Dear Readers,
In 2022 I started and completed a quilt top, Violet Craft's Tiger Abstraction Quilt. When I finished it I didn't think there was enough contrast between the whiskers and the background so I decided to use a darker grey thread and put som pretty dense quilting to hopefully give it more contrast. I started quilting it on my sit down long arm. It did help but it was soooo tedious. I got discouraged and lost interest, so I just let it sit there, and every once in a while I would sit down and quilt a tiny bit more, but would quickly give up and go do something else. Meanwhile I bought a true long arm quilting machine and started quilting all my quilts on it. I wanted to move the tiger to the other long arm, but I had not left the right amount of backing fabric to move it to the long arm machine.
Recently I had to have a melanoma cut out of my leg and they wanted me to stay off it, so I decided I should try to finish the background and border, while I was not standing as much. Once I did that I decided since I had quilted up to the edge, I could put it on the stand up long arm. I was able to stand again, and I am much more proficient on the stand up long arm machine. I would need to quilt the eyes, nose, ears, tiger face and red flowers. I had quilted the background and the black areas as a way to stabilize the center of the quilt already. I needed to order the red and the orange thread. Luckily, Linda's ships really fast!
I love the way the thread colors changes make a shadow of a tiger on the back. I decided to give the quilt to Becky Dees to raffle off to benefit St. Judes hospital and the scholarship fund they started in honor of their son who died of leukemia the year I moved to Winona. Greg, who would be just a little younger than my kiddos, was an avid sports enthusiast and coach. Becky and Johnnie established a Team Dees Scholarship Fund in his honor. So when we get the raffle tickets ready the proceeds will be split 75% to St Jude and 25% to Team Dees Scholarship. So if you get the chance check Becky Dees FB page in the near future.
Sew on,
Terry
