Sharon's Update

In the last post I was reviewing the sewing and quilting that several of us did while on our Hilton Head vacation. Sharon has sent me pictures of her pretty little project, so let me share them now. She says she has continued working on it this week at  home and has reached the borders.

Sharon confirmed that the fabric is, indeed, Aviary by Moda. She is doing the big-stitch quilting method, and I believe hers is also free-hand, like what I am doing on my current project.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Monday at Sharon's

What began as "Tuesdays With Sharon" has, out of necessity, been moved to Mondays for the summer. Sharon's daughter will be taking classes through the summer, and grandson Reilly needs a place to hang out. Sewing is a very boring thing for an 8-year-old, you know.

That said, even with the change of days, Reilly joined us for a bit yesterday as we sewed at Sharon's house. He came through the sewing area at one point with a penknife - he was going out to find a stick and do some whittling! When writing stories, riding a bike, doing summer enrichment papers (pints and quarts - ugh!), watching cartoons, reading and playing on the computer just won't fill an afternoon, a resourceful boy turns to whittling, of course.

Whittling is best done with good whistling, so I've heard, and Reilly put the technique to good use as he worked. I couldn't discern the actual tune, but there was definitely whistling as the wood chips flew.

About a half an hour after beginning, he pronounced his effort completed! Behold! I give you a light saber!

While Reilly went off to attack myriad bad guys with his light saber, Sharon and I worked on our projects. She is making yet another quilt with her Aviary fabrics. They are just so luscious; I can definitely see why she can't get enough of them.

These blocks are so simple, yet so gorgeous - rail fence. They go together effortlessly. I believe Sharon got about 4 rows completely done; with very little effort, this top will be in the finished stack. What satisfaction!!

Faithful followers here will recall that a few months back I was working on a quilt called Long Road Home. (Click here to see Sheryll's finished top.) Well, it got put aside in order to make the prom dress, then the porch accessories, then the Bento Box. Finally, I've come back to  Long Road Home.

I had gotten this far: 120 blocks.

 I needed to make the next step:

And I did, but I didn't make enough. Oh well, I wanted to make some blocks, so I went with what was done and got about 20 completed. A quilter has to see results sometimes, right?

Okay. I love intricate quilts. I love scrappy quilts. And I will really love having this quilt completed. But, what I have here are blocks that measure roughly 4" square, and there are 17 pieces of fabric in there!!  Agh! This is a lot of work to get a 4"square!

So go ahead, quilty friends, and tell me that the fun is in the process. Tell me that I love these fabrics, and tell me that this quilt will be SO worth it!

I'm telling myself that, too, but it's easy to get bogged down with the enormity of the project's involved nature. I shall persevere!! Bit by bit, I will get it done, and I will be glad I did.

Right???

Tuesdays with Sharon

Now that Sharon and I are committed to sewing together each Tuesday, I need to come up with a clever name for the endeavor. Tuesdays with Sharon will have to do for now, and truly, it is the simplest way to reference it!

She came to my house this time, since I was working on the prom dress. Sharon brought her Aviary charm packs and continued to work on her project from last week. I need to get the book she's using and report the title here, along with the exact name of the quilt. It's a book that specifically addresses using layer cakes, charm packs and jelly rolls - precuts, I suppose you'd say.

At the beginning of the day, Sharon had this:

She was chain piecing, so all these rows are attached, and are ready for horizontal rows to be stitiched. But wait!! There's a problem!!!

This star has a twisted point. A bit of unsewing was required, and she was back on track.

We took our lunch break while this was stretched out on the floor. Guess who came to play? Gracie.

I don't know what her fascination is with quilt parts on the floor, but she had done this before. She goes nuts!

She had the quilt top tossed into quite a mess before we finally got her out of there. (Throw kitty treats down the basement steps, and watch her go! We shut her in the basement.)

At the end of the day, Sharon had the center portion of her quilt top nearly fully constructed. There are about 4 rows at the top there that still need to be sewn. Next, she has decisions to make concerning borders. I also think she intends to restitch a couple of the blocks that form the stars, as she is dissatisfied with certain points (or lack of points!).

At this point my DH came home from work; he admired it (like a good quilter's husband should!), and Sharon referred to it as a "girly quilt." Yes, it is, but it is so beautiful, and so Sharon! She has a decided preference for the cottage look, and this speaks to that preference perfectly. It makes me want to work on a floral, soft, girly quilt, too!

The prom dress work for me consisted of making a second trial bodice. I did one without lining and boning, which was way too big. Into the trash with that, and I cut out a second bodice, a full size smaller. This time I went for all of it - lining and boning, included. It took quite awhile, but it came out pretty well, and when Emma tried it on, we had a  pretty decent fit. I've got a couple of places to take in just a skosh tighter and we will be good to go.

Here's practice bodice #2, constructed using some ugly, cheap '80s cotton.

Today, the real dress goes into production.

Quilting Day, Chapter 2

Hello April, and welcome! You've been a long time in coming!

On Wednesday, I went with Terry to quilt all day at Mary's Barn.

On Thursday, my long-time friend and new retiree, Sharon, came to quilt all day at my house. Oh, how I have enjoyed these 2 days!

Sharon arrived around 10:30 and we got right to work. She wanted to finish a quilt she began on Veterans' Day of 2009, using 2 layer cakes of a fabric line called Aviary. She did finish the quilt top, and even has the backing prepared, too. It is a pieced back and it is going to look fantastic.

We had a lot of catching up to do! We taught together at CHS for 30 years, and when I retired in 2009, we saw a lot less of each other. Her schedule became more hectic as mine was considerably less so. Finally, at the end of February, she reached eligibility for retirement. Those intervening months when she still taught, and I didn't were months where we really lost touch. We were accustomed to daily visits, so it was an adjustment barely seeing each other once a month! Aaagghh! We have much catching up to do!! Consequently, we covered a lot of ground while we quilted. Can't you just hear us? Quilts, kids, quilts, books, quilts, politics, quilts, teaching, quilts, vacations, quilts -- well, you get the picture.

One result of our day of quilting is our committing every Tuesday to sewing together, either at her house or mine. We are determined to try to get our fabric stashes whittled down! I thnk I am going to like the discipline of a set time and day for quilting. I work much more reliably with "appointments" as opposed to relying on myself to get motivated. (I'm a procrastinator, big time!!)

While Sharon worked on her Aviary creation, I continued the work from yesterday - chugging away on the Kaffe Fassett Broken Dishes quilt. The time it takes for each block is daunting. There are 2 sizes of triangles needed for this quilt. The block used for the interior consists of 16 smaller quarter-square triangle units. These take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to construct. I need 42 of them and have 27 finished, all made one at a time (not assembly-line sewing). For the remaining 15, I am going with the assembly-line method. It's still slow going, but hopefully some finished blocks are not far off.

The block used in the border consists of 4 quarter-square triangle units. Much larger and more user-friendly! I need 30 of these blocks, and had 16 completed. I have actually now finished 6 more of these blocks, so my total is 22 - only 8 more to make!! They go together so much faster than those little 16-unit buggers!

We sewed until 6:45pm, at which time we had to rush off to our book club meeting. That was just up the road from my house, and we planned this day to work out so we could move directly from quilting to book club. After book club, we came back here and tidied up the clutter.

It was a wonderful day to celebrate Sharon's first full month of retirement, marked by a finish - her UFO top and backing ready to be sent off for quilting. What a sense of accomplishment! It also brings with it a feeling of promise of all that we can get done now that we have established a regular time for quilting together.