Bed bugs and another Edyta lesson

This morning I decided to refold some of my quilts. I do this from time to time to prevent creating permanent creases. I don't fold them square but rather fold the corners in so that all of the folds are on the bias edges of the fabric. One of the quilts I refolded was made in 1995. I made it for my daughter and it is called Bed Bugs.

Bed Bugs, 1995

The border was given to me by a friend; she bought it in Arizona when she was on vacation. It is a lovely brown geometric print with little butterflies. There was just enough fabric to border the quilt!

 I call the quilt Bed Bugs because there are loads of bugs in the quilt. I drew the bugs with Sakura Pigma pens and coloured them with watercolour paints mixed with textile medium to make them permanent. I then quilted spider webs in the open spaces.

Bed Bugs close-up of spider web quilting with bugs

Even back then I loved grasshoppers and I managed to sneak on into a corner of the quilt!

Close-up of grasshopper in Bed Bugs

There are even bugs on the label!

One of the lovely quilts Edyta Sitar showed at the trunk show I attended last week is a tree quilt. I love the setting of these blocks. Trees like this are a great way to use up scraps because virtually any colour can be used for the leaves.

One of the things Edyta suggested is that when making a tree block put the lighter triangles at the top of the tree. This made perfect sense and I wish I had thought of it when I made my quilt. While I love this tree in autumn golds I think it would have been more effective had I arranged the triangles as she suggested.

I worked diligently on this quilt paying particular attention to the arrangement of the triangles. Notice that the triangles on the left point inward as do the triangles on the right so this means when making the strips of half square triangles you have to pay close attention to the direction. And I was positive I did that. It wasn't until I was well into the quilting, too far to go back, that I realized that there was a mistake! Darn! One of the triangles was facing the wrong direction and it was the tree in the lower right hand corner. Oh well, no one's perfect and in this instance I didn't have to make the decision about whether or not to fix the problem or live with it! In the end I kind of like the mistake....it gives me something to talk about and in a world of mistakes it isn't a big one and clearly not worth worrying about!

Bed Bugs tree with mistake

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!