Lin's Quilts: Under the Sea

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Fat Quarter Slide

I got most of the top for Fat Quarter Slide done last night. Have to add borders, then the top will be done. I'll be having lots of flimsies ready for backing, and quilting. Quite the lineup waiting for me. A little depressing.

Here are a couple pictures of Fat Quarter Slilde:

OK, they spent the day in a plastic tub, and got a little wrinkled. Hmmm. Mr LQ gave me this fat quarter bundle for Christmas. The first pic was taken on our bed in the camper, the second hanging at a cabin in the campground we're at tonight, in Corbin, KY. I just love the colors. It was a bundle of all shades of brownish-ness. From several shades of cream to very dark brown. I like all these varieties of brown. This pattern was in Quilter's World magazine, Spring 2014.

Corbin is near the Cumberland Gap, where the pioneers crossed the Cumberland Mountains of Appalachia to get to the west. It must have been daunting! Can you imagine leaving civilization behind--all your family, friends, house, things--to go begin anew in the west? I have moved six times to follow Mr LQ's jobs, but I could still go home again, could call people, letters. I don't know if I would have had enough guts to make a go of it.

The weather here is quite nice. In the 70s. Dogwood in bloom, redbud, dandelions are already in fuzz.

I guess tomorrow I'll have to get a better picture, sorry.

I also worked on my Under the Sea quilt. This one is a pattern from Quilts from Sweet Jane, by Sue Pfau. This one is done with a Jelly Roll of luscious bright batiks. I bought the group to think of Florida. They look like Florida colors to me.

I have the different size cuts in baggies, but I hope you can see the colors!

You can read about my trials and tribulations with the Fat Quarter Slide here. I also posted that day about Under the Sea and the blue jean quilt. You can see that I'm getting to the projects I planned on doing when we left in January. Read about that fiasco here.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

O-Lin-pics Day 2

I think it only appropriate to use the quilts from Sochi as backdrop to the O-Lin-pics. After all, this is about quilting! Those other people competing aren't doing anything with quilting.

I didn't realize at first that the theme at Sochi was quilting patterns. Someone had to show it to me. Now I see that quilting is being used in so much. The Americans' uniforms feature patchwork too. I'll have to watch other countries to see if they are also.

On this, the second day of the famous O-Lin-pics, the sports played were a new category of pressing, cutting and organizing.

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The FQs were pressed for the new quilt Fat Quarter Slide.Then there was cutting into pieces as per the directions. These are the directions from Quilters World, Spring 2014.

The judges will be judging by the standards already established by the quilting community, but the athletes have methods to vary the standards by adding new "tricks," just like Shaun White did. The athlete does admit to making a mistake in cutting. She says she cut 4 pieces too small (4.5" instead of 5.5") and there are not big enough pieces left to recut. What to do, what to do. The athlete noticed that the athletes on TV when they make a mistake, according to the announcers, the athletes just smile and make believe they meant to do that. This athlete will try that. But the athlete should be happy to accept a lower medal for this attempt.

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The next quilt was also organized. This is Under the Sea from Quilts from Sweet Jane. This is the quilt that will have nice bright Florida colors.

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There were also moments of reorganizing today. The athlete had to make a return to Joann's and had to find the receipt. There was success, so the athlete is awarded a Gold Medal for this sport! Yay!

The athlete had to do maintenance on her sporting equipment. The blade needed to be changed in her rotary cutter. This was accomplished by the athlete on her own. She states that the new easy change cutter made this "easy peasy."

The used blade was deposited in this container for easy disposal.

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It should be noted however, that the athlete did not make it to the podium for her medal presentation. When asked later, she replied that she could not find the podium. No one told her where it was. We say, "Well, this is our first year, and many things were not quite ready for the O-Lin-pics. The hotel rooms were still being readied as we all arrived." There were comments about the state of the water also. These are all factors that we hope to have remedied very soon. At least by June. June 2016. After all, we did not have $90 million to spend.

The final category in today's events is in the flannel-backed quilt. The 10" squares were cut into 5" squares to be readied for the blue jean squares. This will be a raggy blue jean quilt. The blue jeans will be cut open during the Olympics tonight.