New Demos...Progress on Irish Linen

Our family just got back from five days on the beach for a much deserved "breathing break" for all of us.  I've hit the ground running and ready to dive in and get things rolling for next month's 5-day design workshop.  (Yes, those are clouds at sunset in a wave pattern...pretty cool!)

Since I've been writing the new 2-set design books I've come up with oodles of new and fresh ideas and demos for my workshops.  That's one of the perks of writing a book...I get new stuff for my classroom as well as new stuff for next year's handbook updates.   For those of you who have purchased my handbooks, and signed up for yearly updates, you'll have some really cool stuff coming your way.

I'm also starting a new book for the teachers out there...those that travel and those that don't.  When I started traveling and teaching 8+ years ago I didn't have anyone to help me out with tips and ideas of how to do things, and things you definitely DON'T want to do.  I've come up with some very practical ideas and cool tricks over the years and thought it would be nice to pass all this good information forward.  This will be available for sale after the first of the year and will also be sent out free to my Complete Collection ladies. 

For those of you who have the first book of the Designs Collection...you'll be happy to know that the 2nd book is up to about 65+ pages.  I'm hoping to have this out to all of you early this fall. 

In between all the writing and drawing I'm pecking away at the Irish Linen I posted about a few months ago.  The work on this piece is soooo tedious but it will be well worth it in the end.

I ended up taking a few steps forward and many steps back.  I was unhappy with how the Irish crocheted lace poofed up because it wasn't quilted underneath.  Sooooo, I took off the border lace that I had added, folded up the unquilted outer embroidered areas and lightly quilted under the lace.

I then carefully removed the center crocheted lace, quilted underneath, and then placed the lace back.  I am now beading the lace down with miniature freshwater pearls  and it lays flat and looks so much better. 

Now I'm going in and carefully ditching all the embroidery to stabilize the fabric and then doing very tiny echo quilting around all the embroidered motifs to nail the fabric down.  The fabric is discintigrating as it is so old.  I had previously placed a very thin fusible stabilizer on the back of this piece before starting to hold it together.  By heavily quilting the background it is almost making a new fabric...the embroidery and lace will be around for a long time now.

Because the original border edge to this piece was so tattered I had to remove it which just made me sick.  I hate to do things like that.  I ended up finding some beautiful, heavy pillowcase crocheted lace that had the same patina as this linen.  I am quilting repetitive lines thru the underlayment and then placing the crocheted lace on top of this just barely covering the tattered raw edge.  The lace is being tacked down with more freshwater pearls.

I will be off and running on Sunday to The Belle Point Quilters Guild in Ft. Smith, Arkansas and am really looking forward to my visit.  McCloud and my Designs Workshop are coming up in September and then I really get to have fun as a guest teacher at Alex Anderson's retreat the first week of October.  I'll be bringing my new stuff there too...

Hugs, Cindy :)