my Iris are blooming.....

 I moved these iris about two years ago. I knew only of yellow ones that bloomed. they were planted originally by my front door in a kind of wet spot. I had planted a few other colors there too, but for the last five or so years only the plain yellow had bloomed. They seem to really like their new locations, as now I have four colors from my original planting. The fifth plain purple is from my Mother's garden.

 Gorgeous yellow and white.

 Love these Purple and white

 This pink is one that I thought had died. I am so glad that it didn't.

 In with the yellows may not be the best color combination, but since it is happy I will leave it alone.

These beautiful purple ones traveled from Ohio when my Sister and I moved my Mom into her condo last summer.

I just love spring, just not the weeds.

All is well that ends well....

After one final rinse with Oxi-clean the quilt is looking the right color now. I can't see any more of the purple disappearing(not) marking pen.

 Here is a full picture of this beautiful Quilt made by Mary R.

She made this to use on her bed. The extra length is for a pillow tuck.

(90" x 118")

 Beautiful fabric and her piecing was excellent.

 Close up of the triangle motif.

 The motif I used in the square areas.

 Detail of the borders. 

Detail of some of the fill stuff in the large cream area.

I am so glad that all the purple came out. Now I can enjoy a very large job done. Yea! Thanks for listening to me stress out, hope to be better on the next large custom quilt I get to do. This was a first and it was a doozy in more ways than one. Whew!

Wednesday was a very bad luck day.....

It all started earlier in the month when I chose to use a Dritz Quilting disappearing ink marking pen. I should have known better, but I have friends who use these all the time with no problem. I blissfully used it to make sure my feathers stayed even and a few other places. Then on wednesday when I had buried all my thread ends and was sure that I was finished quilting every where I soaked the quilt in plain cold water to make sure that the Dritz Quilting disappearing ink marking pen marks would be truly gone. All was looking good until I opened the wet quilt up to give it one last inspection before letting it dry. To my horror I saw purple blotches on a few areas of the cream background of the quilt. So I put it back in my tub full of cold water to soak some more. While it continued to soak I put my thinking cap on and came up with a plan to remove the stain.

First I tried Shout, which seemed to take some of the ink out, but just didn't seem to quite get all of it. Next I decided to try a week solution of Oxi-clean. I put it in a spray bottle.

 Before Oxi-clean

 After spraying the Oxi-clean. Shock of shocks it brought up more ink. Grrrrrrrr!

Then I dunked it in the cold water and it looked like it was gone.

Remember the picture from yesterday of the feathers (dry quilt with finished quilting) This did not show in the cold water soak, but when I sprayed the Oxi-clean it appeared and seemed to disappear when dunked in the cold water bath. So I thoroughly went through the quilt spraying and soaking the rest of the visible ink out of the quilt. Draining and refilling the tub a couple of times. Next I put the quilt into my clean washing machine (I ran an empty cycle of no clothes just water to be sure there was no residue in it) 

It is hard to get a picture of But I can still see about a half a dozen pale purple places on the quilt. My next plan is to try a long Oxi-clean soak and then rinse in cold water again When I wake up in the morning. I sure hope this works......

I think the Custom Star Quilt is finished.....

I finished doing all the fill in quilting tonight. I will do the final inspection and bury any threads that I find tomorrow. I will also try to get some good pictures taken then. I now know that it takes me a long time to get such a large custom quilt done, big lesson on how much do I want to take on.

Who knew tis would take so long?......

 I am down to the last of the quilting on this monster quilt.
 (90"x 118")

The only problem left when this is finished quilting is pencil lead left from my tissue paper patterns that I used on the first few blocks. Any helpful solutions for getting this off easily?