Yesterday, Don and I spent over an hour hanging a quilt rack on the wall in my sewing room as well as 2 curtain rods. So now I have some places to display the quilts I've been making. I always found it interesting that I finally have a room dedicated to my quilting obsession but have no quilts on display, thrown over the couch, or anywhere else in the room. Now that's about to change!
I found this quilt rack at my neighbor's garage sale last summer for $5! I'd planned on painting it but never could decide on a color, so it sat in the corner until yesterday. Now it holds my embroidered Among the Pines quilt that I just love. It's on the wall above the sleeper sofa and I'll be taking a look at it everytime I step into my room. We also use this as an overflow guest room, so they'll have something interesting to see down there as well.
Here you can see the individual blocks a little better. The square ones are of a sailboat, bear, moose, campfire, cross country skier, snowshoes, canoe, and fireplace.
As I've mentioned (only once or twice, I'm sure) this is the tiniest embroidery that I've ever done. A lot of it with only one strand of floss. This image with the dime gives you an idea of how tiny these stitches are. It was very painstaking work but I'm so glad I set out to make this wall quilt. But I'll NEVER do it again! BTW, it was on display in our library quilt exhibit over the weekend, and the librarians said it got a lot of compliments. I'm happy with it for myself, but hearing that others like it too makes it all the sweeter.
On the wall to the left of the couch, there's enough room to put up 2 curtain rods to hang small quilts. I don't have anything in particular in mind for these two places so I pulled this hollyhock wall quilt from my closet and put it up on one of the rods. The other rod is empty for now--have to get busy and make up something, right? I bought the hollyhock pattern and fabric on a fabric shopping trip with my sister over 5 years ago in Bemidji, MN. I fell in love with it and made it up to hang in my office and I always think of Jan when I see it. She loved it too and I had good intentions of making one for her as a surprise, but she died suddenly before I could do it. It's a combination of applique (machine) and patchwork and I tried out my machine quilting skills on this piece before I'd learned to do FMQ better. If I made a second one, which I'm not planning on doing, mind you, I think I would use the same quilting designs, but executed better.
After we finished with hanging the quilt rods, I began hand stitching the binding on the customer quilt. It's not very large--about 50" by 25"--but it took me over 2 hours to get it done! I'm always surprised at how long it takes to do certain quilting things, things that I always think will only take a few minutes. Well, it was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon, listening to a collection of Maeve Binchy stories on audio books.
Oh! Oh! I just had a thought of what to make to put on the 3rd wall of the room! (The fourth wall is filled with a large bookcase and doesn't have room for any quilts to hang there.) I have a pattern for a pieced iris flower similar to the one below.
I think I'll make it up and frame it with checkerboard or hourglass blocks and then put it in a frame like the one below. I found a frame at a thrift store and need to refinish the wooden frame. I think the iris, which is one of my very favorite flowers, will work very well in my sewing room.
I saw this in a quilt shop in Minocqua, WI last June when I was on the WI shop hop with a couple of friends and I really liked the idea, and now I have the space for it, the frame for it, and the pattern to use. So we'll just put this on the list of quilts to be made, shall we, and wait for the right time to do it!
I also thought about quilts for this room last night, and decided that I should resume working on a crumb quilt I started a couple of years ago and make it up to keep on that couch for a little extra warmth in that basement room. Maybe I'll take it and my box of crumbs to the spring retreat.
I didn't get around to copying the last two Bless My Garden embroidery blocks and I didn't even look at making the backs for the two quilts I want to sandwich. Today, maybe? Or maybe I'll take a trip to the LQS and get some fabric for Bless My Garden. Which would you do if it were you? :)
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