How do you wind down after a big finish?

I have to say that finishing Black Sea was one of the best feelings ever.  When you really want to make a quilt that pushes you to the edge of you capabilities without pushing you over, is the biggest thing (literally) that you've made, and is just so perfect for the recipient, well what is it you do after THAT???  Here's the final post for Black Sea, the story behind it.  Such a great feeling that was all the way through it.  But now what? Well now we make 672 HSTs for three little baby quilts. That's what we do.  Here's the first, all three will be the same fabrics, different variations of chevron quilt.

224 of the 672 HSTs

And  you work on projects that you have going but halted completely because you were so enthralled with the other quilt.

Old Friends BOM getting it all together.

Then we do a little painting and redecorating.  We're are getting ready to sell the house in the next 6 months or so and my wonderful color has to be for some more marketable neutrals.  I've added splashes of color here and there.

The quilt hanging on the wall is going in the show

But the long arm room couldn't be neutralized as I had Black Sea on the frame.  Long arm room is going next.  White on these walls.  I'm getting quilts ready for the local quilt show the weekend of Sept 25.  Here's three in this in this room in the show

And this one as well. My first local quilt show, pretty exciting. If you are in the McHenry County area the weekend of the Sept 25, stop by the quilt show.  Here's the details: Join us for our triennial quilt show! Over 250 quilts on display. Vendors, silent auction, Civil War quilts, and more!
Friday, September 25th 10am - 6pm

Saturday, September 26th 10am - 3pm
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church
1023 S Mchenry Ave, Crystal Lake, Illinois 60014

So what do you do after you wind down from a huge project?

Hope everyone has a great week.  Check out the linky parties on the side bar, something for everyday of the week.

Final sail on the Black Sea

It's done, it's done.  I mean really done, binding is complete, better pictures, just has to be delivered. If you've been here in the past few months, you've heard a lot about this quilt, and I was sticking to it doing this and one other project together.  But when it comes to quilting, I've got a one track mind.  Now I can get back to getting the other project together. I did get some better pictures today,  but first it's time for the full story.

The pattern - Aegean Sea by Judy Martin.  I first saw this quilt over at Tamarack Shack   I loved it for the pattern but Kathy's quilting was burned in my memory.  I really loved the round feather wreaths she did in the white spaces.  It gave such motion  and enhanced an already spectacular quilt so wonderfully.  I knew when I saw this, after I stared and studied it for over an hour, that I wanted to make this quilt just so I could quilt it.  Two and half years later, I finally got my chance.

There is a warm hearted soul at work.  This guy has given me bags and bags of old shirts.  I've used them in Quilts of Valor, quilts for Happy Chemo, quilts for Project Linus and yes even some gifts for friends and family.  I know I've made over 15 donation quilts with his shirts and have enough to make 15 more.  This guy is interested in everyone, he makes everyone feel as though there is something special about them.  He chatted with one of the homeless guys by the train and one day on his way home he noticed that the homeless man didn't have any shoes.  He gave him his shoes and went home in his socks.  That's the kind of guy he is.  So he literally gave the shirt off his back because he knew they would be used to comfort someone that truly needed it.  I knew I wanted to make a quilt for Doug, but it had to be special.  You know how it is waiting for that special quilt to be created, time went by and no quilt.  Finally he asked me if I could make a quilt for his newly decorated room, you know just sew some squares together.  LOL, when you really want a special quilt, plain squares just won't do.  You need to cut that material into itty bitty pieces and then sew it all back together and quilt it like crazy.  And then it hit me, Aegan Sea, it was time.  I showed him Kathy's quilt and he said ok, if that's what you want to make.  He had no idea how badly I wanted to make this quilt.  There was one other special person that I made a quilt for, and I showed her the pattern, she didn't like it, she got a different quilt.   But finally, I had a taker.  He did want just black and grey.   Thus the name Black Sea.  I talked him into that tiny hint of blue in the stars to make them sparkle, for which he gave me three shirts. Funny right?  I wasn't too sure how that was going to work, but the in the end I really love it.  That is the story of how this quilt came to be.

Details of the quilt -

• Pattern Aegean Sea by Judy Martin - the book only had queen size, I just added another column of "great blocks" for 3x3 rather than 2x3, (now that was one big nine patch) and two borders:  one background material, six inches finished, one log cabin blocks.
• size 120 x 120, 118 x 118 after quilting.  
• I think there are close to 65 different fabrics in her, at least 8 of them are the recipients shirts
• Batting Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 (my favorite batting of all time, love this stuff).  It is a heavy quilt though, and probably should have gone for Polydown.  But I wanted the softer feel of cotton batting with all that quilting.
• Thread - lots of thread!!  Filtec Premo soft warm grey (50 wt)  on top and Superior Bottom Line (60 wt) in the bobbin.  It's been a while since I've wound my own bobbins.  I think this quilt took 24 bobbins.  Now that's a lot of thread.  
• No idea how many hours it took because when you're having fun creating something you don't even think about the time it takes.  

Now time for pictures.  I'm gonna miss this one on my frame.

Taken at Crystal Lake Beach, the closest I was getting to the Black Sea 

Added border - I wanted something shell like, circular and flowing

I really wanted the stars to shine brightly, framing them worked well.

This is what I think ties it all together, that circular wreath gives it motion and feels like rolling waves.  And really what else would I do besides feathers?

Plain grey on the back

The stars look quite different on the back don't they?

And there you have my Friday Finish on Thursday - woohoo!!!  Don't  you love the feeling of finishing a quilt that you were excited to make and quilt. The feeling of accomplishment is awesome.  This is my second king size quilt this year.  I'm so ready for some smaller projects for a little while.

Black Sea quilting fun

Last week I quilted this gorgeous bargello for Nancy, I LOVE the colors used.  Lucky me, I got to use some of my bright cheery Glide colors that I have.  Glide thread on top and bottom and hobbs 80/20 batting.  I did feathers on this, well no surprise right?  Given the chance I'll feather anything!  But really, the veins of feather mimic the curve of the strata and the feathers, give that rounded softness for the bargello.  See there really do make sense.

This weekend after they had 25% work force reduction at Motorola Mobility in Chicago, I just got lost in the quilting.  I'm still there but there are people that I've worked with for 20 years that were impacted.  It was a sad day Thursday at Motorola.  All that stress was put to good use this weekend quilting.  I think I might be 25% done, but there's a lot left to do. The inspiration for me came from Kathy at Tamarack Shack  Her's is amazing.  The minute I saw this I knew I wanted to make one and quilt similar to hers.

the outer plain border

wasn't sure what I was going to do with the start but I really wanted them to stand out.

I may rip out the feathers around the wreath and do some boxes around the wreath like the stars.

Check out the linky parties on the side bar, lots of exciting things out there.  Hope everyone has a great week.

What a whirlwind of a week!

Oh my my my.  Do you ever have one of those weeks where you just sit back and say, what on earth happened and how did we get here?  Man, it's been one of those weeks at work and next week isn't suppose to be any better.  What to do when that happens?  Hide in the sewing room and sew like there's no tomorrow!!  So now I have to have my standard disclaimer that while it's going to look like I was really productive this week, that's just not the case.  The truth is, all these weeks while I've done a little here, a little there and looks the same week to week, finally started to look like something different this week.  So, I've got a lot to show, but really most of it was done in previous weeks.  The funnest of all these, was a visit from Elvis.  Ha, not just Elvis but Romeo and Larry too.  These are Nancy's Pugs in the Garden.  I can't tell you how much these little guys helped me through some of the craziness at work.  I LOVE what Nancy did with these Pugs.  This one has two layers of batting, Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 on bottom and Hobbs Wool on Top. They Pugs just jump right off the quilt.  I used one of the flowers in the bottom row as a template and quilted the same flower in a couple of the rows.  A little butterfly and dragonfly here and there to tease those Pugs.  What fun this was.  So glad Nancy let me quilt this wonderful quilt for her.  

Elvis has left the quilting studio

that bike is adorable!!  

Romeo, oh Romeo

The last few quilts have all been custom.  I had this quilt, backing and batting that all but jumped on the frame to get done. My goodness the pantograph that I used was still on the table.  This thing practically loaded itself and quilted on it's own.  I used this pattern from Sharon at Vrooman Quilts.  Not only did Sharon share this pattern, but she taught me how that pop of white can add so much to a quilt.  This one finished at 50 x 60ish, Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting, Glide thread on top, magna glide in the bobbin.

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Boxes in Boxes - Great use of those 2.5 in squares. 

Look at this, my design wall looks a little bit different.  Look at all that color!!! I'm like in heaven.  Now again, these blocks have been done for a while but it's just now they got up on the design wall.  This is Old Friends BOM from Calico Girls - love this one.

Old Friend Bom, so big won't fit on the design wall, crazy crazy color!! That dark purple has to go

While it was good to have a finish, and a quilt with all the blocks done,  what I'm even more happier about is Black Sea is officially a flimsy.  Not only that, but this baby is loaded on the frame.   I've wanted to quilt this ever sense I saw Kathy's version at Tamarack Shack.   I saw this an instantly fell in love with the way she quilted this.  I've wanted to make this quilt for over 2 years and finally I have one and it's ready to quilt.  I hope I can do half the job that Kathy did - so unbelievably excited about this one!!! The pattern is Judy Martins' Aegean Sea.  I added a couple of borders to make it king size. This one ended up 121x121. You know I'm going to quilt this like crazy so I expect to loose a couple of inches at least in the quilt.

Black Sea, my version of Judy Martins' Aegean Sea - super sized 

Absolutely Positively can wait to quilt this guy.  Feathers are going to fly!!

Don't forget to check out the linky parties on the sidebar. Oh and a new button added for 100 Quilts for Kids 2015, what a great cause - take a look and make a quilt for a kid, we all remember those special cuddly quilts and blankets from when we were young.

Storming through the Black Sea

I just about shut out the world completely on Sunday.  This sweet little guys spent the weekend for his Aunt's (daughter #3) birthday.  What fun we had.   He gave us a special delivery right from the garden to the kitchen.  Local Brews, Blues and BBQ was so awesome with this guy,  he loves the music.

We picked some veggies from the garden, special delivery!!

Daughter #3 Birthday, isn't that an adorable cake??

Enjoying some Blues music in the park

But Sunday after they all left, I went and locked my self in the sewing studio.  I think that when I sew I'm able to process all the things that I need to process in the background and get everything where it needed to be.  I spent 6 hours sewing, how wonderful is that????  I even got 4 loads of laundry done while I was sewing (that part of the world just couldn't be shut out any longer ;)  It was like a mad storm going through that black sea.  Only 1.5 borders to go.  I ran out of material and time.  All the blocks are done so when the material shows up later this week we can get this baby together.  I'm so anxious to start quilting this one!  All the background processing done and now I can look at the world in a whole new way.

Black sea - currently at 96 x 108, 1.5 borders to go, will finish at 120x120

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I also got all the 9 patch blocks done for Old Friends BOM and my Irish chain.  Pretty excited about that, I didn't think those blocks were ever going to end!! Here's my stacks of blocks, all just waiting patiently for our next sewing day

stacks of blocks just waiting

I finished a fun quilt on Friday, here's a sneak peak. Yep that's right, Elvis - seriously how fun is that?  Wait until you see the rest of this one.  I'll be shipping this one back to Nancy this week.

Check out the linky parties on the sidebar - something to inspire you every single day of the week!!  Have a great week and Happy August!