Please Come to my Party

WHO?

you! my fellow quilters and friends

WHEN?

now, all week, until I finish something else

WHERE?

your house, my house, the zoo, the park

why everywhere of course!

WHY?

cuz I *finished* a quilt, I'm over the moon and I have to share my excitement.

Why am I making such a stink about finishing this quilt? Well because it is FINISHED ... I cannot remember the last time I finished a quilt so I am celebrating this. BIG TIME!

This quilt started as a class sample 10 YEARS ago. It's a colorwash and a bargello. They were quite the rage 10 years ago. Decidedly not modern today. I'll be honest too .. colorwash *and* bargello are both styles that don't speak to me. Not a word. Just not interested. But asked to teach the class I was and if there's one thing that makes this style of quilt successful it's color. I think I did ok with this one. I love the transitions. The way the dark and light ribbons of color play against each other. I see a bubbling brook full of fish flowing through a cool forrest. Haha ... yeh, I get carried away sometimes. But ...

I LOVE this quilt. It rocks in my living room - against my blueberry stain walls. Yes, there will be pictures in situ soon ... first I have to cut the frame for it. See those corners on the back of the quilt? Instead of a hanging sleeve I opted for corners so I could mount it as flush to the wall as possible. And keep it square .. hopefully. I'll report back on this plan later. On my last trip to the NW (3! years ago) I left this top with Barb Dau (Everett, WA) and asked her to quilt a bubbling stream through it. When a friend from here flew back to visit her family last fall she kindly brought it back for me .. along with 3 other quilts I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't shown you. I am also embarrassed to discover that I consistently write peak when I mean PEEK, yikes!

The finished quilt measures 35" x 48" / 89cm x 122cm. It hangs portrait style with the longest side going up and down. Most bargellos hang the other way - horizontal but not mine ... nope, mine has a stream running through it with fish so lengthwise it is. But you'll get to see that better when we hang it.

So I hope you'll PARTY with me 

... a cupcake, glass of wine ... a nice piece of fruit ...

Whatever it takes to make it a party for you! 

I am soooo very excited and thank you for joining me in one big 

Hip Hip Hoooooraaaaay!

Sticking with the color theme and finishing mode I can also tell you ...

that I am just an inch away from turning the heel on Axel's SECOND sock! Yes, ma'am that means a pair. Considering I've knit 5 socks in my life and only one pair that is indeed another reason to celebrate.

AND I pulled out this sweet little quilt and chose binding for it.

So ... there might be reason for another party very very soon!

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Footprints

I have always loved the poem "Footprints in the Sand."

In the hospital I had a small private room. The walls, curtains and bedspread were all light blue. It was boring and I was going to be there for a while. I had to wrack my brain to think of which quilt I had *finished* that Axel could bring me and remembered this.

How terribly appropriate! Those two weeks contained some of the longest, most worrisome days of my life. The poem and it's special meaning came to mind several times a day.

We were truly carried through this ordeal. Not only by our maker but also by your kind words and thoughts. We are truly blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful friends - throughout the world, many of whom we have never met. You are our guardian angels.

I made this quilt quite a few years ago. I am not exactly sure when. I do remember having a sewing night with my friend, Wanda, with my Featherweight on her card table. Her pesky cat kept sticking it's nose up against my needle and pawing at my thread - both very dangerous - but funny too.

The primary fabric is "Footprints" by Andover purchased many many years ago in my very own little shop. The blues are a mix of many lines - I think there are eight different ones.

The block pattern is "Lost Ship" in a topsy turvy kind of setting. Lost Ship is most often set very orderly with the heavy end of the larger triangle all facing the same direction like this. I needed that movement and chaos to reflect the feeling of being lost at sea. The finished quilt measures 48" x 68" / 122cm x 173cm. 

It was long-arm machine quilted by Barb Dau of Everett, Washington. I asked her to quilt it to reflect water washing up on the beach ... the lines that are left as it ebbs and flows. She did a fantastic job! Here's a close-up.

Most of my visitors and the nurses had never heard of the poem. A very dear friend of Axel's sent us a card and small book after the babies were born. "Footprints: The True Story Behind the Poem That Inspired Millions" by Margaret Fishback Powers. Axel read it out loud chapter by chapter in the week after we came home from the hospital. It was an inspiring story but I had no idea there was so much controversy behind the authorship. Another friend sent a Youtube link featuring the poem but I can't find it now.

With the scraps of this quilt I made a small wallhanging.

I machine quilted this in the ditch and then painstakingly hand-quilted the border and a diagonal section through the center adding freshwater pearls and sea glass beads. I can't remember how big it is.
I gave it away and still wish I hadn't. I love it even more than the big one.

If you are interested I still have two kits to make the large quilt.
My little one was made with my leftovers but I'm pretty stingy
... you might be able to squeeze it out too.

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My muse made me do it

So when I gave Axel a quick kiss on his way out the door this morning I forgot that he wouldn't be home tonight.  He's delivering something for work about 4 hours away, then heading back to Duisburg to take his aunt out for afternoon "kaffee und kuchen," then spending the night at his parents and heading home tomorrow.

Wow ... a whole day and a half to myself.  I have so much to do ... I should be working on this, that and definitely this (especially because I really need to hang it in our living room soon - see below)!

Unfortunately my day has been a little bit all over the place. Yesterday (and again this morning) the electrician was here to repair numerous things including re-wiring the corner of the kitchen where our microwave - I won't bore you with the details of this job - suffice to say I now have an ugly cable on the *outside* of the house. Regardless, this meant I needed to move everything the cupboard holds onto the kitchen table. Then when he left last night I decided that since the cupboard was empty and moved I should paint the wall behind it ... I have been toying with this idea for awhile and wanted to use the same dark green I had painted the kitchen in Schellebelle.  It was a quick job first thing this morning but hmm ... now I'm wondering if it's too dark ... ?


We've also been trying to figure out what to do with our living room.  We just moved it upstairs ... it always think of Jane Austen's period when I think of this ... but our house is nothing like that.  It's just that I really needed my office to be bigger and have a dedicated class table in the shop.  So we hired a furniture lifter to shift our vanilla sofas upstairs through the french doors.  But that created the whole problem of the dealing with the ghastly wallpaper.  When it was our bedroom I could live with it - eyes closed!  But now it's driving me crazy.  Look at this horrible texture.  So ... what would it look like if I painted it?  Or if my muse painted it?

First I tried the new color I was considering for the living room - ugh - I accidently bought oil-based. Ah-ha! When I was digging out the kitchen paint I also found a partial can of my favorite favorite blue that we had in the living room in Schellebelle. I dashed downstairs, cleaned my brush, stirred that blue and ran back up to see what would happen - I LOVE IT!  Now if only that oil base would dry so I can paint over it before Axel gets home.  It is going to make the room a little bit darker but it has those lovely windows / door.  And the sofas are light - very light - too light.  Will deal with that in another 5 years ...

In the end not a single stitch was put into anything today.  But the shop just closed so dinner, walk Whisper and then ... hmm, paint or sew?  Which one will it be?

Oh .. and I promised to tell you about the Mülheim girls' dots ... before I head to get dinner I will blog about the Under the Willow Tree - so be sure to check them out there! Pin It Now!