Quilting and other Things

One of the lists asked the question this week -- What was your first quilt and do you still have it?  My first quilt top, in 1993, was Eleanor Burn's Christmas Tradition Quilt. I had the book and had recorded her program from TV and between the two moved from sewing clothes to making quilts. Having made the top, I needed to learn to quilt it so took a hand quilting class and a sampler class. The sampler class had us using templates, hand piecing and I think quilt as you go -- need to go look at the back of the lap quilt.  Both quilts are still upstairs and get used. Afterwards I went back to hand quilt the Christmas quilt. The final stitches went into the binding on May 23, 1994 as the the credits rolled for the final episode of Star Trek Next Generation -- the episode was called All Good Things which seemed quite fitting for a Christmas Quilt.

This seems to have been an applique month.  I finished the geisha block from the previous post --- her hands were in the bag with the pattern. The water brush worked really well.  So now that brush will live with my applique.  Several years ago, I started a Christmas A to Z  quilt by Old Farmhouse Quilts.  A - D were done and E was waiting.  For some reason all the little pieces were bothering me.  So when I saw the geisha block, I decided to do a similar prepare method -- the Elf was prepared with glue and starch and just freezer paper on top depending on the piece.  It spent a bit of time in my purse and pocket and is now complete.  For some reason I hadn't taken photos of the other blocks.  Most of them need embellishments yet (faces, lettering, strings of lights).  Some will get done before quilting, some will wait until afterwards.  So here are all five blocks (on top of this years $10 quilt) Finally t...

I was looking for some applique I could take to the guild meeting the other day but the only thing I could find that was prepared was a Geisha block designed by Laurissa Werhun which has lots of glue in it. The applique is prepared by gluing under the edges then align all the pieces together and gluing the overlaps.  The prepared piece is then glued to the background When stitching this I usually have a little container of water beside the chair.  If I come across a spot that needs to be smoothed or the glue is too hard to get the needle through, I put a bit of water on a finger, hold it on the spot to soften the glue and make the necessary adjustments.  A little container of water wasn't going to work well going off to guild then I remember my waterbrush from my watercolours The handle gets filled with water and it flows out the brush as you need it.  I stopped on the way home to buy a new one as both the ones I have are stained from the watercolour pai...