While I had great goals for April quilting I got sidetracked by a Photoshop virtual conference, sketching and transcribing old diaries. Some libraries / museums online have handwritten journals that they are trying to transcribe. They've put images of pages up and asked for help transcribing them to make them easier to search. I also have access to some old family journals that I'm looking at. So many possibilities for working on. I also did some reading and have been able to get out for walks. Most days I try to get my main walk early in the morning as there are fewer people out walking so maintaining my distance is easier.
I did spend sometime on the Milkweed 3. Most of the components now have their internal stitching done. I need to still make the caterpillar and the butterfly. I had fun(?) pulling potential backgrounds out of the stash. I pinned one to the design wall and pinned all the components to it. I did not want to take them all off and put them on the next background so I decided to just take photos of all the potential backgrounds and try using some of what I'd learned about selections in Photoshop to select the old background and replace it. I still need to work on my selecting skills but it worked out reasonably well. I think I photographed close to 20 possibilities. About a dozen got texted to my sister for an opinion. The letters in the photograph was what we were using to reference them. I have it narrowed down to 4 or 5. Everything else has been folded back up and put back on the shelf. Once I have the caterpillar and butterfly made I'll try my favorites again to see which one wins.
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Stitched and waiting to be stitched
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Auditioning backgrounds
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This little top was made from blocks that I won many years ago at the guild block of the month. At the time you got a pattern and perhaps some fabric and made a block. Then at the next meeting a draw was held for the people who returned a block and someone went home with all the blocks. My little collection of 16 blocks came with a piece of paper showing a possible layout. It was done in EQ5 which dates back to at least 2002 as far as I can tell. The suggested layout was a barn raising style but I liked the stars better. Then it was how to quilt it. Its only 30" square so it is little. Bluprint had a free period earlier in the month and I sampled a bunch of classes. I did ended watching all of a Welsh Quilting class by Tia Curtis which I really enjoyed. Her class became the inspiration for quilting this little quilt. I did get a few additional motifs googling for Welsh quilting. I practices drawing the designs in my note book and did a warm on on a scrap sandwich then marked the little top and did all the stabilizing stitching with the walking foot. Then it was time to play with the free motion. That was fun. The pictures show the front and the back of the quilt.
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Notes for quilting one round
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I did not get anything done on the exchange quilt so need to move that up the priorities and get going. Time is going quickly and I need to be ready to mail it on time. I'll need to spend less time sorting old photos and watching Photoshop classes. I spent part of one day moving a table upstairs and setting up an computer station in the Den. I'm enjoying working on the computer up stairs and was able to have the dual monitor going so that I could have the class on one screen and play in Photoshop on the other screen. I'm almost back to the lesson on selections so hope to learn a bit more and be able to better select the background from my milkweed photo. There are a few places were the original background shows through. Its not a problem for what I was trying to do but it gives my something to play with to learn how to make more complicated selections. I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable with some things in Photoshop. I still have lots to learn but I'm discovering just what I can pull out of my photos that I didn't realize I could. That's fun!
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