QUILTING DONE ON CAT QUILT

I finished the machine quilting and took out all the pins today!

Then I squared it up and even made the binding and sewed it on.  All that's left is to sew the binding down on the back.  

PINNING THE DOGS

CULLING MY PINS

I have quite the collection of safety pins for pinning quilts together.  I use brass because I've heard that the silver ones can leave black marks on your fabric, especially if left in too long.

I noticed while pinning yesterday, that there seemed to be quite a few silver pins in my collection.  So, I took them out.  I also noticed that a few of the brass ones had turned a bit dark, so I culled them out, too.

ASHTRAY - DAY SIX

I got some thread work done on the 'background'.  I particularly wanted to lighten it up under the chair because there isn't much value change.  I accomplished this by putting some free-motion thread work in a lighter shade of gray over that area.  I'm still not sure it's light enough, but the quilting, if done in a lighter shade will lighten it up even more.

Here you see it pinned and ready for quilting.  This is the part that makes me nervous!

TRYING TO GET IT ALL DONE BEFORE WEEK'S END

First thing this morning I cleaned the floor in the studio so I could pin baste the 'Mystery Quilt'.  It's bad enough having to mop in the house, you shouldn't have to mop your studio floor....geez.

But I must say it's very nice to have room enough to lay out a big quilt - although this one is not big - on the floor and get it basted.

Afterwards I definitely felt the need for a nice walk so  Lucy and I headed out.

After lunch I went back to the studio and worked on my Steel Plant painting.

Here's what it looked like before I started:

And here's what it looks like now:

You might notice I used a lot of red in the underpainting, but today I used a very limited palette of just Indigo Blue, Quinacridone Gold and a little Cadmium Yellow Medium and lots of white.   I like it.  I will let it rest for a week and then look at it again.