Kaja and I discussed last year's AHIQ invitations and think they went pretty well. Our goal was and remains to build an interested community of quilters exploring original ideas for everyday quilts. The open-ended topics let each of us develop our own interests at a variety of skill levels. We all expanded our understanding of improvisational utility quilting and became more confident in our skills.
I noticed that I needed more than a couple of months to work on each idea, especially since I wanted to incorporate the technique into ongoing work. Meaty projects that challenge me on several levels are much more engaging {although I'm in the throes of a group of fairly quick small quilts right now.} However, by the end of the year everyone's energy dropped off. I know my time was overcommitted. There were several projects that simply had to be finished; something had to give.
This year we plan to present only two invitations/challenges. We hope this will fit into your schedule more easily, encourage more participation and longer discussions. Kaja's leading off with a new idea this month. Check her post for all the details. I can't wait to start.
Queued Up
I finished several quilts recently because they were small but I'm still working on two that are pin basted.
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| Chinese Coins II quilt (CCII) with SID complete |
My mother loved to read columnist Marilyn Schwartz in the Dallas Morning News. The way Marilyn poked fun at Texas pretensions always made her laugh. When A Southern Belle Primer: Or Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma appeared in 1991 my mother was among the first to purchase it.
One chapter dealt with hair. Given a choice, Texas women want fine rather than coarse hair because it sounds classier. Curly or straight? Curly, of course; waves are so beautiful. And thick or thin? Why thick. As Marilyn noted, we just selected the worst possible combination: curly, fine and thick - a mess to style, ready to frizz with the slightest humidity.
What does this have to do with quilting? Well, that's the same way I quilt. Simple or complex pattern? Complex. Print or solid fabric? Prints, of course. Simple or detailed quilting? Oh, detailed, please. And we all know the result. Tiny pieces rarely show prints to advantage (and vice versa.) In fact, echo or parallel quilting is all that really shows on my quilts because those beloved prints hide all the fancy stitching.
So why do I spend so much time agonizing over quilting designs? IDK. Crazy. The longer I dither, the less capable I am of moving forward. CCII is a case in point. Realistically I should quilt an all-over pattern with grey thread and move on. Not much is going to show on this large quilt with loads of patterned fabrics. But I can't bring myself to do that.
Quilting Smaller Shapes on CCII
New Year's prodded me to get busy. The choice was to quilt it or watch is rot in storage. Requisite SID started the quilting. Then FMQ in dark threads since I had {sort of} decided on how to attack the darkest fabrics. The spiral-and-wiggle isn't that great. What was I thinking? And everything always looks bad at this stage - especially when dark thread traipses across white backgrounds. I keep reminding myself it will look better when the rest is done. I didn't want to worry about threads peeking through. Now I only need to finalize the rest of the designs.
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| Free motion quilting on Chinese Coins II quilt back |
Next up was the star posts combining a spiral with FMQ outline of the points.
Bottom left: Free-hand-and drawn circle with washable marker.
Bottom right: Hold the tails, stitch the circle then start to spiral out. It's slow moving the tails from hand to hand as I circle around.
Top right: Continue spiralling until I hit the base of one of the star points.
Top left: Outline the star points with FMQ. Finish back at the spiral to tie off.
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| Quilting a star with spiral center |
Enjoy the day, Ann
InLinkz removed because it was hacked.