Valentine in Paris(Ville)

I shipped this off to my swap partner last week, so I hope she received it by now. Here’s the little something I made for the Gen Q Mag Valentine Swap:

I realized after I took the photos that my markings didn’t disappear. I’d intended to FMQ “Be Mine, Valentine”, but my practice attempts failed miserably and I just did a few wiggly lines.

Water removed those marks, but I didn’t get another photo. It made the binding bleed, though it was only obvious on the back. I hope she doesn’t mind too much. The back was nicely pieced, but then I put another layer over it so that I could slide a piece of paper in, making it the front of a card (which can then be removed so it can be a mug rug). I used the selvage edge instead of hemming the open side.

I would have used brown thread for the binding, but my bobbin ran out, and I didn’t have enough thread to wind a new one…

And I machine bound this, for the first time ever. I didn’t do too bad of a job. I think I’ll stick to hand binding quilts, though.

I finally managed to capture what the sliver-shot linen looks like (view the larger version). Love that fabric!

I just couldn’t stop working with the leftover Parisville from the Tula Pink kaleidoscope quilt top I’ve been working on. I finished it last week too, but haven’t taken any decent photos. I also have 64 8″ squares cut out of the various fabrics that I’m going to turn into a second quilt top, but no promises on when I’ll get around to sewing it together.

I was in a manic state working on that top. It lasted a little while longer—enough to get this mug rug finished and finally, finally cut into the fabric for a quilt based on Drunkard’s Path blocks that I was supposed to work on last year for Sew You Want to Quilt, but got sidetracked by Christmas, the house, and general fear of screwing up the design I have in my head for it.

This is the center of the quilt:

And here is a scrap fabric rendition of another block. It took me ages to get these triangle blocks the right size—I don’t have fabric to waste, so I needed to get the templates right without having to cut down too much:

But now my manic creative state has ended and I have traded fabric for books—mostly, at least (I did work on another mockup of the 1812 corset, but haven’t gotten the lacing strips on yet so that I can actually finish fitting it). Time to find my equilibrium again.

2 Responses to “Valentine in Paris(Ville)”

teresa

4:59 pm | 02/27/12

I got it and thank you!!! You did a lovely job and I really liked the mix of patchwork and print. Nice. It’s already been put to use. I hope you received mine on the second try. 🙂

BTW, I hand-bind quilts, too. It’s much more time consuming but I’m always happier with the results. But then again, I’ll hand-sew lots of things that could be done much faster on machine (like much of your gift).
- Rachael Arnold
  
  9:24 am | 02/28/12
  
  It arrived safely last weekend! Thank you! Coincidentally, I was in dire need of a new pin cushion, so it’s perfect!