Silk

Last week, after finishing the blue and white quilt I showed last post (and two other edge-to-edge quilts), I loaded a full custom applique quilt.  I quickly discovered that the timing of the machine had been severely messed up from an incident a couple weeks previous, when a needle fell out.  Oddly, I had no difficulty running the 40wt Glide and Omni that I used on these 3 quilts, but the machine couldn't make the stitch using thin monofilament.  I had initially planned to take the machine in for servicing next month on the week my kids are out of school, but fate had other plans.  The machine was dropped off on Thursday and wasn't back online at home until yesterday.  

Now, a forced vacation is not all  bad, except for the ever increasing quilts that need quilting!  I got a few days to finish up my massive pile of Quilt of Valor blocks.  In all, I made just under 300.  I had 24 donated from a local woman (thanks, Alida!), 112 were made by mom, two came from Wendy (owner of the blue and white quilt), and another 10 or so are expected from a blogging and former swapper Tami.   I will have right close to 450 blocks to deliver!!  Awesome job quilters....

I also got to dig my nose back into a small silk quilt I started 2 months ago.  I bought the hand-dyed Radiance fat quarters (all shades of green) in Houston.   They are so much prettier in person, and brighter too.  Last time I worked on this, all I finished was the center block, and the border with the HST's, then I discovered I miscut something, and didn't really have enough to do the last larger border.  Designing even a 40" quilt with only fat quarters is a challenge.  I ordered a half yard of a couple deeper greens (not the hand-dyes), and got right to the piecing.

Oddly (or not so if you know me), after one day of piecing, I only managed to get the inner diamond border pieced, and the units attached to make what is shown above.  Those Y-seams and matching the 8 corners on them were a wee challenging, but to my pleasant surprise, I made them all on the first try!

 The outer border is in pieces still.  The background of it is shown above.  This is just the greens.  There are some small stars in the brighter pink/blue shades that I am still working on that really do tie this whole thing together.  I'm itching to quilt this.  It is the perfect manageable size to get done quickly, and boy does the silk quilt up beautifully.  I am toying with doing a little trapunto (which a smart man would say I am a fool for), but that is a possibility.  I'll show more when it is finished :-)