Quilt Tips

The other day someone else who quilts on a domestic sewing machine (not a long arm machine) was telling me how tired her hands and arms were after spending the day quilting. I quilt on a 36 year old Huskvarna/Viking workhorse (unless I quilt on an H/V that's even older). In the past I've tried all kinds of hoops, non-slip gloves, etc., but for the past few years I've been using something much simpler: two pieces of non-slip, rubberized kithchen-shelf protector. Much cooler than gloves; no need to grab and, thereby, distort the quilt-top; makes quilting possible even when it's a hot day; and I can quilt all day if I need to.

Yesterday I needed to draw a circle in the middle of the patches, but the old marker I had found to mark four circles on another quilt was too dried out to mark on this one. I made a run to Alco, my favorite hometown variety store (used to be known as Duckwalls), but they had no blue erasable markers. I cut a circle from a roll of shelf paper with light adhesive and stitched around that, peeled it off, and saved it for the next patch.

I do quilt a lot of feather variations; however, except when I need things like a perfect, or nearly perfect, circle in the center of a block, I don't mark the quilting lines; I just quilt--the payoff from decades of sewing and quilting practice.

It's been a very hectic month since I last posted--which is why I haven't posted. My teaching assignment for next year has changed several times. I'll be at the same school, although I had to move all my teaching "stuff" (probably a couple of tons worth) to a different classroom pod. I'll still be teaching special education students, but it's likely I'll be teaching a different level, most likely students with severe and profound disabilities again. I pointed out to the principal that the district has just spent thousands of dollars on training and new materials, so I'll be allowed to teach a two-hour reading/writing block to students with less severe disabilities. Well, that's how things stood on the last day of my contract; anything and everything could change by August.

Must run now and prepare and sew on some bindings for a couple of gift quilts. I'll show them in another post when they are finished.