deferring Jane Austen

When last we were working the Jane Austen quilt, I had discovered that (according to my calculations), I was actually going to run out of the chose sashing fabric before I reached the end of the center section.

A trip to my local quilt store lead me to two delightful choices ... but Dear Daughter #2 wasn't with me, so with the shop's permission, I took pictures of them, emailed them to her from my cell phone, called her to let her know she had incoming .... and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Dear Daughter said she never received the pictures.  So, I emailed the same pictures to myself and discovered the same thing.  The internet pipes must have been clogged that day, as the emails never came through.

Once home, I implemented Plan B and manually transferred the pictures from my cell phone to my computer and emailed the pictures to Dear Daughter from my computer.  And awaited her decision.

At home, waiting, I was twiddling my thumbs.  I really, really, really can't stand being idle in the sewing room.  All the leftover diamonds from Jane Austen were staring at me and I decided to fill the time until Dear Daughter said either yay or nay to the sashing selection by "doing something" with some of those diamonds.

Looking at Fig Tree & Company's pattern "Jelly Parfait", I realized that I could use (some) of the diamonds in this layout.  *Perfect*!  I even had some fabric already in my stash that I could use for the setting triangles!

On a Monday, I began to sew the diamonds together to form the triangles for Jelly Parfait.  Four large triangles per row, 6 rows = 4 large triangles.  Each triangle needed 15 diamonds plus 6 setting triangles.  I managed to complete several large triangles by the time Dear Daughter decided that she liked the replacement sashing fabric.   Back to the quilt store to the store to buy it, as they had put it on hold for me.

However, even when I brought the replacement Jane Austen sashing fabric home, I knew .. I *knew* ... that the in-progress Jelly Parfait was going to nag me.  The Jane Austen quilt is going to take a substantial amount of time and I just didn't want to put Jelly Parfait on hiatus for the duration ... because I was concerned (knowing me) that I wouldn't get back to it for a while.

Sooooo ... work continued on Jelly Parfait during the that week until it was done.   By the following Sunday (that is to say, 7 days later), the top was done.  Man, I was happy about that!  It was getting awfully B-O-R-I-N-G sewing those diamonds into a large triangle.  [Which ought to say something about the sashing process for Jane Austen.  I may lose what is left of my mind.]

There are some differences in my rendition of Jelly Parfait from the pattern ... firstly, I used the diamonds I already had.  They are *weird* diamonds, somewhere between 45° and 60° diamonds, so the dimensions of my Jelly Parfait are NOT the same as the pattern. 

I used a linear ribbon stripe for the sashing between rows.  I had saved this absolutely, terminally cute gingham "embroidered" ribbon print fabric for "something" and the sashing between the Jelly Parfait rows was exactly the right circumstance!

I also changed up the border treatment.   I determined that with the addition of a 5" wide border, I could have a queen size quilt.  I wanted to use up as much of the gingham ribbon stripe as I could, so I decided to use it as part of the border.  Alone, it wouldn't have been wide enough.  Fortunately, I had *another* purple ribbon stripe in my stash that I had been saving.  However, the combination of the gingham stripe and the purple ribbon stripe *still* wouldn't be 5".  (In the picture above, the green lines are where I cut the ribbon stripes apart.  The red stripes in the dark purple ribbon stripe doesn't show up in the quilt, since I have incorporated it into the seam allowance ... there was no red any place in the quilt and I thought that having that red show up in the border would look at bit odd.)

Again, fortunately, one of my quilting buddies had traded me some purple Jinny Beyer yardage and it was a perfect companion for the two ribbon stripes!  I put the Jinny Beyer fabric between the two stripes to create the 5" wide border I wanted.  I really like using stripes, either printed or manufactured, for borders since I can then miter the corners.  Striped mitered corners look soooooo nice!  :-)

Now that the top is complete and I finally *looked* at it, I can see that I used a very dark fabric for one of the setting triangles in the pieced triangles.  Hmmm.  Kinda looks out of place with all the others.  Hmmmm.  Too bad .. it's gonna stay.  I don't feel like ripping out the sashing, the 6 setting triangles, re-cutting new ones and putting the replacements back into the quilt.  Tough luck.  (On the other hand ... the one without the warts .. maybe when I pull this top out when it comes time to quilt it, I'll be sufficiently annoyed by those dark little triangles that I'll reconsider replacing them.  Maybe.)


On the other, other hand, this top turned out rather nicely.  It joins the others in the Pile of Tops to be Quilted (someday). :-)

And NOW!!! that all my procrastination activities have been completed, I can return to the real Jane Austen quilt ... remove the small amount of original sashing fabric that has been sewn in the quilt and replace it with the new sashing fabric.  Sash on, sister, sash on!  :-)

messing with Jane Austen

Sometimes I swear I have the attention span of a flea.  *Usually* I can be very focused and successfully concentration on a project until its completion.  This is advantageous when you are working on a project that is going to take a long time ... like the Jane Austen quilt.

But, as I work on a project, there are times when my mind wanders to other things that could be done with the very pieces I am currently working with.  aaiiiieee!  That way lies madness!  I start thinking about other projects to do and other layouts and then, before you know it, I find myself absolutely, positively NEEDING to do "that thing" just to get it out of my mind!

Take for instance ... the Jane Austen diamond.  Looks pretty good, huh?  When pieced with it's sashing and combined with all the other Jane Austen diamonds, it's going to look doggone fantastic.  I had cut a *boatload* of diamonds in preparation for the Jane Austen quilt ... not knowing precisely how many I'd eventually need.  As it turned out, I cut quite a bit more than I need.  :-)

So, what do do with the leftover diamonds?  Well, a star immediately comes to mind!  A most excellent idea!  I like making stars .. they look so good.  And if I do say so myself, the centers of my stars are absolutely, positively flat-flat-flat.  No volcanos or D-cup mountains for my stars!

I dry-fitted my Jane Austen diamonds together and immediately realized .. Houston, we have a problem.  See, the Jane Austen diamonds aren't a 45° or even a 60° diamond.  They are some weird angle.  And they just DO. NOT. FIT. TOGETHER. in a star.







Fortunately, I happen to have a 60° template that was given to me by a quilting buddy.  I re-cut the Jane Austen diamonds using the template and proceeded to make some stars.

Don't they look purdy?  :-)

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them.  But, at least for now, that particular bug about 'doing something else' with the left over Jane Austen diamonds has been dealt with.

And yes .. the center of my stars are flat-flat-flat.  :-)

Jane Austen quilt, part 5 - oops.

Happily, I've pinned all 464 diamonds to my design wall around the place-holding center medallion.

I've begun sewing the sashing fabric to the diamonds, starting in the top right corner. 

Looks pretty spiffy so far, huh?  I kinda like it. :-)



And then, I got to thinking.  This center section is big.  Big enough to cover the top of a queen sized mattress ... roughly 60"x80". 

The sashing is narrow; it'll finish at 7/8" wide. 

I have about 2-1/2 yards of sashing fabric.  Surely, that is enough to cut all the sashing I need?

But wait!  It would be simply HORRIBLE if I got 75% of the way through the top only to run out of sashing fabric! Truly, a fate worse than death!  Since I have NO idea when or where I got this fabric, it's not like I can run right out and buy additional amounts.

I figured it would behoove me to actually calculate how much sashing fabric I had, in terms of linear inches versus how much I really needed.  So, with my trusty tape measure in hand, I began to measure how long the various sashing pieces were.  Luckily, the length of the short strips between the diamonds was a constant amount and the length of the long diagonal pieces increased by a constant amount. 

If my figures were correct, I was going to run out of sashing fabric before the top was done.  Holy moley .. it's a good thing I was cautious ... or suspicious.

Sadly, this does mean that I will need to rip out the small corner that has been done .... but much better only that than nearly an entire top!  I'll go out shopping tomorrow, cross my fingers and see if I can find a suitable substitute. 

Jane Austen quilt, part 4 - diamond placement begins

Painstakingly, all 494 464 (I miscounted!) diamonds required for the center section of the quilt have been cut out.  These are the light and medium values of purple.  Jane Austen (apparently) simply random scattered her pieces.  Admirable and it turned out well.

Except that *I* don't do random well.  I like plans.  Even guidelines.  But pure random?  iiiieeeee!!  I've done the "pull the next piece out of a brown bag and use it" approach.  I *STILL* micro-manage it!

However, pandemonium may have been averted. Dear Daughter #2 (the purple loving daughter) has decided that she'd like a kinda/sorta/maybe/almost colorwash effect .... starting with the lighter shades next to the center medallion and shading out to the darker values. Hmmmm ... I think, maybe,  I could do this.

So tonight, I spent a good amount of time grading the color values of all the light shades.  Well, I graded them as well as I was able to .. heh .. I even remembered to pull out my Ruby Beholder to even out the color playing field!

This layout is (obviously) an on-point layout.  Furthermore, the very center .. the part that looks white ... is going to be a big embroidered medallion on a single piece of fabric.  The diagonal rows surround this center medallion.

For this reason, I think it would be just about impossible .. for me ... to simply start at a corner and build from there.   After all, I have absolutely NO idea just which shades of the light & medium values are going to be exactly where.  I have a *general* idea, but no specifics.

Therefore, I decided to build it on my design wall as it would look in real life.  This means that I need a placeholder for the center medallion, since despite my calculations, I don't want to chance cutting the center medallion fabric the wrong size.  Knowing me, it would be 1/2" too small all the way around. :-)

So, I made a paper placeholder, measured on my design wall (a queen sized sheet) where the center medallion "should" be and began pinning the diamonds to the sheet according to my color plan, as shown above.

And here we are, so far.

Not too exciting.  The bright green start at the top is where the top/center of the quilt "should" be.  I measured down from that spot to the mid-point of the center section (I hope) and began the placement of the light diamonds.

According to the color guide, I have 3 rows of lights then 6 rows of mediums before it starts with the lights again.

The real thing may or may not look vaguely like the graphic ... mainly because it's easy to color a row of shapes the same color ... using the actual fabrics is a different story!

The final result may not be so controlled and concentric.  It may have a tendency to become muddled ... simply because of the fabrics I have to use.

I was, however, gratified to see that in the first row around the center medallion, the number of diamonds that I place around it *does* match the number of diamonds in the graphic!  woo hoo!!  I'll sure take those small victories!  :-)

The placement of diamonds continues onward.

Jane Austen quilt, part 3 - cutting the diamonds

I am now able to return to the pieced project that will be consuming my time for the next unforeseeable future ... the purple Jane Austen quilt.

Because I was Utterly Stupid, I used a homemade diamond template to cut a LOT of purple diamonds to be used in the Jane Austen quilt.  I didn't realize at the time that my homemade template (this was the one I used for the Diamond Pillows) was NOWHERE near the size it should have been.  In fact, it is doggone tiny compared to what it should be.  Which means that I am going to need a GINORMOUS amount of purples.

I am sooooo lucky to have some wonderful quilting buddies over on About.com's Quilting forum. In response to my plea to swap [something] for purples, they came through in spades.  Well ... not spades precisely, but with 13-5/8 inches of purples!

At this stage in the project, I am busily engaged in cutting diamonds.  Lots of diamonds.  Tons of diamonds.  Probably more than that because the finished quilt needs to cover the top of a queen sized bed plus 23" of drop on 3 sides.

Good thing I have lots of TV shows queued up to watch. :-)

Hanging over my head

Like many other quilters (or crafters, if I might broaden the category), I have several projects being worked on at the same time.  They are in various states of completion (or non-completion, if you think in those terms).  Most of the time, I can mentally shove these works in progress to the back of my mind whilst I work on whatever the Current Obsession project is.  :-)

I just finished up a project ... quilting a client quilt, which took precedence over my own projects.  I now have the opportunity to return to the pieced project that will be my main focus, the Jane Austen quilt,  .. but first ... these are the projects that are Hanging Over My Head.  They are the ones I was working on before I got the idea to do the Jane Austen quilt.  They remain in various states of non-completion and will probably stay that way "for a while".  But, they *are* on my mind and will annoy me until I get them into a finished project.

To whit ... the "Diamond Pillows".  I started with a bunch of diamond shapes, cut from gold-toned fabrics.  I have NO idea why I cut these shapes; I don't think they were left over from a previous project.  But I cut a messload of them.

I assembled them into rectangles of various sizes (all non-standard, as it turned out), loaded them onto Lizzie and quilted them in a continuous curve design.  Using this as my blank canvas, I then used a friends electric Sizzix die cut machine to cut out a bunch of shapes, which I then fused and appliqued with monofilament thread.  They turned out ... dull.

I then embellished them with some modest hand embroidery.  Not crazy quilt stuff, just standard hand embroidery stitches. 

The blue is finished, I think.

The purple on the light background is finished.

The purple on the dark background is still being embroidered.

The blank one (above) will have pink shapes, yet to be determined.

All of them will be made into throw pillows.  Sadly, I wasn't thinking ahead because NONE of them are standard pillow sizes.  ::sigh::

Then there is the Apple Core project.  A fellow quilting buddy asked for some help from the members of About.com's Quilting Forum in making some Economy Blocks to be used in the making of a fund-making quilt to help restore her family's farmhouse.  I was at a breakpoint .. in between projects ... and in one evening, made 27 Economy Blocks for her.  She certainly didn't ask for that many!  Honest!!  But they were just so doggone easy, it was like eating popcorn ... I simply kept on making them.  :-)

As a thank-you, she sent me a bunch of apple core shapes that she cut with her Accuquilt Go cutter. 

Not wanting to have the shapes hanging over my head, I deferred whatever it was I was working on to assemble the apple cores together.  And that's as far as *this* project has gotten.  I think this is going to be a table runner for our dining room table.  I'm thinking I may put some machine applique on it.  Maybe. 

That's another project. :-)

Current Forever Project: Dress Me Up, dress 11

This dress has turned out to be one of my favorites!  The pattern has a whole bunch of circles on the dress, so I did them in a buttonhole stitch.  Furthermore, I got the brilliant (if I do say so myself) idea of graduating the color from light to dark (neckline to hem).

There's a one strand/one wrap French knot in the middle of the buttonhole flowers.  The French knot is done in a new (to me) DMC satin floss, made of rayon.  VERY shiny stuff.

The lazy daisy flowers at the shoulders are also done in the DMC satin floss.

Another new (to me) DMC fiber is their Pearlescent Effects ... a very rough and sparkly stranded item.  I used this for the belt, stitched in a whipped backstitch.  I had originally thought to do the buttonhole flowers in this fiber but it is SO rough that I gave up.  Heh .... don't even think about doing French knots with it. :-)

Completing this dress means that I am now working on dress #12 ... the LAST dress!  :-)

A Really Cheap Egg

We have 22 chickens ... a whole bunch of different breeds.  Two of those chickens are Americaunas; they lay green shelled eggs.  They consistently lay large sized green shelled eggs.  They're pretty regular about it.

And then .... one day last week (or so), as I was collecting the eggs, I came across one of the cheapest eggs I've ever picked up.  I have absolutely NO idea what was up with either of the Americaunas that they felt compelled to produce such an egg .. but there it was ... substantially smaller than what they usually lay.

Here's the cheap egg next to a paper clip, for comparison.

Whenever we do get excessively small eggs like this, we like to call them "rooster eggs".  Why?  Well, because no self-respecting HEN would lay an egg as cheap as this!   heh ... we get a kick out of the city slickers to don't get the "rooster egg" thing ... they ask, quite sincerely ... "Gosh, I didn't know roosters laid eggs.".

::thunk::  Here's your sign.  :-)


The next day?  Back to normal.  ::shrug::  Chickens are weird critters.

Utter Frustration .. aaarrrgghhhh!

I've been working on a sneaky quilt.  I haven't talked about it because I'm not sure if the recipient reads my blog .. and I can't exactly ask, can I?  :-)

I found the perfect, I mean .. PERFECT fabric for the borders.  I figured out how to use the border fabric effectively with the rest of the top that has already been made.

Serendipitously, I had a day where I could work on the borders without interruption.

and ?

I can NOT find the border fabric.  Absolutely astounding.  How could I *possibly* lose fabric?  I know I had it fairly recently because I had to measure it in order to figure out how to use the limited amount I had with the top that I had.  I even drew out the schematic .. so I *know* I had the fabric recently.

And now I can't find it.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I can't believe this.

It's not with the top.  It's not with the batting because I haven't pulled that yet. I have looked everywhere it should be.   I have looked everywhere it shouldn't be.  I have looked again.  As I have always advised my daughters, I even looked UNDER things and PICKED THINGS UP and rifled through piles.  It's not there.

Well, it's obviously SOMEWHERE.   I have outdone myself in stashing this fabric in a Safe Place.

Gosh, I hate Safe Places.  ::sigh::

(aside: Nell .. this is not your quilt!   You may rest assured all of your pieces are safe.)

Current Forever Project: Dress Me Up, dress 10

Work progresses nicely with the Dress Me Up embroidery project, I'm pleased to say!  Dress #10 is now officially finished and has joined its sister blocks, awaiting assembly.

Dress #10 is much plainer than the other dresses; I guess you need a simple style to offset some of the more flamboyant ones.  :-)

To compensate for the plainness of the dress and shawl collar, I gave the dress a "gold" belt and buckle.  ooooooo ... shiney!  :-)

The base of the pedestal has a lovely spiral turning to it and "gold" spirals on the ball.















Dress #11 is in the on-deck circle!

Current Forever Project: Dress Me Up, dress 9

While I am working on quilting projects with the sewing machine a/o quilting machine, I am also (slowly) progressing on my current Forever Project ™, "Dress Me Up".

Dress #9 is now completed.

Lots and lots of big, showy flowers over the entire dress.

I used DMC's metallic floss for the squiggly lines in the belt


Work now progresses to Dress #10.  The light at the end of this tunnel is definitely getting brighter. :-)

One thing that has been reinforced for me: doing precision hand work is a challenge when you are riding in a car.  Those roads are NOT as smooth as they look!

Also!! News flash!  I have discovered a wonderful and new (to me) product! 

I never have been able to use a metal thimble.  It never feels "right" to me.  When I found soft, leather thimbles, I was happy .. and they even have a small, metal disk at the tip to help push the needle through thicker fabric.  But, eventually, even these leather thimbles wear out.  I have several of them and have stitched the leather at the top back together many times so I could keep using them, but the leather is just plain wearing away.  Additionally, over time, even the small size thimble stretches out and is then too big for my finger .... it will then slip off.  Most annoying.

I was cautiously hopeful when I found Colonial's "Thimble Pad".  It's a circle of leather with sticky stuff on the underside that adheres to your finger tip .. just exactly where you need to have some protection.  Allegedly, the adhesive is reusable but since I've only used one Thimble Pad once, I don't have first hand experience with the reuseability factor.

So far, it works very nicely!  It does feel weird to have this "thing" stuck to your finger .. but it does NOT move and it doesn't catch the thread.

Jane Austen quilt, part 2

Scroll down to the bottom of the page on this post to see the beginning of my journey to make a Jane Austen quilt.  No, not the Dear Jane quilt but Jane Austen's quilt. :-)

For a refresher, here is the original Jane Austen quilt:

 I'm not making a replica, but "an inspired by" version.  That way, I'm not going to get all hung up on the precise details nor will I become unglued if the Vintage Quilt Police harass me.  :-) 


As this quilt is intended for Dear Daughter #2, whose color is purple, my intent is to make the quilt entirely of purples.  While I do have a nice stash of fabric, my selections of purples is not extensive.  Solution: my good quilting buddies of About.com's Quilting forum to the rescue!  I put out a request for any and all purples, fat eighths or scraps about 4"x4".  In exchange, should they want, I would send back to them an equivalent amount of fabric of their choice, provided I had such fabric in my stash.

They responded with such enthusiasm!  Some had fabrics they would like in return but many essentially said, "don't you dare send me anything back ... I'm glad to reduce my own stash!"  :-)  The sheer number of fabric that came in was absolutely overwhelming.  Quilters are simply extraordinary generous people!

sashing for Jane Austen quilt

Although I received all the purples throughout February, I couldn't start cutting until the sashing fabric had been approved.  I had a length of suggested fabric .. a mottled white/purple/blue ... that awaited a Verdict.

It wasn't until mid-March that DD#2 made a Personal Appearance at the homestead.  To my relief and delight, she liked the fabric I had pulled for the sashing.  :-)

As I was going through all the purples, sorting them into light/medium/dark piles, I realized that some definitely felt as though they had not been washed already.  Some pieces *did* have notes to that effect.  The fabrics from my own stash *had* been washed.   At that point, I realized that I would really need to wash all the forum fabric; you simply do not want to mix washed and unwashed fabric in the same top.  So, load by load, into the washer, then into the dryer they went. 

I learned something valuable ... I do not need to wash the fabric on the regular setting!  That setting tends to unravel the cut ends, as well as twisting and knotting the fabric lengths together.  It's annoying to need to straighten everything out before they are put in the dryer.  It occurred to me that ... I don't need to wash them as though they are *dirty* .. I just need to get the manufacturing chemicals, sizing & surface dirt/dust off the fabric, as well as shrink them as much as they are going to.  I tried a 'delicate' setting .. and by golly! no hanging threads, no twisted lengths of fabric!  It was wonderful!  :-)

purples from About.com Quilting members

But, with the washing/drying comes the ironing.  Some larger lengths of fabric (real yardage) might not need to be ironed .. a simple smoothing with your hands will suffice.  But I didn't have yardage; I had short lengths and scraps.  They wrinkled.  I spent the better part of a day ironing all the purples. 

They look so purty.  :-)

Finally, at long last, I can start the cutting process!  I have been so antsy to start!

from H.D. Designs

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I think the center medallion part won't take terribly long.  It's just long seams of diamonds with sashing, set on-point.  

Oh .. hmm .. I gotta remember to put in that center space at the appropriate time.  Instead of Broderie Perse, DD#2 wants her initial in applique.  I just happen to have a pattern that she likes.  :-)   This applique is from H.D. Designs, their "Quilted Letters Applique" pattern.

Lumiere de Noel

size: 80" x 88"

Pieced: November 2010. Quilted: December 2010

When I start a quilt, I create a sub-directory in my main Quilting directory on my computer. In each quilt's sub-directory, I put all the pictures pertinent to the quilt and, most importantly, I create a note file to capture stuff I want to remember later on, when the webpage is made. It's very difficult to remember details months afterwards.

Currently, it is March 2011. Do note that this quilt was made in late 2010 .. not terribly far in the past, but distant enough so that those all-important details are but a fuzzy memory. I opened up the sub-directory and ... OH NO!! ... there isn't a note file! Geez, I hate being a lamer.

Thank GOODNESS that I was chatty enough during the construction to post about what I was doing About.com's Quilting forum (the main quilty place I hang out). Thank goodness the search function works, as I was able to find all the posts I had made about this quilt!

Since I have the dates of the posts, I'm going to do this webpage in a sort of diary construct .. kinda/sorta, almost, maybe ... augmented with additional verbage. :-)

11/11/10: I have started "Lumiere de Noel". I first saw it in a quilting catalog and just loved the two fabric coloring featuring a specific Moda fabric line. But it was such a SIMPLE layout (variant Sawtooth Star blocks in columns with a ribbon border stripe between the columns as sashing and finished with a slab-o-border), I didn't want to spring for the kit. Besides, I knew I had enough stash fabric to make it. So, I just clipped the catalog picture as a memory jogger.

I went surfing around the internet and found a better picture of Lumiere de Noel for reference. And I found lots of sites offering the kit, the fabric and/or just the pattern. Then I found yardage requirements for it!

AND THEN ... further poking around the internet, I discovered that Moda had the "Lumiere de Noel" pattern available on their website FOR FREE. woo hoo!

My version of Lumiere de Noel is still red/white, but it's more scrappy because I am using all (well, mostly all) stash fabric to make it. :-)

Augment: The minute I saw the pattern, I remembered the red/white positive/negative fabrics I had stashed away. If there was enough of them, they would do nicely for the background of the stars.

As it turned out, I almost made it .. but not quite. I didn't have enough of the white stripe fabric to make all of the Sawtooth Star blocks. Once again, digging through my stash, I found and decided to use a white tone-on-tone fabric for the triangles at the 12-o'clock and 6-o'clock positions. Serendipitously, when the blocks were sewn together, the tone-on-tone fabrics created a lovely white square, suitable for a nifty quilting design. Bonus! :-)

I wasn't sure about that linear stripe ... I knew I didn't own anything like that; I'd need to go looking for it. Linear stripes are tricky ... they are either in fashion and available or they are nowhere to be seen.

Sure enough, I couldn't find anything suitable in my stash and linear stripes are obviously Out Of Fashion at this time (or at least, my local quilt stores aren't carrying them). Since I would need to purchase a linear stripe, I figured I might as well get the 'official' stripe per the Lumiere de Noel pattern. A little bit of internet search turned up an online quilt store that stocked it. I definitely needed a very specific length, as the stripes were cut lengthwise. I noted this on my order and hoped that the store had enough yardage on hand.

11/19/10: I was waiting on a linear stripe to arrive via the mail. Hooray, hooray, the shop had the length I needed and it arrived.

I washed the fabric, fussy cut the linear stripes and now am using those stripes as sashing between the Sawtooth Star columns.

Oh. My. Gosh. Is this B-O-R-I-N-G. ::snore::

I am (trying to) be careful about maintaining the same motif placements across the width of the top. (see the yellow line running through the same motifs .. hooray!)

But sewing L-O-N-G stretches of straight seamlines is just plain tedious. If the sashing wasn't enough punishment, once they are sewn, I get to do more long seamlines with the slab-o-borders.

Anyone have any No-Doze? :-)

OH NO! (again) I should have used that No-Doze. Or I shouldn't have worked on the quilt when I wasn't alert. Or maybe I shouldn't have been watching the TV at the same time as sewing. After I sewed all the sashings in between all the rows and stepped back to view my work-in-progress, I spotted it. A GLARING ERROR. Oh. My. Gosh. A Cesspool of Puss. Grade: D-.

Do you see it? Look again. Look more closely. Surely you see it?

In each of the linear stripes, there is a circular, flower design. Below that flower is a stylized leafy-thing. On one side of the leafy-thing there is a part that curls. In the photo above, look at the linear stripe on the left; that curl is on the top/right of the leafy-thing. Now look at the other stripe. That curl is on the bottom/left of the leafy-thing. I had sewed one of the linear stripes UPSIDE DOWN. Who knew they were *directional*!??!? aarrrggghhhhh!

Well, drats. Double drats. ¡Qué lástima! ¡Qué mala suerte! And there is nothing to be done but rip-rip-rip the offending sashing out, turn it right side up and re-sew it. ::sigh::

11/20/10: I had planned on using the red stripe fabric as the binding, but I didn't have enough. So, I made a two-fabric strip set of the red/white positive/negative fabrics and created the binding from the strip set. It looks rather like peppermint candy canes! :-)

12/5/10:Worked out a quilting design for Lumiere de Noel on paper.

Loaded a doodle cloth (destined eventually to become cage liners for our cats' vet) and practiced the quilting. I'm very glad that I did because some of the designs just didn't work out nicely. Eventually, after playing around a bit, I think I've settled on what the final quilting design will be.

I railroaded the quilt onto Lizzie (i.e. lengthwise is parallel to the rails) so that I could quilt each column in one pass. I'm using Quilter's Dream Puff for the batting .. a first time for me. I'm hoping that the final quilt is nicely poofy.

First to be quilted: the borders. The border fabric is a fabulously lovely, airy red design on white. I love this fabric! I know, from past experience, that any detailed quilting on prints tends to disappear. The print fabric just absorbs the quilting details. But ... this is *my* quilt. I'm not paying someone to do it for me, so I can do what I want. (neener, neener, neener!)

And I like swags and beadboard. In fact, I *LOVE* swags and beadboard. Doing swags is so easy when you have a template and I use the No-Frills swag template from Constantine Quilts. (She has a fantastic set of videos on her site, at the above link, to show you how to figure out the number of swags to put on a side and what to do about the corners.) For this quilt, I used the 5" swag template.

Here's a photo of the border with the swag and beadboard quilted .. and a drawn outline of the stitching so you can see it better. Inside the innermost swag, I quilted a free-motion, free-form flower.

The corner got a similar quilting motif.

Notice how you can hardly see the quilting in the border? But, *I* know it's there.

In any case, *YOU* beware not to ask for detailed quilting where it won't be seen!

Once the border was taken care of, I progressed to quilting the columns of stars, which due to loading the quilt crosswise, the columns were now rows .. making it much, much easier to quilt in one pass.

I wanted the quilting to be continuous. I really dislike stopping and starting designs; you have to bury the tails (I don't like to take tiny stitches or use Fray Check/Fray Block). Burying a lot of tails takes time and it's boring.

So, I devised a quilting path from one end to the other ... each star was stitched in the ditch for definition and stability; in the squares that were created between the stars, there is a heart. In the stars themselves, I did a spiral with leafy embellishments. In the other areas of the stars, I quilted a double arc with leafy embellishments and repeated the heart.

Then there was quilting the linear stripe fabric. Geez ... I didn't have a CLUE how to do that. I ended up just quilted an outline around the motifs. Lame.

You can see this better on the back, since I used plain muslin as the backing.

I have taken to liking the use of muslin as the backing. Not only does it soften with laundering, but it shows up the quilting rather nicely. Hmmm ... which could be a detriment, yes? :-) But, being the cheap frugal person that I am, I buy an entire bolt of 108" wide muslin with a discount coupon and that brings the cost of the backing down very low. The extra wide fabric means that I don't have any seams (unless I want to insert something).

I definitely do not use quilting cotton for backings any longer ... I just can't justify the cost.



The very last thing is the label. For quilts that I keep or give as gifts, I always sew my "pirate" label into a corner. Since I found a teeny-tiny pirate machine embroidery design, I have made a bunch of small pirate tags, which I also include when I put on the binding. You can see the pink pirate tag to the left of the pirate label.

I don't use my embroidery machine as much as I should. Nowadays, I'm trying to remember to make an additional embroidered label. This one was done with a gorgeous *free!* Sue Box design. Her designs are always superbly digitized. They are simply exquisite.

Didja notice the special ribbon around each label??? When I was persuing the internet for the linear stripe fabric, I happened to come across an online shop, Quilter's Quarters, that carried this Moda ribbon ... it's designed to coordinate with the Lumiere de Noel fabric line. Although I only used the linear stripe from this line, I just fell in love with this ribbon. It was so special and so unique AND it came wrapped around a cute wooden spool!

I emailed the owners, Shawn & Jerry, to ask how much yardage was on each spool. A prompt reply gave me the amount, which would be more than enough to border the labels. Even though the price was steep (for a ribbon!), I figured it would be a beautiful, final touch for this quilt and I ordered it. A small amount of time later, a second email came in with a corrected yardage; originally, the yardage hadn't been actually measured. Sadly, it was less than what was originally quoted. With the smaller amount of yardage, I couldn't justify the purchase and regretfully instructed Shawn & Jerry to cancel the order. Well, it turned out that they had already run the charge and boxed up the purchase. To make things right, they made an offer to me that was quite acceptable. I can say, without equivocation, that Quilter's Quarters is a stand-up operation. An inadvertent mistake was made and was very graciously corrected. I wouldn't hesitate to do business with them again.

12/20/10: Completely finished Lumiere de Noel last night ... bound, washed & pictures taken! I did need to send it through the wash twice ... I had used yellow chalk to mark guidelines and they didn't come out in the first wash. Application of "Shout" gel took care of them during the second wash.

I really, really love this quilt. Love the colors; love the pattern. I'm 99.9% happy with the quilting. The part that I'm not entirely happy about is the quilting I did in the dark ribbon stripe print. It's OK .. but that's about all. Everything else I love. :-)

What quilt is complete without an inspection by the Quality Control Officer? This particular inspection was obviously a stealthy one ... the Officer can't see you, ergo, you can't see her. :-)

Oh .. the quilt passed muster. :-)