Cheap Hotels.

A Handi Quilter Long arm is just what I needed to finally finish this quilt! It's been a unfinished top

 since 2008-09.  Some of you may even recall the story behind the quilt, of my views out of my studio windows in NYC. The quilt is called, "CHEAP HOTELS."  Yes, that's what it's called. 

 I used to have a lovely view looking up town in NYC, then one day a whole slew of not as expensive hotels, (aka, cheap) moved in and built massively tall buildings cutting off my views.  OLD POST HERE.  Funny enough, the view has of course changed yet again, as a building went up directly behind my building, so even this view does not exist anymore! LOL! Oh well, perhaps a new inspiration will strike me.

I straight lined the quilting, I'm still on my learning curve with this machine. I used the invisible thread on the top of this, and I learned a few tricks along the way, but my patience is the number one thing that still needs to grow.  We all need more of that right?   I will go in and do some hand stitching on this as well, but not today. It may take another year just to get this finished the way I'd like for it to be! one thing at a time. 

 Trimmed, and ready to be admired for now.

Hard for me to get a straight on shot of anything here at my house on Long Island...   If you are in the Hamptons this week, you can pick up a copy of Hamptons Cottage &Gardens!  There is this quilter in the magazine you may know. ;-)

Must get busy... only a few days until Beatrice is home! Gotta get that room done! ;-)

OOPS!  one more thing, had to come back and edit... I went back and found the quilt I was working on when I gathered these scraps from in the first place... the red and white pieces came from THIS quilt.  all the scraps went in to a box, along with black scraps from another quilt, which I can't find at the moment...  and one rainy day, I started sewing the bits together... sounds familiar right?

check out the OLD post on the Get Well quilt... It's pretty fun to see how it came together...

http://bumblebeansinc.blogspot.com/2008/10/wonky-get-well-quilt.html

Views

 I have about ten things going on today... But, I did my 15 minutes on the Starbirds,

(Thank you Margaret, I like that title!) and have a just a few more 9 patches to make... then more play time to see where it goes from here... I'm seeing Scrappy of course...   gotta make it me... perhaps a bit like this:

but I ran out of fabric again... LOL!

 My view from my studio is this

... Even though in the last 5 years my VIEW out of my studio has changed... a lot...

I used to be able to see the McGraw hill building and up town, NYC

then it changed to this view of the cheap hotels....one block north 

(well, not so cheap for NYC standards)

this view inspired my CHEAP HOTELS QUILT. 

Well, the view is about to change yet again.... BOOOO! to Glenwood properties who killed our views at the FRONT of our loft, they have also NOW purchased the lot behind us and are building a 

(so we have been told) 33 story building behind us!  

The darned blasted digger is down there now busting stuff up, and I am dreading the NOISE for the next two years to get this building up... let alone the loss of light into my studio...  

I'll go silently weep now, and crank up the music to drown out the pounding...

Favorite Quilt

As part of Park city girl, Blogger's Quilt Festival,
I'd like to show you my favorite quilt.

When I think of a quilt that sums up the most of what I like to make,
It would have to be this one called,

Cheap Hotels
62" X 82"

I kept for a long time a box to collect all my black & white scraps, then one day began sewing them together very randomly.
This is the process I find the most satisfying. You never know what you r gonna get and you let the fabrics speak to you and let the design emerge.
Once I got most of the black and white bits together, I realized how much it looked
like the new "Cheap Hotels" being built right out side my window...
What I stare at every day as I sit at my computer...
This quilt is not yet, quilted... I haven't been able to decide if it needs to be hand quilted, or machine, or HOW to be quilted....

***
I love to experiment and make many kinds of quilts,
but this is the process I keep coming back to and find these quilts to be my most satisfying...
Here's a few others, done in this similar style, that I love. Again, a bunch are not quilted, as I just don't know how to finish them yet.... The ones finished, are hand quilted.

I'm waiting for the bolt of inspiration to hit me over the head!










(and the yet to be finished...)