It’s in the Details

I am so looking forward to getting on the plane on Wednesday. We are forecast to have a wind chill of -25F tonight. What am I supposed to wear to walk five houses down the block when it is that cold? It seems ridiculous to take 5 minutes getting ready to walk 200 yards… On Wednesday evening I won’t have to think about it. Corona has an expected high of 78 and low of 52. I think I might be able to cope with that!

Before I get ready I have been seeing to a few things.

Julia has changed my web site heading for me. I think I like it. It’s taken from my entry in the Arts and Old Lace Art Quilt Challenge entitled (He)arts and Old Lace I made last year.

Here is the quilt in its full glory! I don’t think I ever got around to posting a picture before. It was too early when I posted a “sneak peek” and then I forgot once the exhibit opened…

Once the web site was done, Julia reformatted my business cards to coordinate and I have got those all printed out and ready to go too. Her education proved once again to be a very good investment!

Next my attention turned to my QuiltCon entry. I will need to mail it as soon as I get back so I thought it might be a good idea to add the required one and one half inch hanging sleeve and label…

A draw string bag is also a requirement for our submissions so I set to work making one of those. I also covered a pool noodle, ready to roll my entry around for shipping. Too cute!

I even did french seams and made  buttonholes to thread the draw string through. The orange ribbon was left over from Joanne’s wedding. It goes with the Lotta Jansdotter fabric like I had bought it just for the bag!

The family do seem to get involved in my play-ings whether they intend to or not…

On Sunday Sarah came with me to a talk by Jacquie Gering at QuiltFabric.com in Westmont. We were late registering so we took our own chairs. That was probably a good thing because there was a large turnout and we might have had to stand…

Here is Jacquie in front of two of her quilts.

Jacquie was very inspiring and I came home ready to stitch! Sarah wants to make a quilt this year. She found a picture of a quilt she likes and I have been trying some blocks, using a charm pack I bought on Craftsy.

One of Jacquie’s quilts was heavily quilted, matchstick style. It’s a style I have admired for a while so I decided to layer one of the trial blocks and have a go. It’s only a 15″ block but it took about an hour and a half to quilt. I used the walking foot and quilted less than an 1/8″ apart. That was a lot of lines! The white thread really changes the way the fabrics look, in a good way I think?

To have something to compare it to, I layered a second block and quilted it with a more open, curvy stitch. It’s actually Bernina stitch #4 elongated. It was much quicker to quilt this one!

Two samples to add to my quilting with the walking foot stack.

No sewing today. I went for a pedicure.. my toes are ready for exposure… and cut some more hexagons to take with me. Sitting outside on Sheila’s patio stitching sounds like a good idea.

I’m going to need to dig my summer clothes and accessories out. Time to pack!