Wondering where I was? It’s been a tough week in Quiltopia! One night when I came down from my lair, Mr. SFO took one look at my face and said, “Is everything okay?” I replied, “It’s just been a tough day of sewing.” To which he answered, “Is that even a thing that happens?” Yes, folks. Yes, it is.

When last we spoke, I was really looking forward to getting Carefree Highways off the longarm and I did. It looked fabulous! Flat as a pancake. All I had left was the striped blocks in which I wanted to do some really special quilting on my embroidery machine. I’ve been thinking about what to put there for a long time and this was the plan–

I spent a lot of time digitizing it with no jumps for perfect results, then tested it on an extra block I had. 

Ugh! A lot to look at, right? Even though I picked a neutral thread, the red and white stripes were overpowering, not to mention the busy prints. There was just not going to be any way to make this work.

Still hopeful that I could embroider, I came up with this new design that was more respectful of the stripes. I again spent time to digitize it, then worked out perfectly in my head how to do it on this huge heavy quilt. Looks more promising, right?

I hooped a couple of sheets of stabilizer and made a cutout box as the first color change to help me align with the blocks. The second color change was a basting line to secure the quilt to the stabilizer, and the third color change was the design. Easy as 1, 2, 3…

In a moment of serendipity, I realized the quilting on the back of the quilt showed me exactly where to pin to my stabilizer. This went well enough as I chose one of the outermost blocks to start with, but I could see getting into the more central blocks was going to require major wrestling. Here is the back of the quilt as seen through my stabilizer window– never mind that this square is already quilted– lol. I figured that out before I pushed the button, at least!

When I did finally push the button– it worked perfectly! I had the entire quilt top supported on my big table, and the embroidery machine wasn’t straining at all to move through the design, and my basting easily held. So here was the quilting on the striped block… I tried my best to like it, but I just didn’t!

The blocks aren’t quite square at this point, so perfect alignment just isn’t going to happen. You can see the stars start to drift at the top left and lower right of the block. And let’s not forget what I really wanted was a bald eagle scene, flying over the fruited plain, and what I ended up with was just a lame pantograph looking thing.

It took me a couple of hours to pick it out and load the quilt back to the longarm– I wasted an entire day on all of this. Wasting time is completely counter to my DNA– productivity is uppermost in this household, a maxim revered by all of us!

So here’s the final solution– it’s clean and simple, and matches the spirit of the quilting that has already been done. Who knows– maybe I’ll start a new trend of simple and sensational quilting instead of these quilted-to-death pieces you see with the ribbons everywhere! On the plus side, this will go so much more quickly than forcing my monster through an embroidery machine 49 times. At least I tried.

The quilt is just going to get piano keys in the border, then binding, then photographs– I have a little over a week. AQS has very specific instructions on how to photograph, and you can’t have hands and feet showing- heehee. Mr SFO is away a day here and there right now, so that’s my ace in the hole in terms of having enough time. Bottom line, “Carefree Highways” is beautifully pieced and embroidered, so even if my quilting or edge treatment isn’t out of the park, it won’t be an embarrassment if it does get accepted in the show.

Through all of this, I had a massive cold featuring a sore throat. The only thing that helped it was those salty ramen packages. I am trapped in a family of healthy eaters– they were horrified that I was poisoning myself. But I showed them– the seasoning packet did include a vegetable.

Next up, A Year on Sugar Meadow. I’ve been debating on whether to discuss this on the blog, but I guess I’ll just put it out there– in a parallel world as a defense attorney, I’ll always protect the guilty. A customer (COMPLAINED) about the big leaves in September’s design. And she wanted a bee. A bee would’ve helped. This customer must live in a corner of the globe that has flowers every month of the year, but this is fall in New England, baby– leaves are all we got. I sucked up my pride and we had a cordial discussion about it– it’s what was in the meadow in September, I spent time as much time detailing the leaves as I did flowers, and if she would just stitch it out she would see it was beautiful, every block can’t be your favorite, etc., etc. A couple of things about this conversation struck me– she really expected me to do the thing over, and she was willing to go out and find other flowers on the web to make her own if I didn’t. What really, really struck my is how deflated I felt about the whole series! Artists are nothing, if they don’t have an incredibly fragile self-esteem. So that really took the wind out of my sails this past month and that’s why the design is coming out extremely late in the month– gasp– it’s leaves again! Look for it by the 31st– lol– I hope.

This is where I am– it still needs a few tweaks, but I’m feeling confident again. I really love this series and I stand by the whole thing. This piece is going to be blockbuster when we finish. There are only two left to go– so we can enjoy our holidays, I’m trying to get November’s block out closer to the middle of the month, and December’s as early in the month as possible. Then it’s time to dream up a finishing kit… and it WILL have leaves, I assure you!

At my low point last week, I started another new project! Besides just feeling sad, I think it was how quickly the Pumpkin kitty quilt together, plus just looking over past blog posts that made me do it. This is one project, “Home Sweet Home,” that I really wanted to make this year. It is the “Liberty Box” from Fat Quarter Shop in 2022.

I must be a complete simpleton–you would certainly think so if you knew how happy it made me to dive in with yet another start. I think I may as well just stop feeling guilty about it, and keep cutting up all those kits! It is medicine to me– better than ramen.

I have been taking more of the approach to cut everything at once, make all the stars at once, essentially assembly lining as much as possible and I already have six stars done. (Three aren’t pressed yet.) And you can bet I’ll know how to quilt those stripes!

If you want to work with me on a summer project this winter, lol, Fat Quarter Shop rebranded it as “All American” and you will have at least one fabulous quilt for our nation’s 250th anniversary.

Finally, on the cross stitch front– I got all the backstitching done on the central area of the Summer Sampler, and even treated myself to starting a few of the cherries. This is backstitching’s highest purpose– lovely typography. I always cringe to see these designs that use full cross stitches to spell out a word!

The cherries are made of twelve cross stitches and four quarter stitches– they have four colors in each and one of them is a blend of two colors. The leaves have three colors, and then there’s a full backstitch in, of course, two colors! But just look at them…

So that was my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. I’m really proud of myself– I PERSISTED– the sore throat is gone and all the balls are back in motion. Quilting is just so character building– don’t you agree?

xox
Carol