Cups and saucers

Slowly but surely, I am finishing the binding work that has stacked up. This is the one I did today. Longer ago than I am comfortable in admitting, I got my teacup quilt back from Deb Levy, who did the most amazing quilting job on it. It was much more than a collaborative design - I gave a few ideas, but she selected all the special motifs that make it so spectacular. I would never have been able to design the quilting that she did. Here it is, in my den: The picture is so washed out from the flash; someday I will try to get a better one in natural light. I want to show off the wonderful quilting. Each teacup has a motif quilted on it that relates to the fabrics in that block. For example, this one has a sailboat because of the lighthouses on the saucer rim. There are leaves and flowers and swirls and dots and feathers, each different. All the cups have a swirl of steam rising from the rim, and the blocks have the background checked off in tiny diamonds. The sashing also has a figurative steam swirl. And the background print is divided off and quilted to point up each part:

I just can't express how happy this quilt makes me. Deb, you're a genius.

Oh wow!

My quilt came back from Deb today, and let me say - her work is exquisite. She has already posted some pictures and I will make more tomorrow, but photos can't convey how beautiful her work is. The exacting parallel quilting and diamond checks, the motif quilted onto each teacup that is derived from the fabric pattern, the little swirls above the cups signifying the steam rising from the tea, the beautiful swirls in the sashing...I'm blown away!

Deb, you're a genius!

Show and tell

Here's a little show and tell for a Monday morning. This is my teacup block swap quilt. Because the 3 blocks I received were so different in fabric and execution than mine, I decided to use the nine of mine that I got back on the front and inset two of the three others on the back (one went to a bloggy friend). I found the Moda "Bistro" line fabric and it was just what I needed. Now, it's a coffee cup quilt for my husband, the coffee drinker.



Here's a detail of the border. Love the design.










And a picture of the back, showing the two swap blocks.












Here's the Thimbleberries Club 2002 spring wall quilt, finally appliqued. I will be sending all four of the Thimbleberries designs to be quilted this week. I think I will have a special quilting job on the coffee cup quilt since it's applique.

Teacup Block Swap

I received my swapped blocks today, and frankly, the participation was disappointing. Only three other people submitted blocks, so I got three new blocks and nine of mine returned to me. I like my blocks and am going to make a wallhanging of them, but I so wanted to see a wide spectrum of other quilters' work.

This was sent by Diana in England. She does beautiful precise machine applique using a small blanket stitch. The color is so nice; it reminds me of Hammersley China's "Victorian Violets" pattern. (Gee, I must watch too much "Cash in the Attic" on BBC America!)

This is from Chandra in Montana. Her hand applique stitches are soooooo small, it puts me to shame! Lovely job, Chandra!

This is by Betty in Seattle. Isn't the purple floral fabric gorgeous? She used a small machine satin stitch for her block. The black thread makes the design "pop". Nice touch.

I'm really looking forward to the next swap!

"You're giving those away???!!!"

That's what I keep getting from people when I show them my teacup swap applique blocks. They can't believe that I hand appliqued those blocks and am going to blithely stuff them in an envelope and mail them away for strangers. I keep explaining that I will get an equal number of blocks back, but that doesn't seem to mitigate their reaction. It's something about the applique, I guess. I've given away any number of pieced quilts without this much outcry. I admit that doing them by hand makes it more, shall we say, personal? It's easy to get attached to something you've handled, pored over and examined like hand applique. Right now, they're safely bundled in their mailer waiting for next month to fly to Texas. But, I swear, if one more person says it, it's going to make me rethink the whole thing!

Teacup swap blocks are done!

I have finally been let out of teacup limbo. All twelve blocks are done, pressed, trimmed and ready to mail. I have posted photos of individual blocks as they were completed, but here's a look at all twelve together.

I'm kind of psyched. I love them all. It's hard to give them away! That's about 50 hours of work hanging there. All are hand appliqued using freezer paper templates, and it was more work than I anticipated. I am eager to send them off and see what comes back to me. It will be a while, though, because the swap doesn't end until June.

Now there's time to work on the BOM blocks, the gift baby quilt and of course my own diamond log cabin. It's supposed to be chilly and rainy here tomorrow, so it will be a sewing day.

I've been busy

Here's four more teacup blocks. Twelve were planned, so there's four to go, but I'm almost at the point where I want to curl up in a ball and whimper "Make it stop! Make it stop!" I'm hitting the wall teacupwise. I just have to perservere.

Neatness counts

I had a funny thought this evening, sitting here appliqueing teacups. I can't wait to receive my swap blocks because I am dying to see the reverse side of the applique! I've seen plenty of pictures of applique posted on blogs, most of it better than mine, and now I'm curious about how the reverse sides look. Do you hide your starting knots? Do you tuck in your thread tails and bury your end knots? These blocks can be done many ways, and I'm sure many will be machine appliqued, but I hope I see a few hand stitched blocks to compare.

I once knew a woman who belonged to a needlework guild. She did blackwork embroidery and, honest to goodness, the back side of the work was as neat as the front side! It was absolutely incredible. The fact that she made the back look that good was a sign of her dedication to her craft.

I've been a solitary quilter all my sewing life. I've not had the opportunity for much constructive criticism. I have given quilts to family and friends, but most of the recipients were not quilters themselves and, while they appreciated the gift and the work that went into it, they certainly did not have the technical knowledge to evaluate the quality of my piecing or quilting. (Now, when I gave a bed quilt and a lap quilt to Mom, it made me a little nervous because I knew that she knew what she was looking at!) Nonetheless, I don't get sloppy just because the people who will get the quilt wouldn't notice if the pieced corners met exactly or not.

The instructions for this block swap specify that the maker tag the blocks with name, email address, city and state. I don't know if those tags will stay with the blocks, but I hope that they do. This is an open invitation to anyone who receives my blocks to email me and give me an honest critique of my work.

Another Teacup

Before I turn in for the night with a stack of quilting magazines and a Sudoko puzzle, I wanted to show the latest teacup block. It looks better in person than in the photo, because the colors are soft, but I like it.

I completed about half of another block before my eyes said "Enough". I was sewing at the work table in my husband's computer room while he was online with his cousin playing out some sort of quest on Guild Wars. Don't ask me. I don't know.

Teacup number three

Here's where my afternoon went. Now I really need to start dinner!

Another teacup block completed

Here's another teacup swap block completed. It somehow looks better in person than in the picture, which is a little washed out. I took it on the corner of my desk and the overhead light was on. I also thought I'd like that green cup better with the saucer but now that it's done, I'm not sure.

Those little triangle plate holder pieces are making me crazy. It's hard to get them really pointy on the ends due to their size. The first block I did was better. This is just passable.

Ugh, it's midnight, time to turn it. Two hours of applique and my eyes are just shot.

One down, eleven to go

Here's block number one for the teacup block swap. I'm planning to do twelve of them, but as the deadline looms I may cut that number back. It took about three hours to do the freezer paper applique prep for the cup and plate stands (the plate circles were already prepared) and applique it all by hand. Optimist that I am, I really did not think how long these would take!

It's pretty, though. Hope someone likes it as much as I do.

Teacup Block Swap and chitchat

Fat Cat Patterns has a new tea cup block swap starting that I found out about from Joan's blog. I decided to join in even though I'm mostly a solitary quilter and have been for, oh, thirty years. I don't belong to any guilds or groups, and have never done a block swap, a round robin or a mystery quilt (didn't even know what these things were until a few years ago. I just sewed!). And, it's applique, so I can keep practicing.

Slowly but surely, I'm getting happier about the concept of applique, but still wish that I could do needle turning like Mom. I have to cut out all the freezer paper patterns, fuse and baste before I am even ready to start the applique process. I'm still all about the speed! Mom just draws the shape on the fabric, snips it out, and away she goes. You don't want to know what my points and curves look like when I do that.

Synchronicity was in play again this week. I spent Sunday folding and sorting all my stash just in time to pillage through it to select fabrics for twelve teacup blocks, three pieces plus background for each. If I hadn't done all that sorting it would have been a chore, but now it was just pull down a box, pick, pick, pick, match, match, match, done. It would have been even easier if the fabric were folded on shelves like so many pictures I have seen in other blogs like Morah's and that to-die-for room from "Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space" that Joan has posted on her organizing blog. However, I have lots more small pieces than large cuts and the stacks don't stay neatly stacked. Tried it and discarded the idea. I'll stay with my big plastic boxes, although it's like weightlifting each time I rummage for a new project!

Limiting the selection to just twelve blocks is difficult. There are all those colorful pieces, fairly begging to be included! A good thing about the project is that the teacups will use up small pieces that I couldn't bring myself to throw out but weren't enough for more than a couple of pieces in a scrap quilt.

This is a good take-with-me-while-visiting project, because I can cut out three or four and pack them for my trip to Mom's next week (weather permitting - you just don't know anymore. I've driven I-75 over Jellico Mountain in the snow once too often). She turns in for the night early, really early, so I'm left sitting there alone until I can get to bed. Not criticism, she's in her 80's, she can sleep when she wants to. But she also gets up way earlier than I have been since I retired, and I can almost hear her in my sleep pacing around the kitchen waiting for me to get up. Having a sewing project will be just the ticket to fill the evenings. Turn on HGTV in the morning room and sit at the table and stitch. (FYI - I call it a morning room, but don't know what else to label it. It's a room that was a former porch off the kitchen with a dining table, couch, television and her desk. There's a real dining room, so this is like a breakfast room with extras. Thus, morning room.)

I also get to take my brother's quilt to him because they live in the same town. It's an early birthday present - very early, about 3 months, but I want to go ahead and deliver it. I'm kind of pumped about it. It's his favorite color and I haven't given them a quilt since Christmas 1992.

Oh, and, my brother-in-law seemed to be absolutely gobsmacked that I would make the red quilt for him. That's why I do this. The enjoyment of seeing someone examine a quilt I have made and marvel at all the fabrics and the patterns and the stitching. It's such a cool feeling to please a loved one so much!