Christmas in July

I know it's August. But Christmas in August doesn't have the same ring to it! And I did practice the 'Christmas lights' line design yesterday, when it was still July. It began with a doodle. The design started as a retro telephone handset that I'd seen on a T-shirt while shopping last week.

But as I was doodling the design on paper it morphed into Christmas lights. The loops made it easy to 'travel'. And I thought it would be fun to scale up and down. Then I had to try it out with thread and fabric. The 4 foot Art Quilter is just right for this sort of thing. I loaded some black fabric and some fleece and tried out some different kinds of thread.

The luminous qualityof this Rainbows Northern Lights #803 worked well.

Then I tried a glow in the dark thread, which would look great in winter!

This photo is a bit more in focus. And to finish, I might as well include the reason for those cat hairs!! The cats do think the frames are special hammocks! I've got plan to use this line design on a Christmas tree quilt. So wait and see, or better yet make your own.

A Gift Day

I was supposed to be taking one of the kids to a doctor's appointment but a last minute cancellation gave me an unexpected free day. In my experience, expected free days are never really free because we fill them up ahead of time. But an unexpected free day is a gift! I usually fit my quilting in between other things but today I had 4 uninterrupted hours. So I was able to load the quilt on the frame, complete the machine quilting and blog about it, all in the same day.

I like to practice the line designs on a roll of paper before I start the machine quilting.

I went with the white thread in the end. I was very tempted by the shimmery red. But I decided to go for a more subtle look, especially as I was trying out a new line design. I'm pleased with how it turned out. The So Fine! is such a trouble free thread to free-motion with. Now I just need to do the binding and I'll be all ready for the birthday party.