Live and Learn!

After all the family left on the 26th, I was anxious to start quilting on a true collaboration project. My sister, Lee did the embroidery work and "tinting" of the blocks, Mary Buchman did the pinwheels, and Jenny Latendresse put it all together--ready for me to quilt!

My plan is to do some "ghost quilting"--basically extending the flower arrangements into the ecru background with ecru thread and then densely quilt the rest of the background. Well, we all know about best made plans! I decided instead of just quilting out the design freehand, I would use Press & Seal (yup--from the kitchen) and Crayola Ultra Clean Markers--both which I'd heard were great aids for quilting designs. Since-- I've heard otherwise! But when I pressed it down it stuck WELL (that should have been my first tip-off!) and then I started drawing. I then stitched as planned and afterward started peeling off the Press & Seal. If you've every done paper piecing and muttered while peeling off paper, think twice that difficult! Once off, I realized that the marker had poked through each needle hole and left a spot! Yikes! So I spent the next 5 hours "unsewing" very carefully. Once all thread out I soaked, very carefully to avoid the embroidery and tint work, to get the marker spots out. Well, it worked (the darker area around the embroidery in the picture is just wet) and tomorrow I'll start again--without marking!

Lesson learned: don't use Press & Seal for any design that I plan to sew through, don't use Crayola Ultra Clean (although it did come right out) with poly thread (not sure if I'd have same issues with cotton, may be ok with cotton if I'd washed the quilt afterward, which is not in the plan for this one).