This is a static export of a blog I put on ice many years ago, that still has personally relevant content. No promises can be made around linkrot, styles, or working functionality.
This accidentally ended up in my feed a few days ago, sans images. Hereās the full post!
Did you ever hear about the Kiwi couple that named their daughter āTalulah Does The Hula In Hawaiiā (or possibly āTulaā¦ā)? I ask, not to vilify them, but to explain the title of this quilt. See, Iād heard about that well before I found out about Tula Pink, and every time I hear the name āTulaā, that other name comes to mind. So, an imitative name seemed perfect for this quilt (seeing as the focus fabrics are Tulaās Parisville prints). Thus, āTula Does Up the Walls in Parisā where āParisā is pronounced en FranƧais, of course, to get that nice āeeā sound at the end. Yes, yes, enough talk, more photos: (more…)
The Great Lakes Seaway Trail 1812 Quilt show was this weekend, and it seemed to be a resounding success. We went up today and enjoyed the quilts, the speaker, some of Sacketās Harborās delicious food, and absolutely beautiful weather.
There were so many amazing quilts and talented quilters represented. I gave up voting in the viewerās choice, because there were at least five quilts that I just couldnāt choose between. I hope they all end up in the selection that is traveling around the country in the next year so that more people will have a chance to see them. (more…)
I spent my National Sewing Day taking advantage of the lovely weather to do some much-needed leaf raking, then sat on the porch and made progress on my Tula quiltās binding. I still havenāt photographed my underpinnings and gown (show is tomorrow), but hereās a few of my shoes.
After deciding against the American Duchess shoes, and Moof chewing my half-finished pink attempt, I still found myself in need of shoes for the show. Target no longer had the pink ones, so I couldnāt continue in that vein. I finally decided to go back to my original plan of gussying up a pair of black flats I purchased a few years ago and have practically worn out (I stopped wearing them a while ago, but never got around to throwing them out). Some of the wear will be hidden by the decoration anyway, so itās a good compromise. (more…)
After making proper drawstring channels for my gown and sewing my petticoat straps on (they were pinned on TV), I decided that my outfit needs one more addition: a reticule. After all, I need a way to hide my very un-period keys and cell phone.
All that is left on my Tula quilt is hand-sewing the bindingāIāve been working on quilting it this week instead of fixing some of my Regency outfit shortcuts. Bad me. But, having something to hand sew on the trip up to Sacketās Harbor sounded smart, so I decided to get the quilt to the point of needed the binding sewn on. Plus, our class wrapped up last week, with the goal of finishing the quilting this month before we start our next project.
It has its share of imperfections. I was a bit careless when trimming the applique down, and had to do a couple creative patches: (more…)
This morning, Lynette (Quilt Show Manager) and I appeared on the Bridge Street Show in Syracuse. I got a sneak peek at five of the quilts and am in awe of the talent and vision of the quilters (one has 5000 pieces in it, and the woman managed to finish it within 3 months!). I canāt wait to see the rest.
Shh, donāt tell anyone, but in the clip, my dress hems are seam-taped, my petticoat straps were pinned on, and my corset and chemise have lots of unfinished edges.
Now that I have the outfit complete, though (well, aside from the above-mentioned issues), I might actually have time to blog about the bits and pieces. I wasnāt very good about photographing as I made them, though, but Iāll try.
Before I do finish them, I need to clean up my sewing room a bit. It looks like a natural disaster hit. Totally messing up my chi.
Then itāll be back to quilting! I have one that I want to finish by mid-April, if at all possible.
I shipped this off to my swap partner last week, so I hope she received it by now. Hereās the little something I made for the Gen Q Mag Valentine Swap:
I realized after I took the photos that my markings didnāt disappear. Iād intended to FMQ “Be Mine, Valentine”, but my practice attempts failed miserably and I just did a few wiggly lines. (more…)
Shh, donāt tell Carl, but Iām admitting it: I could do much of my quilting and crafting on a cheaper machine. But, my fancy Husqvarna Viking Ruby can make certain things much simplerāif I know how to use them. So, here is the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series about using advanced features of the machine. For those of you who own other machines, I hope this inspires you to figure out how to do it on your own machine.
So, here is how to miter corners when satin stitching around an applique using a Ruby. These instructions will also be very similar for how to do it on a Diamond or Diamond DeLuxe, but the screens might be slightly different. (more…)
Iāve mentioned before that when I do digital mockups of my quilts or play with designs before quilting, I do so in Adobe Illustrator. I have nothing against EQ or any other quilt software, itās just that I donāt actually have that software; I do have Illustrator (albeit an older version from when I was in college).
Iāve been using Illustrator for just shy of a decade, so it is absolutely shameful that I didnāt know how to draw a quarter-circle until a few months ago. So, for anyone else in that boat (I know some of you use Illustrator too), I posted a quick tutorial on it over at my Web dev blog on rachaelarnold.com. (Once upon a time I had a grand ideas of having a few different blogs. I even updated them all. These days, I pretty much stick to this one here, but on rare occasions I update the one on Web development, too.)
