When Stitches Glide Across

To say that I am impressed, and in love, with my new Gammill would be minimizing the longarm experience. In one very short (but exceptionally fun) week of quilting on this fantastic machine, I have come to realize that quilting on a longarm is an experience that I had deprived myself of.

The effortless ability to quilt on a large scale is unbelievably liberating. No more struggle with draped weight at the regular sewing machine. No more aching shoulders. No more small scale design work….

The day after the machine was set up, I was ready to learn. I decided to practice on a small, 44-inch throw-away quilt top.

Once I practiced some easy meandering, I made some feathered plumes. Then I began stitching some free-motion flowers.

Okay….practice session over! Time to try a REAL quilt. I wanted to attempt using a pantograph.

The first quilt I pinned into the frame was the top I made a year ago called Spring At Bloomery Mountain. The quilt was made exactly one year ago, to celebrate a day trip over to Bloomery, West Virginia where we trekked into the backwoods. The colors chosen included all of the greens and blue greens, so significant in that region where grassy hills and small mountains create the beautiful countryside. (More about that escapade and making the Bloomery quilt here.)

Quilting this was very easy — very fluid. The stitches glide across the patchwork.

Once I had completed the quilting, I re-rolled and echo-quilted along one edge of the design.

The backing was pieced from leftover sections and stash.

The binding was stitched down on the front yesterday.

Today, while it is raining and raining, I will hand-stitch the binding to the back.

Not A Quiet Riot, These Colors

It all starts out with white.

Around our property, Springtime begins early with the blooms of diminuitive white Snowdrops.

Several Hellebores follow with their large white and dusty pink blossoms. With their early Spring gifts of color, they are the Spring Sentinels for me here, announcing that the full season is not far away and the brilliant display of color is soon to follow. Color-play begins with the species Crocus and small Iris bulbs, promising brighter and louder color with time.

And as promised, in April, the color explosion begins and can be found everywhere. Not a quiet riot, these colors….

The bright red bed of the species Primrose I grow only along the stone edged of a shaded garden shows me just how loud a color can be.

And then there are the intriguing blossoms of an Iris….

In several other gardens, I grow those intense deep purple colors, too. This dwarf Iris ‘Cherry Pop’ is a color study unto itself, with the variegation that bleeds and blends from red-violet to blue purple and into ultraviolet.

Clumps of ‘Cherry Pop’ grown with other irises, like the saffron yellow iris blooming along the sides of my greenhouse, are colors that beckon me to look closer to hear what they are showing. Not a quiet riot, these colors.

Such color harmony of yellow and purple reminds me of basic color theory, proving to the eye that yellow effectively harmonizes with purples. They are, after all, color opposites, but serve each other well working in color complements with one another.

From my back porch, a festival of purples has blended together into a color symphony. What I see, I almost hear: the fuschia-red tones from all of the Red Buds that grow around the woods edge have harmonized with my 20-year old Persian Lilacs, and the blending of the colors once again proves how color creates the relationship. This group is of similar colors, they are neighbors in color theory — so effective, so pleasing.

This is no quiet riot, yet these are the color sounds I have grown to know and appreciate. The plants that provide these color offerings are like old friends to me, coming to visit with their yearly gifts to teach me more about color harmony.

These gardens I tend are now a color burst of Springtime joy and with each Spring comes the beginning of a new cycle of remembrance of last year. The same colors burst, the same intensities, the same harmonizing effects. Not a quiet riot, these colors…

Be Still My Heart…I’m Expecting!

I am still amazed. I am still in awe. I am still stunned.

But I’ll get over it.

(Eventually)

For now, I’ll just say that I am still amazed.

Yes, I am expecting.

Be still my heart….

I’m expecting a GAMMILL!!!!

Yes, I really did it and she’s going to arrive on May 1st! I bought myself a Gammill professional long arm quilting machine!

I’m trying hard not to be too excited, but be still my heart….I am really looking forward to the due-date.  (Now you guys didn’t really think that I’d gone off the deep-end and gotten myself into a different sort of family-way, now, did you?)

Those Little Things: More Than A Concept

The Take It Further March Challenge was decided a few weeks ago, but I am only now ready to begin this challenge. Sharon asked, “Do you ever notice the little things, the small moments, the details in life? This months challenge is to do just that, pay attention to the tiny details. Sometimes the small things become emblematic for something larger. That is it!” 

From the moment I read the concept for this month’s Challenge, I knew IMMEDIATELY what I would create for a small quilt. You see, for the past several weeks, my home has been pulling heavy-duty with a major renovation in our kitchen area.

When it was time to gut the kitchen from top to bottom, our lifestyle became rather disrupted. While we were in demo-mode, the remainder of our home’s main floor was transformed into a warehouse. Wall-to-wall boxes filled this room – somewhere there is a living room underneath all of those boxes.

 The worst part is now over. We increased square footage, installed a set of French doors leading out to our covered back porch, and then began installing our new cabinets.

WHEW! This has been quite a bit of work for the two of us! I’ll be happy when we are past the next couple of phases: floor installation, ceiling lights, painting….

During this renovation, we were forced to adapt to new surroundings. Change is okay, but I have learned that change without those little things is a challenge. Nevermind that we have been living without cabinets. Nevermind that we had no dishes or cooking utensils because we had no cabinets. Nevermind that we had no easy access to appliances because we had no cabinets. Nevermind that we had no countertops — we had no cabinets! 

Nevermind any of those inconveniences…..We had a bigger problem: WE HAD NO SINK!

We had no running water, which was bad enough, but what was worse was that we had no kitchen sink. Just look!

Do you know how many times I have stopped myself from automatically pouring something into that sink-hole??? My, my….I’ve learned the hard way that the sink is one of those very BIG little things.

For me, the kitchen sink ranks Number One as one of those little things. One of those little things we take for granted. One of those things we ignore because they are of little consequence and seemingly insignificant….

This month of March, I give homage to Ye Wonderful Kitchen Sink. I will give her the glory she deserves, in a color that she will wear proudly….

So here’s my pin-up design, complete with an enlarge copy of a sink that will soon be transformed with fabric. Somehow I’ll applique a fabric-sink in the center with I-dyed-it-bright-pink cottons, and hopefully it will resemble a sink. Those other wacky bright fabrics are going to surround Ye Wonderful Kitchen Sink to celebrate how I’ve learned the hard way to love-my-sink. (Now I think I understand why some sinks are placed on pedestals…)

Remembering: Finishing Life Facets

Finally! I have finished quilting my February Take It Further Challenge and will add binding today. I took the photo early this morning and none of the quilting really shows up. I plan to use the background fabric to bind this wall quilt, hoping to use fabric strips cut from the sections that now looks like swiss-cheese cut-outs.

Tomorrow, I’ll post about the March TIF Challenge and how I will interpret the theme presented. Participants who have signed onto this year-long challenge are well underway, so I have some catch-up to do. After reading the concept, I knew immediately what “subject” I wanted to do. I’ve also had time to think about how I want to present this “subject” for the March Challenge too. So, stay tuned…..I think that my March TIF will yank a smile out of a few folks.