wip wednesday

Thank you, Lee @ freshly pieced, for pushing me along.  It's great to have little goals that help us get to the big goals.  

I put this fabric in my "give away" pile the other day, and at the last minute, pulled it out to back the quilt "teakwood" I've been working on.  The colors are perfect.  It's a bit wonky, but I like it.

Here's a peek at the back.   A little unconventional, but after cleaning out and organizing my sewing room and my drawers of fabric, I was determined to use what I had at home.

I had a long flight earlier in the week, and took the opportunity to read Angela Walter's new book cover to cover.  I am freshly determined to try new designs in my free motion quilting.  I highly recommend her book if you like modern quilts and like to free motion quilt them yourself.   I have a list of new things that I am dying to try.

I started quilting "teakwood".  This is my new favorite quilting design.  Angela calls it "back and forth".  It shrinks up nice and puts lots of texture into your quilt.  The tricks to making it look good, are spacing the rows evenly, and turning just before the seam line.

Angela likes to quilt using the same color thread as the fabric.  I have some questions about this, like where does she get her patience to change the thread every few minutes, and she uses a long-arm!!  I had to make a madd dash to Joanne's today to stock up on thread.  I found one of my first quilts that still has a lot of empty spaces for quilting. 

Also on my list this week . . . pincushions.

to end up like this one:

Those are my grandma's spools.  

AND . . . it's a big birthday month in our family, so I have a purse full of cards and pens trying to catch everyone to sign cards.  They see me coming and they SCATTER LIKE ANTS!  Until it's time to get their card with all the funny original remarks from their siblings, then they thank me for making the effort.  I'm VERY excited about the generic gift they're all getting this year.  All the same. . . easy peasy . . . DONE!

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