Thursday, December 22, 2011

Time to watch my Dresden Plate

Look what the Hubs found:


I can hear you saying:  "So what?  It's an old watch.  Big deal!"  Well, it happens to be a big deal.  His Royal Hubserooni has a thing on wind-up watches, and looks for them wherever he goes.  We know they are out there because that's what we used before battery-operated watches.  You'd think they'd be all over the place.  Nope, they're  not.  So, anyhow, he ordered a bunch of watches from Ebay, and this ladies' watch was in the pile.  And it's a wind-up watch and it fits my small wrist.  Every morning I wind it, and then it keeps perfect time all day long.  I rather like it as a retro-watch.  I really want a new, snazzy one, but this one makes me smile at the moment, so I'll use it until I find the perfect watch.

And what are we watching?  OK, looking at?  This!


My first Dresden Plate quilt.  Appliqued by moi, and hand-quilted also by moi.  Not quilted in the ordinary way that hand quilters quilt, just in my method, which is probably wrong, but it worked for me.  I think I might have quilted it a bit too closely, but it's all a learning experience for me.  After many struggles with trying to pull through a knot, and failing and cursing miserably, I played around with one of my old embroidery skills of threading it ahead of my line, taking a tiny back stitch, and then quilting through all the layers.  So, the back is kind of messy, but boy did I learn from it!

I loved the entire process of the hand-work.  I seem to like all the quilting processes with selecting the fabric the most, of course.  I like the machine sewing the least, mostly because straight lines and I don't mix.  I swear I'm going to become a hand patchwork sewer.  Growl.

I truly adored making the Dresden Plate and now want to make many things with it or part of it as the design.  So easy and such fun, and I didn't louse up the machine piecing on it either, which really surprised me.  I backed it with a solid fabric.  Not a good idea because you can see my messy white thread stitches on that deep teal background.  Ick.  Next time I use a print for the back side.  The other thing I did which I won't do again is apply the binding to each side rather than go around the piece.  It was fast, but I made really messes on the back with trying to get the pieces to go together without raw edges showing.  I'll do the regular double binding the next time.  And I really really like to do the hand binding part.  And I think binding clips are fun and adorable.

We are having a nice Chanukah.  Quiet, just the 2 of us.  Light the candles, say the prayers and sing a song or two.  Miss P has taken to calling me a couple of times every day and she brings me up to date with her presents and such.

2 comments:

Wall-to-wall books said...

Wow, that is gorgeous!
Happy Chanukah to you!

Jen Mc said...

Beautiful!

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