I mentioned in my previous post that my mother and I completed the quilt top. Here it is:

I’m very happy with how it turned out – it’s beautiful and focuses attention on the birds.

Of course, that was take #2. Take #1 looked (unsurprisingly) like this:

Tigress is charmingly convinced the quilt top belongs to her. As soon as I set it out, she jumped onto it, and spent the rest of the afternoon curled up on it. (Well, except during a brief period where she was removed for photography.)

And since the last two posts were sadly devoid of kittens, I offer you a bonus kitten! Two bonus kittens, in fact, playing “Got Your Tail!” on my ironing board. A popular game, at least in this household.

I got Emmy up and working a few days ago. Here’s a very short video showing her in action:

As you can see, the shafts are hanging up on each other – this was a known problem with the loom. On AVL’s advice, I’ve ordered shims for the lamms and pulleys, but they won’t arrive until tomorrow (I think). I also need to order reeds, extra heddles, and other bits and pieces. So I’m working on quilt design until they arrive.

I’ve now been through many iterations of the quilt design. You may recall that the original design looked like this:

I liked this initially, but after showing it to several people for critique, various people felt that the spirals were too “busy”, drawing attention away from the birds. On sober reflection, I agreed.

So, on the advice of some quilters, I tried the “Attic Windows” block next:

The faint outline shows the edges of the mattresss; this is a king-sized quilt with the head at the top.

This worked fairly well, but felt like it lacked tension. So I tried variations on the background:

The tan background didn’t work – the light, warm color drew attention away from the birds. The green, though, had potential – the only problem was that the sills of the window were too wide, making the birds hard to see. At the same time, the much narrower sills in the tan version produced a “window” that I thought was too small for the quilt – more like a prison window than an attic window!

So I compromised and made medium size sills:

I felt this worked the best.

Next I visited several quilting shops and bought some potential fabrics. I mocked up a square in each combination I wanted to test:

And – just for fun – I tried the spiral block as well:

This pretty much confirmed what I had seen in the computer mockups: the spirals were too busy, and the dark green background looked best with the “Attic Windows” block.

So I ordered twenty yards of the dark green fabric, ten yards for the front and ten for the back. They should arrive by the end of the week – meanwhile, I’ll cut and sew the fabric for the window part of the quilt.

I haven’t yet figured out what to do in the giant green border, but I’m thinking of doing an allover pattern, interrupted periodically by the outlines of birds, in a faintly contrasting thread. Too much contrast would draw attention away from the birds, but too little contrast would result in a green blob. I think maybe a medium to dark brown on the threads.

I also haven’t figured out how I’m going to do the border. I’ve been advised that a king size quilt (I’m planning on 116 x 100 inches) is almost impossible on a home machine, so I may either rent time on a longarm quilting machine or hire someone to do the quilting. But I figure I’ll cross that bridge once I get there.

And, finally, here is Fritz, playing with a favorite toy, one of my paper pirns. I love the way he practically trips over Tigress (hidden behind the drapes) at the end.

Yes, I know. I’m about to put together an awesome new weaving toy. I should not take on more projects. But my mother is coming to visit next week, and I’m taking the week off so I can spend time with her. However, since I don’t get out much, I’ve been racking my brains for what we could do together.

Fortunately, yesterday I was going through a collection of fabrics a friend had been keeping for me, and I happened upon these gorgeous painted birds, each in its own 11″ square of fabric.

What a treasure! I had completely forgotten about them. My mother had painted them for me when I was nine or ten years old – I was very enthusiastic about birds then. We had intended to make a quilt from them, but as a young kid, I soon lost interest, and they languished. For over three decades.

So as soon as I saw them, I thought, “What better way to spend a week with my mom than making a cherished family heirloom?” So I asked her if she’d be interested, and she said yes. So I’ve been working on quilt design, so I can have the pattern laid out and the fabric purchased (or dyed) before she arrives.

Here’s the first design I came up with:

(The square box indicates the borders of the bed – I’m planning on making a king size quilt, since that’s what Mike and I have.)

I really didn’t like this design – it felt too static, and the diamonds felt like they were overwhelming the birds. So I went back to the drawing board:

I like this a lot better – the spirals add some motion without being obtrusive, and the value gradation makes the birds float luminously on top of the quilt.

I do need to figure out something more interesting to do around the border, but think that may just be the quilted pattern. I don’t want any color changes to distract from the birds.

The fabrics won’t be solid colors, of course. I’m currently debating whether to use commercial batik fabrics or whether to make my own low-water immersion dyed fabrics. The advantage of doing my own dyeing is that I get precise control over color. The advantage of using commercial fabric is that I don’t spend hours and hours dyeing (remember: I just got a new weaving toy!), and I know exactly what I’ll get. In either case I’ll do a test square or two to confirm that the design works, before proceeding.

It’s said that the New Year is a good time to look back on the year past, and think about the year to come. Many good things happened in 2013, but I think the best by far was this:

And here’s where it all started, at a room in the Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority, in Santa Clara, CA:

That’s Tigress in the foreground, sniffing at my toe. Fritz isn’t in the photo, but he was an incredibly friendly kitten, climbing all over the two of us, purring and purring. And you know what? He’s still an incredibly friendly cat, meowing for attention and then purring and purring and purring in my lap.

So here’s to a wonderful year past, and a wonderful year (one hopes!) in the future.