Feather Curl

 Adria Good one day showed a quilt while busy quilting it and as I closely looked at it, I thought to myself that it was a basic spiral with petals shaped in the form of some feather plumes.  Now Adria stands out for her wide range of free motion flowers she does as edge-to-edge motifs.  However, be not mistaken, she can quilt many other motifs but to me, she is the ‘flower girl’ of edge-to-edge free motion work.

Now I can do a fairly decent swirl as well as plumes and thought I’d give it a try.  With hubby still out of town for business, I got a sandwich loaded onto the frame but life happens while you’re making other plans and the youngsters phoned me early morning for baby-sitting.  The little one is on her third day with a terrible phlegmy cough.  Dad stayed home on day 1, mom took off work on day 2, and day 3 turned out to be mine.  Still not over the worst but we had a good day.  One just again realizes why you have kids when you are much younger, I just don’t have the stamina to do this full-time anymore. In the end, she stayed with me for 2 days, still not feeling better but at least ate the second day.

A new potential quilt customer phoned just as the little one awoke from her early morning nap and I had to ask to phone back.  Not good business practice but sometimes one has to do what needs to be done first.  My daughter managed to get off work after half a day and came to fetch the little one, while mom, herself, did not feel all that well either.

Phoned the quilter back and it turned out to be a rather lengthy conversation as with every conversation a quilter has when they get to meet another quilter.  This quilter is not local so she will courier her quilts to me and I’ll have to do the same once done.  After reading about lost quilts in the US I am somewhat nervous about this as South Africans do not even remotely have the service those in the US are used to and expect.  So, hoping for the best.

When Adria showed her finished quilt, she mentioned she saw a pantograph and decided to give this a go as a freehand motif and I’ve often looked at pantographs thinking some would be possible freehand but never dared being that brave.  This is therefore attempt number one even though nudged by someone else.

The major difference between a pantograph and freehand is that you do not follow a line with a laser light when working freehand thus neither your swirl nor plumes will all have exactly the same size but to me, that lends even more to give the quilt texture.

Tonight, we’re having the two oldest grandkids for a sleepover as their mom is out of town and we’re giving my son an evening off but this morning I’m having a quilter over and we’re simply planning to cut blocks for our next quilts (she does hers, I do mine) but adult conversation would be wonderful for a change.