Thursday again. I heard an interesting thought on that whole time moving faster as we get older thing. His idea is that as a child we encounter a wide variety of new experiences often multiple times a day. Hence the day is new and refreshing. As we age we get into routines and usually very little new happens in our lives. I know this makes sense to me as pretty much every day is about the same as the day before. Except for meals. I try to have a few days between the different meal ideas. Those ideas are very different than my quilting ideas, there is a lot of repetition. Maybe I need to take up skydiving or something for a new and exciting thing to do. I have a good idea that my immediate new experience will be how well this years snow removal goes.
The beach rake-a-thon continues. I woke to this this AM.
After all day and seven trips off the beach, the load total is to 54 trips for this year so far.
This was a the end of the day picture.
Last year was 117 loads, I wonder if this year will be more or less. You guessed right, time will tell.
The two quilts for me to tell about, as we continue our virtual quilt show, are “Insanity” and X Marks the Spot”.
X MARKS THE SPOT ~ designed and pieced by me, quilted by Carol. This received a yellow ribbon at Maine Quilts
I designed this one on EQ6 while coloring with the grandkids, Evan and Parker. It is a rather simple layout with color being what carries the quilt. It is made up of mostly four patches of half square triangles, broken up with a color way of strips separating them. The color way of strips is what makes up the X marking.
I was informed at the Maine Quilt Show that there was an error in the color way of strips and from that, we decided that it did not need to go elsewhere. The quilt is reversible and I almost like the back more than the front, especially after becoming aware of the error on the front. (can you find the error?)
As I’ve said before if you have a sensitive temperament don’t read the judges comments. By the way, there was no mention in the judges comments regarding the error in the layout. One never knows.
From Carol ~ As with Dan's previous double sided quilts there was not too much I could do for quilting ~ I ended up with an all over leafy-feathery-swirly design. Lots of thick seams to avoid.
Judges comments ~ subtle color changes are well chosen to show the design, quilting is very well done, feather quilting adds curves to this geometric design but lacks imagination. 🙄
INSANITY ~ Designed and pieced by me, quilted by Carol. It received a 3rd place yellow at Maine Quilts, a 2nd place Red at Machine Quilter's Exp and was also shown at A Quilter's Gathering.
This is another that I drew on the computer to begin with. I drew it with larger units than I decided to use. When I designed it to use 3” units it did not achieve the same “wow” effect. So I decided to go with 1” V-block units.
This quilt is heavy as it is another reversible quilt. If I remember correctly this quilt used up 32 yards of fabric to complete. I would start my day by cutting 2 yards of both the purple and the gold and then cut for the V-block units. There are over 5000 1” V-blocks in the top. If that is not insanity, what is?
I called the back “Return From Insanity” as I thought it was much calmer and less overwhelming and a nice top all on it’s own merit.
”Insanity” contains over 13,000 pieces with more than 11,000 on the front. I fail to see where I could have met the judges request for more accurate piecing. I joked with the husband of a quilter at a show. Told him he could have the quilt or some such wager if he could point out more than 10 missing points. He searched the quilt while his wife continued admiring the other quilts in the show. After about 20 minutes he quit after being only able to find three. The judge in question must have found one of those three as well.
From Carol ~ I do believe I told Dan NO MORE TWO SIDED QUILTS after this one! There is not much I could do with them, just another variation of all over feathers. By the way, did you notice the quilted sleeve in the above photo?
Judges comments ~ Jewel tones and accent colors well distributed to provide movement, feather motif could be more gracefully executed (huh?), piecing technique could be more accurate, Wow ~ awesome undertaking, piecing is excellent, quilting pattern well chosen and beautifully executed.
In the studio I have completed #32 for 2025, another 65” x 77” in size. My process for this one was using some 2” units. I came up with this 10” block in a 5 x 5 layout.
After making a couple of the blocks I decided that I did not wish to make 30 of them to make a conventional repeating block with sashing strip quilt. I decided to frame the 10” block to 12” and came up with a pattern to increase the size of the block to 18”. I made four of these. I then made five blocks of the same layout using 3” units. This gave me a 15” block instead of my previous 10”. I framed it to 18” to fit with the other block.
I needed height for the quilt so I framed a row of 4” four patch units above and below the center row in my layout. The centers of all the blocks contain a spider, the first border is the most like a cobweb I could find in my stash and the black cats I used as the four-patch frame and the outer border completed the look. The fireflies were added to keep the spiders happy. I hope they like them. I was pleased with the outcome.
 |
| 2025-32 |
I have no idea what the weather will bring this weekend, it is the time of the year where anything is possible. Stay safe and enjoy whatever you get.
No comments:
Post a Comment