Triangles on Parade...

Good morning from Parkersburg, WV!! I drove 10 hours yesterday and this is as far as I could go, no farther. I'm still about 6+ hours from home yet. Would you believe that it was SNOWING when I left Michigan at 8am yesterday morning?!? Oh, get me SOUTH..and FAST!!

I got the triangles around all my blocks! It's fun to have new excitement for such an old UFO. I'm glad I listened to my own heart about taking the quilt apart and doing something better with it. Really I am. It didn't take too long to disasseble, new seam ripper, foot up on ice...I was a captive audience anyway, so they came apart before I hit the road, and the first thing I did when I got to the retreat was to square them all up again. Amazing how after 10 years some techniques are "refined" for lack of a better word too!

Hopefully you can see that I alternated red/double pink with green in the sashings, and then for spark threw in a few extra cheddar triangles here and there, just scattered with no rhyme or reason for where they landed, other than the pinwheels in the cornerstones. There are also red/green recycled fabrics in here! I need to thank Kathie for sending me a pic of an inspiration quilt for this idea.....it was just when I needed when I saw it! The pinwheel cornerstones are my own addition to bring the cheddar into the sashings as well.

The consensus of everyone was to add 4 big red berries to every block...it just adds so much, so in some of these pics you will see 4 circles placed where they are going to be. Nothing is sewn down yet, as I have fabric I want to use at home, and I was happy just plugging away on my triangles.

I KNOW I never would have tackled this at home..that's why it stayed a UFO for so long.

We brainstormed on borders, and yes, I could do more, but Gwen said that she thought it didn't NEED a border..just a binding. And maybe a muslin one at that, so the triangles just float to the end of the quilt without a dark binding to stop them. Okay. Works for me! I don't think I've ever done a muslin binding, because I was always worried about it getting dirty first (ever the mom, right?!) But yes, I think it will be a good antique finish for this quilt. Whenever it is I get to the binding. It might take me another 10 years to actually get that far!

My crazy brain is also considering doing some reverse applique on the leaves, inserting that detail "slit" for lack of a better term but again...do I want to add more?? I can? But? Will decide as I go. I just really love that detail on quilts I see where they have inset that long oval, or curved 'S' leaf detail. And since these leaves already have the background trimmed away underneath, it would be easy to do. Insane. I know.


As to the quilting? So far the plan is to quilt it in all over hanging diamonds across everything, even the applique. The reason? I followed someone ELSE's applique method and trimmed the extra layers out from behind the applique pieces. This will make for a quilt that is not going to hold up to a lot of stress unless the quilting crosses the seam lines. I probably won't applique this way again, but heck, what did I know at the time? As I look forward 100 years or more, and back at the antiques that have come through my hands, the backing and extra layers were NOT trimmed away, and only those that were quilted over the seam lines and quilted very close together, are the ones where the applique is still remaining.

Here is our star photographer! It was fun traveling around with Lucy and watching her work her big camera! I've got some other pics from the reteat, but Lucy took the best ones. Of course I didn't get any of MYSELF!! I was too busy shooting other people's projects, etc...I'll upload more over the next few days. I'll be home until I leave for Paris on the 22nd!