Or rows of flowers, as the case may be.
It’s winter, so that means some sort of flu bug or sickness will find its way to me. So, I sat on the sofa and appliqued my flowers while I watched The Social Network. Twice. Once straight through and once with the actors all talking about what they did/thoughtabout while they did their scenes. My husband fixed dinner, cleaned it up (I know–I’m not trading him for anything) and I went upstairs to do lesson prep for today’s teaching–like I had a cotton head or something. Luckily appliqueing doesn’t take much brain power or we’d be in trouble.
I took down the other row this afternoon after class, with all the pins skitty-wampus through the pieces.
I lay them on my table, and trade out the monster, regular pins for tiny applique pins (see the comparison, above). This is a trick I learned from the quilters when I we lived in Virginia for a year. They are accomplished appliquers, all. They also told me to use silk thread, which I do, for the thread just disappears when the piece is stitched on.
I traded out the Wintery Branches quilt in my hallway a few weeks ago for the Valentine Quilt I’d made out of turkey red and cream. I’d always wanted a turkey red-white quilt, and was at a little teensy-tinsy quilt show, where one booth had some turkey red yardage. I didn’t prewash the red fabric, so I guess I’ll never throw it in the laundry. It would probably end up a turkey red-and-pink quilt then.
It’s a fairly simple quilt, with intertwined stripes, but I like it not only for its coloration, but that lean, linear quality. This is also the first quilt I machine quilted. Ever. I started out with cream-colored thread, but hated how it looked when I stippled over the red. (Everyone did a stippling pattern in those days!) I switched out to monofilament thread after unpicking yards and yards of stitching.
Here’s the label on the backside (sorry, I know it’s a little blurry).
The verse reads:
No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.–Burton.
The name of this quilt is Twined Thread, and it was completed July 1997. Of course, you all know it’s in honor of that man who will cook me dinner and do the dishes when I am laying sick on the sofa. Love holds us fast together.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 