The lightbulb moment

I was sitting in a conference call yesterday, doodling. 

What a nice quilting design that doodle would make.  And, of course, because my mind is on borders, it was linear. 

I started to pay attention to the doodle.  Could I do that with a machine and needle?  I think so.

They asked me a question on the call, and I had to ask them to repeat it.  Crap, I hate that.  Caught not paying attention!

After the call, I pulled out one of my strips of paper and did some more serious doodling.  And, then I pulled out some strips and taped them to the correct border length (which I have memorized…ughhh) and did some really serious doodling. 

I worked on it all during my lunch hour.  The most remarkable thing about that was I took the whole hour for lunch.  And, whenever I could steal 10 or 15 minutes, there I would be with Mr Pencil and Ms Eraser.  And, before I knew it, I had a border design.

So, why didn’t I just free hand this?  Well, it’s a show quilt.  And, while this looks like it would be easy to free hand, and I’ve certainly free handed similar designs before.  But, getting that perfectly balanced and equally full look took work.  Erasers were harmed in the drawing of this design.

Last night, I finished it up and pinned it to six layers of Golden Threads paper and this morning, I started copying.  Not tracing or photocopying.  I’m needle punch copying.

I sew along the design, without any thread in the machine and it gives me this nice needle punched copy…or, in this case, six.  I learned the hard way that ink or pencil lead transfers to the quilting thread, so a needle punch copy is the safest paper template to use for FMQ.  I’ve had good luck on the Indian Orange Peel marking tissue paper with water soluble ink, which can be washed out.  But, the needle punch makes the paper easier to remove after the quilting is done.  It’s like twice as many holes in the paper as I’d get if I just quilted through the solid paper.

So, onward we go. 

Everybody have a great Thursday.  This weekend will be a busy one and I will not get to quilt as much as I would like. 

But, I’ll quilt a lot.  Maybe I’ll pull a late night and quilt long after everyone else is in bed.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do tha…uhm, since I’ve done that. 

Be well.  Lane