There was something beautiful about the way this border fabric absorbed the Baptist Fan design. I just had to try to capture it in the afternoon light.

The Hobbs 100% natural cotton batting laid so nice and flat, and still showed the definition of the quilting:

The tension on the baskets quilt was perfect throughout. Madeira Polyneon loves Aurifil 40 wt. cotton in the bobbin. 

That was yesterday.

But today the tension was not perfect. I used Aurifil 40 wt. cotton in the top and bobbin and struggled all day with tight stitches. And loops. Many areas had to be ripped out and requilted. Since the thread was from Alex's shipment, I emailed him with the feedback about it because he asked me to. I still love my Aurifil thread. I will always use it. I do, however, wonder how people can claim that it has the lowest amount of lint. This is after only 2 passes on the pantograph:

But really, I do not think that today's problems had anything to do with the thread. It's just the on-going saga of a defective machine. And of a longarm quilter who is stuck in a remote location, not important enough to summon the Gammill troops. 

So, today's charity quilt will close a long chapter of my Common Quilts blogging adventure:

It's been a fun ride! I've enjoyed yapping about the ups and downs of this wonderful job I have. I've loved photographing and trying to explain all of the techniques I've tried. I've loved sharing my customer quilts with everyone.

I've enjoyed sharing my trials and victories. Being alone in my studio with a quilt triggers my 20,000 words-per-day quota. The words and ideas and colors and designs have swirled around and needed a place to go. 

So I've blogged...

But today I realized that the stories are finally all the same. Good tension - bad tension. Good fixes - bad fixes. Good ideas - bad ideas. Good machine - bad machine. Quilting - unquilting.

Despite being snubbed by the Gammill folks, I will never forget the help I received last year from Nick at Rocky Mountain Quilters. He called me on his own time, walking me through every possible step he could think of to help my vibration problems and my tension problems. All were futile, of course. But miles away on the end of a phone, I could hear the sweet sound of his little baby girl welcoming him home from work. What kind of guy does that? And with such kindness and grace? Nick, of Rocky Mountain Quilters. Thank you, Nick. 

And Alex Veronelli of Aurifil... the man who changed my hit counter for ever. In one 5-hour period my little blog received 822 hits. While that may be normal for the Big Girl blogs, mine usually only sees between 9 and 39 hits in any 24-hour period. He encouraged 14 more fellow quilters to follow my blog. The ensuing emails kept me on my toes, and I loved feeling useful. Thank you, Alex. 

I've enjoyed the ever-encouraging comments on my blog. Every comment has been a treasure to me because I know how busy everyone is, and how many wonderful quilting blogs are out there. So for you to take the time to chime in here and encourage me has meant the world to me. 

And finally, thank you to all of my wonderful customers! Your quilts have been the inspiration of my blog. Thanks for letting me broadcast your masterpieces in front of the whole world - and letting me do whatever I want on them! I look forward to more and more quilts this summer and beyond. You're the most prolific quilters in the world, I'm convinced. So now you'll have to listen to my 20,000 words-per-day quota about your quilts at the Guild meetings, instead of in the quiet of your own home in front of your computers - in your jammies. 

: )

Today my studio is graced with this colorful basket quilt which is full of the most delicious Kaffe Fassett fabrics imaginable. Taking a cue from the idea of baskets, I wanted to do a pantograph that wouldn't compete with the fabrics. So I chose a Baptist Fan variation because it looked traditional, and because the arcs reminded me of handles on baskets:

The thread had to be perfectly blending, and yet special when looked at closely. So I chose Madeira Polyneon variegated thread in these muted tones that match the fabrics - without being gaudy against the pure white fabric:

The backing is a green and white seersucker fabric. I love how fresh it looks! I chose a light turquoise Aurifil 40 wt. for the bobbin because I wanted it to show up:

I'll be sorry when I have to remove this ray of happiness from my machine. The arcs are really looking beautiful, and they are landing in perfect spots on the baskets as if I'd planned it. 

My Wonderful Husband recently bought me both of the Material Obsession quilt books that I love. So now I have a bunch of new ideas for quilts that are totally outside my usual comfort zone. It's just what I've needed to energize (and revive) my love for making quilts.

Now if I can just discipline myself to find the time to make them.

:)

The gracious Alex from the Aurifil thread company sent these lovely specimens for me to try out. I'm going to mark these spools with a black magic marker on the green plastic, so that I don't get them mixed up with my already-existing Aurifil thread supply. The large cones are colors 6001 and 5001. The smaller spools are (from left to right) 6001, 5020, 5015, 5016, 5010, & 5001. These just happen to be the color values I use the most in my studio, although I never told Alex that. Very nice! 

This weekend my goal is to reload this non-Blooming Nine Patch:

You might remember that I chose to rip out all of the stitching because I wasn't happy with it. At all. So I spent my vacation unquilting while watching old movies with my Mom. The time just flew by. After I got home, I had to carefully divide the layers because they were really meshed together. I had to be really careful with the batting because it is 2 pieces fused together. The heaping mess ended up looking like this:

With just the memory of quilting left behind on the quilt top:

And, on the batting:

I will be thought of as crazy, yet I'm still going to confess that I am planning on hand quilting the whole thing. I know I have a longarm machine that would do the job in a fraction of the time - it's crazy. But I got inspired by Material Obsession Blog quilts, as well as a host of other rustic hand-quilters out there, and now I'm excited to get going on my own. My longarm machine will come in super handy for the basting process. 

Come to think of it, hand quilting may be the only way I'll ever get my own quilts done - not so crazy after all.

I was self-controlled on vacation and bought very little fabric. These are quite outside of my comfort zone:

I have about 5 ideas for quilts using these. But first I'll say that the Kaffe Fasssett on the bottom is going to be dissected into bits so I can use the large dots for applique. If I am brave enough to try applique.

: )

I never knew how much a blue cutting mat would alter the way I see my quilt projects. Judge for yourself compared to my green mat back home:

This week while cutting some of these blocks I noticed that my Mom's old green cutting mat was really shredded. And my rotary cutter was not making nice cuts even though I had a new blade. 

So I asked her "when was the last time you got a new mat, Mom?". 

She said "I've never gotten a new mat. This is the same one I've been using since we started quilting." 

We started quilting in October 2001. And she's made about 50 or so quilts since then. Using her same old mat. One thing we share is the love of shopping for quilting supplies, so we hopped over to JoAnn's and got her a brand new blue mat. A new era has begun!

So here at my Mom's I've been able to leisurely work on my on-going attempt at Jenny Pedigo's Urban Nine Patch blocks.

I'm still not sure of the setting, sashing, borders or anything. But I must keep making blocks because I'm compelled by fabric. Maybe I'll set them like this:

Or maybe like this:

Or maybe I'll just make blocks until the End of Time. But right now I've got to get over to the ocean and see my darling grandbabies...

: )

Here is what's on my frame today. This is the last week day of work for me, and Monday the 21st I begin my journey south. So it is kind of nice to see my frame empty for a change. And now that I can see my fabric stash from here, I could use more bright orangey-yellow...

Here is one corner of my non-Blooming Nine Patch, in the long process of being un-quilted:

Normally I would be quite cranky about the time I will waste picking out hundreds of thousands of stitches. But I'm taking this quilt with me to my Mom's in So. Cal. so that I'll have something to work on as we gab endlessly into the late hours of the night. And when my sisters and nieces and daughters and I are all hanging out visiting and catching up, I can work on this quilt. Maybe I can get them to join in! Like an un-Quilting Bee? Who says I can't start a new tradition?

: )

Even though I achieved a zigzag feather today, I'm not calling the day a success. Every day that I've been working on this quilt I've been trying out the exact same brand and weight of thread - Aurifil 40 wt. cotton. Yet today after making an entire row of feathers I discovered that I should've used either a 50 wt. or a smaller needle. Or both. The stitches were not at all to my satisfaction, and the tension on the back is kind of sloppy. What can anyone say then? Is it the thread? The machine? The quilter? The impending eclipse?

To make the zigzag feathers, I began by chalking the actual zigzag line so I could straddle it with stitching. I wanted a vein, and that's what I got. Then I used my Marvy Marker to show where the inside feathers will have to meet:

The picture isn't very clear, below, but if you click on it you can see how I managed to get into those inside corners. I can tell you I ripped out a lot of stitches before I made an acceptable series of feather shapes:

The very center of the quilt had to be done like this, so I could end the same way in the outer corners:

At a complete loss for what to do with the next row, I pulled out my tiniest circle template and just began to dance along the green squares with a continuous curve. It was quite relaxing. And it got the space filled with something that will look much better on the back of this quilt:

Sadly, I'm mere moments away from unloading this quilt and packing it down to So. Cal. so I can rip out all of the stitches I've done so far. I love this quilt top so much, and I should've just followed my gut and stitched an all-over design that didn't jumble up the piecing so much. 

But my goal this week was to try out various colors and spools of Aurifil thread to test it out. I should've used a quilt I didn't really like. I get so emotionally involved in the quilts I make, and I've never used a quilt top of mine as a sample. It just doesn't seem correct in my brain. I envision a quilting design after I've made a quilt, because I want to see what it's asking for. 

This non-Blooming Nine Patch really wanted an all-over design.

Probably a nice big piece of muslin would've been a better pick for sampling thread this week...