Passing Along my Love of Sewing

The youngest of my 3 granddaughters, June (age 8), has always enjoyed crafts.  She has learned to hand sew with some felt-and-yarn projects for kids, but she really, really wanted to learn to sew on a machine.  She got her own machine for her birthday in March, but no one in her family sews.  So when we visited my son's family in California in July, I had the privilege of starting her on way. 

It was a lot of fun for both of us.  She learned to thread her machine and wind a bobbin.  The dining room table wasn't the ideal location -- she could reach the foot pedal, but had trouble controlling the speed.  The machine wouldn't get going at first, then would take off like a jackrabbit.  Next time we'll look into a better setup.  However, June, like the rest of her siblings, is tall for her age (her mom is 6 ft. tall and her dad about 6'3"), so in another year she probably won't have any problem anyway.

We started out practicing stitching on paper without thread.  I printed up some pages with straight lines, squares, and wavy lines to sew on.  I think she's a natural!  She stayed right on the straight lines and learned to let the machine to the work so she didn't need to "steer."  She mastered pivoting at the corners of the squares right away.  The curves were a little harder, especially when the machine took off, racing along before she could slow it down.  But she persisted.

Her brother was quite interested, but ultimately decided that he'd rather work on cars with his Dad.

As a first project, she made a heart-shaped pincushion.  Not a great idea on my part, since it was entirely curves, but she did great.  She learned how to measure around a shape and connect the dots to make the shape bigger.  She pinned in the shape to the fabric, right sides together.  After sewing it, she stuffed the pincushion with lots of fluff and I did the final hand-sewing to close it all up.  Next time I think she can make an apron.  We might even be able to do it on FaceTime.  Seeing how well she did on her first try, I think she'll be able to make aprons for everyone in the family for Christmas! (Well, maybe not for Wally, their 100-lb. hound).

Guy Quilts for my HS Graduates!

Spring has become my busiest quilting season.  Last May my oldest grandchild, Diego, graduated from high school.  I was so excited to make him a quilt, but I had no clue what kind he might like.  When I went into my LQS about a year before his graduation, I saw what I knew would be perfect.  The shop had made up kits, and I bought one on the spot.  In January 2024 I started to work on it.  I got the cutting done at home before heading to Florida in February, then did most the piecing on my Featherweight while enjoying the warm sunshine on Sanibel Island.

This was the easiest quilt to piece that I've ever made, just from 4 to 8 seams per row, and not a single seam match anywhere in the quilt.  You have to keep the strips well organized, but otherwise just break out your walking foot and let 'er rip!  I loved making it as much as I'd loved seeing in the shop.  And Diego loved it, too.  And isn't that what makes us quilters the happiest -- knowing that someone else cherishes the quilt you made?

This year my daughter's stepson, Elek, graduated, and I wanted to make a quilt for him.  He, too, preferred black/gray/white for his colors (hey, he's a guy).  I'd had a labyrinth quilt pattern queued up for a while now, so this was the perfect opportunity.  Elek is thinking about majoring in some aspect of computer games, and this seemed like a great pattern for him.  It reminds me a little of an if/then/else logic tree (yeah, I was a bit of a geek in my professional life).  I got started early because I wanted to have it done this time before we left for Florida.

I forgot to take photos during the construction (just as I had with Diego's quilt), but no matter.  As you can see, there are two different blocks, set as a giant 9-patch.  They aren't really labyrinths, but the optical illusion effect is pretty cool.  The pattern is Labyrinth Walk by Christopher Florence (aka The Guily Quilter), who based the blocks on floors in the Chiasa Cappella San Sansevero in Naples, Italy.  

The quilt is big (roughly queen size), but Elek is a big guy.  Fortunately, the units are big, too -- quick to piece and so unlike the scrappy quilts that I'm used to making!  It was hard for me to see the 3-D character of the quilt as I made it, but stepping away to get some perspective was exciting.  It's even better on a bed!

And he LOVES it!  I'm so happy!  And this wasn't the end of this year's graduation quilting!  More to come...

 

A Quilt for Michou

My neighbor and friend, Ethel, has the most wonderful cat, a marmalade guy named Michou.  He comes to the door whenever I go over (most likely because I feed him when Ethel is away, or perhaps he figures when the door opens he can escape).  I have long wanted to make him (them) a quilt and finally got around to it.

My sit-and-sew quilt group calls this pattern the People Quilt, because Nancy first made it with a fabric with, well, lots of people on it.  She also made it with horses.  So I decided to make it with cats.  It's a quick-and-easy quilt, just two blocks, a nice lap size.  The graphic one is a 10" square, the pieced one is just rotated every other row.   

The back, of course, had more cats. 

I ordered the backing fabric online, which I prefer not to do, but my LQS didn't have anything  that struck me, and I was anxious to get this done in time for the winter holidays, including Ethel's and my shared birthday in December.

Unfortunately, the print was totally off-grain.  I hung the fabric over railing by the stairs between the 1st and 2nd floors, with the selvege corners matching.  By the time it got to the bottom edge, it was off by over 8".  Yikes!   Laying it out selvege to selvege, this is what I saw.

I solved the problem by cutting the fabric into 5 sections vertically, 2 narrow ones that I bordered with fabric left over from the front, and 3 wider ones that I was able to keep relatively flat.  That kept the twisting to an undetectable minimum.  SCORE!  In fact, Ethel likes the back more than the front.  Michou seems happy either way.

I wish I could find the photos of Michou with his quilt.  It was quite extraordinary when I gave it to him.  He moved aside as Ethel folded it up and put it on the sofa.  He sniffed at it for a bit, then tentatively placed a paw on it.  Over several minute he put up one paw, then another, until he was standing on top.  Gradually he lay down (imagine a manlift coming back to the ground) and adjusted himself to the desired position.  And that was that.  He had always slept on Ethel's' bed, but that night he stayed right there on the quilt and refused to move.  The next night, too.  Isn't it nice when someone is genuinely thrilled with the quilt that you made for them?

 Rhododendron Trail, At Last

In my last post, I mentioned that I didn't much like this quilt when it was finally done.  It languished on my quilt rack for a long time, until my friend Linda and her husband came from North Carolina to visit us on Long Island.  She is a wonderful quilter (see some of her quilts here) and she has a special talent for making me feel competant and re-kindling my love of quilting whenever we see each other.  She assured me that I'd like the quilt more after it was quilted, and she volunteered to quilt it for me at no charge.  What a friend indeed!!

Last year we met up in Florida and she took the quilt home to work her magic.  This week we met in Florida again and she brought along the quilt.  

Linda was right.  I do like it better.  Of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder, too.  I'm glad that she took her sweet time getting this done.  (Sorry, the palm tree photo-bombed this!).

Here you can see where all those flying geese found a home.  If I had known that this would be the border, I probably would have given up before I ever started.  I'm so glad I persisted!  

The back of the quilt is a pretty teal that Linda and I found while shopping in Ft. Myers last year.  Look closely and you can see the quilt motif that Linda chose.  I told her to just pick what she thought would be good, and I do think it's perfect.

This week we went back to the same quilt shop to pick out some fabric that I needed to make my next quilt top.  Of course, we ended up with teal -- there's lot of pink in this new quilt, too.  I'm not a huge pink fan, and I think some teal (my favorite color) helps me enjoy sewing all that pink.  Just getting started, you can follow my progress in the weeks to come.

Another Quiltville Mystery solved!

JOINING MR. PEABODY IN THE WAY-BACK MACHINE

Hello, and happy Quilting Month! 

After an on-lie absence of two years (!!!), I am finally resuming my quilty posts.  I'm not sure why I've been hibernating.  In part it's been because I've been busy sewing, without actually finishing much.  In part it's been because I've been less than thrilled with the results of my endeavors. Often I neglecged to take photos, which are the heart of my quilting diary.  And I've let myself get distracted by useless wastes of time (e.g., online jigsaw puzzles).  Whatever.  I guess most quilters sometimes have days, weeks, even months when they just can't get their mojo going.  At least I was sewing, just dropped the posting. 

2021-2023:  Rhododendron Trail

Every November, Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com comes up with another amazing mystery quilt project.  How she manages to write a daily blog, host groups of quilters in her Quiltville Inn, write books and magazine columns, and still design, stitch, and quilt so many quilts is beyond me.  I'd completed two of her mystery quilts, but didn't embark on them until after the Reveal, so I knew what I'd be making.  In 2021, I threw caution to the winds and started right off when the mystery, called Rhododendron Trail, started.   I should have known I was in trouble when the second clue was to make 124 flying geese.  Eeek!

After all that, I didn't even use them until the very last step in the project!  But no worries, there were plenty more triangles to do.  There were triangles sewed to half-square triangles.

Which of these things is not like the others?

There were quarter-square triangles.

There were great, big triangles.

Of course, there were plenty of squares and rectangles, too.  And then there was the sashing that finished at 1/2". 

I found this quilt to be challenging, in the cutting as well as the sewing.  Normally I enjoy a challenge, but more than a year later, when I finally finished the quilt top, I didn't really like it.   Many of my friends did liked it, but not I.  I think it was the color combinations.  Maybe that's part of why I stopped blogging in 2023?).

Bonnie Hunter's patterns are very well written.  She is a teacher, and it shows in the details she gives in explaining not only how, but WHY, to do things.  And in this experience I did learn an important thing about reading the mystery directions.  In the introductory post, she shows the colors that she has used and how much yardage to buy if you are not doing the quilt scrappy.  I've done all 3 of her quilts scrappy, but the thing I hadn't considered was that by reading the yardage amounts, I'd have had an idea before beginning about the proportions of each color that will be in the quilt.  If I'd read the yardage directions, I'd have known that there was going to be a lot of pink and hardly any teal.   I think I would have liked this quilt a lot more if I'd altered how each color was used, and maybe even swapped some out.  Lesson learned.

More on Rhododendron Trail in the next post.

Ringo Lake, Finished at Last!

 Today's post was originally supposed to go out in the summer of 2021, when my Ringo Lake quilt top was finished and ready to go out for quilting.   However, I was busy accepting the Procrastinator of the Year award.

This photo was taken at the last meeting of our quilt group before Covid-19 hit the New York area and everything shut down.  When I returned home from an extended Covid-related stay in Florida (lucky me!), I just didn't have the heart to get back to finishing the quilt.  Finally, in the summer of 2021, the borders were added.  It required four borders to make it fit our bed, which has a very high mattress and box spring. z The quilt was finished by an excellent local long-arm quilter,  Joyce Austin. 

The outer border wasa a puzzle -- nothing I auditioned seemed to do the trick.  Then the owner of my LQS pulled what you see here, and I thought it was perfect.

This doesn't show the binding. I think I was auditioning the coral for the binding.  Instead I picked a gray-ish herringbone, not a color anywhere in the quilt, but it fits well with the outer border and makes a nice finish to the quilt.

The outer border is not something I'd ever hve thought of, but it is perfect for bringing the quilt together.

The backing is two fabrics that I got at a local quilt store that was going out of business.  😢  The coral and teal are from the same fabric line.  I bought all that the store had left, but I had to add a print from my stash to fill it out. 

The quilt is now on my bed, replacing the Civil War-themed quilt, whose colors I found increasingly depressing.  That quilt had a polyester batting, while the batting in this one is 100% cotton.  Interestingly, this quilt is much heavier, probably due mainly to the amount of fabric in the seams, but perhaps due to the cotton batting, too.  The quilt has a tendency to slde off to one side (a pain when it comes to making the bed, but a good upper body workout). Heresy alert:  I actually think I prefer the polyester for my bed quilt.  

 

 

How Hard Can it Be?

Years ago I spotted a Christmas quilt that I wanted to make in a catalog (Keepsake Quilting, I think).  I cut out the picture for future reference because I didn't want to spend $12 on a pattern made up entirely of squares and rectangles.  After all (she said), how hard can it be?  I can now tell you, if you ever hear me say that, tie me to a tree until I regain my senses!

This is the picture from the catalog.   It looks like a Nordic sweater.

First I tried to do the layout in EQ8.  But I haven't really gotten up to speed with it yet, and wasn't sure of the best approach to making several different blocks and aligning them in a quilt.  So I copied the picture and penciled in the rows and columns.  Judging from the size of the quilt, it looked to me like the squares were all about 1" finished, except for the smaller ones around the pointsettias and, of course, the ones needed to make the half square triangles.  As I look at it now, I can see that they vary in size, but the photo in the catalog was small, so it seemed straightforward.

I wanted the quilt to be "controlled scrappy," so there are several colors in the poinsettias, both reds and whites.  I did these first, because I'd already made one block a few years ago as a small hanging quilt.  Funny, it was too big for my little quilt hanger.  That should have set off an alarm.

I made each of the rows according to my (incorrect) calculations.  When it came to putting the rows together -- whoops!!  The upshot was that I had to add blocks to each row until they were nearly equal in width.  The poinsettias were unchanged, as were the reindeer.  I had to add several tree blocks and fiddle with the checkerboards.  I also had to add some filler strips to even things out.  Here's how it turned out:

Two 1" strips (finished) on either side of the poinsettias did the trick.  I didn't have have more of the green that I'd used in the blocks, but found one that fit in well.  The reindeer row required 3 extra strips.  Apologies for the grayed-out photos below.  I guess the afternoon caught up with me!

It took some quilty math to figure out how many additional tree blocks were needed for the rows, but they came out great.  I was able to use up a bundle of Christmas fabrics that I'd picked up at Jo-Ann years ago.

So here's (most of) the final product.  I wish the poinsettias had been smaller in scale compared to the other blocks, but it still looks OK.  And it was good to use the various Christmas fabrics that were killing time in my stash.  It was intended to be a wall hanging, but now it's a good-size lap quilt.

Spending the $12 on the pattern would have made so much sense.  But I learned a lot, and in the end it was rather fun.  Now to quilt it.  I think I need to complete a course on free-motion quilting in order to tackle this.  There's time...