Cathedral windows

So, here's what I am teaching today.  This is a class in cathedral windows, that mixes machine piecing and handwork.   I use Lynne Edward's book Cathedral Window Quilts.  Really, what I should be doing now is working on a report for my church's annual meeting but this is more fun.  

This is a small piece, with little purpose except to practice the technique.   I started another piece in a batik; I'll post after I get a bit more done.  Off to teach...

A new year....new commitments

So, I have decided to plow through my pile of miscellaneous patterns and projects.  The list of the things on the works in progress does not even begin to touch the many things I have lined up.  I outgrow my office and now have things stashed in my husband's office and the guest room.  It is too much.  I vow to complete at least two small projects every month.  I have made great progress on "The Abbey" and am now working on the skies/borders on the left and right.  I think I may have a solution today, and that will be a big help as I can't do the piecing on the last bit of wall on the right until I know the skies/borders fabric.   Never a dull moment.

Meanwhile I must get over socks....  I keep knitting the same one, different pattern, always the wrong size.  Maybe I need to break out and take a lesson but I won't do that until March. 

Other projects include many patterns I have collected but don't know what I'll do with the finish project: a lizard, a loon, salmon from Alaska...so many applique/places I visited things.   Maybe that will be the theme - places I have been --and there can be a rotating display.  Other things are just collections waiting for creativity to strike.  I also have things like some donated fabric for a benefit quilt.   The squares are begun, but I am no where near done.  I am really looking forward to getting on with the many exciting projects and finishing a small bit every day!

Whitby Abbey revisited

It's been awhile but I think I really now want to commit to McMusing. I am excited because I have finally gone back to my photographic quilt of Whitby Abbey, begun in April 2008 in a Ruth McDowell class. With any luck I could be quilting it early next year. My husband often reminds me that "Luck is the residue of design". In this case it means committing to my project on my unscheduled days (no work, not too many appointments). Today is one of those days and I will work on the project again. Yeah.

I am posting two pictures of the abbey in progress. The first is one (above) is of the abbey at the end of the workshop. The next one is of the abbey at the end of a weekend in April 2009 that I worked on it and tried to get back to the project and really come to some conclusion about how the sky would work. I think that the idea of different skies works for this. The center "pinker" is fabric from Mickey Lawler. I searched for other batiks that would blend and think that I have found a few. On the far right and left are scraps that I bought from Mickey Lawler many years ago (probably 9 or 10 years ago) when I first started quilting. They will make for a pretty interestiong border. There will also be a purplish sky across the top, to help break up the vertical thrust of the quilt. I'll post a picture later today of where I am now. (The plan is to work and photograph today - we'll see how it goes).

I also have some knitting projects I am working on - my sisyphus socks - I keep working on them and having to rework. I feel as though I am forever doomed to knit this one pair. I'll take a picture of them too. I have a scarf in process for the church fair. I really should make half a dozen but I don't think that will happen. It is only two weeks away...

Okay, exercise then on to quilting. Wish me luck.

Off to my quilting getaway

OK - time to get back to this blogging thing. I am off to Geneva Pt, NH near Keepsake Quilting for a weekend of quilting with friends! I can't wait. It is always fun to get away.

I'll continue woke on a project started last year in a class with Ruth McDowell. It is from a trip to England a few years ago and is Whitby Abbey. I haven't touched it since last spring so I am really looking forward to getting the creative juices flowing.

Leaving the boys - husband, son and dog - never easy but also a good thing.