WHOLECLOTH FUN Posted on 8 Jul 20:56 , 0 comments
What a fun day playing with one of my new wholecloth designs. I love this shiny red fabric. I've got to go back to the store and read where it comes from and more detail about what the fiber content is. I know it is mostly cotton with some shiny threads woven in for the glitz.
I first heard about this fabric from my friend Dani. She quilted a Sun Compass quilt using a creamy yellow metalic color of the same fabric. I had to beat feet down to Fabric Depot to find some for me. I found both the creamy yellow and this yummy red that is perfect for a holiday wholecloth. I even found the perfect backing fabric on the 50% off rack.
Now, that was fun ... trying to get good pictures of shiny fabric! Enjoy!
Quilting detail at the bottom of the wall-hanging.
1075 Bead Strings was used in the border and 1077 Touching Beads was used for the sashing. I couldn't get a good picture of the 4th block used ...1233 Pine Cones & Berries. Sorry. This sample is just a 4 block sampler with the blocks being set in at about 17" and the wall-hanging finishing about 38" square. It could easily be enlarged to bed size. Wouldn't this be yummy on the bed during the holiday season after Thanksgiving all the way through New Years!
This last week I found myself a little overwhelmed with all the holiday have-to's, want to's, traditions, and expectations. It's the year for cutting back and simplifying - taking joy in celebrating our blessings as we honor our family traditions in a more simple form.
Last year was our turn for the kids to be home for the holidays. It was the first time in several years. What a treat and so many great memories to sustain us through this year when it will be just the two of us again. And, on the positive side, having just the two of us makes it much easier to scale things back a bit. And to that end ... I mentioned to Mike that we might not bother with a tree this year ... "Let's just have a few things up and not go crazy with putting up Christmas all through the house."
Later in the day I noticed he had his new train set boxes out and was pulling the sousaphone out from beneath the grand piano for "just a small" set up. Then I heard him making several trips down and back up from the basement arms filled each trip with Village boxes. Okay, I thought ... we could do a small village set-up. I'll just watch and see where this goes. Meanwhile I kept quilting the wholecloth design I was working on from my new collection ... Anniston Iron.
Now this wholecloth has had a mind of it's own from the very beginning. Things can always look very simple on the computer screen. I must continually remind and ask myself ... "But can and how will you stitch this out, Miss Kay?"
Suffice it to say ... after much monitoring and adjust- ing, my beautiful throw size wholecloth is now a 2x2 block wall hanging, a table runner, and very long skinny throw (probably will be changing that one yet) and the left-overs from cutting the original wholecloth into smaller units has become the "snow" under the village/train set-up.
Actually, I think I've hit upon a great idea for all of you quilters out there. The houses, the train, and especially the people do much better in the wholecloth snow than they have done on batting in the past - much more stable. And the quilting design looks like swirling snow all around the figurines. So now I'm going around making mental notes to myself regarding sizes of buffet tops, desk tops, table tops, and display shelves that may need a "dusting of quilted snow" for the Santa collection to rest upon next year. And everything will all be in place for the snowmen to take their places in January.
Oh, and Mike said he would be bringing in the tree later this week since we finished up with Mistletoe Magic 2007 on Saturday.
... stay safe ... stay warm ... and celebrate family and holiday blessings ...
This last week I found myself a little overwhelmed with all the holiday have-to's, want to's, traditions, and expectations. It's the year for cutting back and simplifying - taking joy in celebrating our blessings as we honor our family traditions in a more simple form. 
