Friday, December 28, 2007

Small Luxury, Gigantic Joy


This is a picture of the area beside my computer screen and sewing machine (they share an L-shaped desk). You see one of my luxuries...a Yankee Candle. Yesterday I discovered that there is a Yankee Candle store about 20 minutes from my house! Oh, joy, oh, delight! I splurged and got 2 more. The large 22 ounce size was only $10, so I got 2 of my favorite scents, Christmas Berries and Harvest. I light one of these babies every day for a little while. Makes the sewing room smell soooooo good. This one is vanilla caramel. Mmm-mmm.

This morning DD3 made a batch of cookies for some teens who will be visiting this afternoon. I hand quilted the string quilt while I supervised her efforts. The cookies turned out perfect, and I hand quilted an entire block on my quilt. I'm using white thread and quilting 1/4" inside each piece of fabric in the block. I'm going to freehand a double wavy line in each sashing strip and quilt those in navy blue.

I left out a little detail. Yesterday I hand-basted the whole string quilt with thread. So it is now ready to hand quilt when I have free moments. I do not use a hoop. If a quilt top is fairly small, I usually baste with safety pins. But they get in the way on a large project. I like the way the thread basting is supple but keeps those layers in place.

I love to see hand quilting done by others. Please send me a link to pics you have of completed projects. This quilt practically demands hand quilting because of its age and pattern. Stay tuned!

Tomorrow I may take some pics of a chatelaine I received as a Christmas gift. It will keep all my hand-quilting supplies together. Very clever.

Until then,
~Joan

1 comment:

Tazzie said...

I love love love Yankee Candles, they have the most delightful scents. Some smell good enough to eat. We're lucky enough to have a store here near us - all the way over in Australia!
*hugs*
Tazzie
:-)