I’ve been tossing and turning at night. Losing sleep (seriously). I promised to post photos from all you mystery quilt sleuths who have been so thoughtful and taken the time to email or send me photos of your finished tops and/or quilts. You’ve all been really terrific about sending the files to me, and the quilts are all gorgeous! I’ve admired each and every one. They give me warm fuzzies all over. I can’t wait to share them with you all.
But there is an itty, bitty problem. Ok, not so itty bitty.
The reason I’ve been up at night is because as time passed and I sorted through throngs of daily inbox email, I (oops!) lost track of some of the information — important stuff, such as the name of the maker and which quilt belongs to whom. (I hope my high school English teacher or my AQS editor, Linda, aren’t reading this because I’m sure they’d have a real issue with my grammar structure in that last sentence. Yikes…)
As the photo attachments would arrive in my inbox, I thought I was doing a good job of gathering information and “filing” it in my folders for use later on. But this past week as I tried to put this blog post together, I realized there are some photos I simply can’t find in my electronic file folders. Missing. Vanished. Gone. Or at least hiding really well. Filed somewhere in that great cyberspace……well, space. And some of the files proved to be too large to upload to the blog. I lost track of the names on a few of them. The perfectionist in me is just having a cow right now because I so sincerely want to give proper credit where credit is due! But rather than list the names of some and leave others out, I opted to show the quilts below without identification. Let these gorgeous creations speak for themselves says I.
Today is a new day. The sun is up and shining brightly. And there’s something niggling in my brain telling me that life is sometimes messy and chaotic. It’s OK to goof up. Happens to the best of us, right? As our pastor told us in church yesterday, our lives are but a “breath” in the scheme of the God’s timing. So, I’m letting go of holding on to my perfectionist ways. (Well, at least when it comes to this virtual quilt show. But the concept is good for other areas of my life, too. I get it.)
I want each and every one of you to know I appreciate you taking the time to send me photos of your quilts — they are bright spots of happiness in my email inbox each time I receive one. I promise to do a better job of keeping track of names and quilts from now on. I hope you’ll forgive me for not listing the maker’s name with each quilt. And if you did send me a photo and it’s not posted, well then….would you consider sending it to me again? I’ll get it up on this blog posting quick as can be. In the meantime, enjoy the eye candy and appreciate all the love and care each maker put into her quilt. Each quilt is a thing of beauty, a joy forever, and a timeless creation of love!
Wow. Look at all those variations! All of the quilts have such great colors.
Hard to pick favorites, but I especially like the one embelished with the grape applique, #11 down from the top (with the pinwheel blocks arranged so that they make a winding path), and those beautiful tulip quilts on the bottom. Isn’t it amazing that the same mystery pattern can yield such different results?
I’m going to share a tip here that I picked up at a class this weekend. The class was taught by George and Virginia Siciliano (go google them & take a look at what George, an ex-Marine, does). George said that he always had trouble making an exact match at pattern joins. No matter what he tried — pins, double pins, even a stapler(!) — the fabric would always shift ever so slightly. Sometimes he guessed correctly & was able to compensate for the shift when he pinned, but that was hit and miss. The seam ripper became his best friend. Then he came up with the idea of using double-sided Scotch brand tape. The kind marked “permanent”, not the kind marked “repositionable”. He matches his joins using the old pin-through-the-seam/point method, holds it tight from the 1/4″ side, lifts the fabric up from underneath, then puts a piece of tape on the fabric just beneath the join but below the stitching line. Then he squeezes the taped portions firmly to make sure they’re good and stuck, and checks the join from the top to insure it’s spot on. Voila! No more shifting! His wife, Virginia, uses tons of the tape herself to help with pattern matching on borders and to ensure perfect miters. The use so much of the tape that they buy it in bulk at places like Sam’s club. The tape is reusable a number of times, so George just sticks the pieces on the top of his machine where they are ready to use for the next block. And they claim it has no effect on the fabric whatsoever.
Although the class that I took was wonderful (I learned how to do foundation piecing) sometimes all it takes to make a class worthwhile is one great tip you can take away. This tape thing is going to make matching geese a breeze. Kudos to George (and his lovely wife) for coming up with it! Feel free to share, but make sure you give George credit — I wouldn’t want an ex-Marine coming after me.
Beautiful! So beautiful! I saw one of my quilts in there – I think! It’s the second to last – of your Keukenhof Tulips – They are all so nice – and I’m glad you opted to show them all to us – even if you can’t find who sent what! That’s okay! Not a problem for me!
LynnEl in Illinois!
Kimberly,
Kathy and I downloaded the first installment of the new mystery but can’t find any others. Are we missing something? I am clueless. No pun intended!
Jean Grimm