And a whiz of a wizard!!!

Allie knows so much about quilting everyone felt she should write a book and she did....in fact two... The second is with Valerie Bothell and about to hit the market.

As I go into the final finishing stages with the suffrage quilt I wanted Allie's opinion and several years ago she offered to look at it when I got to this stage.  I knew I could trust her to be honest about where, how and IF to proceed.  Also I had heard of so many negative attitudes  toward CQ by the juried quilting shows.  Allie has seen the very best and knows all the little details the judges look for when making decisions and readily admits much of what she knows she learned the hard way.

So I gathered all my parts and headed to see her and here is MY quilt with its parts hanging on Allie's design wall... No matter where it hangs in the future, this has been the best...  I showed her my choices for border, border trims etc.,  interlining and lining.... We spent a good deal of time examining her quilts as she pointed out various finishing techniques, trims, labels and other fine details...  Her body of work  is extraordinary and photos could never do it justice.


I took copious notes but a few of the immediate important things are that Allie uses a drapery liner in place of batting in her CQ quilts.  It almost has the feel of flannel.  A quilt with a black border needs to be edged so it doesn't fade into the black backgrounds at quilt shows (And I didn't know they used black backgrounds) The 75 word entry is critical in selling your quilt to the judges and to start writing it NOW! . I also learned many ways of stabilizing the quilt besides quilting but quilting will indeed be required.  It  will take me days to sort out all the information that I got from her... I will be forever grateful..

AND I learned about French facing in place of binding... This I immediately loved and will use on all my pieces.  Allie blogged about it once. http://alliesinstitches.blogspot.com/2007/04/finishing-purple-heart-crazy-quiltlong.html 

She couldn't have been more generous or encouraging.  We had a lovely day and it ended with a nice  evening with our husbands where we talked very little about quilting then.

I am eager to get at it and could easily shut myself up in the house and just work but on the way home I received a call that my mother has been admitted AGAIN (the 10th time in a year) dehydrated with bladder and kidney infections.  It has been a vicious cycle because she refuses to drink fluids... they will hydrate her and release her and then it will start over.