Happy Ash Wednesday

I totally forgot to wish you a Happy Mardi Gras yesterday.  New Orleans, Metairie and Kenner shut down, but we don't here in Baton Rouge.  And for people who work for national companies, it is just another workday.

When Frank worked for the various incarnations of Dresser they would secure a place on St Charles Avenue and cordon off a street corner to set up port-a-potties, food and an open bar.  They would have customers meet them down there. From that corner they would catch the three big Mardi Gras Day parades.

Can't beat that with a stick!!  If you are going to do Mardi Gras, that is the way to go!!  Most people aren't that lucky though.  I would go sometimes, but Frank spent time with his customers and I found it more exciting to stay home and sew.

Like I did yesterday while Frank worked.    At The Quilt Haus I was able to get the 4 quilts trimmed. Well, maybe it was 3.

The Breaking Bad, the T-Shirt Backs, Southwest, The Saint.  Nope, 4.

Sad thing is, I STILL have not reduced my list!   I am just moving them up the ladder!  Still, it is progress.

I have a few tops and backs sitting by the long arm to be quilted.  And I got two borders on the Batik Curves.  I need a cool name for that one so I will have to see what is going on in my world.  Maybe I should call it Hillary's Downward Spiral.

Candy's Ripples Quilt

I can't find a more finished photo, and it is at The Quilt Haus right now.  the pattern is Reflections and I free cut the curves.  While I was making this at the retreat in 2013, Candy was making the exact same quilt called Ripples but using a specific ruler and placing them differently!  There are really no new ideas I guess.  Neither of us were working from a kit, but our fabric selections were very very similar!  She just didn't put the corners on hers.


I am really having to dig deep to find some of the quilt tops buried deep in the recesses of the quilt room!   But they are just as exciting as any of the new ones!  Sometimes even more so!

Breaking The Rules For Off The Wall Friday

One of my resolutions this year was to play with Nina-Marie more often with her Off The Wall Posts. 

She is an incredible artist.  And when she started her Off the Wall connections I was really excited about being able to connect with some other great artists and quilters as well.

Her post this week is about Breaking The Rules.  In Your Art.  (Not by speeding and flipping off the officer and landing in jail!)  You need to read it. 

So here is my Rule Breaking piece and its story.

I started it maybe 8 years ago in a class by a local quilter named Sherry.  I really like Sherry, who sometimes pushes the envelope herself.  But she never really really breaks out.  One of the things she does is takes interesting quilts and designs them as miniatures.  Her work is impeccable. 

Sherry was doing some radical (for Baton Rouge anyway) work with the Angle Play templates.  And I was way ready to move out of the old ways and into some new and exciting stuff.   She took me for a few steps into that journey!

The Angle Play blocks are interesting, but they are so labor intensive!  You have to have the right template, on the right piece of fabric at the right angle and in the right universe.  So many rules.

And I did not use the traditionally accepted fabrics.  In fact, I even cut  up a skirt that i had made for Carrie that she hated and never wore!  It is the flowers to the left here.  Psychedelic!

The blocks from the class sat around for a while hoping for more blocks to join them.  When that seemed unlikely, at some point in the timeline they got put together into a center and an inner border.  And I found a neat little batik print that  framed the whole thing.

Then further down the timeline, I finally chose a backing.  So now it relocated to the dining room where the long arm resides. That is one way to move it out of the quilt room!

So when I had a wild hair to quilt something, I wanted a simple piece.  I grabbed the Angle Play Stars and snapped it on the frame.  (Love those Red Snappers!)

And I stared at it.  Nothing.

I ended up with a straight line uneven quilting all the way across the quilt.  When I took it off the frame last night, I found it still needed something.  

So I pt it back on in the opposite direction this morning.  I like it now.

In anyone else's hands, it would be gotten curves to offset the straight angular blocks; the thread would have blended with the pieces; and it would have precisely matched to make sure each line was perpendicular every seam.

Well, you know me!  I broke those rules! 

And I have named it Breaking Bad!