You know I wish I had all the time in the world to blog, but that just simply isn’t the case. I love blogging! I love all my friends, which is what I consider all of you. There are days when time is short and unfortunately my blog is usually the casualty. Especially, if I’ve had a bad day, I stay away from blogging completely. I don’t want to write a grumpy blog post. ๐ OR write a post that isn’t worthy of posting…meaning one that I just threw together. Like my quilting, I like my posts to be worth it. My posts aren’t always about quilting, but life in general. I know the quilting posts are funnest to read and see because of the eye candy. I feel the same way. I do, however, love to read about other aspects of people’s lives too. Sometimes those are my favorite posts. There are so many bloggers out there that I admire. The way they balance family and work, their personal accomplishments or even frustrations. I especially like pics of their families, recipes, sewing spaces, decorating or homes. ๐ We are all human. We aren’t blogging machines. So, last night when I read Camille’s post on her blog Simplify, I was particularly annoyed. Annoyed with the person that left a comment on her blog. I think her comment was hurtful and more importantly unnecessary. It made me feel really bad for Camille. I wonder if the commenter ever heard “don’t read it if you don’t like it, after all no one is forcing you.” I thought Camille was very gracious in her reply post. I’m thinking a photo of a certain hand gesture might have been a more deserving reply. LOL!!!! Sometimes words just aren’t enough.
Above is not what I intended to post, but I just couldn’t let it go. Anyways…. I received several emails with questions regarding the quilting on the Wedding quilt. I just happen to take a few photos before I quilted it that might just help answer some of those questions. First, I pre-marked a lot on this quilt before I got started. Not my favorite thing to do, but it makes things a whole lot easier later. I use plain old cheap, white chalk for the dark fabrics.
I cut out random swirl type shapes out of paper for templates. I have since bought card stock, which will be soooooooo much easier for future templates. I had to use pins to hold my templates in place because the paper was so flimsy.
I just kind of moved the templates around until I liked the way they looked. I used an air erasable marker on the lighter fabrics. I outlined around the templates, once they were in the desired spot. Then, I just flipped the templates over and did the same on the other side of the quilt, so the images would be reversed.
I quilted the outline of the shapes first. Then I added the pebbling. My client left all 6 Fleur di lis raw edge because she said it didn’t look nice when she machine appliqued around them. She asked me to “tack” them down some how in a few spots. I think she was trying to do a satin stitch around them, which would have been difficult. Well, I wasn’t just going to tack them down because that would never hold up after washing. Plus, I’m going to finish it the right way for my client, no half jobs here. Before quilting, I machine appliqued them with a tiny buttonhole stitch.
I think that finished them off nicely. She was thrilled.
Hope that helps answer some of those questions. ๐