Quilting Valentine Quilt

I listened to the Florida Primary Vote returns as I pinned this quilt together for quilting, my WIP for this week.  I have two other quilts that bring up elections when I look at them.

The first is a For-Snuggle-Only flannel quilt (no name on this one), that I tied together on my living room floor while watching the national returns come in from the Bush-Kerry election in 2004, when I lived in Washington DC.  My husband is an avid watcher of the political landscape; I’m more of the I’ll-always-vote-but-wake-me-when-it’s-over type.  But the political spectacle can be interesting to listen to while quilting, my hands busy while the politicians’ mouths are a-going.

The second quilt is this that I began in a Judy Hooworth class, titled D.C. Dots & Dithers.  The political game is always on when you live in Washington, D.C. and I wanted a quilt to contain my memories of living there.

I scanned in my Inauguration Ticket, then printed it out for the top of my label.  Underneath you find. . .

. . . a description of the quilt, and my thoughts on it all.  I used an already-started quilt top, quilted it, then added the labels — and the meaning — as I worked.  Back to the Valentine’s Quilt: I began by stitching in the ditch around all the squares so I could get rid of the pins.  Trying to decide how to quilt is always a hard thing for me.  I scanned through blogs, my Road to California photos, trying to look for ideas.

I drew up a pattern in my quilting notebook (in the turquoise) and began.

A pause in the action for a beautiful sunset, and dinner (husband was at a business dinner), then when I came back up I looked again at the quilting I’d started.  Ugh.  Not for me, so I started unpicking the first part I’d started.  It may have been the thread (I was using a fine thread) or the too-busy nature of the circles, but it had to go.

So now I have two messes Works In Progress: one on the quilt, and one here, at my cutting table.  I’m off to school this morning, and will think about it all when I return.

Thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics for hosting us all on this WIP Wednesday.  While I’m linking back to her blog, you really ought to look at her good news of this week: one of her quilts hit print!  Congrats!

New address for this blog: http://www.opquilt.com, a birthday gift from my son.  Thanks, Peter!  No need to change address books–this new address refers over to this site but is easier to type; both addresses work.