I finished half of the 3A blocks (Kona Solids Thistle and Indigo) for my Deco quilt last week! Just nine more of these light purple/indigo blocks to go before I can begin assembling the blocks into a quilt top. It's amazing how much more one can accomplish when one is NOT twiddling her thumbs in a court house all day waiting to get rejected from jury duty!
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| 9 of 18 Deco 3A Blocks Added to the Design Wall |
I love the way the dark Willow green and Indigo 3B blocks recede visually and the Thistle/Indigo 3 blocks seem to come forward. That's intentional; I played with those effects when I was creating my color scheme for this quilt in EQ8 (back in November of 2021, cough cough, change subject...). Anyway, I'm looking forward to wrapping this quilt up soon and moving on to something new.
Last week, when I shared a photo of the new Slimline lamp I'm enjoying for night time sewing, Nancy asked what happened to the view of the pool outside my window. The pool didn't go anywhere; it was just hidden behind the window shades! This is my new morning sewing routine (note the latte off to the right on my IKEA cart):
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| First Things First: Caffeine + 30 Minutes of Sewing |
In our house in North Carolina, our bedroom and my studio were both on the 2nd floor. My routine was to come downstairs to make coffee, then sit down in front of my computer while I drank it. Many times I'd get sidetracked by email or whatever and realize that a couple of hours had gone by before I knew it -- WHOOSH! But with our current house so much smaller and all on one level, I actually have to walk past my sewing machine to get to my computer. So I am trying a new routine. Now I go from the coffee machine straight to the sewing machine, still in my pajamas, and get my 30 minutes of sewing in BEFORE I check my email. Because honestly, what could possibly be in my in-box that can't wait 30 minutes anyway?
Back to those shades: They are Hunter Douglas Solar Shades, roller shades made out of a vinyl mesh fabric that helps with the heat, glare, and UV fading of strong sunlight at certain times of the day. At night, the shades help brighten my work area by reflecting artificial light back into the room that would otherwise pass through the window glass and be "lost" to the darkness outside. From the inside, the shades appear as opaque as a painted wall, and the color I selected is almost an exact match to the window trim paint color:
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| Hunter Douglas Solar Shades in Driftwood, Closed at Night |
After taking that picture, I went outside and took this photo from out by the pool:
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| Same Shades, Viewed from Outside |
Notice how you can see my sewing machine area pretty clearly from outside due to the bright lighting positioned a couple feet from the window shade. To the right and left of that, the view is much more obscured and the reflection of the pool furniture is more distinct than what's inside the sunroom. When I switch off my sewing machine lighting you can't see anything in the room from outside at all beyond maybe shadows. These shades are motorized and I have them all programmed to open just before sunrise, then the ones on the side where the afternoon sun is strong close at 2 PM, and the rest of them close at 8 PM. Even when that one wall of windows is closed to filter the strongest afternoon sunlight, I can still see the plants and the bird feeder through the shade similar to the way I can see my sewing area from outside at night time.
Back to the quilting!
The other project that saw some progress this week is the custom quilting on my friend Marybeth's sampler quilt from 1984. I settled on another computerized design for the inner purple border/sashing and quilted that across the top, and then decided to pop my ruler base on my machine and quilt some piano keys in the red border using my 1" ProLine ruler from Lisa Calle's Quilter's Groove collection. Some things are just easier and faster to do manually instead of programming a computer to do it for you. In this case the border is not perfectly straight and square and it's easier for a human quilter to fudge and camouflage that and make it appear straight and square when you're hand guiding the machine. Computers want to quilt everything mathematically perfect and that just draws attention to seams that are a little bit off. Yes, I could painstakingly skew and tweak designs in the computer before stitching them, but by the time I was done with all of that computer programming I could have quilted it already myself!
The cool thing about the ProLine rulers is that they allow you to quilt evenly spaced lines without having to mark them on the quilt ahead of time. The opening in the 1" ProLine ruler is spaced so that, if you quilt down one side of the channel with a 1/4" ruler foot on your machine, then quilt across to the other side of the channel (without moving the ruler), you can quilt up the other side of the channel and the second line of stitching will be parallel to the first line of stitching and exactly an inch away. The only marking I did was a diagonal line in chalk on the corners where I wanted to create a mitered effect.
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| Border Quilting Progress for Marybeth's 1984 Sampler Quilt |
I think I'm going to wait and quilt the long side borders at the end, after turning the quilt on the frame so I can quilt them in one pass instead of having to stop and tie off over and over again every time I advance the quilt on the frame.
So, how did I do with my goal of getting at least 30 minutes of stitching in each day?
I very rarely just stop sewing when the timer goes off and I don't have any idea how many hours I logged stitching overall, but it's satisfying to have more progress to report than usual. Let's hope this trend continues! My goals for February were to make progress with my Deco quilt and with custom quilting Marybeth's sampler, and I'm pleased with what I got done on both of those projects.
On a sadder note, we lost a quilting friend suddenly last week and I'm still in shock.
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| Nanette Chopin Cook, "Do It Right Quilter," 1944-2025 |
Just two days before her passing, Nanette published an energetic blog post detailing all of the creative projects she was working on (embroidery, patchwork and knitting), her hopes for the future, and how she felt her health issues were finally stabilizing and under control. Like many of you, I've been reading Nanette's "Do It Right Quilter" blog for years and following along with her various projects, admiring her tenacity and willingness to rip things out and redo them again and again until the results met her high standards. I had the pleasure of quilting a number of quilts for Nanette in 2022 and 2023 and I can assure you, her workmanship was just phenomenal and a treat to behold in person. I have written about Nanette's Blue Medallion Surprise quilt, her Globetrotting quilt, her Star of Chamblie quilt, her Irish Mist quilt, her Cozy Christmas quilt, and her Brinton Hall quilt, but I quilted seven other masterpieces for Nanette that I never got around to sharing on my blog. I'll be posting some of those over the next few weeks.
My heart goes out to Nanette's husband Clay and to her family.
I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:
ONE MONTHLY GOAL
Anne-Marie at Stories From the Sewing Room
MONDAY
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Musings at Songbird Designs
TUESDAY
To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
THURSDAY
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
FRIDAY
Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre
Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty
TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday
SUNDAY
Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué
Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
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