Strawberry Jam

My granddaughter came over yesterday and stayed the night.  We made a great lunch of soft tacos with homemade tortillas and then we made strawberry jam!  She did most of the prep of lunch and the strawberries, did all the stirring, mixing, and pouring into the jars. It was a fun afternoon.  We haven't tasted the jam yet but with just strawberries, sugar, lemon juice and pectin, there's not much that can go wrong.  It looks good anyway.

Brianna showing her work

Everything is better with Fabric!

I just can't do it!

I sat there looking at the hearts with my brand new seam ripper in hand and couldn't do it, couldn't take them off. Almost need a magnifying glass to see the TINY stitches done in monofilament and if I mess up the quilt I would kick myself for not leaving it as it is.

It's not a mistake that needs to be corrected. It's not a masterpiece destined for a museum. It's a simple quilt that has been fun (mostly) to do. I learned how to use the printed HST sheets. I used the heat resistant templates for the first time. I learned a lot of things with this quilt and I still like the first design too.

I have another row of 5 hearts ready to sew on. :-)

Less is more?

I've been thinking about all the blank spaces with hearts and maybe that's too much.  If I hadn't already done two rows with 5 hearts I would probably do every other one instead.  Now, I'd have to take off 4 of them and since they are glued, heat set, and sewn on, it might damage the quilt to take them off.

The glue is just Elmer's School Glue so it washes out but the tiny zig-zag stitch might be a problem.  Should I chance it and take them off?

All 48 blocks are done!

Whew!!  Big sigh of relief that they are all done!  I think this might be the longest I have worked on a quilt other than hand piecing.  The first post about this quilt was on April 10th and there is still a lot of work to do on it.  There are 25 more hearts to applique after getting the rows sewn together and then the vines and hearts on the borders.

Maybe the body will all be sewn together this weekend. :-)

Did some work this evening

I'm really trying to push through and get the latest quilt done.  Today I got the last 96 HSTs sewn and pressed, this is enough for the remaining 12 blocks.  I will need to cut MORE of the ivory Kona Cotton and get it washed.  I also got the additional 10 hearts cut out and decided on placement.  Rows 5 and 6 are done and the sashing strip between them is sewn to one row.  I just couldn't do any more at the time.

The 4 Bali Handpaint sets were delivered today.  They are beautiful!  Just beautiful.  I won't need much at all of each color for the French Braid quilt so I've got ideas swirling around my head about using them in something spectacular.  I really prefer to create my own designs so it's going to take some thinking and playing around in EQ7.  Not that this is a chore, it's one of my favorite parts of quilting.  I don't want to just use them for any old thing, if you know what I mean.  These are expensive fabrics and I don't want to waste them in something that doesn't do them justice.

They look even better in person.

Quilt appraisal

I received the appraisal for the quilt that was in the Knoxville show.  It has an appraised value of $4500.  When I picked up the mail and saw the letter, before getting home and opening it I thought... maybe $1000?  At the most?  I really can't see someone paying $4500 for a quilt, but then, I've really never looked at the cost of quilts other than simple little ones for a few hundred and the major award winning ones for tens of thousands. 

The appraisal also says that this isn't a lifetime value since that can increase with the quilter's reputation and show wins.

12 more blocks done

I worked hard today and got the next 12 blocks done!! Woo Hoo!!  Only 12 more to go. Last night I got the second 5 hearts sewn on and the first two sections sewn together.  The 5 hearts for the space between the two sections are picked out and need to be turned under and sewn still.

Don't know why I thought I only needed 25 of those hearts, there needs to be 35 of them.  *sigh*  I got the pieces of fabric out that I cut the hearts from to do 10 more of them.