And the story continues…..

But First a part 1 recap…

I have said yes to a quilt made from wedding dresses and possibly a flower girl dress (which is covered in beading). I have freaked out. I have chosen a marking tool. Freaked out some more. I have chosen the thread. Freaked out some more. And I choose the batting and how many layers I will use. Freaked out more, because my original design was not going to work.

So I think that brings us up to date of where we ended the story the last time…

The quilt is loaded and ready to go. I still need to come up with a new design that had to be completely freehand. I am pretty sure I was still freaking out at this point, because I starred at the quilt for about an hour got up and left the studio. After a day or so I decided to just get it done. Marched into the studio and sat there for about a half hour. At this point I think I was cursing myself out. Then it was like ok take it slow, break it down, what it the biggest worry here. The biggest worry were the beads that are all over the quilt top. I decided to put a circle around them, making sure that I stayed at least a ¼ inch away from anything that would damage my machine. Then I sat there again, looking and thinking. Then a light bulb came on, feathers just going everywhere. I made a couple of wavy lines with my marking pen, and tried to channel Jamie Wallen. I am sure most of you know who he is, but he is an amazing artist, quilter, and quilt instructor.

After about a half row of beautiful feathers I stopped freaking out so much. For the most part I would be leaving the background quilting for later. Except for areas that I would not be able to get back to without braking threads, those were done as they came up. If you are wondering, no I did not bury threads on this one, I just clipped them. Silk thread is nice and thin, if you take tinny stitches to tie off you shouldn’t need to bury the threads. No one will ever see where you stop and started.

                       

Here I am quilting along and it dawned on me… how am I going to incorporate all of these beads into the design?

Think…Think…what to do…what to do….

      My client/friend did say she likes the beaches of Florida, she is Irish, and she will love anything that I come up with. I love swirls, feathers and texture. I decided to add the things she loves and the things I love meshing them together. Adding little motifs here and there was one of the only ways I could think of the incorporate the beading. On some of them I was able to move the beads slightly with one hand and quilt a little closer with the other hand.

But wait…

It was time for another bump in the road…

I ran out of thread. OMG!! Really!!! But I was on a roll. Was that really 3 cones of thread? Yes, it was. Well I guess it was time to order more thread. I ordered 6 more cones since I made it about a quarter of the way through the quilt with the three cones so far. Since I had nothing to do but wait, I took the quilt off the frame. Other clients had been waiting, so I would work on those while I waited. I didn’t realize that I had put the thread order to come with my regular monthly order. That’s ok I thought. I had plenty of other stuff to work on in the meantime. The quilt was back on and being worked on.

But wait…

It was time for another bump in the road…

I ran out of thread again. WOW!! Boy oh boy, did I really under estimate how much thread this quilt was going to take. This time I made it about three quarters of the way through. So, I thought hhhmmm, better order another 8 cones just in case (only used 6 of these by the end). But I guess it was time for another break. I was going cross eyed anyway. I had other quilts that needed to be quilted. After a little time had passed, I was ready to get it back on the frame finish it up and get it out of my studio. I never did get the stain out. Thought it would be best if anyone was going to put water to it, it should be her and not me. After the first break I stopped counting hours, forgot to turn that back on. This quilt took about 9 months in total (with breaks), a little over 15 cones of silk thread, and a whole lot of stress. I know that she loved the quilt. She entered it into two shows, one of which she took second place (even with the stains that are still there). I gave her a discount so that she would let me use the quilt to teach a class. But now she doesn’t want anyone touching it as she says that it is an heirloom. I never got to use it. I had to make a sample for the class. Should have gotten that in writing. Oh well. The quilting is what made the quilt.

I now love quilting on wedding dress quilts and love teaching other quilters what I have learned. I will be making a time lapse video of me doing just that. So stay tuned sometime within the next several months I will be starting on those videos. A full behind the scenes, series of videos from start (deconstruction of the wedding dress) to finish (binding and crystals).

Hope you enjoyed my story….

Until next time keep drawing and doodling!!