{Post 1,052} Feels Like Fall Quilting

Here is the beginning of my Feels Like Fall quilt top being quilted.  I am going to unsew the pumpkin veins and tendrils.  One cannot see the tendrils because the thread matches the background too closely.  I am going to do the veins on my DSM in a brown thread because they show up too much.  Fortunately, I only have 2 pumpkins to unstitch.

Here is my flying geese block with my own made-up version of a continuous-line quilting design (no stencil used):

I am marking the pumpkin blocks for veins with a homemade stencil.  My mom got me a book of quilt patterns a while ago in a huge 3-ring binder.  They were all supposed to be hand cut from the stencils provided.  As it happens, I only liked one of the maybe 30 patterns in the book.  Nearly all the patterns could be rotary cut.  It was a very old book--as in, older than me.  

I saved the stencil sheets for my monogram signs and for quilt stencils.  I knew I would not be happy if the veins were not fairly consistent from pumpkin to pumpkin (yes--I'm OCD).  

Here's what I did:  I traced the outline of a block roughly with a Sharpie on one of the stencil sheets of plastic.  Then I Sharpied lines where I wanted the veins.  Then I cut out a wedge to trace as well as the vein closest to the edge.  I used a Mark-B-Gone to mark them.  Easy peasy.

Here is the outside edge (which I just flipped over for the other side) and the wedge cut out.

This shows the edge of the stencil pulled away from the left edge:

Maybe I can make a couple more passes on the machine today at some point.  Time will tell!

~Joan

{Post #880} New Sign

I mentioned that we took down our Christmas decorations a few days ago.  I left up a new Christmas sign that was in our living room.  I wanted the incentive to finish a new sign to put up in its place.  Here is the new sign from afar, closer up, then at the table where I had just finished painting it.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I have been painting monogram signs for wedding gifts.  This is another option for that idea.  I needed this to be a bit larger than one of my monogram signs that have just one initial.


One of the girls at my church saw me painting this:

She asked me to paint her one as she is getting married this summer.  Her "new" name is very long, so I thought about turning the sign to "landscape" setting.  I played around with it to make one for my family.  I think this works!!


Yes, Julie, that is my Emily in the picture above.  Don't even think about it.


~Joan

{Post #815} Wedding Gift

Here's a gift I painted this AM for a soon-to-be bride that is the daughter of one of my friends.  Think she'll like it?  I have been wanting to make some of these for gifts for some time, and this is my first attempt.  The first one is always the "roughest".  They will get better as I make more.

This is about 12" tall by 5-1/2" wide.  It has a hanging bar on the back and has been lightly sanded to make it look a little more rustic.


~Joan