These past two weeks I have been revisiting some favorite paths. First I stitched up this newest Cross Quilt. I used some lovely "Aged Muslin Cloth" from Marcus Brothers, in varying shades of blues and grays, and quilted the piece in an all-over irregular grid pattern
My favorite part of this work are the little subtle bits and pieces of fabric, added here and there!
Next, I stitched up a few new sets of Quilted Fabric Beads...
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It's been a while and I have really missed making these!
My hands have been doing fairly well as of late, so I decided to give it a go...
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This time around I used some pretty woven fabrics from India that I found at one of my local quilt shops. The weave is a bit more easy to needle then some of the quilting fabrics I previously used.
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I love the results, but alas, after sewing a few batches, the hand pain is returning... of course I went at it like a mad dog, stitching up a bunch all at once, (I stitched more then twice as many as what I am showing here) and so I need to take a break again... and learn to pace myself!
(Maybe the key is simply stitching one or two a week.)
(Note to self: Need to work on moderation.)
(Hey! That can be a New Year goal!)
And remember, if you want to try your hand at making your own quilted beads, you can find my Quilted Fabric Bead PDF Tutorial Pattern in my Etsy shop.
Hope Everyone's New Year is off to a great start!
Happy Stitching!
xo
19 comments:
Love the quilt and yes....P-A-C-E.....needs to be your mantra!!!
Happy New Year to you too!
Love your blog and glad to see you are starting the year revisiting some favorites that make your heart happy. Here is the motto for 2015:
So many of us need that little reminder! :-)
Linda W.
My motto did not show up!
You can do anything
But not everything
Must have had caps or other characters that did not copy. Sorry!
LW
The fabric beads are beautiful and clearly very popular!
I love the subtle colours in your cross quilt too! I'm sorry to hear about your hand pain, that kind of thing can be so frustrating. An opportunity to make some quilt tops, while it recovers, perhaps? Happy New Year Vic :)
Beautiful quilt and beautiful beads. Those woven fabrics look very interesting. Please, take care of your hands, you only have two of them! :)
Your beads get more gorgeous and interesting the more you make them. Yea, good to preserve the hands with moderation. Dang. Love your new quilt. The quilting on it is especially inspiring--something we could all do.
These are beautiful! I love your style.
I always love your work! Great stuff.
Do take care of your hand! When I started getting pain and numbness from too much stitching, I went to physical therapy and have been helped by the exercises they gave me. But the main thing is that I don't stitch for more than about 20 minutes a day (a bit change from previous practice). At first this made me very sad, to be so limited. Now I see it as a highly anticipated way to start my day with a period of quiet, meditative stitching. Hope you're able to find a path of moderation that keeps these wonderful quilted beads in your life!
The quilt is beautiful! Love the beads!
Thanks to each of you, and yes I will be more careful about taking care of my hands! (Penny, I like your time limit idea!)
The quilted fabric beads you have created are looking awesome. The colorful threads here and there are great attention grabbers. I visited your Flicker profile to see more and found all of them beautiful.
I love that blue quilt!!! The subtle color play is such a treat to my eyes and the irregular grid gives it such liveliness. How did you do that grid? It's not wonky, just. . . lively.
Thanks Ellie and Margo!
Margo, I sewed the grid first all the way across in one direction with the lines approx. 1" to 1.5" apart. (I didn't want things to be exact, and everything was simply eyeballed.) Then I turned the quilt and did the same thing. Then I turned the quilt again, and went back in between each pair of lines, adding in another line. One more turn of the quilt, and another repeat of the previous step, and I was done. Hope that makes sense!
Thanks for the technique, Victoria. I avoid marking quilting lines as much as possible, so I will probably try this grid. I'm impressed that your grid stayed mostly true (perhaps that's because the quilt was small?) - I think I would struggle with a noticeable (and undesirable) tilt somewhere.
The small size definitely helped in keeping the lines from going off course. I also stop after every few lines and check to make sure that they aren't veering off on a slant. Two other things that you can do to help the lines stay on course would be to use some painters tape on your quilt as visual guide, or if your machine's walking foot has a seam guide attachment, (a small metal bar that fits through a hole in the back of the walking foot that you can slide it in and out, adjusting it's width and use it to help guide you when you stitch).
Those beads are beautiful and the quilt is lovely. So soft and inviting.
Your cross quilt really speaks to me, the way your work quilts do. Those subtle pieces added to the background are my favorite part!
I hope your hands are healing quickly. That must be very frustrating for you.
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