I don’t get sick very often, and it’s a good thing. I don’t make a very good patient. Most people want to be taken care of a little when they’re sick. I just want to be left alone. Rob has found the perfect balance of those from years of practice. He’s much the same way…”please stop asking me what I want. I don’t know. Just bring me things you think I’ll like every once in a while. I’m sure it will be fine. And, then I shall perish.” Okay, maybe he’s less like that than I am.
I had to take two days off and spend a lot of them on the couch. Not so much on Tuesday, more on Wednesday. And, yesterday, I worked from home and caught up. That was nice. I’d work a while and then sit for a few minutes and then work some more and no worry that somebody would see me screwing around and think I was shirking. For yesterday, that was 100%.
When I felt like it, I quilted. No new quilting projects started, even though I thought it would make me feel better (but I did start a filet crochet doily…I’m incorrigible.) I drew and started putting in the shapes in the center squares of the Indian Orange Peel quilt.
The whole rest of the quilt is quilted in every point-ey ditch and the center squares have this filler. I think I’ll outline them one more time to force the seam allowances to lay flat. If you look close, you’ll see that between my quilting and the seam, which is also quilted, there is a puffed up area and I think I’m going to need that to lay flat. Not sure yet. I’m going to wait until I lay the quilt out flat and see what happens. To make this work, I had to use invisible thread in the top and bobbin. Half these centers are light and half are dark. In the light ones, I used clear monofilament in the top and smoke in the bottom. In the darker ones, it was smoke all the way.
I only drew a quarter of the shape and I’ve been tracing that onto tissue paper with a blue washout marker. I’ve transferred ink to my quilt top before, so the only ink I felt I could trust was washout. It worked great. And, the tissue is a dream to pull out. I pin the marked tissue to the quilt, quilt along the lines, and then tear the tissue away and use tweezers to get out the finicky bits. Anything I missed will dissolve in the wash.
At some point, I need to spend several hours with this quilt in my lap and my seam ripper. Maybe I’ll do that at bee tomorrow. There are a couple long lines of quilting I put in before I realized I was having a tension problem. they need to come out. And, there’s a pucker. Oh, it’s a tiny one. But, it runs down the center line of the quilt. And, it cannot stay.
Everybody have a good Friday. I’m headed to the office. Yay. Can you feel my excitement?
Instead of starting something new to piece, I’m thinking about making a shirt. Man can not live by quilting alone. He must piece as well.
Lane
10 comments:
Your Indian Orange Peel is amazing!
Interesting about marking with tissue paper. I'll have to try that some time. I'm collecting ideas of how to mark without tracing it out on the quilt, which can be cumbersome. I read on someone else's blog that she used wash-away stabilizer. for FM designs. And someone else used a Hera Marker to mark straight lines.
Glad you're feeling better. Mr. Bug is like you when he's sick. I feel completely useless. I guess I'll have to try bringing him things I think will help. At least that's something.
xo -E
Sorry to hear you were ill, but on the bright side, you're headed back to work on Friday, and there's the weekend to keep working on your orange peel quilt.
When you do show that quilt, where will you be showing it? I'm planning to go to the Houston international fall show to see the star quilt that Karen Nyberg started in space, I've got a block in it.
Tissue paper -- interesting! I've read about that method before but never tried it. Somehow it's scary to me that the tissue paper "hides" the quilt and I can't see what I'm doing while I'm stitching. I don't know what I'm afraid of happening under the paper -- maybe little pleats and puckers that I can't see forming. Do you use any kind of temporary adhesive spray to keep your tissue in place as you quilt and stop it from shifting?
I hope you feel better soon, Mr. Sickie! :-)
Wondered what happened to you. Glad you are better. Just don't re-lapse! They say 2nd time around is worse than original. Love this quilt. Hope it wins the show. lum
I'm sorry you got the crud, but am glad you're better. Too bad you're good enough to go to work, though! The time and work you're putting into the Indian Orange Peel is truly incredible. It would drive me nutty (or nuttier) to have that much time invested in one project. But then....all the time you invest really shows!!
Your work is wonderful as always ,glad you feel better ,we've been lucky so far this winter.
Glad you are feeling better. Loving the glimpses of the Orange Peel quilt!!
Echoing the sentiment of those people posting above. Glad you are feeling better! Missed reading your posts while you were down and out. Piece on!
Glad you are feeling better.
I have a Pam Buda designed Sugar Mountain quilt top all done (just finished and LOVE it) and I keep thinking of you and your lovely quilting because it has some blank areas that need something gorgeous. I lack that ability. I'll stitch by hand, but I still can't figure out what to put in the every-other 4.5 inch empty spots. I made up a different border than the designer and am SO happy with my top I hate to start quilting in case I mess up.
I bet your flowers go hog wild about now.
Lucy (in IN)
My husband is just a good nurse but I usually just want to be left a lone. He definitely wants to be left a lone and doesn't want me to get anything for him as a general rule. I guess we all survive. ;o) Hope your feeling even better.
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