Goodbye 2009

End of the year, and no projects in the works! I had thought I might start a new piece over the holidays, but there were just too many happy distractions. The tree quilt our group is working on (see below) is at another quilter's home awaiting borders. I do have plans for two new pieces--even have the main fabric for one, and a pattern (!) Don't do many quilts from patterns anymore, but I fell in love with a feathered star and really want to try it. The second is another based on a photo--so far all I have done is get the photo enlarged to size. More on that later. Perhaps January will provide some snowy weekends to motivate me!

Quilt gallery and quilts for sale at: http://community.webshots.com/user/roconnorquilts

Quick Pic

Just a quick picture so you can have an idea of the new quilt in the works. This is the center panel of a group quilt, as explained in yesterday's post. Borders are in the works. We got together today to stipple the leaves and satin stitch the branches/trunk in place. We added batting behind the leaves to give them some depth, and tried stippling with and without stabilizer on top. Putting stabilizer on top meant the triangle points stayed put so we didn't have to keep stopping and starting, but when we got done with the section with the stabilizer, we had to spend time tearing it off, carefully, painfully. So probably like the stop and start better, if we had to choose. Coming along nicely, though!

Quilt gallery and quilts for sale at: http://community.webshots.com/user/roconnorquilts

New Work

The only quilt in the works at the moment is a group quilt. Created for a wedding that blends two families, the design is of intertwined trees, with a branch for each family member. We paper pieced the trunks from strips of batik in a random fashion, starting with browns and ending with a different color for each branch. We pieced flying geese (geese mate for life, you know) to make one of the borders, and used the off-cut batik triangles to create abstract leaves. We solved the problem of how to attach all those tiny triangles by drawing a rough outline of the tree top on Steam-a-Seam lite, cutting the fusible web out, and applying it to the background fabric. Because it is pressure sensitive, we could keep the triangles from falling off until we were ready to fuse them with the iron. Next step: stipple the leafy area with batting behind to give it some dimension. I think a variegated thread will do nicely with the multicolor leaves. Then satin stitch the tree trunks and branches on top, add a few random "leaves" to blend, and voila! A family tree! I'll try to get a photo up soon so you can see what I am going on about.

Quilt gallery and quilts for sale at: http://community.webshots.com/user/roconnorquilts