Help….I need a good name

Doesn’t it feel good to finish a project that has been years in the process??

YES, I finished this quilt last week…..

For those who may not remember, it was inspired by this photo….

I used “Electric Quilt” to design two blocks…..

I then played with them to come up with this design…..

When I received a bunch of gorgeous blue and green hand-dyed fabrics, I knew that it was time to start piecing!! The top has been ready for 18 months but it took this long to figure out how to quilt it!!

After readers gave tons of ideas, I decided on straight lines following the basic design of the triangles. That is a LOT of straight lines!! Let’s just say that I am now perfectly comfortable using a straight ruler for quilting!!

BUT WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY????

I enjoy looking at each quilt and thinking about how I could make it better the next time, and for this quilt, there are TOO many lines of quilting. I like my general idea of having the large triangles run into each other…..

BUT, I should have had the spacing of the in-between lines be further apart!!

Live and learn!!

Having said that, I do like the look of the quilting, especially from this angle…..

I have written the pattern for this quilt but need a name before I can publish it.

PLEASE HELP……WHAT WOULD YOU NAME IT???

She used MY pattern!!!….

Last week I posted about receiving blocks in the mail and today I want to tell you about a wonderful email that I received.

But first….the backstory…..

Back in January, I released my very first quilt pattern….. “Crumbs for the Geese”

Now, this was the first time that I had ever written a pattern and I was a bit concerned that I hadn’t done a good job. I think that we all know THAT feeling!!

Over the past 10 months, a bunch of people had downloaded the pattern but, as far as I knew, no one had attempted the quilt.

BUT, last week I received an email from Charmaine with this photo attached…..

Didn’t she do a great job!!!

She told me that it will be donated to the Calgary Child Advocacy Center to give a young person some comfort. That makes it even better!!

As we corresponded further, she told me that she used scraps of fabric that were given to her from various sources and then used a specialty ruler to cut out the flying geese.

She also mentioned that she made the flying geese “wings” larger than needed and then used “Deb Tucker’s Wing-Clipper” ruler to trim the geese down accurately.

Like most of us quilters, she does love gadgets that help her be precise!!

Interestingly, later that same day, a friend wrote and asked if I had ever used any of the Deb Tucker rulers?

Well, that can’t be a coincidence!!

So, I have now ordered the Wing-Clipper and am looking forward to trying it soon. Stay tuned for a review of this tool.

Thank you Charmaine for your sweet encouragement!!!

PATTERN UPDATE…Have you checked out my pattern for “Crumbs for the Geese”. To purchase, simply click on the “Patterns for Sale” tab at the top of this page.

My new “thinker” quilt!!

When I posted the Inspiration Tuesday photo last week…..

…..I mentioned that it really was calling to me. I kept thinking about it more and more so this weekend, I made a start on the project.

My first task was to put the photo into Photoshop and start cleaning it up as much as I could. I started by applying the “Poster Edge” Filter to help further define the lines…..

I knew that I didn’t need the lights that ran along the top so I started by roughly erasing those….

Finally, I knew that I didn’t want the hooked lines that ran out from the middle ladder, so it was off with their heads…..

When I was happy with the clean-up job, I put the photo into Powerpoint so that I could play with the sizing a bit. I made the photo 6inches by 9 inches and then printed it out using the poster function. This enlarged the photo so that it was printed on a 3×3 page grid, making the finished product about 18 x 30 inches…..

I cut out and taped the 9 pages together…..

….and voila….my full size pattern was born!!

Now, you may have noted that the orientation of the photo has changed. When I printed out a full size photo, Michael and I both looked at it and decided that it needed to be upside down…..

It was simply too top-heavy in the original version.

I started looking at the full-size pattern and realized that there were other unnecessary lines so I started cleaning up some more…..using correction tape this time!!….

So, the final pattern is ready to go…..

Now comes the fun part……