Introducing Dorothy!

So this is Dorothy!  Its the first quilt I've designed on my quilt program.  I was thinking of my good sewing buddy Mimi and how she is always cheery, loves her bright colours, and I thought the Metro Living might be up her street.  My man looked over my shoulder and said "is this what you're designing for your friend?"  Yes.  "Is your friend gay like?"....   She's not, but the quilt has been known as Dorothy ever since...  None of the photo's I took show up the quilting I'm afraid, I tried playing about with exposure and whatnot but this is the best I could come up.  If you really squint a bit you can maybe see that the quilting is all lines but they're meant to depict rolling hills (bottom) huge sun (top right) with sun rays between the two.  

This is how she started life...

  

I didn't have Metro Living on the computer program but the polka dots stood in.  Probably not the most adventurous design, goodness knows the program is capable of all sorts, but I'm only just learning how to use it and could really do with lessons!  Its great fun though, I could waste hours and hours just playing around with it... have done in fact!  Hopefully its all good learning though, or that's what I'm telling myself anyway!

I do love the fabric though, wish I had yards and yards of it, I'd happily keep on using it.  Not quite in the photos but doing the holding up of Dorothy is mum!  I got a brief trip to mum and dads this week courtesy of my man so I took Dorothy with me and got her finished with mum.  It was wonderful fun!  I basted on a large table not a mattress!  Oh the joys!  And quilting on a large table with plenty of room to take the weight of the quilt as I stuffed it through mums machine...  (with mum helping!)  It was such a great laugh, haven't fallen over so much in ages!

I tried out a new trick, marking a quilting pattern with 1/4" masking tape.  Sounded like a brilliant idea.  Looked like a brilliant idea when you saw the whole pattern on the quilt and only had to follow the tape with the machine.  Not such a clever idea though cos once you start man handling the quilt through the sewing machine the tape comes off!  D'oh!  Another little lesson learned (at least it really should be by now cos this ain't the first time I've made this mistake) DON'T MOVE YOUR BASTING PINS!  Oh yes, I've blunted two of mums seam rippers now...  Fortunately it was only one section of the quilt that was affected, the rest of the quilt still had the original basting pins in, and there they stayed until the needle was just about on them.

A few highlights of my week -

• a morning trawling charity shops with mum, got some great wee bits and pieces
• making binding with me on the folding and mum wielding the beast of an iron, me yelping every two minutes as the beast got too close to my fingers and mum giggling at me and making me wobble every other minute
• Dad made me collapse completely with this Cricket Commentary
• me puzzling over why my Dresden's (yes I'm still plodding away at them) wouldn't sit right (very dodgy seam allowance) and mum sitting puzzling over Lynne's tutorial...  "I don't get what the fork is for..."  
• a warm (and dribbly) reception from elliecats (full name Ellwood P Dowd) nemesis Harvey

I really did have a brilliant time :-)  My sudden holiday was to get me out of the house whilst my man and our friendly builder demolished the bathroom.  Very much appreciated it was too!  I'm back home now the worst is over, but it'll be a couple of weeks before the bathroom is finished.  Carnt wait!  

Meantime I've done a bit more on my Brit Quilt Swap.  Don't think I've ruined it, as I thought I would!  I'll do a bit more on the tree when the quilting is done, but here's an update so far.

Fair bit more work to do on it.    I cant get over how it actually looks like what I wanted it to!   That sounds silly, but I do struggle to picture how something will turn out, and I usually screw up so many times that the plan changes to accommodate!   This is the first time for me that I'm making something that genuinely looks how I want it to look!  I'm now trying to decide whether I do lines around the three main colour panels (basically lines along all the sashing like boxes) or the more laborious but originally intended only horizontal lines through everything except the aforementioned colour panels and tree.  I've got a bit of hand quilting planned for the big colour panels.  Dunno...  What do you think?