Sunday, November 13, 2016

Slow Quilting in My Down Time

It's been hectic. The usual mayhem and some extra stuff thrown in as well. So what else is new? I finally got one of my oldest unfinished quilts back from my friend--she of the new quilting longarm business. I asked her to leave the large flowers in the center alone as I wanted to add a little Perle Cotton stitching there. Funny me, I stitched in a dark brown color first, my usual go-to color, and then did some ripping out. Ughh. It needed a much lighter thread in order to keep that happy glow!
Ohio Memories quilt
And really, the stitching my friend did is wonderful. It didn't need anything added except that I wanted it. I'll show better pictures later when the quilt is totally finished. The thing is, my heart aches just a wee little bit because this would have been absolutely beautiful {in my eyes} if completely hand quilted. The texture my friends. It's all about the texture! ha! We all have our preferences don't we? And unfortunately there aren't enough hours in a day to hand quilt them all.

I'm also working on another quilt with a combination of machine and hand quilting. You know, because it was on my 2016 goal list! The machine quilting was done on my Bernina, stitch-in-the-ditch around the blocks and on both sides of the stripey border. Now I'm going back in and hand quilting inside the blocks and setting triangles. It's going so quickly and just making the quilt come alive for me. I keep getting a sort of Christmassy vibe from this quilt {must be the colors?} and so my hope is to finish this in time to use during the holidays.

At this point I'm seriously contemplating going back to the machine to quilt a cross-hatch design on the red border. It would be fast and probably look just as good as anything I hand quilted as the border fabric is very busy. That's my best gauge when I'm mixing combinations of machine and hand quilting in the same quilt. Will the hand stitching shine? Make the quilt look more special? If not, then I can skip it without remorse.
Red and Green and Baskets Quilt
All the hand quilting is done on the Pickle Dish quilt now. Sorry the picture doesn't show the texture on this one better. It's such a great quilt. Still can't believe I actually made this one! The binding is machine stitched to the quilt, just waiting for appropriate time to do the hand stitching and then, wallah! This one is going straight to my bed!
Pickle Dish
One of the things taking up chunks of my time lately is a 50th anniversary party for my parents. Scheduled to take place the Saturday after Thanksgiving, time has sort of slipped away as you can only imagine. All of the offspring are putting together 32" x 40" picture boards of our person and individual family which will then be arranged for display in birth order {there were 12 children born to my parents so quite the line-up}. There will also be another board specifically for my parents as well as other special pics of them, so that's more work too. Anyway, back to my point, in the center of these sibling boards we are requested to have a current 8x10" picture of ourselves.

So this weekend, my oldest daughter finally corralled my next oldest sister and me for our 'current' picture. Ugghh! Who wants to see that large a picture when we have the stereotypical, flabby, middle-aged body? I was instructed to take a quilt with me and my sister needed to take one of her dogs. Apparently this would help get us in the mood? and I hate to admit, something that probably worked exactly as planned.
A pic of me a few blocks from my house....
We didn't end up picking the above picture, but I just had to show you. Quilting doesn't do much for our thighs, but it really does enable some pretty awesome results otherwise. Now if the wind would just quit blowing for a minute, I might have been able to at least partially disguise the fact that I inhale entirely too much Pepsi and chocolate.....

Linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. What a great post over there today!


30 comments:

  1. I love your picture--you look happy and proud [in a good way]. Your method of combining hand and machine quilting is so interesting, something to consider. I often want my quilts to be hand quilted but I m the world's slowest quilter, better they get machine quilted and used/ enjoyed.

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  2. That is a lovely picture of you. Your quilts are wonderful, personally I love the combination of machine and handquilting, have done it only once, on a more modern quilt, but will definitely do it again.

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  3. hand quilting those flower centres wll finsih the quilt perfectly. Like you I enjoy hand quilting but it is the time it takes that is the problem. What a lovely place you live in loving the photo. A lovely way to celebrate your parents anniversary with large collages of photos of their life I think there will be a few tears when they see them.

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  4. The picture looks good, and i like the quilts shown in this post.Greetings

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  5. I can't imagine a better photo of you, so happy wrapped in one of your quilts! Your parents are going to love these picture boards of their kids and all the grands. I think you're absolutely right about that red print border on the second quilt, cross-hatch or piano keys on the machine will finish it off wonderfully and the hand quilted blocks will remain the focus of the quilt anyway. I think the idea of mixed quilting is appealing to more and more of us who really want to hand quilt everything we make, but the time factor makes it impossible.

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  6. Not one, not two, but three gorgeous quilts here ; be still my heart :)

    That's a great idea to have a quilt in the photo with you; love it! :)

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  7. Beautiful quilts! Great pic of you! Fun post to read! I've found a new blog to follow! 😊 Happy anniversary to your parents!

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  8. I didn't realize we had large families in common as well as our love of hand quilting - I am one of 12 siblings! great idea on the picture boards.
    love all the quilting - I am going to be machine quilting one quilt and have another ready for the quilting frame - binding on Quilty 365 the Final Frontier starts sometimes towards the end of the week.

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  9. Well, first of all, you look adorable in that photo! Your parents will love it! Although after 12, I'm not sure how they kept track! We only had 6 and my mother would run through all 6 names before she got to the right one to yell at! Your Pickle Dish just boggles my mind. Not sure I would undertake that one. And your color choice for that one is stunning. I however, adore the red and green basket quilt! I too have difficulty figuring out whether to add any machine quilting to certain quilts. My first preference is to hand quilt everything, but we surely run out of time don't we?

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  10. It's always refreshing to read what you have to say. You know, I love, either way, hand quilted or machine quilted (not so much computerized quilting). I had many quilts done by a professional longarmer; there were a few times that I was disappointed but also often very pleased. True, we can't hand quilt them all. Lovely picture of you!

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  11. All 3 quilts are fabulous! I love the mostly red, yellow and green appliqué! The colors are so vibrant together. And I think you could definitely machine sew the border, with some matching thread it would just blend right in! I think your picture is great! Your smile shows so clearly the fun and joy you feel out with family, wrap in your quilt on a windy day! Congrates to you and your parents!

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  12. So many great quilts!! The flowers in the first one will be set off beautifully with some added hand quilting. Love the Christmassy colors in the second. Your pickle dish is fabulous - hope you'll show some more pictures of it when you get the binding sewn down. I think your picture by the lake is beautiful! I am going to copy that idea and get a picture like that taken of me.

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  13. I love that you take the time to hand quilt. It really adds so much.

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  14. Always good to see what you are up to! But really...is there any such thing as too much chocolate? (pepsi, maybe, but chocolate???)

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  15. Wow, everything is looking wonderful, Audrey! Even your quilty action photo! The red & green baskets look so nice with perle cotton picking out the edges of the applique. A light coloured perle, ecru or gold, would show up well on that red border, if you're still considering some more hand work! But I like a machine cross hatch too. :D

    Nice to see a close up with some of the pickle dish fabrics. It's a beauty!

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  16. What an adorable picture of you wrapped in a quilt surrounded by beautiful scenery. I like your criteria for deciding hand verses machine quilting. What a special time and celebration for you and your family and your parents.

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  17. I couldn't agree with you more. It is all about the texture!!! Sometimes in order to have a few quilts with that special texture one has to sacrifice the other ones on a long arm machine. Don't get me wrong, machine quilting can be beautiful and is done by very talented people. But, nothing will EVER take the place of the highlight and shadow of hand quilting for me.

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  18. I couldn't find a search box on your blog. I wanted to see a bigger picture of your Ohio Memories quilt. I am from Ohio so always interested in something that might remind me of it. I will have to wait and see a picture later on when you have the quilt done.

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  19. What a joyful picture! I love your big smile, the quilt blowing in the wind and the lake behind you. Your struggles with hand vs. machine quilting are inspiring. Hand quilting makes a quilt more personal but who has time to hand quilt everything??
    You're a busy woman, with Thanksgiving and a big party to help organize. Enjoy your family!

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  20. Lovely photos! I too combine hand & machine quilting, if I didn't nothing would ever get finished as my hand quilting is a s.l.o.w process! And, I love your 'pickle dish', great colour ocmbo!

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  21. Alas, you are so right...there aren't enough hours to complete all we want to make. I agree with you about the texture of hand quilting. I think adding a bit to a quilt is nice and you can do it in places where machine quilting just isn't right. Funny, we are on the same wavelength. I just did a post about hand quilting myself.

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  22. Aww - it's a lovely photo! Congrats to your parents on their anniversary - amazing! Quilts are looking gorgeous, as per, and love that pickle dish.

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  23. I literally laughed out loud at the Pepsi and chocolate comment! I tend to do the same! I love your picture. I finally jumped in the deep end, and started a quilting group /project at church (Parkland is now home) ... it's going well. Your blog helps me tremendously to "let it flow" or was that "let it go?" Anyway, lol, thanks for being you and sharing.
    Beth

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  24. Your colors are what always attract me. These are all delightful. Can't wait to see more details.
    Quilting can enhance but to me that doesn't say anything about hand versus machine. How pleasant that they coexist here.
    Best wishes on your parents' 50th.

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  25. I love the photo... you look like "Superquilter"!
    I know exactly what you mean about the texture of hand quilting, and that difficult decision to finish faster or go for the beautiful stitches. It's always a hard call!

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  26. For someone who's very busy you sure have a lot of work to show! I totally agree with you about the texture of hand quilting but am sort of fascinated by the way you mix that with machine quilting: it seems a pragmatic approach and you still get the benefits of the hand work. Your pickle dish looks just fantastic - it would go straight on my bed too!

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  27. That picture of you says so much - any happy quilter can see themselves in that photo. I love the colors in your pickle dish quilt too. I can never resist adding hand-quilting to the few machine-quilted pieces I have done. I need that texture. Congratulations to your folks - have a great party!

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  28. Love seeing that beautiful photo of you. A photo to treasure!
    Good luck with your parent's anniversary gathering.

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  29. Absolutely LOVE your Red and Green Basket Quilt! So you have a full photo of it? So pretty!

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  30. Love your photo! Today would be the big day of the party?! Enjoy!! Happy Anniversary!

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