Parisville Weave - Finish!

I originally had hoped for a last week Friday finish.  The quilt was quilted, but man, the binding took me six days!  This is one of my goals on my Q3 FAL list at On the Windy Side.  That is 2 of 5 done, "Better get the lead out," as my dad used to say.  Still, 3 of the 5 goals are full-size quilts.

I've given you some sneak-peeks at this quilt over a couple of posts; well here she is.  I called her Parisville Weave because the fabric is mainly from Tula Pink's Parisville line, and the red rectangles give a woven effect.  The original quilt is "Over and Under" from Quilt Sampler Fall 2011, the first quilt I bought (I've since bought one more) from a magazine I have collected since, oh, 1998.  I've drooled over many, thought, should I? and usually talked myself out of the purchase.

Not this time.  Something about the pale sea foam paired with the vibrant red, placed amongst the other wild prints just called to me.  It might have been the primary photo, where the quilt was thrown over a red sofa.  We have a red sofa in our Florida home...

I didn't care for the way it was quilted in the magazine.  I wanted an Angela Walters-worthy design in those setting triangles.  No red thread there for me.  When I saw this design on a quilt of Kathleen's, I just knew that was it.  It  uses a signature Angela design, framed ribbon candy and elongated figure eights (note the figure eights in Tula's fabric too!) with Angela's dot to dot ideas, but put together in Kathleen style.  I love it.

Note the separate border quilting designs

The borders stumped me for a while.  Treat them as one unit, or two?  I ended up going for two, since they are sewn separately, and border 1 sections do not match up with border 2.  So in the first border I did Links, a design from Angela's book Shape By Shape, (let me just say it was a challenge quilting it sideways!)  I would use it again, as it is very effective, a continuously stitched design, with (bonus!) no marking.
In border 2, I did an Angela dot to dot border design from the same book.  Six passes, lots of ruler work, but what an effect, no?

I hand-stitched the binding down to the back, stitching for a while here and there over the first few days.  I only really sat for an extended length of time Wednesday evening and yesterday morning to get this done!  About 4.5 hours of hand-stitching all told.

I bought the backing from Fat Quarter Shop, on sale for $4.38/yard.  Like crazy-good deal.  Since I needed oh, 6-7 yards, they actually emailed me after I'd ordered to say they had the quantity but it was in two pieces; was I okay with that?  Great service.  No affiliation; I just adore them. :-)

Tried, with limited success, to get the texture to show up.  Maybe a wool batt would've shown more definition, maybe a solid backing...next quilt right?!

I wasn't sold on using this fabric when it arrived for the backing.  It is more blue than I anticipated.  However, I loved the ocean theme, since I thought it might end up living in Florida. :-)  In the end, I do think it works; that cherry pink is evident in Tula's ships fabric, the greens in many of the fabrics on the front.  And the blue?  It is in the turquoise family, so it works for me.

It is a pretty big quilt, so I had a hard time get a straight-on shot of the entire thing.  I laid it on the gravel at my neighbour's walkout basement level, then went up to his ground level, which is up in the air right, since he is built into a hill, (you got that?!) to take the above picture.  I am on his "ground" level in the picture below.

Beautiful view of Lake Erie, no?  My neighbour lives a few doors down from us.  He told me to tell everyone, if you like the quilt....his house is for sale...best view on the street.

I said in a previous post, that I bought this quilt kit before I'd even heard of Tula Pink or Modern Quilting.  I just loved the wild variety of colours here, the simplicity of the piecing, the overal impact of the design.  Who knew.

The sun was not full out; it was a typical southern Ontario summer day of that high haze for most of the day.

This is Kathleen's feather design. I saw it here.

I thought her feathers were super-cool, and since I do feathers on pretty much every single quilt,  Every.  Single.  Quilt.  well, they were perfect on the red polka dot rectangles.

In the floral red rectangles, which were oriented in the opposite direction, to create the woven effect, I did a flying geese design, similar to what Kathleen did in Pat Bravo's quilt here.

I think it enhanced the woven effect.  It separated the two reds, in that those headed "northwest" are the fun feathers, while those headed "northeast" (I'm really channeling my dad in this post) are the FMQ ghost geese.

In all the colourful squares of Tula Pink's gorgeous fabric, I did a Christina Cameli design from her book, Step By Step Free Motion Quilting, called Bauble.  It worked out super and, once again, echoes the shapes in some of Tula's fabrics.

Doesn't the Coats and Clark variegated thread look cool, at about the halfway mark of the 600 yard spool?

I used four different colours of threads, so it was a pain to constantly switch four times with each winding of the quilt, but I think it was so worth it in the end.  I lost track of my bobbins but I believe it was 4, maybe 5 pre-wound 215 yards each.

My label, as usual, applied to the backing prior to quilting:

I love this quilt so much.  I'm so glad I went for it!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Over and Under from Quilts Sampler Fall 2011
Size: pre-washing: 74 3/4 X 86 3/4"; post-washing: 72 3/8 X 84 3/8"
Fabric: top: Tula Pink "Parisville", some Art Gallery, the floral red is Anna Maria Horner "Innocent Crush"; backing is "Tropical Dreams" by SPX Fabrics
Batting: Warm 'n Natural
Quilted: on my Avanté, Avril
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann, quilted with Isacord 40 wt threads in #5450 (green), 3951(blue), 1704 (red), and Coats and Clark 40 wt variegated 100% polyester in pastels (Avril loved both of these quilting threads)
Number of Stitches: 289 817!  Thanks to Jasmine, I am now tracking the number of stitches on each quilt.  My Avanté has 3 703 952 stitches in her lifetime.  Some are from the previous owner, who had her for not quite 2 months, but the vast majority are mine.

I'm linking up today with TGIFF, today at My Quilt Infatuation, (thanks, Kelly, for hosting), and with Crazy Mom Quilts, and with Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

This is also going to get linked on Saturday to Pink Doxies' Pet Project Show!  I am so proud of this baby.

I'll also be linking this up to the Q3 FAL at the end of September.  Two more big quilts on my list...I can do it, I can do it, yes I can!

"that happy in the heaven of earth"

I got a book of poems by Mary Oliver out of our library a couple of days ago.  I love Mary Oliver.  With age, I think, comes a real affinity with, a real understanding of poetry.  Every word counts, painting a panorama in your mind.  I first heard of Mary Oliver from "The Road Home", an excellent 1-hour program on CKUA, a listener-sponsored radio station in Alberta. You can stream it, and you won't be sorry.  A more diverse mix of music on a public radio station just does not exist out there.  But I digress a little.

Here is Mary Oliver's poem, which I read this morning, entitled "Luke".

I had a dog
  who loved flowers.
    Briskly she went 
      through the fields,

yet paused
  for the honeysuckle
    or the rose,
      her dark head

and her wet nose
  touching
    the face
      of every one

with its petals
  of silk,
    with its fragrance
      rising

into the air
  where the bees,
    their bodies
      heavy with pollen,

hovered---
  and easily
    she adored
      every blossom,

not in the serious,
  careful way
    that we choose
      this blossom or that blossom---

the way we praise or don't praise---
  the way we love
    or don't love---
      but the way

we long to be---
  that happy
    in the heaven of earth---
      that wild, that loving.

I feel this way towards quilts!  I could figuratively (and literally too, let's be honest) dive into them, head first, loving them all without judgement, without comparison.  Each one holds its own beauty; each one has been made with love, has been finished with wonder and pride and satisfaction.  Even the old 6" red and black squares wool quilt that was tied and made by my grandmother is worthy of wild love.  How I wish it was still around...the weight of it--!!  I recall many a time seeing my Uncle Bob taking a much-deserved nap on the couch under it...up with the sun, in the fields, "choring" cows, never-ending, back-breaking work.

Scraps of Calm has all her stitch in the ditch stabilizing done with Gutermann thread, her meandering done with Sulky Blendables in blue/teal/violet variegated, and some more intricate quilting started in the zigzags with Isacord.  I had to make a pitstop after yoga and dogwalking/lunch with John and Brandy today though, to buy a deeper shade of green thread for the mottled fabric.  I love the way the Isacord is stitching up!  I love the way this quilt is coming together!  Last night on FaceTime, Brady said, "Nana, know what you should knit on there?   Your name!"  He loves that I quilted his name on his I Spy quilt very prominently, outlining it with pebbling.  I also quilted it into the meandering on that quilt as well as on his Christmas quilt--our secret, so we always know they are HIS quilts, is what I told him.  What a profound and appreciative child to think of ensuring that I do that on my own quilt.  He also asked if I was going to sleep under it last night.  Incredible boy.  He's 6.

We also had to make a second pitstop at Alma Sue's, my, well, one of my LQS's!  Deep in the Amish area of Sarasota, I love going in there, see the ladies handquilting around the frame, hear the Dutch (I think) being spoken.  I was on the hunt for some flannel for the backing for Uncle Bob's quilt.  Talk about being, to paraphrase Mary, "wildly happy" when I found THIS:

Uncle Bob is, always has been, and always will be a horse lover.  This is flannel.  It is masculine.  It is not juvenile. It is perfection.

What's with the pink and bluey-lavender fabrics?  Um ya.  They were $5/yard!  And they are in the Tula Pink City Sampler I'm making, as well as the one I made last winter, Over and Under.  I'm nearly out of scraps of the pink, and I'd never seen the blue, so 1/2 yard each for now just jumped onto the cutting table (ya, I might be going back! I'm thinking binding...backing maybe...she had a ton of each of these).

So, like Luke, I am bounding around with happiness and anticipation at finishing up Scraps of Calm, quilting Dell and June, and maybe sewing a few more of those 100 Tula Pink blocks!!

Confession:  I really am "that happy in the heaven of earth--that wild, that loving" of my life, and I feel so very blessed.  Thankful on Thursday.  Indeed.

Quilting Definitely IS More Fun Than Housework!

Cynthia is sooo right.  I didn't get much done in the sewing world or the housework world today!  I spent some time on the computer, visiting a few blogs, and responding to comments on mine.  I am tickled pink to have two of my finished scrap-a-palooza quilts as well as the flimsy for another pictured on Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework!

I could have sewed for a bit this afternoon when I got home from my yoga class.  Instead, I chose to join my good friend Jude next door, reclining on her oh-so-comfy lounge chairs on the patio.  Always a good decision to spend time with her.

I started vacuuming, later in the afternoon, but didn't get it finished.  Instead, I had a phonecall from my daughter, Dayna, which was much better.  Then off I went to teach yoga.

I could have finished vacuuming this evening, but I chose instead to go downstairs and sew for a little bit.  I'm loving making these cute little 6" blocks from Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.  This is the quilt I didn't realize I was going to make.  And I am making two.  Remember I said my Higher Self must know what I'm doing?!  Here are the latest ones:

I'm using scraps from her Parisville line and mixing it with some of the Acacia line

I chose to make the blue and green one this evening instead of finish the vacuuming.  Another good decision for today!  So far I've made six blocks.  94 to go, LOL!  I was able to renew the book out of our library.  I think I know what I will be buying with the remainder of a gift card I have.

I did get my two walks in with Rocco, a long one this morning, and such a beautiful morning, well, entire day, it was!  This evening, on our shorter walk, I saw a groundhog.  These are entirely foreign to me, as we didn't have them in Alberta.  They are so cute!  Rocco was oblivious this time.  However, he did find a treasure:

which, after smelling and inspecting thoroughly and only picking it up after I nudged it, giving him permission, he proudly carried all the way home!  He had to go and show Jude.  She had to show me a comic strip from yesterday's paper...

Talk about timing!

Quilting, visiting, walking, yoga. . . all much better use of my time than doing housework/schmousework I'd say!

This 'n that

Slow going today, but I played a little (avoiding appliqué? moi?):

I got Tula Pink's book out of our county library!  Until I made Over and Under, I did not know how much I LOVE Tula Pink's fabric.  I'd heard of her, and admired her drawings and talent, but hadn't seen her fabric.  I had the kit for Over and Under (first and only project I've ever bought from Quilt Sampler, and I've bought that magazine for well over a decade.  I made it this winter, and lo and behold, it's Tula Pink's Parisville line!!  Now that also has importance of the "Twilight Zone" variety, because as anyone who knows me knows, I have always loved all things France!

These are 6 1/2" blocks, so those 4 centres in the log cabin-style block are 1" finished.  Teeny!  That is block #1.  The first block I did I just let the book fall open, and it landed on #38, which is the triangle one.  These are made out of leftovers from Over and Under.  Think I've started another quilt. . .   And why am I making two?  I'm not sure, but I listened to my inner gut.  I, nope, my higher self has a bit of a plan here, but it's top secret still, even to me, lol.

I pieced the backing for Summer Breeze.  As of tonight after yoga class, Skyping with Brady, and watching half an episode of "Call the Midwife" (loooove that show, and the Tigers got rained out, so yay, I was able to watch a little TV) it is loaded onto the Avanté (pieced some batting today too, love it when I can make some big pieces from other projects useful).  I have a pretty good idea as to how I'm going to quilt it, and doodled around for 1/2 hour today just to be sure.

Bella had to get some kitty fur onto it too:

Look at her twinkle toes stretched out!  How can you get exasperated with such an adorable posing girl?!

Okay tomorrow I am GOING to tackle the appliqué on my Round Robin!