My Favorite Color is Pink?

  This is my latest completed quilt top.  The pattern is called Amish Buggy Wheels, so I named it "Bali Buggy Wheels."   I took a class from Jean Nolte the editor of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine.  She had designed and published the pattern a couple of years ago, and I jumped at the chance to try curved piecing.  Notice, the dominant color is...purple.  Why is that a big deal, you may be wondering.  Well, here is the thing.  If asked, I would say that my favorite color is hot pink.  I love red; I love pink.  I have operated under the belief for many years that my favorite color is, indeed, pink. 
  However, evidence would suggest that my favorite color may, in fact, be PURPLE!  I recently took stock of all my finished quilt tops that are waiting for me to have time to throw them on my trusty Nolting longarm for finishing, and 7 out of 7 are...PURPLE!  What!  This has shaken my very existence.  Do I love purple?  Have I been fooling myself all these years about my love affair with pink?  Why don't I have at least one pink quilt top?  I have pink fabrics purchased and hanging out in my stash.  Yet, I haven't made even one quilt top in the past two years focusing on this (my supposed favorite).  Shocking! 
  My vow for the remaining months of 2013 is to make a pink quilt!  When I do, I will decide if it steals my heart, or if my heart belongs to the color purple!

Bus Trip to Bountiful

http://kansastroublesquilters-lynne.blogspot.com/

 Every now and then, we all need to get away for the day and just have some FUN!  I did just that last Saturday with my quilt guild from Grand Island when we went on a bus trip through northern Kansas.  Fifty-one wild women boarded a bus at 6:45 am and headed out on a mystery tour.  We knew the day would hold surprises and lots of fun, and we were not disappointed. 
  We hit 7 quilt shops, ate two meals on the go, and returned to Grand Island around 10 pm.  Man were our credit cards smokin' by the end of the day!  The highlight for me was the tour of the retreat center in Bennington, Kansas run by Kansas Troubles founder Lynne Hagmeier!  The pics above are all from that retreat space.  I want to go there and hang out with some friends!!!  For more about Lynne, check out her blog-site listed above. 
  The Kansas (and one Nebraska shop) quilt shops opened their doors wide to their neighbors from the north and each shop was full of a bounty of fabrics, notions, gifts, etc.  There wasn't one on the list that I wouldn't gladly visit again, and in fact, I plan to get back down there sometime in the next year.  I returned with an armful of Loralie Designs panels and coordinates, as well as, a renewed inspiration for my sewing projects! 

The Old versus the New

So, as a longarm quilter, I get to work on a huge variety of quilts.  This week was no exception.  At the beginning of the week, I was working on an antique quilt that a lady's great-grandma made.  It is probably at least 75 years old.  When I first got it, I was not thrilled, but WOW, it turned out really pretty!

 

 

  At the end of the week, I worked on a gorgeous butterfly quilt that used the latest innovative 10 degree wedge ruler to create something truly amazing. This quilt is modern, and allowed for some fun and exciting quilting to really make it pop.  I used McTavishing, and several fill designs to add texture to the background.  The type of quilting that I used on the butterfly really wouldn't have been appropriate on the antique quilt. 

  I enjoy working on both types of quilts.  The old and the new each have their positive points.  Each require a different quilting style, thereby allowing me some creative license and the ability to use all of the things I have learned over the past three years.

 

 

Always Go With Your Gut!

The triangular areas after I redid them.

  So, this past week, I learned a very valuable lesson in quilting.  The lesson is this:  trust your instincts!  In the past three years of quilting, I have rarely had to take out any quilting.  I usually have a pretty good idea of what I want to do before I start, and then I just go with it.  Well, this time I wasn't totally sure about one triangular section of the quilt.  I started out by quilting a large feather into the area.  I looked at it.  I didn't like it.  I thought, "It will take 45 minutes to take that out, and I hate taking stuff out.  Maybe it will look better when I do the next section."  I continued.  After I did all EIGHT sections, I still didn't like it.  I looked at it.  I thought, "Maybe if I echo the feathers and add some veins, it will look better."  So, I did.  Still didn't like it.  Being completely sure that there was no way I was going to take all that quilting out, I decided to do pebbling down the center of the feathers to cover the centers, (which had too much thread build up because I used King Tut thread).  I pebbled.  I hated it.  I tried to tell myself it was okay, and would be okay.  I took it off the frame.  I showed it to my husband and asked his opinion.  He didn't like it either.  It sat in a bag for two days while I wrestled with taking out all that quilting, reloading the quilt, and redoing those 8 triangular areas.  Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.  I started taking out.  It took TEN hours to remove, and another three hours to load and requilt. It looked sooooo much better.  Moral of this story..."Trust Your Gut!"  P.S.  My customer LOVED IT! 

Sometimes You Have to Look Behind the Scenes

  It is easy to take everything at face value.  Very little effort or brain power is required to just follow along with day to day life, never looking deeper than the surface.  Once in a while, though, it is a good idea to look "behind the scenes" a little bit.  Why do we do what we do?  What motivates us?  What choices do we make simply because it is "what we've always done" and what choices do we make without even thinking?  Like the back side of a quilt, we can't truly appreciate life until we see both sides of the coin.  We need to see the obvious, the color, the pattern of everyday AND we need to dig deep and question the very meaning of our existence every now and then :)  To that end:  here are a couple of pictures of the back side ONLY of two quilts.  For a change, I will leave the FRONT side to your imagination:)