Design Wall Monday

This isn’t on my wall any longer because I have it with me right now as we travel. I’m hoping to get it done over the next couple of weeks to put in the Bear Creek Quilt Guild 2011 Show.

This project was part of a swap – each member of my Day Bee got to pick a block that the other members would make for them. I chose a nine-patch – all with the same background. I made the 99 setting squares on our last trip. It wasn’t nearly as tedious as I expected.

Now, I just have to get the top assembled without my beloved design wall!

Bliss Card

I was going through my photo album getting ready to post some pictures from here in Arkansas and I found this card.

A friend of mine shared her system of tracking cards and making sure no one gets the same card twice – thanks Val! I’ve been trying to follow it and hopefully it will work for me.

The color in the photo isn’t terrific – it is actually Night of Navy and Rose Red. I used the Stampin’ Up! set called Bliss. It is retired now but I really like it so some of you reading this will probably see cards using it in the future!

On the Road Again

I haven’t been great about posting the last month or so (mostly because I’ve been so busy sewing and making cards)!  It won’t be getting much better soon since we are heading out on the road tomorrow for a trip to Missouri – probably at least 4 weeks and maybe as long as 6 weeks.  I’ll try and post about some of the quilt projects I’m taking along in the trailer or perhaps about the various Quilt Shops.

Be sure to check out my travel blog occasionally:  www.ciemian.wordpress.com

Design Wall Monday

Well, this is one pretty pathetic design wall!  I’m getting ready to head out for retreat later this week so there isn’t much going on in my sewing room other than me making a big mess.

My Mom asked for a baby quilt for a special friend and these are the two panels I pulled out of my stash.  The bears on the right is really a pretty big panel and not really suitable if the baby is a boy (they don’t know so I’m going for the generic baby colors.)  I’ve used the Noah’s Ark once before but can’t seem to find a picture of what I came up with to get it the right size.  I’ll have to dive into EQ6 tonight.

Happy National Quilting Day to You!

I’m spending National Quilting Day making  cards . . . would you ever have guessed?  Maybe if we get home early enough this afternoon, I can get in a little quilting!

Today is my Cottage Garden Card Workshop.  We are all making these eight cards – using the Cottage Garden stamp set from Stampin’ Up!

It was a bit of a challenge to come up with eight cards all using only the Cottage Garden stamp set.  I also limited the cards to only the Soft Subtle color family thinking it would make it easy for my friends if they wanted to reproduce the cards later but it really just made it hard to put on a workshop for 12 since there was so much overlap!

I’ll let y’all know how it goes (both on the card making and quilting fronts) later today!

A UFO Finish!!!!

You can read more about my struggles with designing the layout of my One Block Wonder at this post from way back in 2009:  http://ciemianquilts.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/just-sew-it/

I finally quilted it last month on my friend Paula’s Statler Stitcher with a tulip pattern. She is great to let me use it!

You can see what is left of the original fabric on the back:

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have this project complete at long last.  I have two more UFO’s to post but neither felt as good as getting this quilt DONE!

Gel Pens for Quilt Marking

Have you heard about using these pens for marking a quilt?  My friend Kathy told me about them.  They are fine point Gel Pens that are erasable and disappear with ironing.  They are less than $6.00 for the three of them at Target.

The back of the package did warn that the markings would come back in freezing temperatures, though.  Still, it all sounded too good to be true (how often do you freeze a quilt anyway?) and I wanted something just like this for my Storm at Sea that I am quilting on my domestic machine.

But, being the good engineer that I am, I figured this needed at least a little experiment.  I started with this piece of unwashed fabric and marked it with the purple pen:

I had confirmed earlier that the markings would completely disappear with a quick touch of the iron but came back in their original form after just a few minutes in the freezer.

I always wash my quilts so this went right into the machine with a small load of laundry on delicate.  This is what came out:

If you look closely, you just see the faintest trace of the markings.  I cut it in half and put the left side into the freezer (still wet) and the other side in the dryer with the laundry.  After the laundry was finished, the piece on the right also went into the freezer.

The markings were all gone at room temperature, but I wanted to see what the freezer would bring up.

I thought I could see the very faintest of marks on the piece that hadn’t been dried near the cut edge.

This doesn’t really concern me since I suspect that the ink will continue to fade with drying and ironing.  I know that my quilts are rarely subjected to freezing temperatures but I figure that if you can see the markings when the fabric is cold, the ink is still there and could reappear (or be causing damage.) If I wasn’t planning on washing and drying a quilt and I wanted to know it would still be pristine in 20+ years, I would probably not use these pens.

But for me, they are worth the risk of at least a try on a quilt.  The pen writes nicely on fabric.  I hear they are available in white as well but they weren’t at my local Target when I checked.  I’m going to get to work on the Storm at Sea today.  Hopefully, the colors I have will show up on the purple fabric.  Otherwise, I won’t get much done since I will be driving all around the DFW area trying to find the white pens . . .