Old Friends

In the midst of preparing for the quilt show, I also prepped a quilt for hand quilting.

This process involves laying out the three layers of the quilt and securing them together temporarily and then either pinning with safety pins or hand basting.

Since I'm hand quilting the project, I opted for basting the layers as the safety pins interfere with the hoop I use while quilting. These 1 3/4" long pins have been a part of my armamentarium (like that old Dental Hygienist lingo??) for quilting, aka a gadget. The difference between this and many of the other gadgets I've purchased over the years is that this one has been with me since I started quilting in a hoop in 1980 when I made a quilt for my second child . I use them once a year or less, but they are just the right thing for the job and so far, I've not seen much room for improvement.

Another "old friend"is my 14 inch wood hoop. As with the pins, I bought it in 1980 to make Daniel's baby quilt. Over the years, I have purchased several alternative hand quilting hoops, but I keep coming back to this one. The last time I heard Mary Chapin Carpenter sing "This Shirt" I thought about my quilting hoop and the quilts I've quilted in it and the life changes I've gone through during those times of my life. I store this hoop around the handle of my sewing basket so I can see it whenever I'm doing handwork and whether I need it or not.

Here is Miss Anabel Lee aka Gator inspecting the quilting hoop. Tonight, while we watch Deadwood on Netflix, she will be mad because the quilting is in the way of her bed-hogging. Such a witch.

To the left is the project that generated the trip down memory lane with Gator in the back and Ace in the front, inspecting. This quilt top was made in July 2004 at a workshop with Billie Lauder using the pattern "There's a Dog on My Quilt!" I modified Billie's generic mutt to be a Miniature Schnauzer like my mutts and even included 3-D eyebrows and tongue.

I'm hand quilting this for our friend Michelle who is expecting her first baby, a boy, in August. Michelle was my husband's step-daughter for much of her childhood and they had Schnauzers, Cindi and Julie, so I thought she'd like this quilt for her son. When she was a senior in high school, Michelle asked me to teach her to quilt as her senior project and she made several baby quilts for the ABC preemie quilt project, so the girl knows quilts. I'm happy as can be since I've not had a hand quilting project since Mr. B's quilt.