Birthday Quilt

This is a quilt I made for my friend Lorraine's birthday. She is the author of wonderful childrens' books. I wanted to celebrate her books and featured the book covers. The colors are so bright, I needed bright colors for a background, but didn't want to overwhelm the covers.

For the book covers, I scanned the image and made a JPG. I used Bubble Jet Set to treat 100% cotton muslin cloth and ironed it to freezer paper. I cut the pages to 8.5" by 11" and sent them through my color printer. I have a low-end HP color ink jet that worked very well. The Bubble Jet Set allows the colors to be permanently set into the cloth. I soaked the pages in synthrapol to get rid of excess ink. I lost some color but not a lot. Overall, I was happy with the result. I used directions I found on the internet.

I had it quilted by a professional long-arm quilter. She did a fabulous job. She used a pale yellow thread with a simple meandering design. She outlined the images on the book covers. This was the first time I had the quilting done by someone else. I was pleased with the result. My girlfriend was thrilled.

My Cat Bruce

I lost my cat Bruce two weeks ago. He was 20 years old. He was my best pal for 20 years and went everywhere with me. He went to West Africa, had a pet rabbit and turkey, and lots of love. I miss him very much.

My First Post

I have been reading quilting and crafting blogs for a few months. I wanted to be able to share my opinions and receive comments back from some of the really terrific quilters out there. I also like to read parenting blogs as I have 4 kids and need the diversity of opinions/experiences to help me balance my own feelings.

I have sewed most of my life and have recently stepped up the quilting. I hand quilted a quilt for my husband for our wedding. It took me 3 years. Since then I've used a combination of hand and machine quilting to accomplish my quilts.

This is mostly a test to see if I've sort of figured something out about this blog business.

Julie