Monday again? Time is racing ahead as though it has someplace important to go while I sit here wondering 'what's the hurry?'This weekend I got a couple more quilts done as well as lots of lab books graded. Every student did a lab last week and it was my turn to touch every one and have my fun.
I decided that if I'm going to be the feather queen, I must keep practicing on my feathers. I have to find my books on making feathers because I am trying to remember how to do them and am trying things that aren't working all that well. They look ok, but what I have in my head isn't what is coming out on the quilt tops.
What I love about the stripie pattern from maryquilts.com is that it works great with my machine. My machine can do about a 6 inch stripe and these quilts have that size of a stripe for me to fill. So, I can just practice my feathers in the stripes and it looks like I planned it that way. Good thing I have about 50 more of these quilts cut and ready to sew together. I have a friend who sews them for me and brings them back and then I get to quilt them.
This is one of the strip quilts I put together from the leftover pieces I was working on a couple weeks ago. It would also work well for different size feathers in the strips, but I just practiced with feathers going back and forth. I'm not a very patient person and didn't feel like making tiny feathers in the tiny strips so just made big feathers all across the quilt. Some I liked and some not so much.
And finally this cheater quilt that the center was already done and I just added the borders to it. It was really long and skinny so I had to add more side borders. I have troubles with adding borders that aren't wavy. I need to learn how to not make them so wavy. I know it has something to do with measuring across the middle, but again there is the whole patience thing. I'm not so good with measuring and like to just sew. Must get over that...Here's to a good week. We have finals this week so I have three half days. They aren't necessarily easy days, I do have to grade the finals, but at least I don't have the kids all day and they do have to be quiet while they are taking the tests :) But the freshmen are taking a lab final and there is a lot of setup for that. Ugh :) They do have fun with the test though, so that's a good thing.
2 comments:
They're perfect for practicing borders and other feather designs in fact that's one of the reasons I *designed* it. I've always made a lot of donation quilts but when I got my longarm I wanted to be able to practice border and sashing designs but hated putting muslin on so these little donation quilts were just perfect. I don't make as many of them today as I used to but just bought the cutest Monkey fabric to make one for the baby boy my son and his fiance are expecting.
I have a non measuring way to get the right lenght for the borders, lay your quilt flat, get the fabric you want for a border and lay on top of the quiltin the centre, pin it at one end or get someone to hold it, and just mark at the other end, All done, I find this a lot easier than measuring, after all who cares how long it is as long as it is not wobbly when finished.
BTW I love how you are practising with the feathers, I am not brave enough to try anything but meandering with my frame yet.
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