T-shirt quilt is almost ready to hang

I have now hand quilted around the lettering on the T-shirt quilt and finished 3 sides of the binding.

Next we need to pick out the rod that we will hang it on so I know what size to make the sleeve, then I can finish the top. Last Saturday we took it to DH's office to see how it would actually look there. He will have to move a filing cabinet and a bookshelf but it looks like it will just fit in between a thermostat and another filing cabinet. He will have to get the Buildings and Grounds people to put up the brackets for the rod since we don't have a drill for the concrete walls. I told him I needed it today to show to my Senior Center group, next Monday morning to show to my Monday morning quilting group, next Saturday to show to my quilt guild, and then want to take it to SC with us when we visit my sisters and mom for Thanksgiving. In between those times he can have it in his office.

Here are a couple of pictures of one of the shirts - hopefully you can see the great quilting job that my local long-arm quilter did on it.

A great gallery of quilt photos

I will soon post an update on my quilting projects, but right now I want to share with you a website that has a great collection of quilt and stained glass photos. I belong to One Stitch at a Time, a very on-topic Yahoo Group from Quilters Corner Club. We are learning about Stained Glass quilts last week and this week, and one of the members has posted her website where she has photos of her quilts, some of which are using the stained glass technique, as well as photos of some of her "real" stained glass. There are some gorgeous photos there - check them out at http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=6&uid=2587539& Look at the albums entitled Farmer's Delight, Quilting, Quilting #2, and Stained Glass - and her Cross Stitch album has some pretty amazing photos too if you like that.

Getting to Know Each Other

Here are the Fours..... I got this from Jen and Gina

Job's I've Had:
1. School librarian - 2 high schools, 1 middle school (Miami, FL and Lexington, VA)
2. Placement Office assistant at Washington and Lee University Law School
3. mail order catalog order-taker - this was in the early 80's, catalog is no longer in operation
4. College Librarian and Library Science teacher - Augusta, GA

Movies I (do) Could Watch Over & Over:
1. Dr. Zhivago
2. Sound of Music
3. It's a Wonderful Life
4. Something's Gotta Give

TV Shows I Watch:
1. Braves Baseball
2. The Closer
3. Dancing With the Stars
4. Women's Murder Club

Places I've Lived:
1. Charlottesville, VA
2. Nashville, TN
3. Decatur, GA
4. Miami, FL
I could go on - I've lived in 12 different towns, but have moved 23 times

Favorite Foods:

1. my mother's rhubarb pie
2. my husband's grilled hamburgers
3. crablegs
4. steak

Favorite Colors:

1. blue
2. yellow
3. teal
4. purple

Places I'd Love to Be Now:

1. on the beach at Hatteras
2. in Hawaii
3. in Ireland
4. wherever our kids/grands are gathered


Names I like but would/did not use for my children

1. Kurt
2. Sara
3. Ariana
4. Kate

Not sure how this part works - I will tag Rhoda, Teresa, Stephanie and Lori/Hazel

Van Gogh's View is back home!

As promised, UPS delivered Van Gogh's View back home late this afternoon. I LOVE the quilting that Sandie did on it. She did little swirlies in all the sections where the folds are not, so that the folded back parts really stand out. I had tacked them down well, so I am not worried about them falling out. Here is a picture of the quilting she did on it and a closer view of the it.





When you look at it at an angle you can see the 3 dimensional appearance - here is a photo that kind of shows that

So excited/nervous!

We took a trip this past weekend to Marietta and McDonough, GA to see our 3 kids and their spouses and kids, along the way stopping to see my mom in Johnson City, TN and Dave's mom and one sister in Flowery Branch, GA. It was a short trip since we left late afternoon Thursday and got home last night, but fun to see everyone. I have posted pictures on our Flickr page for all to see - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamanance/

Saturday morning I took the Van Gogh's View quilt to the quilt shop in Marietta where I bought the fabric. I'd been told on the phone that they could quilt it there, and so I expected it to be a simple drop-off, chat a bit about it and be on my way. NOT! The shop owner told me, very nicely, that they could not do it there - it has curved folds, like cathedral windows, in every block - so about 190 of them! She said their quilters were not that experienced - too bad one of their employees had told me, twice, that they could do it with no problem. Anyhow, the owner gave me the name of two quilters in the area that they use. I was of course reluctant to call someone I did not know or know of, but I thought I'd give it a try. I called the first one, Sandie, because Mary Anne said she might be able to do it more quickly. I called her, reached her on her cell phone, she said she was about 10 miles away, but would turn around and come to the shop. She was there in 15-20 minutes, we talked about what I wanted and what she thought would work, and she left with my quilt and the backing. She wanted to know when I was leaving, and when she heard it was the next day she wanted to know what time! She is northwest of Atlanta and we were going to be southeast of Atl, so we discussed mailing it. I just got a call from her this morning - the quilt is finished and she is on the way to UPS it to me so I should have it on Wednesday!! She says it looks really good - my piecing and her quilting. I am so excited and nervous to see it! I've never been in this situation before - I have the T-shirt quilt at one long arm quilter, this one just being finished, and Surrounded, the batik for son and DIL, ready to go to the local quilter as soon as she finishes the t-shirt quilt.

Photo problems

When I wrote my last posting Thursday morning I noticed that the link to the larger pictures on Webshots was not working, but I hoped it would resolve itself during the day. It did not, so I tried to fix it by re-inserting the link from Webshots, but now there is some problem with Blogger and images, so I will check tomorrow night.

After looking at all of my posts it looks like most of them do not actually link to the webshots photo. I will need to get some help in trying to figure out what the difference is in the way it works with some and not others.

Here is another edit to this post. I think I have now fixed all of my photos so that the thumbnails actually DO open to the Webshots picture. I will check it again tonight to see if they still work.

"Van Gogh's View" and T-shirt Quilt Update

First - a T-shirt quilt update. Yesterday the local long-arm quilter brought me the sample she worked on for the quilt, and I totally approve of what she has done. She seems more confident now of what she will do and she plans to get started right away. I am hoping to have it in a week or two although she did not give me a date. I also asked her to do Surrounded that was on my previous post, but first I want to take it to GA this weekend for my son and DIL to see it, then I'll bring it back for her to quilt.


Here is a picture of "Van Gogh's View" - I am making it for my oldest daughter and her family. She picked it out when she saw it on display at Red Hen Fabrics in Marietta, GA where she lives. Turns out that the fabric designer is the owner of that shop. She bought some of the fabrics and in August when I was there I bought the rest that I needed. I am going to see them too this weekend and hope to be able to take this quilt to the shop Saturday morning for them to quilt it. It is in the McCalls Quilting issue for July/August '07 - if you look closely at those pictures you can see the quilting design that was used on the sample. I saw the sample in the shop, and would like for them to do something like that. It is closely stitched swirls that resemble the swirls in some of the fabrics. I still have about 60 or so folds to tack down - they are folded back to give them a more curved appearance. If you look closely you can see about where I got to on them. I just finished the borders and my first mitered borders since I got back into quilting 2 1/2 years ago. I was nervous about that, but thought they turned out pretty good.


This is a picture of the fabric to be used on the back of the quilt. It is part of the same collection - First Impressions by Northcott - designed by Mary Anne Henderson of Red Hen Fabrics.

"Surrounded" Quilt for Son and Daughter-in-Law

A few months ago my son and his family moved into a new house in Athens, GA. I told them I would like to make a wall hanging or lap quilt for their new house and this is the pattern we eventually decided on. It has about 30 different batiks in it, and will backed with a different batik. I just finished adding the borders to it this morning. I will take it with us to GA next weekend so they can the progress on it, then bring it back here to get it quilted. I am hoping the long-arm quilter who is hopefully going to do my T-shirt quilt will also do this one. Son and DIL sent me two of the throw pillows from their sofa and loveseat so I can cover the pillows with some kind of quilted top to go with the quilt. She suggested the same pattern that I used in the quilt, but I am thinking about using some of the same fabrics but doing some kind of paper-pieced design for them.

I took the T-shirt quilt to the long-arm quilter Friday afternoon, along with a sample block for her to practice on. She is hoping to have the sample quilted by Wednesday when we have our Senior Center group meeting. I also got the second border on the quilt that our Senior Center is going to raffle and took that to the quilter as well - so she has a few things to work on. I was interested to see her quilter. She does some freehand work with it, but she also has some patterns that she traces with a laser light and the machine quilts that design. Seems like more skill involved in that than if you have a computer-operated quilter.

I have had some trouble letting go of my t-shirt quilt, feeling like I really wanted to do all of it myself, but knowing I would have a difficult if not impossible time doing that, and that it would not look as good as I want it to if I did do it. I am not ready to totally give up hand-quilting, but as I get more used to the idea of sharing the making of my quilts, I realize that I could make more, and there are SO many I want to make!

The First Quilt I Started

About 23 years ago I took a class at a local fabric shop, which is no longer in business, to make a lap quilt. The teacher used Georgia Bonesteel's book, Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel, and gave us patterns to make the various designs from. I chose 4 bright calico prints and before the class was over I had 19 blocks in various stages of completion - some were quilted and ready to assemble into the quilt, others were pieced with the borders and the cornerstones, others were pieced but no borders -- you get the idea. If we learned how to actually assemble them I did not remember that part.

Fast forward to 2007. I have now been quilting again for about 2 1/2 years, but had not taken out the calico blocks to do anything with them. I had looked at them various times, but couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them, until last week. Our Senior Center group is doing a sampler quilt to hang at the Center, and I thought the quilt-as-you-go method would be a good way to get the individual blocks quilted and assembled. Only problem was - I didn't know how to assemble them. So, I read Georgia Bonesteel's book, which I had bought in the meantime, and studied the handout that one of our guild members had distributed when she gave a workshop on assembling a QAYG quilt. Then I made a sample using the handout, which puts a narrow sashing in between each block, and put two of my calico blocks together as an example of another way of assembling them. Of course, in order to do that I had to decide what I really wanted to do with those 19 blocks, etc. After a few hours of playing around with arrangements I came up with what you see here - 12 blocks which have at least been pieced - and with lots of moving around of pieces, I came up with an arrangement that has one each of the four colors in each 4-patch at the corners of the blocks.


As I work with these blocks I have started liking the quilt more, even though it still does not "go" with anything in our house, it will be a nice quilt to have for the TV room -- and it has a history to it as well. The woman who taught the class was our youngest daughter's nursery school teacher, her husband was my boss at that time at the university library, she and I and her husband all went to the same college in TN (though we did not know each other then), and it turned out that she and my younger sister with Big Sister/Little Sister in their college sorority -- so we had a few ties. She and her husband no longer live here - when they moved away my husband took her husband's job - but we have seen them occasionally at library meetings. I will definitely have to send her a picture of the quilt when I do finish it! So now, thanks to my Senior Center group, this quilt has moved way up on the list of WIPs that I want to work on finishing. Of course this is not the only project that is calling me this month, but it is on the "short list."

Here are the first 2 blocks sewn together -

Another T-shirt quilt update

I picked up the T-shirt quilt from the first longarm quilter last Friday morning. Monday night I took it to the quilting class/group and discussed it with the local longarm quilter. She wants to practice first on a sample of it, since she is a bit concerned about how it will work with the fusible material that I used on the back of the shirts. So, tonight I hope to finish a sample - one T-shirt with a bit of a logo on it, and a picture printed on Printed Treasures, as I did in the quilt, surrounded by other t-shirt material and a border around all of it, similiar to what I did in the real thing. I hope to take it to her maybe Friday. She is also going to quilt a raffle quilt for our Senior Center group, after I finish adding the borders to it, and I want to do that too before I go see her. So, I guess progress is being made on the T-shirt quilt, but no definite answer yet.

And Jen, thanks for your offer. If this woman decides she doesn't want to do it, I will send it to Vera.