Insomnia & 20 More

 

"They" say that when you can't sleep you should get up and do something instead of lying in bed tossing and turning. So the other night, about 1:30 AM, I got up out of bed, put a sweater over my nightgown and headed into the studio. I made this bird, above, and she may be nicknamed "Insomnia."

Sigh.

I got home from work earlier that night and wound 20 bobbins for my own sewing machine. Yeah, I know, really boring to do, but there is nothing like being able to grab a bobbin and pop it in your machine when you have run one out. It's such a luxury to just reach over and grab a full one, pop it in the machine and then just GO!

BTW, the grey thread I use is Presencia 60 wt cotton thread, color # 352. It is a 3 ply 100% mercerized Egyptian cotton. I buy a cone of 4882 yards. And even though it might take me a few months to go through one, I ALWAYS have a spare. Because running out is such a PITA. Right now the spare one is on my Bernina, which Julie will use. When we visit QT when she visits I will buy another one to have as a "spare."

Thread

 

I do all my piecing with a medium gray thread, but when I attach strips of fabrics together for a border or binding, I like to use matching thread. Sewing the border strips for the Ice Blue quilt showed me vividly that my thread collection had been getting thin, and I needed to go shopping. So on Saturday afternoon I hopped in my car and drove to my favorite quilt shop, Quilted Threads to get more.

Of course, I couldn't NOT buy some fabric as well. I was attracted to the creamish fabric at the top of the left most pile, so I chose more greens. I have an idea of what I might do with them but the idea needs to roll around in my head a bit more.

Matchmaking

Here's another "matchy" set. I like these. It's funny, to put these together. It's easier, and I think more successful, if you don't think about them too much. They are supposed to resemble each other, but only sort of.

I've got a lot of blue fabric on order to make the sample quilt I will use in writing the Zebras tutorial (I'm gonna make a blue Jealousy quilt) and in the meantime, I'm going to use my stash to work on the Oh So Modern variation. And if I told you that before, I'm sorry. It's kinda been a very stressful week, y'know?

The third one down is too dark. Part of the reasons why I get stuck is sometimes a good option is in another stack being matched with something else. I have no objection to repeating a fabric, but it's more fun (OK, better bragging rights) to say that in a quilt like this each fabric is used only once. That is not a requirement in this quilt. At any rate, I won't sew this up until I'm sure, and right now I am not.

i like these four, but I am a bit concerned they are WAY TOO MUCH together. If this busy quartet is the busiest one in the quilt it will stick out like a sore thumb, and I don't want that. I want all these fabrics to play in harmony.

Please note I am not asking for your opinions or suggestions. I'm just sharing what I see. I'm still feeling my way around. Nothing is carved in stone yet.

These are looking good.

Some of these are a bit risky, and some are not. It's going to be fun working this out.

I wrote about which thread I use here. Last year I bought some Master Piece thread by Superior Thread at a quilt show, and I am just now getting to try it out.

Last week I was reading Mrs Goodneedle and she showed a new seam ripper. I thought it was so spiffy I went to the vendor site, and when I found out they were three bucks each, I ordered four. (The fourth is already in my travel kit.) It is called a Razor Ripper.

I might be a seam ripper junkie.