Detail photos of Road to California quilt

Here are some photos of the detail of Road to California.

The road takes us home from California

Well, we are back home again after a wonderful visit to California for Wyatt's first birthday. Here he is appreciating Gramma's handiwork, or looking for the many errors in the quilt!

This visit was relaxing and fun for many reasons. It was time away together for my sweetheart husband and I. We had both gone away separately this month on various recreational activities; he to ski in the Catskills and me on my sewing marathon with Becky in Texas. It was time to spend with many of the immediate and extended family who attended the 1st birthday party for Wyatt. And it was great to have the Road to California quilt done, delivered and out of my house! Always feel a tremendous sense of relief when one is done, especially a quilt as complicated and large as this one. Here are a few pictures taken from the balcony of the Westmoreland Museum where I work.

I will post more detail pictures tonight when I get home but a final one here, daughter Jamie and the little man, Wyatt.

The aftermath of a quilt (or what to do with yourself after the project is finished)

Well, Road to California is finally done and other than showing it off to my friends here in Pennsylvania, there is nothing more to do but pack it up and take it with us down the road to California this weekend. As is my usual practice, the closer I got to the end of the quilt, the more fanatic I got about finishing it. As my dear husband said to my California daughter (the recipient of the quilt) when asked what we were doing this (past) weekend, "Well, your mother is working on the quilt, working on the quilt, and oh yeah, working on the quilt." In my own defense, I did clean the house this weekend as well.

After every quilt project (but especially after the BIG ones), there is a period of hiatus, almost of letdown, as I re-adjust to normal living. Not only is time now freed up for other things (like laundry), my mind is freed as well. While I love (almost) every minute that I spend working on a quilt, there is a feeling of relief and freedom when a project is over. No longer do I have to rush home from work, do the necessary household things (like feed the cats) and get right to the quilting. I can take time to read the paper, watch a movie, or now that the weather is nicer, sit on my porch and watch the world go by.

Of course, I am already thinking about the next quilt. This was such a huge project that I think it is time to do a few smaller ones before I attack the next wedding quilt which will be for my third "daughter," our neighbor while the girls were growing up, Artemis. The next quilt will be a baby quilt for my new great nephew Robert Dean Mitchum III, now about 4 months old and fondly (and shortly) called Dean. The pattern is cross stitched alphabet letters (which daughter Becky is busily working on) with a center block we are tentatively calling ROCK STAR MONKEY after the pattern of the nursery. The center block is still in the jello phase (not quite gelled yet) so during this downtime, I will be thinking about that.

After Rock Star Monkey, I will be doing a reprise of the sunflowers in a baby quilt for my new grand niece, Emily Elizabeth Allmendinger-Goertz. I have some gorgeous Legacy Collection sunflower fabric on blue that looks like Van Gogh. I have asked what the nursery looks like but I am getting no response. They must be too busy with the new baby so I will just go with what suits me. Her grandmother, my sister-in-law, Cheryl, wants pink but that is just too precious and predictable for me.

We leave for California on Thursday, gone for 4 days to celebrate grandson, Wyatt's first birthday. Then it is home to do the taxes (oh dread!) and finish up the semester for professor husband. Things will be busy for me at the museum I am sure. We have an artist market scheduled for April 21 that will be fun and interesting. We are not traveling again until late June, middle July, middle August and middle September so plenty of time to get those baby quilts done!

I will post more pictures, including the surprise part after Jamie and Jeff receive it this coming weekend!

"4500 pins in a quilt, 4500 pins..." c'mon, sing along "take one down, pass it around...4499 pins in a quilt!"

Okay, so I counted them (kinda). I knew I had about 2000 quilt pins before I started pinning this quilt and I went and bought 1000 more, thinking, "surely, that's enough." Right? Wrong? Ended up back at Joann Fabrics again on Sunday morning last for another 1000 and then Sunday afternoon for 500 more. But it is pinned now and how! So many pins and such a big quilt (120 x 100 inches) that I decided to baste it before quilting it.

I have basted one other quilt in my life, an antique Grandmother's Flower Garden top which I found at the thrift store. I batted it with a cotton batting and used a plain muslin backing, then basted it for handquilting. This was while I was the Director at the Compass Inn Museum in Laughlintown, PA and we used the quilt for demonstrations during living history weekends. I truly intend to quilt it myself someday but some quilters (mainly my friend Marian Chambers) started the quilting. When you think about it, it seems a little insane to hand baste a quilt and then machine quilt it but I know from past experience that I will scratch myself up with 4500 pins, not to mention bleeding on the quilt and breaking machine needles. It took me 9 hours to baste the first third of it so only 18 hours to go!

The quilt top is finished!

Boy am I exhausted! Carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand tomorrow so a forced vacation from quilting for a few days. Glad I got it done before the surgery.

How do you like it, kids???

Here are the corn photos - added to represent the Midwest and the great state of Illinois

50 degrees and sunny today, January 12, 2012. Can you say global warming?

At any rate, a great day to photograph the quilt top. Wanted to show the row of corn. Next the City strip across the top....

and here are some close up of details. Almost done.

I thought the top was done...

But it turns out it was not quite wide enough. I am so glad I took it out to California and the kids at Christmas so that we could lay it on the bed and make well demonstrated decisions! So it turns out that 8 -10 inches need to be added to the right side (the side representing the Midwest). We all talked about it and decided CORN! What did we seeing growing up in Illinois but corn and more corn (and soybeans but that isn't really a easily identifiable plant). So I did a strip of corn on the right side. We also decided the trip from Chicago to San Francisco Bay was important so I will start on a city strip for the top tomorrow! After I clean house. It sadly needs it.

More pictures of the decision process:

The other reason for adding the city strip is that Jeff is very tall and we want to make sure we have enough to cover his feet!

Lastly, a few pictures of people I truly love taken this holiday season. Happy New Year!