Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

ugh, internet woes

We are having internet issues with out ISP. I'll be back when they have their hardware fixed.

See you Monday

I'm on

for a few days.

Snail's Trail QOV

Snail's Trail QOV

63 x 76

Another UFO bites the dust! I started this quilt a few years ago. It's one of 3 Snail's Trail quilts I made to figure out the largest block that I could make from a fat quarter. I eventually created a baby quilt version that produced 2 smaller blocks from each fat quarter. The top has been languishing for a while just waiting for a border. I had planned a hideously complex border but apparently that wasn't going to happen.

When I decided to dedicate an hour a day to quilting I went through all of my tops a considered what to do with them. This one is so manly that I thought it would be good for a QOV quilt and now it's finally going to a good home and will no longer languish unloved in my sewing room.

Now this quilt is nothing to write home about (except for the fact that it's DONE and we all know how rare that is) but I do want to talk about the quilting a bit. This is for any of you who are new to longarm quilting or to using rulers in your quilting.

I wanted to do something quilk on this quilt like I did on the veteran's quilt but I also wanted to play off the dots in the fabrics of this quilt. So I did some contour quilting with circles. I will admit that after the first hour I looked at what I did and I almost ripped it out. Thank goodness for laziness. But the next day I was able to convince myself that it was OK and would look fine after the quilt was washed.

After it was done I realized that this would be a great technique for beginner quilters to practice ruler work. I quilted it in free motion lines and periodically added a circle like in this diagram.

Like this. I know, it's a hideous mess from a design perspective bit it looks OK done. I used 4 different sizes of circles (because that's what I had). THe best part about this for a newbie is that you don't have to fix your mistakes. Just keep going and try to do control your template better on the next one.

Anyway, for what it's worth, it's an idea.

Nest Box Watch

We checked on the Bluebirds last night and they continue to grow. The Tree Swallow nest is on hold. Maybe the cold weather stopped the building for a while.

Meanwhile I'm finding even more bird cams for wasting my time. Cornell University has an amazing Red-Tailed Hawk cam. The clarity is amazing and they provide some great close-ups. There are 2 hatchlings and one mroe int he process of hatching. At the top of the page you will also see a link for their Great Blue Heron nest. It's due to have hatching start in about a week.

My least favorite part of quilting

is sewing the label on the quilt. It doesn't take all that long to do but I do find it to be a chore. The quilt is done already.....except that it's not.

Since I've been doing so much quilting lately it means that there's a stack of quilts to label and I decided to work on that today.

I've tried many different methods of quilt labeling and I do occasionally label a quilt by writing on it with a Pigma pen but msot of my labels are printed on Bubble Jet Set treated fabric. I like this method because I can easily add photographs to the quilt label. Most often I used an image from the front of the quilt but sometimes I use clipart or other photograph as the background for my label.

I also like to wait until I have 2 labels to do so that I don't waste a sheet of fabric.

After the label has been washed, pressed and trimmed to 3/8" around the image, I back the omage part with a piece of white fabric. This is to keep the backing fabric from showing through. I fuse some Mistyfuse to one side of white fabric and cut a piece the size of the image and fuse it in place.

Next I fold under the raw edges and use another piece of Mistyfuse over the whole back of the label. This holds down the edges lets you fuse the label in place on the back fo the quilt.

I like fusing the labels in place so I don't have to bother with pins when I'm sewing it down. I prefer Mistyfuse because it doesn't add any bulk to an already bulky area of the quilt.

Now I've got some hand sewing to do!