Wedding Gown Quilt Revisited

I received a question about the wedding gown quilt that I worked on last year so I thought I would post about it again.

This dress was pieced into the top by the customer. I'm not sure how she did it, but the objective was to keep the dress as whole as possible - not cut it into blocks and stitch them back together.

What I believe she did was to take the dress apart and rearrange the pieces of the skirt, sleeves, and bodice to make the top as you see it here in the photo.

For quilting the dress we used silk for the backing fabric. We also added a layer of underlining fabric underneath the dress "top" so the batting wouldn't show through the netting areas of the dress. A high-loft batting was used to give dimension. I didn't do any marking on the quilt since it was made of dry-clean only fabrics.

Teaching Left-handed Needlearts

My husband and daughters are all left-handed. There have been challenges over the years teaching the girls to tie their shoes, write their letters, cut with scissors, and now - how to crochet and knit.

My 14 y/o daughter decided she wanted to crochet a new hat. So yesterday we got out a skein of bright red yarn and a large crochet hook, and I attempted to teach her how to crochet left-handed. I finally gave up on that. I realized that my brain just won't work in the left-handed mode. So I found a video on You Tube made for left-handed crocheters.

Hannah still found crochet to be difficult, so today she decided she needed to learn to knit. This time I headed straight for You Tube and found several videos on beginning knitting - but for right-handed people. Hannah decided to try knitting right-handed and is doing pretty well. I had to relearn how to cast on stitches since it's been over 20 years since I picked up knitting needles! We are using the single needle, long thread-tail method to cast-on stitches. Hannah is learning how to regulate the tension on the yarn. Once she gets that down I think she'll be knitting up a storm. She's starting with a scarf, then will graduate to knitting in the round. She chose a hot pink yarn for this project.

Freehand Feathers

This is a current customer project. A set of 7 panels to make tote bags from. I quilted freehand feathers on this one with the black fabric using Signature 100% thread in Dusty Rose.

This picture has better color. It looks like I'm needing a new camera :(  This is the same tote panel with the pieced block. I did a feather in the star, line dancing in the background pieces, and L's and E's in the pink border.

Snip, Snip, Snip....

I'm trimming trapunto batting today and my fingers are getting sore :( The pain and suffering of machine trapunto! I'm finding it more difficult to trim the 80/20 batting than the poly batting, but I think I'll get the result I'm looking for.

Now to find that box of bandaids so I can cushion my thumb.

Plan B

Yesterday, I measured the 2 quilts for AAQI to make sure they fit the size requirements, but this quilt with the butterfly and coneflower is 1/2 inch too wide. Rats! I'm debating on whether to take off the binding and cut it down,  or make another quilt. I'm leaning towards making another quilt. I don't have much room to cut this quilt down on the sides without the binding running into the appliques.

I have a wholecloth quilt on the machine right now, getting ready for the trapunto step. The top is loaded, but the trapunto bat is not. I've been debating on what batting to use for the trapunto. The poly batting I have in stock is a bit too thin, so I think I'm going to experiment with 2 layers of Hobbs 80/20. The top is cream colored, so the color of the 80/20 won't be a problem. I have used 2 layers of poly batting before, but didn't like the look. I'm hoping the Hobbs will give a firmer trapunto affect.

Here's a sneak peak at a portion of the design I'm using.

There is quite a bit more to the quilt design than this, but it gives you an idea of where I started.

Gir Jacket

DD#1 has a "Gir" jacket that she has worn out and wanted to replace. The price of a new jacket was more than we wanted to spend, so DD#1 decided to design one of her own.

We purchased a hoodie jacket pattern and some polar fleece, added her own touches and now she has a new "Gir" jacket with her own designer touches.

2 More Doilies

These are the last 2 doilies - at least for awhile. I'm finally feeling well enough to get back to quilting, so crocheting doilies will take a backseat. The doily above started out from a pattern, but I could only get so far and then had problems. I tried 3 times, but could never get the pattern to work out, so I stopped where the problems started and finished it with my own pattern. This poor doily needs blocking, but it didn't turn out too badly.

Now this doily took me a week to complete. It isn't a difficult pattern, just a large doily that took almost an entire ball of #20 crochet cotton. I used a #8 crochet hook. The pattern is from Free Vintage Crochet and is Doily Number 7318.

My quilting projects will get some attention tomorrow. I have 4 small quilts for the foster child program to complete along with one customer quilt and several tote bags for another customer. My own quilts are waiting in line.

I found some 30's repro fabrics at the LQS and am itching to audition them with my vintage blocks and deciding which ones will work best with the fabrics. I have the feeling that I didn't buy enough fabric!