ay 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.
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