It's Down

Last night I bribed two friends to help me take down the commission quilt and pin it to the backing. It took a Thai dinner and heaping ice cream sundaes afterwards to pay for the service but it was well worth it.

I was about to take pictures of the event when I realized I had left my camera at home. Oh well, my friend Robin climbed up on the ladder and cut the quilt down. We pulled out all of the push pins that were holding it from the top and got it down, very carefully and laid it on the table on top of the backing. It was on my 4 x 8 ' table and then I had two 24x72" tables to support the rest of it. We got it all straighten out, and pin basted it and then folded it ready for quilting.

Today I went in to work on it. Blew another fuse as the needle tried to go through all the layers of fused fabric. But, what I found out is that it is very difficult to move such a big quilt around in order to quilt it free motion style. Did a small portion and then decided this was not the way to do it.

So, I have a call in to my good friend Cheryl, to see if I can put it on her bigger longarm with a frame and do it that way. I think that will work just fine especially since the quilting will not be long stretches at a time but will be done in squares overlapping each other. Once that is done, I will start doing the foiling and then the facing for it.

But, most importantly, for the first time in six months I really feel like I can start thinking about doing something new. I took 20 quilts to the photographer and his mouth dropped open but he should have them back to me on Monday or Tuesday. I have him do slides and digitals.

So, last night I started doing some stitching on cheese cloth over a couple of layers of batting and then added some nonwoven interfacing and stitched away, adding more pieces and colors of cheesecloth. Tonight I did a lot of satin stitching and then stitched it into a form which I am in the process of doing some hand embroidery with pearly cotton. This is sculptural and will not be a wall piece but will sit on the table. We will see but it sure is fun to do something so different. Meanwhile, I have had so many ideas for new work going through my head that I don't know which way to go but am not rushing it. I have to look through the ideas and let the percolate for a little while and meantime I can just play around. Oh yeah, and make 24 sleeves for quilts that don't have them....