Des Moines Star Clone Finally!

Hello again, friends!

It's been a while again.  I'll explain what has been going on in the near future.  It's all about the change part of the 3 words for 2012.  I'm ready for the adapt and create phases as the change part hasn't been fun.

The final stitch on the Des Moines Star Clone Quilt was taken over a week ago, but it took a while to do the photography and editing.  While photographing I wasn't happy with the light and tried to move outside but it was too windy.  Quilts suspended on display photography stands do not play well together. 

I had just put a new "pin" piece on the top of one side, but in trying to get the quilt on the stand outside, the wind wanted it to be a kite and another pin broke.  Fortunately when I ordered new parts the last time I ordered extras.  This is a flaw in this particular stand.  Or maybe they just weren't meant to be used the way I use mine. 

Here is the best overall photo of the Des Moines Star Clone I could get.

The first block I made had all the same blue fabric and all the same light fabric.

Can you say BORING!  ZZZzzzzz

So,  first I decided to mix up the background light fabrics. It was better, but YAWN! Still not too exciting.  I looked at the antique one I showed you here and discovered it was more scrappy in each of the blocks.

So, I decided to mix it up a bit more.

Yes, now we were getting some where.  Much more texture and movement in the block.

So some of the blocks contained black as well as blues just like the antique.  In fact this block has antique fabric used in it.

Here are a couple more of the blocks.

And a few more.

You may notice that the antique quilt had less quilting in it.

I added diagonal lines.  I like it better that way.

More quilting is better, don't you think?

Whew!  Now I can move back to some of the other unfinished projects I have.

Do you think Mindy and Mike will like their quilt?  They've waited.

And waited.

And waited for this quilt.

Hope they love it!

All it needs is the label.  I think the label will have a photo of the antique version on it.

Have you ever made a duplicate of an antique quilt?  It is kind of a cool way to preserve the original by making a clone.

Try it, you might like it!

Hugs and kisses,

Lois

I'm feathering my nest!

We have a sofa and two chairs in our family room that are slipcovered.  Okay, so white might not have been the best choice for people who work in the print industry, but I love, love, LOVE my white slipcovered furniture!  We looked a long time to find these pieces as when we were buying them most of the furniture stores were loaded with heavy, dark Tuscany style furniture which is beautiful – in someone else’s house.  Me? I’m a blue and white and yellow person.  I like it light and airy!

However, the last time I pulled the slipcovers off to launder them, I had a major problem!  One of the cushion’s inner casing had split.  When I unzipped the slipcover, there were down feathers EVERYWHERE!  This is NOT a good thing. 

It looked sort of like this, only this is after stuffing several handfuls of feathers back into the casing!

I stuffed as many feathers as I could back inside and slip stitched the split together so the feathers could be vacuumed up.  Then another piece of fabric needed to be appliquéd over the split to contain the feathers.  Definitely not the way I had things planned for the day!

Do you ever have days like that?  Days where you have your ducks in a row, but one of them just won’t stay in the row?  Do you handle it well?  Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.  Today it’s funny, but at the time?  Not so much!

I really DO like feathers -- especially the quilted type and I use them as often as possible in my quilts and quilted things.

This pillow is one of the first things I hand quilted for use in our home.  It’s sort of plain, but using the blue quilting thread helped me to work on even stitches.

Later when asked to teach hand quilting classes, I designed this fancier feathered heart.  It has not only feathers, but stipple quilting and cross hatch quilting as many quilters use these three types of quilting in their quilts.  I encourage new hand quilters to use matching thread just so they can be proud of their first project and not be hung up on the unevenness of their stitching.  With practice the even stitches will come.

Until next time.

Lois