A week or so of Hazel

This past week or so I’ve had the great fun of spending lots of time with Hazel in one form or another. It started with quilting the two little portraits of her at three months and ten months old. Earlier this week we went to Young’s Dairy Farm so she could see the goats. She loved them licking her hands, but I think she had just as much fun following around the other toddlers that were there or playing in the cedar mulch. She kept bring handfuls to us to smell.

Yesterday I decided it was time to quilt the little pumpkin portrait that I made in the car last October when we drove down to Houston. I used lots of silk thread and some Bottom Line polyester. I had some tension issues when I was trying to quilt backwards through the dark areas where there are four or five layers of fabric. I ended up rotating the quilt for each line so I was always quilting forward. That’s not too bad when the quilt is only 17″ square, but it certainly would not have been a good solution on a full size quilt.

The other benefit of a tiny quilt is that you can actually finish quilting it in less than a day! I was even able to bind it. So nice to get another project finished!

For this little quilt I grabbed a scrap of Warm & Natural. Did you know that batting has a “right” and a “wrong” side? This batting is needle punched, so it matters which side you put toward the front and which side goes toward the backing. For Warm & Natural, the “dirty” looking side is actually the side that should be facing up toward your quilt top. I think most quilters either don’t pay any attention to this or they put the “dirty” looking side toward the backing. I know I did that for years, but putting the wrong side upward can cause tension issues or bearding.

Lastly, I want to give a shout out the the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network. I had so much fun with them last Saturday, and I completely forgot to take pictures! They had me come to their meeting and I brought a bunch of quilts and a slew of products that I like to use. We had an informal question and answer period where I would hold up a quilt and then they asked me every question they could think of, whether it was how did I a certain technique or what product I used or why did I did something in a certain way. It was lots of fun! I would love to think of a way to turn this into a “Pick Maria’s Brain” workshop, but I’m not sure if something like that would work for a full day or even half a day or even if it would be interesting to other groups. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts on the subject.