18 grapes

I was working on my last border of Ladies of the Sea (pattern by Sue Garman) this weekend . I was down to the last 18 grapes and noticed that crinkly look to my thread that you see at the end of the spool.

Oh no, this close and I did not want have to order more thread to finish these last few grapes.  But, I made it!  The top is finished!

 I have  been working on her a lonnnnng time, about 3 1/2 years, but then I have to give myself credit for all the time she had to sit while I was doing the long arm quilting business.

A little review about her.  The patterns were originally put out by Sue Garman as a block of the month in 2007 and 2008. Each ship is surrounded by a wreath with flowers from the area of each ship's origin.

I bought the patterns as a set in 2009 when they were made available to buy the whole set at once.  The background fabric is a Kona Cotton and all of the applique is with left over Hoffman Bali Batiks in my stash.  I machine appliqued  this quilt using King Tut variegated threads in a small blanket stitch.

There is a lot of hand embroidered detail but I did each ship's rigging with a 12 weight black thread and the straight stitch (straight being the key word where the riggings were concerned) on my sewing machine.  I brought all the starting and ending threads to the back of the quilt and tied them off, threaded the tails in a needle and ran them under a few stitches before clipping, whew, that is probably the part that took 3 years.  

I am so pleased with how she has turned out so far.  I thought briefly about hand quilting her, but I have another hand project I want to start and it makes me a little crazy to have to many projects going on at once.  Today I have raised up my cutting tables on PVC pipe and got the quilt layered and the pinning has started, I will machine quilt her.

I am off to the real sea, for a couple weeks away from the winter weather.  I have still not figured out how to blog from my Ipad so I will be back next month. I am taking my sewing machine and a couple smaller projects with me to the beach house where we will be staying.  I intend to set up in front of a main window and watch my DH fishing, watch the ocean, take lots of walks along the shore, and sew.

Happy Stitching All,
Cheri