Heaven

I so enjoy waking up in the morning and sitting at the table to quilt.  The house is cool and quiet.  It is a great time to just sit with my quilt, a cup of coffee, and stitch....stillness.

I basted my quilt last night and I did decide to use perle cotton and hand quilt. 

I chose to use a single piece of fabric for the backing - rather than piecing the backing.  Hand quilting with Anna Maria Horner voile is just incredible.  The needle glides through the fabric like a knife through warm butter.  And the feel of the fabric is beyond compare.  Although, basting is a bit tricky.  I have found masking tape will not adhere to the voile so I use temporary adhesive (KK 2000 - Sulky) to hold everything in place while I add the basting pins.  It is worth the time and effort.     

A special thank you to April from Sew To Speak!  She acted as my tutor yesterday and gave me some terrific technical advice regarding my blog.  I have yet to put her suggestions to practice....hopefully I will be able to remember everything we covered :)  Thanks April!

Back to stitching!

Mary   

      

To Do List

It is a beautiful day here!  The humidity and the heat this summer have been oppressive, but today we have been blessed with a cool(er), sunny, lovely day.  But I need to get some things accomplished - ugh.

On the TO DO LIST for today:

• ADD some stitches to this project

• 
  
  Work on this project - I can't get enough of these cute little pigs.  For these wedges I am using a 45 degree ruler.  Piecing several strips of fabric (salvage to salvage) and making several cuts with the wedge ruler.  Then chain piece two wedges at a time - 8 wedges in all for one block.  Piece two of those together to make one-half of the circle, then sew the two halves together - matching center points.  The ruler I used is Petal Shapes by Darlene Zimmerman.  I simply squared off the top of the wedge to create an octagon rather than a petal.  To make the octagon into a square block, simply add a 3 1/2 inch triangle to every other wedge....4 triangles in all.

• 
  
  Clean - yuck!
• 
  
  Make - dinner - hmmm -what to do with chicken?

As for the blogging....it is getting somewhat easier.  This is the third day in a row!  Yay! 

Two Days In A Row - YAY!

The last of the borders has been added and now to quilt. I have been reading and studying the process of Liberated Quiltmaking by Gwen Marston . The process is indeed liberating! So much in fact mistakes become design options and pre-planning or drafting is tossed out the window.

I could live with this method of quilt making. It fits my love of somewhat rough-around-the- edges, scrappy quilts. No need for templates or patterns - just do what you love. Use the fabrics and the colors you love. Brilliant!

I think I will pull out the perle cotton again for this one. It keeps hand quilting interesting and fun , working with all the lovely colors. Although, I am a sucker for hand quilting...I find it very relaxing. And using perle cotton has become one of my favorite choices in hand quilting. This one was quilted with perle cotton and this one too!
So back to work - I have the house to myself today - YAY!

Mary

Slow Start

Okay- so I am not very productive in the blogging sense....although I have been somewhat productive this week in the quilting sense.

I have been working on the third in a series of quilts. I am using stars and spots of color between the sashings. For the border I will do another spikey sawtooth border. Not all the spikes will be the same height or the same width. Very fun!









Miss Molly has been working on some new ideas combining embroidery and fabric. Clever girl!




Hopefully, I can do better with this blogging thing. If I could at least be somewhat proficient with the whole process - it would be so much easier. I haven't quite figured out how it all works. And then I have to hope someone cares to read it, right? That is the point of sharing ideas afterall!
Mary

Molly Flanders

After much consideration I have decided to embark on the world of blogging. My name is Mary and my blog is titled Molly Flanders.

Molly is my oldest daughter who loves embroidery and Flanders is our adorable Mutt!

I am the mother of 3 girls, a wife, a former elementary teacher and an avid quilter. I spend A LOT of time quilting, thinking about quilts, and planning my next quilt. I do think it is a sickness!

So why begin blogging? Really, I am not sure, so far I have been rather frustrated with the whole creating, setting and posting process. Certainly computer skills are not at the top of my "skills list", but I have several folks I can seek out for help.

So why begin blogging? Well, I enjoy the creative blogs I regularly visit. They are a real source of ideas and inspiration. So I am hoping we can share tips, ideas, and lots of compliments while involved in this creative expression.

Mary