I couldn't wait!

Well it worked!  See my last post for the background to this statement..

Now I get to move on to the fun part....

Woohoo!

"Which Path would you Take" wins First Place, Wall quilts at Northern Stars show 2014

As you can see from my last post, I am catching up on my blogging.

The 2014 Northern Star Quilt Guild show was a good show for me.  I have won many second and third place ribbons at this local guild show, but I have wanted for many years to see one of my pieces hang on the 'blue ribbon' wall.  So I was extremely pleased to see this piece do so.  

Lucky for me, the person who brought this piece at the gallery exhibit was happy to let me enter the piece in a few shows this year.  This was the first show and it made me proud.

Besides, this first place ribbon, "Paisley Inspirations" was awarded a third place ribbon in the same category :-).

It was also nice to see a good friend and fellow Pelham Quilters guild member, Donna Chambers, also on the blue ribbon wall for her Umoja piece.  "Umoja, Goddess of the Sea"  won first place in the People, Places category and Best of Show, Small Quilts.  :-).  

Paisley project progress....

Say, that three times fast :-)....  Well dispute all the time this takes, I am thinking it is moving pretty quickly!

I got my 2 Magnifico threads by Superior in the mail on Monday (white and a purple velvet) and later that night jumped right into my micro-stippling of the background on my paisley project. If you remember, my hope was to 'raise' the paisley designs up, by stitching closely all around them...almost like trapunto.

Well after 5 1/2 hours of stippling and one hour of frogging, last night I finished the white background. I love the effect, but can't understand why no matter what size needle I used, the stitch holes seem to stay.  Guess I will have to wet it when I block the piece and try to get rid of the stitching holes.  

Tonight, I sat down to work on the background for the purple Radiance fabric.  The effect here is just as I had hoped.  Truly loving the paisley design that now pops!

I got one corner done in about 3 1/2 hours....  3 more corners to micro-stipple, hopefully each done in one sitting :-). 

I can't wait until the stippling is done, so I can move on to the next step on this piece.  It is definitely singing to me :-)....WooHoo!!

Night all,

Renee

You really have to be ready, even when you know it in your heart.

As per my last post, I really enjoyed spending some time at Quilt Odyssey Hershey 2013 last weekend.  The quilts were inspiring individually, but collectively, they reinforced something I had already known....  I have to step up my game.  Create more complex quilts, improve my accuracy, step up the type of quilting designs I undertake and focus on every single detail, from design to finishing techniques.

Funny thing the week before the show I pulled out a UFO, that had sat for a couple of years.  You can see an image of it here from my initial stages.  While on vacation in July I had a vision of the next step, something that had left me blank for quite some time.  So I had pulled it out and completed the top, and began planning the quilting.  I had even decided to mark the entire quilt top first, something as per my earlier posts I have never even thought of before.  I have never marked a thing!  But I had already made the decision that this piece needed to go to the next step.  I held out, but believe me, by the time I was 1/4 of the way through I was itching to start stitching :-)

I brought a backing while in Hershey, and so with the inspiration of all the gorgeous quilts in Quilt Odyssey, I completed the first phase of the quilting.  I have since added even more plans for this piece.  Funny, this is a paisley design and one of the inspirational quilts was also paisley by Lorilynn King.  (You can see it in my post from the show.)  It is amazing, but Lorilynn's piece is in another dimension.  I am not quite there yet. :-)

So I am now focused on using exactly the right thread to punch back the fabric around the paisley quilted designs, so that they will come forward in a semi/faux trapunto feeling.  I have quite a pit of purples in my stash, but only one is the right color, but it doesn't have the sheen needed for my vision.  You see the purple fabric is Radiance, a silk/cotton, blend and it has a fairly significant sheen.  Using just any thread, would dampen the allure of the Radiance fabric.  Even the white background area needs to shine, so I have ordered some Superior Magnifico, that should come in shortly.

In the meantime, I added some detail to my paisley applique components...  it gave me another opportunity to raise the level of the piece a little.

 So, I will keep you posted on my progress.  For now, I am liking where this is going, but it has at least two more steps to it before I can think of finishing :-).

Have you challenged yourself lately?  It really feels good, give it a try!

P.S....  forgive the quality of the pictures, they were taken on my blackberry vs on my camera :-(

Cheers!

Markings anyone?

So I have been working on a UFO this week. It is a mixture of cotton, Radiance ( a cotton and silk blend) and Dupioni silk. While on vacation I had a vision of it all finished.

The only problem, to make the vision a reality, I have to mark the quilt top and plan out my quilting. This is new for me. First I never mark anything and second, it will have tons of starts and stops. 

Also, since before sending my machine back to Bernina for service a couple of times, I couldn't use Rainbows thread by Superior in the 830, without constant breaking.  So I decided to do a test today. 

Here is my sample.....

I am loving the Rainbow thread on the Radiance fabric. I had no breakage, no tension issues.... Nada...just turned it on, threaded it and off I went!

One hitch, now I have to mark the whole top, 6" at a time. Good thing it is only 30" x 30" :-).