Sunbonnet Ladies

The Sunbonnet Ladies quilt is almost complete. This block has the background completed and just needs a little quilting within the applique. The sashing also needs quilting - that will be the last step.

The outer border is almost complete. It is just lacking one side border to be finished. The inner border is complete all the way around the quilt.

A little better view of the quilt as I'm working on it.

I'm using Iced Blue Signature 100% cotton thread in the blue fabrics and Parchment in the background and inner border. The batting is a 5oz poly.

More Totes

I finished the last 2 tote bags this afternoon. This one is in purples and greens. I quilted some line-dancing designs and feathers in the pieced block.

I quilted feathers after dividing the piece into 4 triangles. I marked the spine of the feather with children's chalk, then quilted the feathers free-hand.

The feathers were made the same way in this red tote as in the purple tote.

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.