Ravens, Quilting Begun

Jen's raven table topper is all basted up and has been a great wall decoration for this halloween season. I used the football day (go Pats!) to quilt it. I put some feathers in the center, up to the part where the ravens begin, then I skipped the ravens and did some curls in the outermost regions of the Nevermore fabric. The batik got a nice straight-line treatment, but the big wreath of feathers in the outer grey border segment came out really fantastic, which I DO say so myself! It's a little dark to get a photo of the full project, but here's a detail shot that shows just a segment of each section.

My nine-year-old is increasingly jealous that this one will get a new home. I am trying to think of something to make him for yule using the raven fabric.

Ravens, continued

Picked up the necessary Nevermore fabric after my Tuesday night meeting, and I also found the perfect red-and-purple batik to use as the accent color. The pieces of the raven tabletopper are all cut and ready to assemble! (Well, not quite -- I still haven't cut the 2" border that goes at the very edge.) When my 9-year-old comes downstairs in the morning, sees it and says "Wow, Mom, what is that?!? I love it!" I suppose I'm on the right track.

The developing conspiracy...

I am trying to pick up the pace of posting on here, but my computer is in the process of failing. A brand spanking new laptop (first new computer in eight years!) is on order, so if you find yourself weeping and pulling your hair out for want of new posts, rest assured that I will be more active in November once I figure out how to configure said laptop.

Ravens begun

A friend of mine who is a serious fan of all things "raven" (it is hoped that this fandom doesn't extend to a certain NFL team from Baltimore...) commissioned me to make a table topper after she saw the Nevermore fabric that I used to make my sister a table runner earlier this summer. I showed her a few different concepts with hexagons and pinwheels that might work on her round table, but we settled on the decagon pattern that I bought at one of the Newington Schoolhouse meetings last year. I couldn't resist this nifty ruler set -- I love that it has pieces with 72 and 36-degree angles. (Stars! Decagons! So many geometrical delights!)

I bought the raven fabric this weekend, got it all washed and ironed, set to cutting...and realized that I miscounted the repeat...so, sadly, another stop at the quilt shop will need to be in my immediate future. (What a bummer.) In the meantime, the pieces that I do have look spectacular in the round:

If only this mathematically inclined quilter could count...

Sick Days

Somehow my husband has escaped this terrible virus that has decimated the kids and settled in my throat. Blerg. At least I'm not too wiped out for sewing. I started today by diving into the autumn colors Rapid City quilt that I have had basted for several weeks. I decided on swirly cloud quilting, using the humongous cone of thread that my healthy husband got me for Christmas. We got nine or ten inches of snow yesterday, but the sun was out this morning, so my sewing space was bright and warm. The pearly fabric that I used for the block borders was really glowing in the winter light.

When I'm quilting something this big, I appropriate the gateleg table that we normally use as a sofa table, and I set up a TV tray on my right to support the weight of the quilt. The boys were not happy to give up their ginger ale and kleenex stand today.

I got about half of the quilt finished; the swirly motif is looking very nice against the straight lines of the patchwork.

I guess I should start thinking about making some binding for this one!

Exploring my studio space

A peek at my new table set-up (thanks to my handyman husband):

A challenge for this project is that the base of my machine is considerably broader than the bed, so I still need to cut a piece of acrylic to wrap around the arm and cover the little gap that's still there. Works like a dream though - I have quilted a few little pieces just to get a feel for the new angle; the table itself is about three inches shorter than the desk I was using, and it's also recessed another three inches or so. That's a whole new skeletal pattern to get used to.