Progress

The winter learning curve quilt! This is the sixth quilt of the year and the only one that I consider finished. Or maybe I should say “potentially” finished. I had given some thought to some small pearls to look like snowflakes. But seriously, I don’t bead much anymore. I was a jewelry designer for years (decades in Carmen years) and I think I just got a little burnt out with it.

This little quilt was a learning curve because it was my first fused project in over a decade. And back in the day one could NOT sew through the stuff without totally gumming up the needle. But I guess there has been some progress in this product’s design between then and now. I didn’t use fusing in every part and I think it shows. Next time I’ll put fusing on every piece of fabric, even stuff I consider ‘background.” That way I think it will sew differently and be less prone to puckering and gathering up… which I did not like one little bit in that one spot in the "sky." Also, my sewing machine is considerably “old school” and doing the twists and turns to make nice swirls in the quilting is something I’m going to have to learn how to do because this time around I really didn’t get the end product I wanted. Still, I’m overall pleased with this lil baby quilt and it may very well hang on a wall in my house for the rest of the winter if/when I can ever get around to painting. There are ever so many more interesting things to do than paint walls. But they certainly are lovely when they are done. And I've got some fantastic colors in mind...

And finally, I’m in love with a monkey. He takes three socks because of that dashing sweater! And I’ve already had two requests for monkeys for friends. I guess I should put a price tag on them and see what happens. The main thing is that I want to end up with three different monkeys in time for my trip to Colombia for my three children. YAY!

And this is an introduction to quilt number seven of the year. After my learning curve with the batik quilt I wanted to make sure I worked in the contrast on this one. It can not be just a sea of color. So the first row is up on the wall. With the limited time I have to sew right now, I do hope to be able to make progress on this one pretty quickly. We shall see.