Kristin LaFlamme read my post about how much I love Westfallenstoffe fabric and she sent me these. So sweet of her, especially while she's busy with her move from Germany to Hawaii - talk about a change.I'm making great progress on Orphan Train quilting. I started my freehand fans at the lower right and upper left corners and worked my way in (the third pattern shown, diagonal fans, in my tutorial). The fans have finally met up in the middle of the quilt:
This is the back, so you can see it even better:
I'm using Mettler 100% quilting thread and it's making me NUTS. I keep getting little loops and knots. I don't know if it's just this spool, but think I'm going back to Gutterman.Commenters asked what size my Plaid One Patch with Strings turned out. I started with 4" blocks of fabric. Sort of. I left some of them rectangular and longer than that, so that I had more opportunity to mismatch seams and make it deliberately "off." The top ended up 34" by 34.5" which is really close considering there is a whole extra row of half blocks.
We're nearing the deadline of the campaign to get Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking reprinted. This is the post that explains it all. And have you told everyone you thought might be interested? Keep spreading the word, the more "votes" the better.
One thing that has really struck me is how many folks are still using just their first name as their identifier on blogs. Please, I beg you, add something more. A placename, your blog title, something completely unexpected. Mocha MonsterPants you have the distinction of being the most unusual blogger name yet - it's unforgettable.
Thanks for the encouraging comments on the last post. It's been great to hear from you. I spent yesterday frustrated out of my mind trying to find a simple drawing program that wasn't too simple. Finally found it in a completely unexpected spot: Microsoft Word. So that's what I've been working on, writing instructions.
Sweetie and I finally got a chance to see Burn Notice. Woohoo, I loved it. Three different people told me they thought I'd like it and boy were they right. I told my husband he had to just go with it, just like you do watching Alias, which is completely unbelieveable but a lot of fun.
Burn Notice is about a spy who gets fired (burned) and ends up "stuck" in Miami with no money. There's some Alias, A-Team, McGuyver in there as he helps people with his spy skills AND tries to figure out who got him burned. Great casting all the way around, I just wish the fantastic Bruce Campbell was in it more.
I need to get some work done before I go out to play this afternoon. Ya'all take care and I leave you with this photo of little Pokey on the fabric I "stole" from Siobhan :
Hey, I have 2 of those fabrics in my Dutch fabric collections, so I wonder if there is any difference between Dutch and German fabrics/plaids...maybe Lucy could enlighten us?
ReplyDeleteAlso started watching the Sara conner Chronicles and I am really liking it. I was worried it would be like the first episode just running away from the terminators, but the story is quite good, did they renew it for a 2nd season?
glad you were able to find a drawing program you liked... I must admit to that being one area I still find harder electronically then the "old fashioned" way :-)
ReplyDeletehad to smile at your statements re people's names -- I know when I created my google account and named my blog I had no thought of it becoming "my name" -- I might have spent longer thinking about it had I, but all things conc=sidered I rather like mine... Ah well, 'tis who I'm known as now, so there it is :-) Having changed my legal name a couple of times in Real life, I'm in no hurry to "get re-known" using a different name -- it was fine for close friends, but a number of acquantancies took a long time to know the name association...
So glad you like Burn Notice! We missed it when it was on, but they're showing first season reruns before the second season starts in a couple weeks, so we're almost caught up. And we're rewatching Alias, too. You're absolutely right about suspending belief!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your tutorial. I marked it with a Star in google reader so I can find it easily. I think I will find it very helpful. We like Burn Notice too and are looking forward to it starting up again.
ReplyDeleteI like watching Burn Notice too. I can't wait for the new season to start in a couple of weeks! Have a good weekend.
ReplyDeleteWe love Burn Notice too. Can't wait for the new season to start. DH has also found In Plain Sight and pulled me in too. The cable networks seem to come up with the better shows lately.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for the complement! :) I purposefully do not use my name, nor my husband's as I have a cyber-stalker ex boyfriend and I just don't want him knowing my business! So, I use the dog's name. I encourage others to do this or something similar, and use initials for kids names. (Bobby = B, Cindy = C, Marcia=M, etc, so the Brady Bunch is B, C, P, J, G and M.) :) That's also why you don't see my photo on the blog, though I feel like I'm hiding, and in a way, I guess I am. :)
ReplyDeleteWhen Debbie Caffrey came to our guild, she gave a lunch-time tutorial on how to do all your quilt drawing using Word. Very interesting. Keep up the great work, Tonya!
ReplyDeleteHi Tonya, The fabric on the left hand is Dutch. it's a repro from dutch fabric called: 'Fries Roosje' Which was used for bedsheets around 1900. Only at that time was white fabric with red roses more common. So far as I know the plaid on the right hand is also Dutch used in dutch traditional clothes. The explanation I can give why it is called German is that the factory West falen took over the Dutch factory which was called Pompadour! Tonya I have seen plaids on yoru blog that are so Dutch!!
ReplyDeleteLove your new fabric and found interesting reading in comments that it is Dutch.
ReplyDeleteI am a newbie quilter and am working on twin baby quilts-I used bali batiks, organic cotton batting which is very unprocessed-so has been quite a learning experience for me to hand quilt with. Can yo diret me to more information on how to draw quilting motifs in word?
I am a new reader of your blog-very much enjoying my visits here Kathyinozarks (Missouri USA)
Hey Ton, the fans are looking really fantastic.....LOL. Seriously, really great!! No pun intended there.
ReplyDeleteFun new fabrics...you go girl *VBS*
Finn it was and Finn it is, hugs!
Love the fan quilting as usual - I need to get back to my trees and get that top assembled for the summer class - at this rate it will be August since I'm traveling most of July. I also need to start thinking about the quilting for it.
ReplyDeleteI use Word for most of the instructions I write - I love Word 2007 the best and was glad I upgraded. It also allows me to save the documents as PDF files which is really helpful.
I just use my first name and hadn't really thought of it being a problem. On the blog, my photo pops up next to the comment and in email if I'm unsure of who is commenting...I can usually take a peak at the email address it's coming from to see if I recognize it.
The fans look fantastic! I did find going through the seems of mine to be rather a pain. I tried stab stitching, but it looks awful too, so I'm just doing the usual and ending up with bigger stitches and sometimes missed stitches on the back when it comes to the seems. Doing it on the seamless parts is pure joy though. I went to the quilt shop here on our trip the other day and looked around for a print that I liked to do something like your cranky witch one. I didn't find a fabric I like, but it got me thinking that maybe I could use a single piece of a solid fabric and just go crazy with the no marked hand quilting. It might be fun!
ReplyDeleteWow those fans are amazing Tonya.
ReplyDeleteLovely fabrics. I can't wait to see what your book looks like. About quilting thread. I've tried many different threads and think Gutterman is far superior to anything on the market.
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