Crafting up a Storm

While I'm not a big fan of the term "Crafting" since in my mind, it implies hot glue guns and toilet paper rolls...a la Martha Stewart...but I'm working on more than one kind of skill, so it applies.  Now that my back is feeling better, I'm catching up on my work check list, which is rather long right now.

In no particular order, these are the quilt tops that I'm working on for customers.

Kathy C. gave me three quilts, two of which I have now finished.  This one is the one she wanted first for some kind of auction, but her emails have been bouncing, saying that I'm "spam".  Even though I'm replying to her email to me, it bounces back.  Frustrating.  I was able to contact her daughter-in-law, who has passed on the message.  In the meantime, it's living here with me.

This is Kathy C.'s second quilt, which doesn't look nearly this blurry in person.  I'm having trouble finding a good place to hang these things in my house so that I can photograph them.  I'm thinking about rigging something up in my living room to hang in front of the quilt that's there--some kind of bungees hanging from the 1 x 2 that is nailed up on the wall.  The only problem is that the front room has some rather poor lighting, so I'll have to remedy that as well.  I haven't started the third quilt yet.

Marlys, the mother of a customer who contacted me a few weeks ago to work on two baby quilts, asked me to quilt up this piece for a grandson who is going off to college in the fall.  The school colors are red and black, so I'm stitching up this top for him.  It's all flannel and has Warm & Natural batting, so it's going to be nice and heavy for those chilly dorm rooms at CWU.  I remember the dorm rooms at college the first couple of years were *not* air or weather tight.  The door to my first dorm was more appropriate for California or Hawaii, not Western Washington.  The windows to the second dorm were single-pane and during the deep freeze one winter, everything on my sill was frozen to the window for a couple weeks.  Hopefully he will find this cozy and remind him how much his Grandma loves him!


Another blurry picture of a quilt.  I was quilting on this Halloween quilt made with the Twist & Stitch ruler (or something similar).  The owner of this quilt is Judy of Thread Mongers, and she asked me to quilt up this as a sample for her booth for quilt shows.  I had some trouble at first with the thread breaking, thinking that the tension was too high, but then realized that I simply needed to clean out my tensioner a little.  I flossed it (yes, with wax coated floss) and it stopped giving me issues after that.  I will need to take it up to the guild meeting on Monday.

This is a detail shot of the pumpkins.

This is a quilt for Karen M.  She's got an amazing eye for color (unfortunately, this photo looks much more pink than the quilt is in person--it's all purples in varying shades).  She wanted it to be quilted all over with feathers, similar to the quilt I did a few weeks ago in 1930s.  I'm glad I worked out the kinks of that on my quilt so that I wouldn't goof up her work of art!  It took just a few loops to get back into the groove, rather than a few feet of quilt top.

Here's a detail shot of 1/2 of the feathers--I quilted the loops down one side of a line, then traced it back, making loops on the other side to complete the feather.  I tried to take a photo of the whole thing, but it, too, is blurry.  I'll try hanging it up tomorrow when it's daylight and see if I can get a better photo.

Emma's driving.  AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!  She's in driving classes that meets every day for 2 hours--the usual discussion of safety and laws and road signs, as well as watching movies and getting tested on stuff.  Outside of class, we take her to various locations to work on controlling speed, turning, parking, reverse, and keeping her foot on the BRAKE!  BRAKE!  BRAAAAAAAAAAKE! (Sorry, family joke.)

Sitting in the car, waiting for the driving classes to get out is boring.  I've read a couple of books recently (mostly Nicholas Sparks, who wrote "the Notebook".  I have now read "The Bend in the Road", "The Best of Me", "The Lucky One", "Safe Haven", "The Guardian", "The Rescue", and am currently reading, "A Walk to Remember".  I also started doing a little needlework to keep myself occupied, copying this drawing (freehand) from a tiny image on my phone.  Not sure what I'm going to do with it in the end...it's a Celtic heron, by the way, and yes, it's missing the feet and that weird feather off its head.  I'll need to remember to bring some black floss to finish that.

On Friday, my friend, Bekah, came over and we worked on making lampworked beads.  These are going to be gifted to the Kings and Queens of the Known World (yes, the SCA Kings & Queens, not Elizabeth II of England, Margarethe of Denmark, Harald V of Norway, Beatrix of the Netherlands, Albert II of Belgium, or Hans Adam II of Lichtenstein...and there are more!  I didn't realize how many Royals are still out there!)  I volunteered to make 20 beads for Drachenwald (Europe), and 20 for Trimaris ... from Wikipedia:

The Kingdom of Trimaris was created in 1985. It was split from the Kingdom of Meridies and is composed of the majority of Florida, as well as Panama, and falsely but humorously, Antarctica. Also, as a triskele (the Trimaris symbol) was sent into space on a shuttle, Trimaris claims space.

Bekah brought her torch and supplies and started making some beads for Trimaris.  In the time she was here, she finished making these seven beads.  She hasn't made any beads for more than a year, so she claims to be a little out of practice.  She has a really cool shaping tool that I'd like to get to help move the glass into place or make the lovely square edges.

Still left to do are 23 more beads, one more quilt for Kathy C., and two tunics for Tyrssen of Middle Kingdom.  The fabric for the tunics are washed and dried, but I still need to lay out, cut and sew the garments, then I can take them with me to driving classes and sew the seams down while I'm waiting in the car.