Thursday, May 3, 2007

black batting

I started quilting richard's mother's quilt yesterday. yeah for black batting - no migration! I'm quite disappointed that joann fabrics (which is walking distance) no longer carries black batting! on monday, I let my fingers do the 'shopping' first called abigayle's (my favorite quilt shop in the area) and yes, they had black batting in stock. since feagin works just one town over from abigayle's my next call was to him to see if he would drop by the shop one day this week on his way home! fortunately he dropped by that very evening! most fortuitous as there was someone there - feagin got there a few minutes before 6, contrary to an old business card which listed 6 o'clock they actually close at 5 everyday but thursday! (okay, you might wonder why I'm excited about this mundane event - other than it's probably my nature to be happy over little things, I love when things work out better than expected. I always need to find creative approaches to errands as I live without a car. backstory: when my ol' car [literally it was 14 and a few miles shy of 200,000] died over a year ago and I decided the best thing I could do for the planet was to not replace it! I get by quite well by walking, using public transportation, or if I really need one borrowing a car. one of these days I'll add to my transportation options when I get it together and to tune-up my ol' bike!)

the way things are going I'm hopeful I will make my self imposed deadline of having this quilt done by mid-may. tuesday I pieced and added the border, and before little tasha arrived for the afternoon, I was able to layer the quilt and get started on the quilting. I forgot how heavy these knit shirt quilts are; the knit fabric is heavier than regular cotton fabric and the woven interfacing adds another layer. since my general quilting technique is to use a lap hoop (making me & my projects portable) it's good that it's not summer!

thursdays are generally a 'kid day'(when tasha comes over) but poor little thing was feeling punky (or should I say pukey!) yesterday. suspicious that she might have an ear infection t's mama took her to get her ears checked this morning; and yes they were (given that t's mama is a doctor I was pretty confident that she was calling it correctly!) although I'm disappointed that tasha & I are missing our thursday morning program at the library and I won't have excuse to spend the day at the park or strolling about the city, I now have a big block of time to stitch away. I'm three discs into a 12 disc audio book - now to move the cd player out to the porch and I'll be all set!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

why the black batting, does the white fuzz from white batting come through when quilting?

mouse (aka kimy) said...

I seem to have a terrible time with white fuzz when I have a piece that has LOTS of black in it - don't know if it's because I generally use 100% cotton batting or my needle technique.

Anonymous said...

a lot of time when i do quilts i tend to use flannel as a batting and i guess on my darker stuff i never used batting, but i was guessing that might happen. it probably could be remedied by a different ration between the needle and the tightness of the fabric... but then again they make black batting for a reason i guess....i guess i guess a lot.

Anonymous said...

The JoAnns most convenient to me just went out of business and I was looking for black batting and happened upon your site. What a treat. I am doing a crayon quilt with my granddaughter and I think the Faith Reingold book you featured would be very nice for us to share. I am also inspired by the many quilts you complete! I have decided that this year I will do more than the three quilts I have completed in the last three years, with one being a postcard. lol. I am a member of Harlem Girls Quilting Circle in NYC, and I have contributed to several quilts we have done as a group. Currently, I have five pending projects in various stages of completion. Thank you for your interesting and wonderful site! Maybe I will start a blog of my own.