knees just couldn't handle that.
    chris
    p.s. you're welcome, I love reading everyone elses blogs and getting to know so many people. FUN!

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  5. So refreshing to see a hand quilter! I have those PVC frames but I can't use them any longer. I began having carpal tunnel symptoms about a year and a half ago so now I only do longarm quilting on my Gammill. I miss my hand quilting!

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  6. Thanks for visiting my blog! I can relate to you and this quilt. I've got 2 or 3 king sized quilts in the UFO pile right now, but now we have furniture in the room I used to baste, so I've been asking around for long armers that are willing to just baste, because I still want to quilt it myself, by machine. I used to be a hand quilter, and still have my PVC frame (will never give it up), and the quilt on my bed is the last king quilt I hand quilted - couldn't believe it when I finished quilting.

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