Sneak Peeks & a brief Tutorial on Borders

 

Above is a sneak peek of the quilt I am working on for the Fiberactions challenge this month. I am having fun with this one.

Below is Jan Wills quilt on Lily right now. I have been doing a lot , of drawing in my computer on this one & the next one (Shirley’s quilt), but I hadn’t come up with a good border design for this one. I kept wanting to take it to a different level. Make it better. This morning I woke up with a glimmer of an idea.

I took Freezer paper & cut a strip 1/2 the length of the borders, then folded them into 4. I cut a gentle curve on one side, using one of my curve rulers from Kim Brunner.

 

Next I penciled in a design using the same curve tool.

I tried a feather & straight lines in the spaces. I’m keeping the lines, but have discarded the feather for a better design. I’ll show it later when I’ve quilted it on the quilt. I want it to be a surprise. When I do the quilting I will pin the paper to the quilt top for placement & use the curve tool to make those curves smooth along the edge of the paper, just stitching off the edge of the paper to get the placement of the curves just right. Then I will remove the paper & use rulers for the rest of the design, never touching a pencil to the top of this white & yellow quilt, but will be able to get a  consistent design.

 

Yesterday evening, when my DH stepped out the back door to go to work, this is what he found. The corner of our hot tub destroyed.

 

Wasps had apparently made a nest inside, & Warren’s first thought was a bear looking for honey. My reply was, we don’t have honey bees wild in Alaska, so why would a bear think he was going to find honey? I have a friend who raises bees for honey, but they have to be shipped, & can’t survive our winters without someone protecting them. We only have the paper wasps in the wild.

After walking all around the driveway & yard, I determined that the only animals that have been through recently were moose, & a certain whacky neighbor dog. It was harrassing me up on the deck when I was grilling salmon before Warren left for work, & the claw marks on the side of the tub are suspiciously similar to his paw size.Hmmmm….

So last night, when it was getting almost dark, I went out & sprayed the nest. It made me feel sad & guilty to kill these poor guys, but I don’t think we would appreciate being stung when soaking in the hot tub either.