Friday, October 06, 2006

Two steps forward, one step back

Yesterday was an interesting day. I drove to Maryborough [ not exactly just round the corner ] for a meeting at the Art Gallery to discuss a possible art project for next year. This all hinges on a funding application to VicHealth and of course, goverment money would be very nice but it will probably be up against a lot of other equally worthy projects so I can't count my chickens. I'll tell all, if and when we get the funding.
A "small" detour to Talbot to check out the Primitive Methodist Church where one great-great grandpa was preacher. Not very satifactory as the church is now a museum but only open on Sundays. Very impressive from the outside... quite grandiose for such a spartan sect. Funnily enough one of the other great-great grandpas was a Primitive Methodist lay-preacher ... one of the so-called ranters and ended up here in Castlemaine.

The rest of the day was spent basting the tiger quilt and designing the quilting.
Part of it really wants to be stippled... I am SO over stippling because we all did so much of it in the 90s... but there are still SOME quilts where it's appropriate and this is one of them. I'm doing big leaves ... sort of monstera or philodendrom-ish...based on the design in the tiger fabric but they really need close background quilting to make them show up.
I thought I'd better take my own teaching advice and do a practice piece which only served to remind me that it is actually quite a long time since I've free-motion quilted anything bigger than 20" square. New machine notwithstanding, I'm not really happy with how my skills appear to have atrophied. New glasses would help too.
The one step backwards happened when I'd just spent about half an hour micro stippling black on black and discovered that the thread had jumped out of the takeup hook, buggering up the tension on the back.
I emphatically do NOT enjoy unpicking miles of mini, mini, tight, tight machine quilting. Luckily for me the back fabric / thread are sort of harvest gold colour so the black thread that had pulled through and clumped and lumped all over the back was easy to see and unpick. Just damned tedious.
So, it's probably a bit more than a third done and has been put aside till tomorrow. The lighting down that end of the house still leaves a lot to be desired for sewing at night.

2 comments:

lisette said...

yucko! poor you. i hate unpicking quilting - it has to be the most tedious and unrewarding thing. can you post some pics of the tiger quilt, especially while it's a WIP

catsmum said...

camera not talking to puter at the moment but 'in progresses' have been taken and will in the fullness of time be posted!