Yeah, I’m picking out my coins. I can’t get them uniform enough so they’ve gotta go. Lemme tell you, picking out something that contains to much backtracking isn’t fun, yeesh.

anyway, on to the orange peel

I’ve been in hell all this week. Seriously, worst week in a while.

However…

and

Looka’ what i learneded

So I was trying to see if i liked this giganto motif in the corners and i can’t really draw with my mouse, so i scanned the motif and superimposed it over the picture!

Sweet. I do like it, but i’ll have to draw it again to make it neater.

I might do the pearls in the spines, but seriously, i bet my wholecloth has at least a thousand in the spines. Also on the wholecloth front, I’m pretty sure i’m on my last bobbin for the motifs. I have the bottom border to do and then it’s on to the fills. Phew. PROGRESS.

Lonestar and Seahorse feathers?

I told my mom these looked like seahorses and she agreed. I’m still trying to work out the spine, but I’m sorta into them

See I put them on my whiteboard and then properly draft one in my sketchbook. I’m still not completely happy, buy they’re getting there.

I am however completely happy with the corner triangles for my lonestar.

I have an insane motif brewing for those huge spaces

And! I spent two hours on my wholecloth today, almost ready for the fills! My mom is in New Orleans and I’d like to have something to show her when she returns.

i finally got the fabric dyed for my setting triangles (after like 4 tries) I’m pretty happy with it, now i have to figure out how to cut a 31 inch square. Hmm.

This quilt is gonna be HOTTTT

Wow it’s been a while.

Now, hmm, point or no point?

My setting triangles would be about 30 inches which is really big i think, but still, sorta cool to play a motif for that area.

I’m leaning towards on point. Also, while pieclique is a fabulous way to do half square triangles, it KILLS the arms. I think my iron may be REALLY heavy. I was doing 1 inch finished triangles and that was just wayyyy too much work for me. These are two inch which is a little easier, but still. Also, I’d appreciate no smartass comments about piecing them the traditional way. I can’t do that. Trust me.

I think I’ll go with great big brown triangles to set it. I want the lonestar to have a small border to even everything out then the triangle border, then the setting triangles, thin, bigger border and then a wide border for lots of quilting

I seriously can’t piece a 4 patch.

However! For some reason I have no problem piecing 45 degree diamonds all on the bias no less! Don’t ask me how because I assume the devil had something to do with it.

Anyway, I’ve been turning these damn 1.5 inch circles ALL night. I was talking to my BFF Roger and I determined it took me about 3 minutes to cut out the foundation, paste it down, trim it, and turn the edges. This is Sharon Schamber’s method of appliqué which meant that to do the circles in all the diamonds would have taken me six hours which doesn’t count ANY stitching.

Yeah, I’m far too pretty to spend six hours of my life turning circles and then probably 3 days sewing them down. Wayyyy too pretty. I’m doing it a little differently than she does. I did heat set the foundation, but I didn’t heat set as i turned each edge. I have an 80$ iron and I’m tired of cleaning off burnt glue every ten minutes. So I turned them all then heat them all at once between some foil which actually made them a lot smoother, I guess because it made the ironing hotter? Who knows.

She also recommends a stitch length of 1.0 and a width of .9.  Yeah, I don’t think so. That looks like mono filament satin stitching.  I did a length of 2.0 and a width of 1.3. Not only does it look better but it goes MUCH faster.

I’m still not understanding how she’s fixing her stops and starts. She said she uses the fix stitch (we have the same machine) and mine is making a rather big knot when I use the knot. Whatever. I’m working it out.

I’ve drafted the corner setting squares (they’re curved seams) and I’m drafting the triangles tomorrow. Then I just have to figure out some borders and whether or not it’ll end up on point like my last lonestar.

I think it might end up on point too! Big corner triangles for lots of fancy quilting!

Lonestar!

I’m so happy with this. Now I can move on the the appliqué. Though I’ll probably work a little on my wholecloth before I tackle 128 circles.

Woo.

I do more than just quilt.

I’m determined to no longer be a craptacular piecer.  I’m also worn on on quilting my wholecloth, so I took a break and started to think about a quilt I wanted to make.

It’s a lonestar in blue and brown hand dyes. I can see it perfectly in my head and it’s totally awesome.

Design

1. My nails aren’t dirty, i’m just a hardcore dyer.

2. How awesome is this quilt lookin’

The video is mostly about designing and i let you have a peek inside my sketchbook, perhaps one day i’ll dig out my feather book and flip through a few pages