Fruit Salad Quilt finished, Cone Nebula quilt quilted

I had a lot of self-inflicted problems with this quilt, but it is now done. It's about 44.5" wide, and I'm going to pitch it as a table topper for the quilt guild's silent auction at the show this summer. (The proceeds from the auction go to pay the bills for the show, and I have permission from the publisher to use the pattern for this purpose.)

I sort of stumbled over the orange peach and apple fabric a few weeks ago, and I think the fabric really set off the entire piece.

Now, I present to you some beauty shots of the gorgeous quilting that Lynne Bowbeer did on the Cone Nebula quilt. So, without narrative, here are some beauty shots. If you are local and want to get in touch with Lynne so that she can quilt your next quilt, send me a note, and I'll be happy to pass it on to her. (The only perk I get from this is a hug from her the next time I see her.)

Aren't those wonderful? When I show this quilt in the show this summer, I'm listing her as the co-creator. She found energy in the quilt and let it be seen. I am totally blown away by the work she did.

Finally, here is the requisite cute kitty shot. I don't know what was going on, but I noticed this grouping one evening and grabbed the camera. This was the least shaky shot. (We have Baby Boy, Big Guy, and the Princess.)

Cone Nebula - Leftovers 2

After a comment from Diana about tumbling blocks and knowing that I did not want to go in that direction (sorry, Diana!), I did some rearranging and worked with the half-square triangles that were also leftover. I will confess that I cut a few more out of leftover fabric because I didn't want this to get too scrappy. Anyway, here was the end of the day:

This will be the headboard for the bed on which the Cone Nebula quilt will reside. This may get bigger.

I wanted to mention three movies that I saw this week, two of which I recommend wholeheartedly. The first was The Way with Martin Sheen. It's about the ancient pilgrimage route through the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, and a handful of people who decide to walk it. This is a movie that could have devolved into sentimentality, stereotypes, and preaching. Instead, we get a movie full of well-rounded characters (people we meet for only a couple of scenes are richly characterized), gorgeous scenery, and a lot of important questions. Full disclosure: I saw this movie on a free pass, and at the end of the movie, Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, and the producer came out on stage and took questions. This was a totally cool evening, but Hubby and I fully intend to see the movie again in the theater. It is that good.

Next up is As it is in Heaven, a 2004 movie out of Sweden. I saw this subtitled movie on a rental from Netflix. It concerns a well-known conductor who falls ill and returns to his hometown, where he takes on directing a small choral group. Again, this is a richly drawn movie full of memorable characters trying to find their way to wholeness. When I finished watching the movie, I say, "Yeah, whatever." The next day, however, the various bits of the story started coming back, and I found myself drawn into the lives of the people and wanting to know more about them. In other words, this is a movie that got into my head. If you want to understand some of it, see the lyrics for the big song that the group sings.

The final movie I'm not sure I can recommend as unreservedly as I can the first two, but it's an interesting character study of a young man struggling with some big issues. The Ides of March concerns a political operative learning his trade. It asks a lot of interesting questions, and it answers them in uncomfortable ways. If you like political movies and movies that leave you feeling a bit unsettled, this would be worth seeing.

Now, to pivot again, I have been knitting. First off, Burning Embers is the first of the cowls I'm making for Christmas presents. The model is a bottle of cleaning liquid covered with an old shirt.

This knit up quickly, and I'm getting really good at reading charts. It's so much easier than worded directions.

When I finished this, I started Duet for my mother-in-law, who is dealing with cancer and losing her hair. I'll be running some ribbon through the top so that she can wear it as a hat.

This is also a well-written pattern with an easy-to-read chart.

Finally, the cute kitty shot is of the Guys, awakened from naps because of some crazy lady with a camera.

That's all for this week!

Cone Nebula - Leftovers

In the back of my mind, I have been wondering what to do with the leftovers from the Cone Nebula quilt. As you see, I have these triangles that I cut but didn't need:

On Friday, I got one of the periodic updates that Jan Krentz sends out, and as I was poking around in her blog, I saw this entry. Go look at that link. Do you see what I see? Well, what about this? Well, on Sunday, I tried this

and this

and this

and suddenly saw where I wanted to go. I sewed together the isoceles triangles at their bases, pressed them open, and sewed them together side to side.

and ended up with these:

Now, I'm thinking that if I flip these on their side:

(and switch one of the flowered pieces with one of the bright green pieces), I have the start for a headboard for the bed on which the Cone Nebula will lie. Thank you, Jan!!

Cone Nebula Quilt - Editing

When I had the Cone Nebula quilt laid out on the grass last June, I saw this weird polygon:

Today, I put on the ironing board and started auditioning fixes. Here's a close-up of the problem:

Here are several different auditions of possible fixes:

I ended up redoing two blocks and not swapping in the pink/orange piece at the lower right. Here is the final view of the polygon:

I think it looks softer, more organic, and less angular.

Speaking of softer, when I overdyed the backing for the quilt last weekend, I also dyed a jersey dress in the leftover dye. This was a prepared-for-dyeing dress I purchased from Dharma Trading this summer. I spent all week looking at this dress, trying to decide if I liked it:

I had a friend stop over on Saturday, and she talked about how good the color looked with my hair, etc. She did suggest that I dress it up a bit, and after auditioning several different neck treatments, I ended up with this:

Here's a close-up:

I had a piece of pink silk cording that I threaded into a piece of lace. I opened the shoulder seams of the dress and sewed the threaded lace into the seams. I then sewed the lace on to the neckline, right next to the binding. I'm looking forward to wearing this dress.

Finally, the requisite picture of the Brat Cat, this one of her looking cute while requesting cuddles:

This is a creature who would never draw blood from a dearly loved human.... yeah, until the day after this picture got taken!

Cone Nebula Quilt - Back

A month ago on the big summer dyeing day, I dyed the backing fabric for the Cone Nebula quilt. It came out very bright:

I did a lot of thought experiments, consulted with a friend who is an experienced dyer, and then poked around on a couple of websites before deciding that overdyeing it with a basic blue would fix the brightness without muddying the results too much. My friend suggested Prochem's Mixing Blue, which I did not have on hand. I had Dharma Trading's Strong Navy and Royal Blue on hand. I mixed about a two-to-one ratio of the dyes and diluted quite a bit. Once I poured the dye mixture on, I was terrified it was too dark, but I was too nervous to do anything about it.

Today, I washed out the back, ran it through the dryer, and Hubby and I laid it out on the roof of the shed, and then we both said, "Oh, yeah. That's what we want." Here are a couple of beauty shots:

This toned down the glaring colors, deepened the darker areas, and left a great many bright areas. It is much more in keeping with the front of the Cone Nebula quilt.

Also, today, I cut apart my favorite screenprinting project, auditioned fabrics for the sashing, and put together a small wall hanging for my office.

I picked the dark green (which was one of the fabrics I was given on my retreat in Ohio in June!) after consulting with Hubby. I then did a really crappy job of the quilting, trimming, and binding. Oh well.

Maybe people will be so dazzled by the pretty screenprints, no one will notice the weird edges. If anyone asks, they're artistic touches!

CORRECTION: In the cold light of morning, I came to my senses and realized that I need to take the binding off, fix the weird trimming by adding another border, and otherwise fixing this up. I do like the piece, but it needs some work.

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 12

My oldest nephew graduated from high school last weekend, and there was a nice party the day before. He's made a lot of really big decisions already, and we'll be offering our auntly/uncly support at various events this summer. As I said to his mother, "He's plunging headfirst into adulthood." What a nice young man he's become!

In any event, I went into the sewing room about 12:45p on Sunday and at 6:45 I pinned this to the design wall:

It was quite a moment when I was sewing together that last block (which is the upper left block with orange, yellow, purple, and black). I really agonized about the pink diamond in the upper right. At first, I put some bright pink there, then I put the Fossil Fern pink, and finally, I used the back side of the Fossil Fern pink. (Fossil Fern is a line of fabric.)

Here is the third column:

And....... heeeeeere is the whole thing (with the third column lying next to but not sewn to the first two columns:

I dragged my husband outside, and he gasped and pronounced it "beautiful". I know that I learned so much from the process of putting this together. It will be quilted by a friend who has a long-arm quilting business. I will show you the preparation process in coming weeks. For reference, here's the inspiration photo:

There is a part of me that wants to make other quilts, using different techniques, from this picture. I have a couple of ideas, perhaps incorporating those tissues I painted back in April. This may end up being a real journey of discovery.

Within the next month I will have a dyeing day, and I will also be making some small items that will serve as giveaways at the quilt guild's three-day weekend of workshops at the end of July. It's going to be a full summer. I will post pictures as I go along.

The Brat just now reminded me that she helped yesterday. I was getting way too distracted by the peanut butter granola, so she gladly took over the bowl from me.

I had to move it off the mini ironing board so that she wouldn't accidentally burn herself. Just to show you that she's been cute since she was a kitten, here's a photo I have on the bulletin board over the mini ironing board:

(That is drying rack on which she is climbing.)

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 11

This is a very quick post - I was going to post yesterday, but there is something about a very hot day and a gossipy silly novel that just militates against work. The closest I came was putting together the second column of the Cone Nebula and sewing together the first and second columns. First, though, here is Section 11 (the bottom section of Column 2):

Please note that there are three pieces of plain pale purple on the right side of this piece. Those are rescued pieces from the end-of-sale culling that we did after the guild's fabric sale last week. They just happened to be the right size and shade. How cool is that?

Here is Column 2. I laid it out on the grass (the air was pretty still) and climbed up on a ladder to get this shot and the next one.

Here are the first two sections next to each other (after taking this picture, I took them inside and sewed them together). The oval and arrow point to an area that needs a little work - I'll be swapping out three pieces of yellow and putting in some dark fabric in the lower part of that area.

I have been working away on the Every Way Wrap as well. Here is a current picture:

and a close-up shot:

Finally, here is the best way to handle hot weather:

At one point yesterday, I looked up, and Hubby was reading in his chair, three of the cats were sprawled in the front hall, one was out on the stoop, and the fifth was up on the dining room table. None of us looked energetic. It was a good afternoon.

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 10

Before you read my post, please go to the Yarn Harlot's blog and read her post of May 12. Wow. I almost cried as I read this post because there is so much basic truth in there about setting priorities and getting real. I titled my blog very deliberately because it feels sometimes as though I am juggling so many things. Last evening, after a long afternoon of sewing and pressing, my right wrist was hurting. I sat in the living room with Hubby dearest and watched the cartoon programs on Fox ("The Simpsons," "Bob's Burgers," and "Family Guy" for those who watch emotionally engaging programming on Sunday evenings instead) and did no knitting, no spinning, no reading, and no guilt. Sometimes, you just need to turn off.

However, I did have a very productive weekend with the Cone Nebula Quilt, and here we see Section 10 (the last section in the left hand column) being laid out.

What I did was look at the lowest sections of all three columns, and then I projected down from the section right above Section 10 and drew fabrics from that section down into Section 10. I also looked at the lowest done section in the middle column and projected which fabrics would flow into the lowest section of that column and how they should work with the fabrics in Section 10. I didn't have quite enough of either the blue dotted fabric or the black fabric with pink and orange dots to fill both sections; however, when I flowed them together, I have enough. I think that section sparkles.

As I was working along, I did have a helper:

The Brat Cat looks so proud of herself, doesn't she? Anyway, I got the section all sewn together and then noticed this:

I have been trying very hard to fool the viewer's eye. I don't want people looking at this quilt and saying, "Oh, a kaleidoscope quilt! How interesting!" I want people to see the colors and shapes. So, when I see a corner like this, I need to camouflage it. Here's a test:

See how that softens that "blocky" feeling? Here's how it looks in context:

While I was working along on this, Hubby Dearest stopped in to chat with me about some stuff, and he and the Brat Cat had a conversation of their own:

That bureau on which she's sprawled sits just inside the sewing room door, and a cat sitting on it can see into the bedroom and down the stairs. It also holds fabric yardage, but that's clearly less important.

After I finished Section 10, I sewed it to the other three sections in Column 1. I had to get the step ladder and pin it up in the stairwell. Please try to look past the railing (with its chili pepper lights). Here's the top of the column:

and the bottom of the column:

As we stood in the living room, looking up and admiring this, I saw a pretty glaring error, but the error is hidden by the railings in these pictures. There's a small triangle in one of the green areas that is just plain wrong. I'm going to study it and see if judicious use of Prismacolor pencils or a dab of fabric paint might solve the problem - or else I could spend the half hour it would take to remove the one wrong piece, insert another, etc. - or else I could spend a lifetime being irritated at the mistake.

I hope you have a good week of it. I do try to post more often, but I'd rather post something interesting once a week than something blah more regularly.