Category Archives: commissions

The Finish Fairy

     I am dreaming of the fairy that is going to get me off my duff , wave her magic wand  and  sprinkle lots of magic dust and then I will finish something wonderful. And then I will write this amazing blog post and have a million followers. Hah..my dream continues and ….I am amazingly productive, daringly creative and thin.

    But in my real life, I have just been trying to catch up. And keep up. And no matter how hard I was trying to dig out, I couldn’t make any headway. I have big gardens and they just needed to be thinned out and replanted. Nothing got done last fall because of my silly foot. And kids just needed to be kids and have a million kids over hanging a million wet towels all over the place. But the garden is ok for now.  The kids have settled down a bit into summer and need less to just be and relax into summer laziness.

    So the finish fairy and I had a date this morning and at 7:56 am a finish was born.

                                                      
                                     Lisa’s Quilt: 42×52

     I used hand dyed cottons, commercial batiks, hand dyed silk ribbon, embroidery and machine quilting in this quilt. It is a commission that has been around for way too long. I really had trouble with this one. And it came down to the fact I just don’t like browns -it was hard for me. (and me procrastinating) A lot of stalls along the way waiting for our schedules to coincide for approval. (and me procrastinating) But once I got past that and did exactly what my friend wanted, it came together. She is happy with it and will be excited to have it. Actually-when she saw it last week she said it rocks. And her being happy with it is the only thing that  mattered. Because it’s hers.

     I learned quite a bit from this process. 1. I was able to work with a color that was not my favorite. 2. I always underestimate how long it actually takes to complete a quilt from start to finish. 3. As long as they stay true to what I like design wise, I can do a commission and be satisfied with my results. And get paid for it.

  
      My yardwork is done too and now I am just going to enjoy a cup of coffee in my rocking chair on the porch. I can’t tell you how good I feel that this is DONE.

Happy Sewing, my friends!

Earth and the Month of May

    I was dyeing fabrics on Friday and the word that came to mind was Earth. These are just the colors of the earth and I do like them.  I had a hard time with green and realized a fundamental dyeing principle -duh?-that I should of thought of eons ago. Different bases give you different results. And no matter how much blue I added, I didn’t have the right yellow to get a deep forest green. You have to give it to me on persistence. Ten pieces of fabric later, I finally gave up and will just go with what I have. Also, overdyed the browns and they turned out nicely.

     The month of May is very busy. I realized I am gone for more than 12 days this month-classes, wedding, soccer tournament. Three workshops this month-I take full responsibility for making my schedule crazy. Just fair warning if my posts are not as often as usual. I am taking Sets and Variables at the Barn next week,  a two day workshop with Velda Newman sponsored by our quilt guild and an on-line class titled cloth-to cloth workshop given by Jude Hill which runs for 5 weeks. What am I doing with this wide range of classes? I don’t know yet but I am hoping that it’s not mud.  You know when you mix up a whole bunch of colors and hope for that one glorious result-but it turns into mud…. They just all were offered this month and I couldn’t pass it up.

   The commission piece was approved by it’s new owner last week. I now have to sew the design together.  She loved it-and that’s all that counts! A sneak peek….

Happy Sewing, my friends!