the dog ate my homework

Okay, so it is the cats, not the dog. I don't even have a dog! I put this quilt sample on the table and by the time I looked through the viewfinder it was covered with cats!


I have been busy planning a wall hanging that I am very enthused about. I was inspired by a line of poetry and designed something simple with a pine tree at the center. The machine quilting will be a strong element in the design.

Here is a mock up of the design so that I could practise machine quilting. The blue rectangle and blue shapes represent the tree. I really wanted to be sure I could machine quilt around the "tree" in a flame pattern before committing to the real quilt.

I have been looking at Leah Day's 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Designs. If you haven't seen it take a look! She has short You Tube videos every day showing her design of the day. She inspired me for this quilt.

The middle photo (orange thread) is the back side of another practice piece for this wall hanging. On the "front" I fused several layers of fabric so that I could tell what the stitching would be like on my final piece. I started with a wavy line of leaves then just tried all sorts of stitching. Can you tell I was having fun? I really like some open space in machine quilting like this piece has. However, my tree quilt will not have any open spaces, just different types of quilting. I hope you can click on the images and really see my quilting.

I used Misty Fuse for this project. I used it once before at a workshop and was less than thrilled with the result. I have heard so much praise for this product that I decided to try again. Now I am a big fan, too! I thought you needed a teflon sheet to put between the iron and the fusible, but I found using parchment paper works just fine.

Got to make a trip to the store to buy thread, then I will get to work on the real quilt. Stay tuned.