9/11 quilting marathon

The TV was all about the 9/11 tenth anniversary, so I switched it on to listen to while getting some work done. I'm sure you will always remember where you were that horrifying day...I was in Germany, visiting my military daughter who was returning to work that very day after a two month maternity leave. It was supposed to be a meet and greet with the new grand daughter, but I ended up in a lock down situation on base with a toddler, a baby and a dog!! After a few days, my daughter was able to come home and we had one evening together before I had to fly back to the States. I was on the first domestic flight out of Frankfurt to the USA after 9/11. The pilot thanked us for being brave and flying with him to Chicago, and we all clapped and wept some more. I thought about that today, and wept again for the innocent souls taken by terror ten years ago. The quilting is a balm to my own soul, and I guess that is why I do it. Here are the quilts of 9/11/11. Peace.

Big quilt exercised my brain!!

Last week I worked on a quilt that really made me think outside my box for how to quilt it. It has BIG open spaces that screamed for quilting, as well as beautiful hand applique. The pillow tuck was the hardest part. I traced the applique motifs and made some plastic templates to use. I marked all the motifs on the area and quilted them in, removed the marks and did background fill. It took one whole day to do this!! This was day 2 since day one was spent stitching in the ditch and around all the applique with invisible thread. Day 3 I tackled the 15 inch wide borders. Deb Levy taught us to divide and conquer, so that is what happened. Two more days of quilting and filling the backgrounds and I was finished!! The quilt is to be a bedspread for a queen size bed, but I have a king bed so the picture isn't an accurate depiction of how it will eventually look. Anyway, my customer has her work cut out for her just applying the binding, don't you think?!