Keepin' It Real: Everything Breaks in February, But the Quilting Must Go On

Um, GOOD MORNING!  How was YOUR February?  I haven't written anything in so long that I don't know where to begin.  Do I just pick one or two things to share with you, or do I just dump a hundred and fifty photos in this post without explaining any of them?

Nothing terrible has happened to me over the past month, just lots of compounded nuisances on top of everyday concerns and I've been focusing on trying to stay on top of customer quilting while putting out fires left and right.  Here's the short version of my adventures over the last few weeks: car battery was completely dead the morning I had a dentist appointment for a routine cleaning, could not be jumped, had to reschedule my appointment and replace the car battery.  Then when I went to the dentist a few days later, instead of just complementing me on my excellent home care and giving me a free toothbrush, they told me I needed FIVE old fillings replaced.  The novocaine from all those new fillings had barely worn off when the garage door opener died and needed to be replaced.  Let's see -- next disaster was a cracked hopping foot on my longarm machine and then I stripped my needle set screw, neither of which was a big deal besides sucking up time.  Then we woke up to find water dripping down through the ceiling in the second floor hallway and discovered that our hot water heater in the attic had blown and flooded its drip pan.  Lovely.  Hot water heater replaced, but now there were water stains on the ceiling and if you've tried to hire anyone to do work in your home over the past year or so, you know that everyone is booked so far out into the future that you don't know which will come first -- availability on the painter's schedule or the Armageddon.  So my husband has been on ladders painting ceilings himself and I've been contemplating paint swatches for walls and cabinets when I'm not upstairs quilting, because (like everyone else) I've been spending way more time in my house over the past two years and I am sick of looking at these walls everyday.  Oh, and my espresso machine has blown a gasket and started spewing water all over the place, just to taunt me.  The way this month has been going, I wouldn't be surprised if the roof caved in before the end of the month!

See?  Nothing catastrophic, just a lot of distractions eating up time that I might have been blogging.  But you didn't come here for any of that, did you?  You came for the quilting!

Ginny's Tree of Life Quilt

Abundance Design Stitched in Glide Thread, Color Sea Mist

My client Ginny made this scrappy Tree of Life quilt as an anniversary gift for her husband, incorporating scores of different fabric prints that she has accumulated over the decades of their marriage.  We chose the Abundance quilting design by Karlee Porter because of the way it suggests vines, brush, and forest undergrowth around her tree.  Knowing that quilting designs generally disappear against busy prints, we chose a thread color (Glide in Sea Mist, affiliate link) that would blend more against the dark greens and browns in the tree and stand out a little more against her lighter valued background fabrics.

See How the Quilting Shows Up More on the Lighter Fabrics?

The piecing design of this quilt is so interesting to me, like the Pointillist paintings that look like random dots of paint up close conveying images that only appear when viewed from a distance. The curving, scrolled lines and circular berries of the Abundance quilting design soften the angular lines of the patchwork seams while enhancing the sense that the central tree is truly teeming with life.  We used Quilters Dream 80/20 cotton/poly batting (affiliate link) for this quilt.

Ginny's 87 x 94 Tree of Life Quilt

MaryBeth's Sunflower Quilt

Next up is another quilt that reminds me of Impressionist paintings.  This sun-drenched batik beauty was pieced by my friend and very first client MaryBeth, and it reminds me of the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit we attended together with all of Van Gogh's sunflowers swirling around the walls and ceilings.  

Crazy Daisy Stitched in Glide Thread, Color Bright Gold

MaryBeth likes her quilts to be soft and snuggly and she always tells me "Don't make it too stiff!" 😃.  To that end, we chose Quilters Dream Bamboo (a bamboo/silk/cotton/Tencel blend formerly marketed as Quilters Dream Orient) batting because it's the softest, snuggliest, cuddliest batting I know of.  The quilting design is called Crazy Daisy, also from Karlee Porter, and I stitched it in Glide thread in Bright Gold so it would blend into the fiery batik fabrics and stand out in shimmering contrast against the blue sashing fabric.

Here's a shot of the whole quilt:

MaryBeth's 54 x 75 Sunflower Quilt

Isn't that pretty?  The back is just as beautiful as the front.  MaryBeth gave me a saffron tonal solid batik for the backing that shows off the quilting design:

Same Quilt, Back Side

I never know how much you guys want to see/read about in a single blog post, so I'll leave you with just one more little tidbit.  

Rebecca Got Up at the Crack of Dawn to Be On Television

Here's a shot of me being interviewed by Cheryl Brayboy of WBTV News in Charlotte earlier this month for a Queen City in the Morning segment about quilting:

Cheryl Brayboy of WBTV Interviewing YOURS TRULY for a Local News Segment

If I look tired in that photo, it's because I had to get up, put makeup on, and leave the house while it was still dark out in order to get to my favorite quilt shop (Sew Much Fun in Lowell, NC) to tape the interview with shop owner Drusilla Munnell and fellow Charlotte Quilters Guild member Marilyn Gore.  Y'all, I am NOT a morning person!  I'm lucky I didn't oversleep and miss the whole thing!

Me, Marilyn Gore, & Sew Much Fun Owner Drusilla Munnell

It was crazy trying to explain how to make a quilt from start to finish AND show off all the quilts in four minutes flat, but it was definitely a fun experience!  Also I am pretty sure it's the only time I've ever walked out of Sew Much Fun without buying anything, but my arms were full of quilts and their registers weren't up and running yet because the store wasn't open.  I was also in desperate need of CAFFEINE...

That's all you get from me today, but my cameral roll is full of quilty goodness that I'll be dribbling out to you in bits and pieces!  Hopefully nothing else in my house will break between now and the end of the month so I can make some progress on some of my own projects!

I'm linking up today's post with my favorite linky parties, listed on the left sidebar of my blog.  Happy quilting, everyone!