Gotta love those finishes!

My thousand pyramid quilt is a conglomeration of all things I love about quilts. I collected these fabrics over a couple of years, These tones are my favorites! It's scrappy!  The backing is a toile fabric and the quilting design is simple yet elegant.  It is bordered with black and has a wonderful cable done in a playful manner.  My favorite part is the perle cotton #16 I used to hand quilt it dances nicely with the fabrics and straight lines of the triangles that make up this quilt.

 close up of wine glass quilting design

 A bit breezy today as a cool front approaches

  Cable design on border

 black and white toile on the backing

 I think I have a found new place to take quilt photos!

Where do I start?

I was hoping to have my pyramid quilt finished by today and was looking forward to using my new binding clips while sewing down the binding.  But, things don't always work out like we want.   The weather was so gorgeous yesterday, I just had to go out and enjoy it.  I only have three more cables to hand quilt as you can see in the picture, but my spool of perle cotton is almost gone, not sure I will make it.  Time will tell. But the good thing is, there is always more slow stitching projects to work on.

As you can see I have made a bit of progress on my hexies.  I even did a layout drawing for the center medallion, not sure what will happen beyond this but for now I just need to keep making flowers.  Then I can work on assembling the center medallion.

I also have the last block of my pumpkin seed to assemble.  I assembled the four pumpkin seeds I made from scraps this week.  They are ready to applique to the background that has been pre-washed, although you can see I need to do some pressing.  So I  am  linking up again with Kathy's Slow Stitching Sundays to get some inspiration  to get my projects moving along!

On the home stretch!

Oh my! My post got deleted.  It was probably my fault, scrolling over those buttons can be dangerous especially when it the delete button. I worked so hard on that post but I will sum it up quickly.  No reason to cry over spilt milk.

I am starting to work on the border of my pyramid quilt. Since this quilt was big stitched and more of a utility quilt, I am adding a simple cable that will run off the quilts at the corner instead of turning the corners.

First I made some templates by printing out the cable and using some rubber cement to adhere it to some cardboard. We are so lucky today to have technology that allows us to print, scan, and resize with ease.

Next, I  draw a center line down the border so I can line my templates on it. Then I will trace around the templates using two of my favorite markers for solid fabric, that is my sliver of soap and the hera marker.

 I then trace around each template.

 This picture shows the results of tracing the set of templates twice with a sliver of soap.

 Here are the results when tracing with hera marker.

This one shows the difference between the soap and the hera marker.

The hera marker line is thinnner and I think I will use it for the rest of the marking.  This will allow me to mark as I go.  For me, this makes the task less tedious.  I love using these templates and the best part is you can save them and use them or combine them with other templates for future quilts.

Now I can settle down and start stitching my cables and head over to Kathy's blog and see what others are stitching today. It is getting cold and I can't think of a better way to spend the evening.

Slow Stitching Sunday!

What does one do after a finishing a quilt? Yes, Christmas Journey is now a quilt! I posted the final pictures here. Well, like most quilters I have several projects that need  my attention. I made a few more hexie flowers this week. They will be added to the stack waiting until the final layout it decided upon.

Today, I will spend my spare moments putting in a few more big stitches in my thousand pyramid quilt. I am pleased with the way the quilting design is working with the patchwork.  It has made me rethink what I will do in the border.  I see a large quadruple cable winning the battle of ideas. Do you make changes when you are working on a quilt? I am finding that the more quilts I make the more that happens. How about you?

Marking Thousand Pyramid

While I am still waiting for the binding fabric to arrive for my red and green quilt, Christmas Journey, I have stayed busy.  I pulled out another fourth of my pumpkin seed quilt and have started to applique the scrappy pumpkin seeds.  I also got all the handles on my basket blocks appliqued in place. I am in the process of sewing sashing strips to the blocks.

Saturday, I pin basted my thousand pyramid quilt.  It is one of those tops that has been waiting patiently in the studio closet.  I am big stitching it, this is often called utility quilting.  It was often used to finish quilts quickly. The needle and thread used are much larger and instead of 7-10 stitches per inch only about 4-5 stitches per inch are stitched into the quilt.  I am going to include some pics today on how I am marking this quilt.

First I need to find the center of the quilt and draw a line straight down the center. Then I will add a line across the middle of the quilt.  Where the two lines intersect is where I will start marking.
I made the template which is an easy one for pumpkin seed, a simple circle, using a compass and some cardboard.  Since the body of the  quilt is 48 inches across without the border I made my circle's diameter six inches cause it divides into 48 evenly.  I then placed a mark at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock. These marks will help me to place the circle as I mark the quilt.

I lay the template on the lines where they intersect on the quilt, matching the marks on the template with the lines I place on the quilt.  I used a piece of paper to demonstrate so that you could see better.  I will continue to the top of the quilt lining up the 12 o'clock and six o'clock marks with the line. Then, I will continue all the way down to the bottom of the quilt.

 Now it is just a matter of lining the 12'oclock mark right where two circles come together, the 9 and 3 o'clock will match the bottom of the previous circles, and marking around it.  I will continue doing this until the whole  body of the quilt is marked.  I will mark the border differently and go thru that process in a different post.