Thread Spiral

Choosing threads for all the colors of the background of my SAT 26 quilt, Cumulative Spiral.

Looking for not exactly matching, but pretty close.

It's always fun to go through my quilting threads and search for the right colors to use.

 I think it turned out pretty well. Now that the background is all done, it's time to do the rest of the work on the reminder of the quilt design.

Dyed Threads

 I ordered some new hand-dyed embroidery threads from Deb Lacativa's Dirty Threads online shop. Aren't they beautiful? It was very very hard to choose which set to order, there were so many that were quite tempting. 

I'm planning to use these on the rest of the Snake in the Garden stitching that I have left to do. That made me chuckle when I saw the two stamps on the envelope celebrating the Year of the Snake. An auspicious year to finish up that long-in-process piece.

Spring to Summer Stitching

 

All finished, here's all the thread colors that I used in quilting the challenge quilt for BAMQ. They look like Easter egg colors, don't they? Makes sense, as the quilt is titled: "Spring Speaking to Summer."

Some close-ups

These are very fun fabrics to quilt.

The bottom or summer part of the quilt.

And that's the whole thing done. Now to figure out what I'm doing for the edges. Binding or not? We shall see. I may try doing an envelope or facings instead.

SF Stitching

 

I actually sat in the sunny window in our hotel room in SF and stitched on my go-to handwork project, Snake in the Garden. I used the newest color thread that I had at hand, thanks to the shopping I'd just done at Britex Fabrics. The green sashiko thread was used to fill in part of the dark blue leaf between the gold print. 

These are the two sashiko thread colors that I bought at Britex. I chose them because I hadn't seen colors like that on offer in other shops.

Ready To Quilt

Running Out of Rain Cloud is all ready to quilt.

I used this fun print for the backing (not at all pieced for once!) because it actually kind of goes with the solid colors used. I used fusible Hobbs 80/20 batting as per usual for non-bed-sized quilts. Now to figure out how to quilt this thing. All I know is I'm starting out with hot pink thread...
 

Pictures of Plans

 

Alll of that new fabric has been washed and put away now, all that's left behind is a big ol' tangle of cut off thread tangles and lots of new projects to do.

It was a lot to put away, but I did take some more pictures of fabric groupings, etc. This is mostly just for reference for future projects.

I was looking more closely at some of the Tilda fabric that I'd purchased. This was a fat quarter which I hadn't unrolled in the store as it was tied. What is it about this designer that I like so much? I think it's the color palette as well as the combination of stylized yet not too abstracted flower forms with backgrounds like these polka dots. The dots are not just an impartial regimented background though, the placement of individual dots follow the shapes of the flowers instead of being in a grid.

Same idea here with the background of various sizes of ovals. and dots. This way of doing a background subtly emphasizes and also integrates the foreground figures. This is a lovely color palette as well. 

I confirmed that the chambray fat quarters that I bought will go well with the Tilda Bloomsville fabrics I'd 

gotten on a whim at the beginning of the year. 

I saw a quilt at the San Mateo County Fair that used them in a lantern pattern, which was great, but I want to do something different.  Maybe something like this big flower block pattern, so I can fussy cut the figures on the Bloomsville fabrics to be centered in the flower centers.

These are the group of proposed Medallion Quilt fabrics, with the "focus fabric" or maybe "instigating or inspiring" fabric there at the top. I've been wanting to make a medallion type of quilt for a while and SBAMQ just held a class that I almost signed up for as well. It's been fun to see what people in the class have come up with. I want to try to design one on EQ8, perhaps as a starting point, but maybe it would just help me improvise.

And finally a group picture of the embroidery threads that I bought. They don't really go together do they? Well, they're really for filling in the empty spots in my available color wheel.

Thread Choosing Time

 

I'm planning to get the quilting done on the 4 I's quilt at the retreat this weekend. 

I don't want to bring my entire case of Aurifil as it opens up too easily, so I'm picking a big range to cover all the colors.

There are a lot of shades involved in this quilt.

Of course I'm taking these pictures in the late afternoon so there are Many Shadows.

I think this is going to be a fairly easy quilting project.

It's a pile of thread already and I haven't even gotten the grays out yet.