Progress on Sunkissed -- Whoop Whoop!

Sunkissed is a quilt I'm making for ME! For MY bed! It's the yummiest colors on this planet!  But I'm taking my time, SITD (stitching-in-the-ditch) to stabilize it before beginning the quilt. I've drawn patterns for the sashing and corners onto tracing paper. 

And today I sewed one border using a pantograph.  Since the whole quilt is SITD, I can turn the quilt sideways to use the panto on the borders.  I stitched the panto up to the corners, then used the drawings above in the corner blocks, then I echoed and stippled the empty spaces.  I used matching thread so mistakes wouldn't show, but it's so pretty, I wish I'd used thread that was slightly more contrasting. Maybe I'll go back and do some hyperquilting, a la Patsy Thompson.  

Here you can see where I drew the pattern on the corner using the Pilot FriXion pen.  Have you heard of it? Amazing!  After the scary experience I had with my Pinwheels (the blue washout marker didn't, until I washed the whole quilt in a cold rinse cycle!!)  I decided to try the FriXion.  You just draw on your quilt, and it's like a ballpoint, smooth, sharp, fine and comes in red, black and blue.  Then to remove it, you run an iron over it, and voila', it's clean!  Really!  It works!  It's advertised as an Erasable Gel Pen, and it does erase from paper.

Next, I'll be quilting the blocks -- pinwheel centers circled by flying geese. I intend to take my time, and it will certainly take time!  But so far, so good :-)  Doing all kinds of research online, reading books watching DVDs and YouTube, I've learned lots of little tricks.  I couldn't tell you where I learned about the FriXion pen, or this tip -- using a pants hangar and curtain rod on the clamp ends of the quilt.  The pants hangar wasn't complete tight all across, so I inserted a strip of the shelf lining stuff that's rubbery and knobbly, and it holds it firmly all the way across.  The curtain rod holds the clamp from drooping and pulling the edge of the quilt downward.

Here's a picture of the edge of a quilt I finished for the other bed, using a panto. I'm thrilled with how it came out.  The photo doesn't do the colors justice, just know it's yumm-o, too!  This one's 92"x98", and I was able to do it on my 10' frame with room to spare -- hoorah!

Annabella was exhausted by all the quilting going on, so after a hard game of feather-chasing, it was a long nap for her!

For other Whoop Whoop! accomplishments, go to Sarah's blog: http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2011/08/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-sometimes-you.html