Wednesday, May 4, 2011

UFO for April--complete!!

     Four for four!! I feel as good about finishing this quilt as I have for any I've made. This is the first quilt I've marked and quilted with contrasting machine quilting and been completely happy with--like happy enough to put it up for judging in my next quilt show! Formerly called "Michigan Highway", I renamed it "Starry Night".
     With the 18 different colors of stars, I also used 18 different colors of thread to quilt it with. A good friend of mine suggested that and I'm glad I took her advice.
     This was a quilt I made in a mystery class about 3 years ago. I was apprehensive about quilting it because I knew I wanted to use all these colors on the black and I've never found a way to mark on black (and have it wash out) that I was happy with. My friend suggested the Clover white marking pen. She also lent me 5 of her 300+ stencils (!) and that was the ticket! Worked great and the marks washed out beautifully.
  

Here's my #9 UFO for May. It consists of a pile of luxurious fabrics I bought at Britex in San Francisco a few months ago. Britex is a 5-story building just off Union Square in the heart of the city, has been there for decades and is one of the only true fabric stores for a hundred miles around. (No, Joann's doesn't count!) This is where the serious clothing-makers shop, ladies!

I found a fabulous jacket pattern at the road to California Quilt Show in January. Lorraine Torrence is a talented pattern designer who creates fashionable yet wearable garments. So I made a 'muslin' of her
"City Wraps" jacket using my neglected dress form and LOVED how it fit! Hopefully I can translate that into the brocade and silk for which I paid $85!

 Thank you, Judy, for encouraging me to finish 4 of my UFOs so far this year. I finally feel that my UFO pile has been depleted enough to start on some new projects! Check out Judy's website to see everyone else's accomplishments.

11 comments:

Carol said...

Your quilt turned out great -- love the look of the different color threads. Congratulations on another finish!

Donna~~ said...

Lovely! You are so organized to use 18 colors--I would have mixed them up for sure! Congrats on a great finish! This UFO challenge is definitely motivating some great finishes!

Quilter Kathy said...

WOW! Your quilting turned this lovely quilt into a spectacular quilt!

Katie said...

The black makes those colors jump out at me and the quilting is fantastic. What a wonderful quilt to have finished.

BetsyE said...

What a great quilt! And creative quilting too. Nice job!

Gretchen said...

Love the quilt! The colors are so striking against the black background. Love the quilting too! Wow can't wait to see your May UFO. Gorgeous fabric.

Debbie said...

Your Starry Night is gorgeous but I can't wait to see your jacket!

Quilt Monkey said...

Hi there - I found you from Judy's blog. Your quilt is just stunning! Great color and beautiful quilting. Those colors just glow against the black background.

MB in MI said...

SO pretty! Your quilting is beautiful!! :-)

Mary said...

Beautiful work on your quilting!

JudyCinNC said...

I really do like your April finish - very nice. Judy C