Too Busy to Talk

The last three weeks I have been diligently staying on task...trying to finish a quilt. I'm in the binding stage...so close. I tried three new techniques with this quilt and I am counting at least two of them a success.

The quilting design on the outer border is a technique called "Curved Echo Border." You can find a wonderful tutorial for the design on Kathy Schwartz's blog Tamarack Shack. She has a wonderful blog and I encourage you to visit her if you have never been to her site. Wonderful quilting along with Aurora photos and some quilting designs in snow.

The second new technique I tried on my latest quilt is marking with ordinary chalk. I got this tip from Margaret Solomon Gunn when I met her at the International Quilt Show in Houston. I even tried colored chalk and it worked beautifully too. Just sharpen with an ordinary pencil sharper with a larger pencil option. This is such a treat to work with...cheap, easy, washes out completely and I can actually see my marks no matter what color of fabric I am quilting. Most batiks are of medium value so this has been a issue for me in the past. Such a simple solution. 

The third technique was also one I got from Margaret. Wash the quilt before sewing on the binding. I'll decide if I like that technique when I actually finish the binding and see how it lays.

Sunshine is in the forecast for tomorrow so I am planning on a quilt photo session in the snow.

In an effort to stay on task with my machine quilting, I have started getting the next quilt ready for loading on my quilting frame. This quilt top has been waiting so patiently for me to quilt her that I had to spend some time ironing out all those hard creases from having her crammed on the shelf for many years. I had a lot of paper-pieced points in this design and I had to spend some time getting seams pressed for the least amount of bulk.

Don't worry...the iron is unplugged...a habit I am trying to instill in my routine since my quilting space is shared with a cat that loves all things quilty.

And I just had to share a puppy picture. Logan is four months old. He still loves to cuddle. When my husband is out of town the puppy gets to spend a few minutes in bed with me before we go to sleep.

I never made it to the January Breakfast Club gathering. That morning I woke up to the sound of rain...the worst possible weather when you have snow-packed roads. Many cars slid off the main road I would have had to drive that morning...it was a wet ice rink everywhere. Fine the next day...so frustrating!