What I did on my summer staycation. By Lane

Remember having to write those papers at the start of the school year?  They were probably as much of an assessment of what we remembered as they were a way to keep us quiet for a while and settle us into the school year routine.

We did a lot of stuff on staycation.  We picked a color for the house and did some yard work and did a little bit of brick and mortar shopping that we'd been putting off.   But, mostly, we just relaxed.  I even took a nap one day and I almost never take a nap.  

It was so hot tho.  Over 100*f every day.  I couldn't stay outside after about 9:30, so I spent afternoons in my cool studio, quilting.  I got the hard part of the quilting done on the arc quilt.  It was black thread on a black background.  I had to bring in a second desk lamp to shine on the surface from the rear right side.  I have a lamp that shines on the front left side and the machine light shines straight down.  It helped that I was quilting in the afternoon when the sun is bright.  I came out of my studio yesterday afternoon and walked past Rob and said I have to take a picture of the quilt while the sun is up.  Of course that was completely random to him and he gave me a very quizzical look, but didn't say anything.  

I don't know which of these you'll be able to see better.  You'll likely have to blow them up to see much.  It's hard to get the light right to show off the stitching.  

I found a quilt where a quilter had used overlapping echo stitching to fill an odd curved space, so I gave it a try.  I did one echo, then between the next two echoes, I filled in with pearls, then continued the overlap from both directions out to the next arc.  I skipped a few small spaces that I'll fill in later.  They're much easier.  It's hard to run that long curving echo through the machine without repositioning my hands at least once and stopping in a curve is a very bad thing.  

 

I want to document things I was thinking while I did this.  These are all things that I heard other quilters said over the last 20 years and I don't think any of it is original.  Try not to stop when quilting a curve.  My brain has planned it out and my hands are all geared up to make the curve, so an interruption means my brain has to do it all again, from a new starting place.  It might not end up with the same curve as before.  Never stop with needle up.  Always sink the needle into the quilt before removing my hands.  When repositioning the quilt, move it, then spend time smoothing it out so that there's no pressure on the quilt that will cause it to "jump" as soon as the needle comes out.  Pressure is usually from having too much quilt in the harp.  Be sure to roll the quilt in as tight a roll as possible to go in the harp and keep the smallest amount of quilt I can in the harp.  Puddle the quilt, meaning pile it up around the needle end of the machine, leaving a flat space under the needle to quilt in.  NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER LET THE EDGE OF THE QUILT HANG OFF A FLAT SURFACE.  Never.  Gravity will pull the quilt down, over that edge and it will form a crease along the edge that prevents the quilt from sliding along the flat surface while I quilt.  Suddenly, the quilt stops moving at all.

We have a friend that's a teacher and she got one of my early masks.  To start school, she asked for another.  She's getting four, because she's gonna need them.  

This is how we pick paint.  These grays are not the first coats of paint either.  The other day, this space was blue and green and gray.  Then, we decided on gray (and all the neighborhood that has walked by voted for the gray).  Then, we needed to decide which gray.  Here are the last four we tried, but there were more.   

 

This is Rob's box of paint testers...the short stacks are all 2 deep.  He's tried a lot of paint and we ended up going with the first one we tried, which was leftover paint from the living and dining rooms.  Hey, when you get it right, you gotta take advantage of it.  

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Bless the teachers going back to school.  Bless the grandparents that will be exposed.  Bless our nation during what I fear is going to be the roughest time yet.  

Lane