Ginger's Assistance in the Sewing Room

Well, this weekend has really been productive. I've finished two quilts and got a third one ready to be quilted. Ginger has been lending me a hand with measuring the fabric and pulling to get the cross grain straight. She's not done too bad for her first lesson. :-)

Japanese Puzzle Class

Well, today I finally finished a class I took through a Yahoo sewing group called the Japanese puzzle. I learned how to do it, but I ended up hating it, so I stopped early on and threw away all the left over pieces. I decided to take what I had completed and turn it into a small wall hanging or table topper instead of a full size quilt. I found this quilt very confusing and just not that pretty, but staying within the idea of uneven pattern design, I put uneven black corners on it and then attached it to a multicolored tan-brown square background and quilted and bound it, so it would be done and I could move on to a more "fun" quilt top. So here is my sloppy Japanese Puzzle quilt topper.

Moving on to something much more fun, I spent much of the afternoon lovin' and playing with Ginger Belle. She is so cute and does the funniest things. She has a lot of white under her chin and down her chest and tummy that is pretty unusual for a red dachshund. Here's a new photo of her resting in my lap that Charlie took today. She has gained a whole pound so now she weighs 4 1/2 pounds. She played out of her cage a lot today and had no accidents, so she's really doing well. Won't be too long before I get to pick up the other baby and start training all over again. I can hardly wait.

New Baltimore Bliss Square

Well, I finally finished the April block for my Baltimore Bliss quilt. It was the most difficult one yet. Half way through it, I tore it all out and started over again with a little different method and now I'm really glad I did. It looks so much better. I started May's block last night and hope to complete it by this weekend. Then I'll be caught up until June 1. I still have a stack of UFO's (Unfinished Objects) to work on too.

I'm afraid I'm not getting in as much sewing time now with the new puppy to train. She's so cute I just have to play with her too. In a couple more weeks we can pick up the other puppy. Then I'm not sure if I'll get much sewing done at all for awhile. That's okay though; I want them well trained for the many long and happy years that we will have together. Dachshunds are such great little doggie friends. I know Ginger will like it too when she has another puppy to play with. Shasta doesn't like to play with her at all; I guess she's just getting too old (14 y/o now). Ginger has so much energy to burn, and you can be sure I can't keep up with her either. She does love to play fetch and that seems to be an easy way to exercise her in the house anyways. Outside she just chases Shasta all over the yard. It's so funny to see such a little thing chasing away the big dog. I'll try and get a photo of it and post it later on.

Spinning Star

Today I finished quilting and on putting the borders on my Spinning Star wall hanging that I started at the April Retreat. This quilt was quite a hit at the quilting retreat. It seems like the further away you get, the more it really plays with your head and eyes. It's quite a unique sensation. I bought some beautiful hand-dyed fabrics while on the retreat that I used for the borders. Warning: I don't recommend staring at this quilt for very long.

Bluebird Quilt Finished

Well, today was a very busy day. My oldest daughter and her 2 kids got in around midnight last night for a funeral here in town, and I stayed up waiting for them, so we all slept in till around 9:30 this morning. They she and the kids and me and Ginger headed out to the farmer's market in town, to a quilt store, to Gray's Lake for a walk, and to Waterworks park Arboretum to see all the beautiful blooming trees. It finally looks like spring is here! Yeahhhhhhh! About time. Here's a couple photos of the Arboretum.

Then we went to lunch at Village Inn and left Ginger in her crate in the car. She just slept while we were gone and is doing well with not messing her crate and going to the bathroom on command. Then we visited a couple older friends who wanted to see her, made a run to the office to make a dropoff, and then home. We were all tuckered out and in total Ginger was out for 5 hours. Both of us simply had to take a nap after all that.

Blue Bird Quilt

Last night I finished my Blue Bird quilt that I showed the top in my post called "St. Louis trip - Spring 2009". I probably should call this my learning quilt since it was made using 3 different techniques I'd never tried before. First was the hand applique, second was the freehand machine quilting I did to hold the layers together, and then lastly was the thread painting I did to the bird to make it look like shiny feathers on the bird. I am very happy with it even though there are lots of tiny mistakes in it that a real quilter would see, because it represents trying 3 new techniques and taking a step in learning to do them well. Obviously I still have a lot to learn, but the learning can be so much fun.

Here are some photos and comments:

The first photo shows the bird's wings and how I machine quilted them.

The second photo shows the stippeling I did around the flowers. I had a hard time with my machine because apparently my needles were too large and the thread too fine to fill in the needle holes. But hey, you get 2' away from it and you can't tell at all. So all I have to do is hang it somewhre over a large piece of furniture that will block anyone from getting too close to it. Right? Sounds like a good solution to me.
The third photo shows the bird's body that I filled in with thread painting. Thread painting is simply using the sewing machine needle to go back and forth over the piece until it is thick enough to color it in. It really is fun to do and it makes my bird look like it has real shinny feathers.

All in all, I really enjoyed making this wall hanging and will definitely try each of these techniques again in the future. Today I bought a couple tools that will make it better on the next try I hope. First was a plastic sheet that attaches to the surface of the sewing machine to make it easier to move the fabric when you are freehand quilting or thread painting. It takes a lot of the drag out of pushing the quilt around under the foot. The second purchase was some smaller needles. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. Have a great weekend! Here's the final photo.