Grrr, Wanting Something for Nothing & No Appreciation for Fine Hand Quilting....A Rare Speckledhen

[LadyHawkeAvry]

Hahaha, this is my own fabric sorter, Rachel, though I have more in it now.

I need to get organized like that!!!

 

[speckledhen]

Actually, I could use two of them now. Some colorways are getting rather crowded, as you can tell. I have my few off whites and whites in a tub behind there.

 

[LadyHawkeAvry]

I'm fishing through my old pictures, found my first free motion work that was not a repeating pattern. I drew a template on a piece of printer paper and just free motion quilted on top of it. The stitch lengths are anything but even, but were passable enough for a gift piece...



It was part of a larger mainly applique piece, so no one was going to look closely enough at it to see my very wiggly parachute canopy....


forgive the blurry picture........

 

[LadyHawkeAvry]

And, as promised, the horror of free motion quilting with a bent needle.... It did not occur to me for the majority of a 12 X 12 experimental block.... I struggled, while the needle jammed and jumped and was basically not going anywhere where I wanted. No two stitches are the same length, nor is the pattern that is supposed to be smooth and rolling anything vaguely resembling smooth. I had been free motion quilting for a while before I produced this catastrophe.........



Yeah.... pretty much nothing is even close to being the same length, although the random needle jumps are much less noticeable on this spot....

So yes, there are days when you will swear that your sewing machine totally hates you, and that you have somehow angered the quilting gods so that they felt the need to punish you in the worst ways possible.... Such is the world of free motion quilting...

Hopefully;y this makes you feel better about your first attempts!

 

[speckledhen]

You were so sweet to dig those out for me. Yes, it does make me feel better! I may not be able to make it back to my practice until I get Miss Lucille's lovely Dresden Plate quilt finished. I did change up to a new needle and have extras so hopefully I have straight ones!

 

[speckledhen]

I've already spent over 80 hours (had guessed about 75 hrs to finish...WRONG!) on the completion of the Dresden Plate quilt I've mentioned before -the 95 year old grandmother cannot see to finish her hand quilting on this huge and very feminine quilt. I have one short side of the border finished-that alone took 7 1/2 hours and I had to make my own template for it. I felt the bow-and-swag theme would work with the "feel" of this quilt. What do you think? It's about as simple as I could go and it covers in truth two borders, making them into one two-tone 10" border. The good thing is that I still believe I can meet the April 1st deadline I set for myself. The granddaughter is the one who hired me to do the work and she isn't putting a time limit, but I want her grandmother to see it completed, she worked so desperately to get it done herself, until she just could not see.

 

[wyoDreamer]

That is turning out very nice! Wonderful job!
god bless you for taking this task on! I am sure it means so much to the two of them.

 

[speckledhen]

That is turning out very nice! Wonderful job!
god bless you for taking this task on! I am sure it means so much to the two of them.

I got this note back from the granddaughter who hired me to finish the quilt for them after I sent a photo of the border coming along:

Quote:

I'm so happy she likes it! I wish I could see Grandma Lucille's face when she sees it.


I heard a quote from a fellow quilter tonight and wanted to share:
"Comparison is the thief of Joy".

True words.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I am going to have to make a plaque of that quote for my craft room and place it on the door.

 

[speckledhen]

For my fellow quilters: