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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Progress is a good thing

Even little bits at a time!

Here's progress on my Christmas decoration:
a wreath on the front door!

My sister in Hampton bought this for me in December 2004 from Walmart, during their after-Christmas sale; she was such a special sister!  I won't put up a tree this year, the only other decorations I'll do will be with quilts and little counter-top doo-dads.

My red and white quilt should have been all done by now, but I let other things get in the way, BUT it's 99.999% done!  

I decided to go with a single red border, rather than a thin red and wider white combination as I said before.  I think I made a good decision, it looks great!

And as for quilting?  I used the good ole KISS (keep it simple, sweetie!) rule.  Sometimes less is more, don't you think?  Here's a closeup of the quilting...

Meandering is the way to go when you're too lazy to try something else; I used Sulky thread and was very pleased with the almost-invisible look of the quilting.  One of these days I'll have to develop my free motion quilting techniques, stretch out of that box a little bit!

I thought I'd try something different (for me!) on the red border - writing.  I fixed up a test swatch to try first, if it doesn't work I'll just do free-form meandering.  I want to write words depicted by the adinkra symbols in the borders.  I made a little sandwich with a piece of plastic sandwich wrap smoothed on top, then wrote on it with a ballpoint pen...
I'll quilt through the letters; my main concern is to make sure the ink won't damage the red fabric, I don't know how else to write the words!  Maybe a red ink pen??  As I said, if it doesn't work on the test sample, free-form meandering will be good enough.

We missed the snow they predicted for this area, it's sunny but very cold outside right now - thank goodness I don't have to go out.  Have a great Thursday!

Sew forth and sew on

9 comments:

  1. I should think you could mark the border with a chalk pencil or one of those markers that can be removed with water in a mist bottle. At any rate, it's yurning out great!

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  2. A red permanent Sharpie pen can be used for writing on fabric and shouldn't run. There are also other brands available at office supply stores. Btw, LOVE the quilt! It is stunning!

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  3. I love the red and white! Yes simple quilting that doesn't distract from all of the hard work of the design is best. Meandering gives the most evenly spaced quilting design.

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  4. This is looking super! Just a wonderful red/white quilt that I think represents you. We DID get the snow, thank you!!

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  5. that's a really cool quilt! how big is it? did you make the pattern yourself or trace from a book?

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  6. I am loving!! your red and white quilt.

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  7. O Gosh Darn! Instead of viewing your blog. I need to finish my red/white. I am behind off and sewing to complete my quilt. Your quilt is fanastic! Shucks!!!

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  8. Use a pigma pen, if you want the writing to be permanent or a washable crayola fine point marker, if you want to wash it out.

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  9. This quilt is so beautiful. I am so impressed with the design and your work.

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