A Gem Exposed... finally

One of my favorite small quilts, otherwise known as a wall hanging, has been mostly hidden in a corner behind my serger for at least a couple years.  I have almost all of my walls filled with something, and available wall space is almost non-existent.  Raggedy and her little buddies are sitting on a box, and she is tethered to the wall so the kitties cannot pull her off the table.

A couple of days ago I decided to organize things in my sewing room a little differently.  My sewing room isn't that small, I actually have 4 sewing machines set up all the time as well as a cutting table and an ironing station.  Problem is I have lots of tools, accessories, quite a quantity of thread and did I say I have some fabric.  Every nook and cranny is occupied.  In my attempt to shuffle things around I thought about this colorful quilt that is quite beautiful... what if I could only see the whole thing.

I came up with considering to hang it on the door, but the door would not be easy to nail or screw something into, besides Ron might not think it was a good plan if I was going to pound nails into it.  

I first found a pant hanger with clips, but when I tried to close the door it wasn't going to happen.  So I retreated to my big comfortable chair that sits almost in the middle of the room.  It has a swivel base and I can turn and view the whole room from one place.  As I sat there surveying the situation, I looked over and saw two over-the-door hangers sitting in the top of the mesh bag hanging on the back of the door.  It was like they were put there with the intent of being ready for just this project.

I got busy and stitched a hanging sleeve on the top backside of the quilt, retrieved a dowel from the garage, and just like that I had my magnificent quilt in total, plain view every time I enter my sewing room.

Now I do have to leave the door closed when I am not in the sewing room because my kitties are treasure hunters and when they are unsupervised they can get into some things they should not.  One never knows what might be hauled down the stairs.  As a result, not only will I see this quilt every time I go in, but the door is always open when I am in there, so I can look up and enjoy its beauty whenever I choose.  It's a quilt that makes me smile when I look at it.

Some of the details that were hidden at the bottom in its previous location.  

 

Half square triangles anyone?

Getting any quilts done has not been on top of the list for the last couple of weeks.  Last week I was part of a group with five quilters that went to a school to give a presentation for third graders on the art of quilting.  The class only had 16 students, so they were divided into 4 groups of 4 and we had 4 stations for them to rotate through.  One lady read a short story about quilting history.  The next station had two ladies displaying antique quilts and telling the stories behind them.  Next there was a demonstration of cutting using a rotary cutter.  Safety in the use of a rotary cutter was the main emphasis.  The last station was me sitting at my Featherweight and showing them how a nine patch is sewn together.  I even showed them how to use a seam ripper and take a nine-patch apart.  The overall purpose of the presentation was a quilt that they want to create as a class to use as a fundraiser for their school... it is a private school.  Each student is going to draw on a piece of muslin something that reflects their personality.  After they get these done, we will add nine patch blocks to create a really neat quilt.  It will be auctioned off at their gala in March.  I will be the one who will quilt it once it is all constructed. 

This is the only quilt I've completed in the past two weeks.  My friend did a great job putting this one together and had requested that I quilt it so that she could turn the backing to the front for the binding.  This is not my most favorite thing to do because it requires extra attention to detail when you are quilting, but when it was done, I was very pleased with the result.

Now on to the half square triangle.  I signed up to do a Batik exchange with a group of ladies on TheQuiltShow.com, an online group.  The sign-up time ends this evening so the final number of participants has not been announced yet.  Yesterday the count was at 129, which means that each person is to make at least 129 HST to send to the lady organizing this exchange, and she will sort and mail them back out to everyone.  What I am proposing is a mini exchange to go with the HSTs we will be receiving.  I do not have a specific quilt in mind, but there have been estimates posted to indicate a small quilt would take close to 450 HSTs and many more for a larger one.  If we get the number up to 150 in this exchange I am currently in, it would still take many more to make a quilt.  Variety is what an exchange is all about... you send out 150, could be all the same light/dark HST... and you get back 150 different ones. 

In the exchange that I am proposing I am looking for 20 quilters to send out 20 sets of 12 HST.  The sheets that I have for the 2" finished HST can be printed on your printer and there are 12 on each sheet.  So you would have to print 20 sheets and sew and cut them apart.  There is more information required to get this done, but I'm trying to find out if I can find 20 quilters to participate to add 240 HST to your collection of 2" HSTs.

I do not typically have lots of comments, but if you are interested in doing this, leave a comment.  I'm not going to set any dates at this point, just want to see if there is an interest.