Summer of Quilts!

Two whole months without a blog post.  Maybe it should be called a "bog"!  But there's been lots of sewing going on, and more to come.

An Irish Baby Quilt

You can't see it in the photo, but the label fabric has little storks all over it.  Sweet!

My niece's new baby, Miles, arrived in May, so of course I just had to make him a quilt.  And because he lives in Ireland, it had to be flannel.  Guess it could have been an Irish Chain, but I wanted something simple that would go fast.  Good plan, especially if one ends up making two quilts!

I started the quilt last winter, but decided that I didn't like the fabric at all (it will become a charity quilt that someone will love).

 

Cute fabric, but...

It just doesn't work as a Disappearing Nine-Patch (bleagh!)

So I started over.  Much better, I think!  And I got a great deal on a charm pack on the web :-D

Nice variety of light and dark.  I think he'll like it!

Isn't this cute?  (Yeah, this one's not too square, but Miles won't care!)

 The brown fabric is Minkee.  So soft, and I'll bet the babies love the bumps.  But what a pain!  It stretches like crazy, and it melts under normal quilt-pressing conditions.

Fortunately, I ran across the same fabric at Jo-Ann.  Some strategic ripping and Y-seams and the melted squares were replaced.  Found some of the blue snowflake fabric, too, so I used it for the backing.

 Best of all, I managed to churn out a nice big pile of four-patch units for the Easy Street Mystery Quilt, using the squares as leaders and enders as I stitched the baby quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wedding Bells!

My wonderful son became engaged in January to the Lovely Christine.  The wedding is in July!  Not much time to make an elaborate quilt, but thankfully, Christine's tastes run to the modern (i.e., simple).   I picked a geometric pattern (http://aquilterspath.blogspot.com/2013/01/happy-new-year.html) with a white and gray background and rich batiks as the focus fabrics.


This puppy is BIG!  Queen size -- thank goodness for my nice big sewing table -- just getting the final border on the quilt top was a challenge, never mind attaching the binding after it was quilted. 

Sneak peek!  The quilt top before heading off the the long-arm quilter, Janet at Farmhouse Quilts (she also has a Facebook page, Farmhouse Quilt Company).  Can you see the teal and green peeking out?

 Almost done -- I'm hand-sewing the binding to the quilt back now, then just need to add the label.  The next post will be the big reveal!

AND...  I'm spending that binding time dreaming about the quilt I'll make for my lovely niece, Molly, who is getting married in August!  (I told you this was a summer of quilts!).  She has requested a lap quilt for cool summer boat rides.  Fun!  I can't wait to get started.  Blue and yellow, maybe?  Maybe paper-pieced boats?  Anyone want to help me decide?

Sewing Along!

My sewing is coming along really well these days.  One big project is well underway and another smaller one is almost done (next post!).  In the process I managed to finish two more Barrister's blocks by using the units as leaders and enders.  In between, I cranked out a cute apron for my future daughter-in-law's bridal shower.

Christine's Apron

I forgot to take a picture of the finished apron -- after all, it's just an apron.  Christine is a city girl, wears black, so I wanted something "her" (even though my son was the one who requested the rolling pin!).  The apron pattern is great -- fully adjustable without hardware (buckles etc.), so anyone can wear it.  Still, dessert is what it's all about, right?  Hence the apron fabric:

On to the Barrister's Blocks:

Indian Plume

More tiny half-square triangles (1" finished).  I'd actually started this in Florida, but I'd cut the pieces wrong and had to start over again when I got home.   Great way to use scraps of fabric that you don't really like -- they're too small to see anyway! 

 

 

Domino Net

A really easy block!  Strip-piece the nine-patches to make it even easier.  It takes longer to cut out than it does to sew.  Gotta love that!

 Today was the last class in the current Simple Sampler class at Pieceful Quilting.  During Show-an-Tell, several people asked to see the Barrister's Blocks that I had with me.  It was fun to finally share the work-to-date.  The blocks look much better when they are held up at the front of a classroom, instead of peering at them from a few inches away!  I'm really motivated to finish the blocks and sew them into a quilt!

Until next time!

Wrapping it up in Florida

  Creative Quilting!

After two pleasant months in Florida, I'm missing the warm weather but happy to be back home with all my quilty things. I was fortunate to be staying in a condo with room to set up a quilting area, although some improvisation was required.

Ugly, Baby!

As soon as Annie's Quilt was finished, I set to work on another baby quilt.  The disappearing 9-patch is such an easy pattern, so I decided to use it again, this time in flannel (the new baby will be in Ireland, where "warm" is an elusive concept). 

5" squares are stitched into 9-patch blocks

The blocks are cut in half in both directions

But when I put the squares together, I hated it!  I turned those puppies around in every possible direction, but it just never looked good.  

I don't know if there isn't enough contrast, not enough variety (3 patterns in each of 3 colors) or if I just don't like the fabrics.  Whatever, this quilt is not going to Ireland!  I stuffed it all in a bag and have put it away until I need something to do (?!?).  I'm sure it will make a fine donation quilt.

More Barrister's Blocks

Remember the Farmer's Wife quilt that morphed into the Barrister's Blocks?  If not, it's probably because I haven't mentioned that project in half a year!  I got so busy with other things that I hadn't worked on these blocks since September.  I cut the fabric for six of the blocks before I left and brought them along, so when the baby quilt didn't work out, I went to work on these.  After all those half-inch logs in Annie's Quilt, these 6-1/2" blocks didn't seem so bad!

This one looks even better in person -- the camera washed out some of the color.  Still pretty!

Broken Window

 (These are over-exposed, too)

Squares and Diamonds

Connecticut

I started sewing the other 3 blocks, too, but I'd managed to cut at least some of the pieces the wrong size.  Oh well, maybe later...

Annie's Quilt

It's finally finished, and just in time -- I headed this weekend to visit my friend Annie and deliver her Christmas/Valentine/Easter quilt.  This is basically a miniature quilt -- 25" square(ish).  There's a 1/2" white inner border and a 1-1/2" outer border in a red that is a different print than any of the reds in the quilt.  Annie loves red!

 As I mentioned in a previous post, the white areas of the quilt are densely quilted in a cross-hatch pattern.  Taking the time and effort to knot and bury the ends of each stitching line definitely eliminated the problem of the big white knots that formed on the back of the quilt when I back-stitched.  And the ladies on The Quilting Board were right -- washing did hide some of the problems as well.  I free-motion quilted hearts in the six red blocks.  They show up better on the back than on the front, so I'm happy that they aren't dotted with those horrible knots!

I wanted a template to follow when I did the hearts.  You know how we quilters love our tools!  Here's my Valentine template.  First, sketch out the shape to fit the block.  These blocks are all 3-1/2" squares.    When I was happy with the sketch, I cut it out.

But it was too floppy to draw around on the fabric.  So I taped it to some thin but sturdy cardboard.  I do have template plastic at home, but I'm "roughing it" here in Ft. Myers (not!).  Voila!  Do you think that Nabisco will give me some $$ for product placement?

 

Here's the heart shape quilted onto one of the blocks.

   

Here it is from the back.  I'm pretty happy with the FMQ stitching.   I picked a gold backing fabric because Annie wears mostly gold jewelry, and I picked a swirly pattern to contrast with the strict geometric design of the front and the quilting.

 

 Here's the complete back of the quilt.  I like how the quilting made the heart shape came through, even without the color to guide the eye.

The binding is also a intentional contrast to the quilt top.  I was gifted some wonderful gold-on-black fabrics by a friend (thank you, Charlotte!) when we first arrived in Florida.  I decided that one, already cut into 2" strips, would be perfect for the binding -- a very traditional pieced top with an Asian-influenced binding.

I had a tiny piece of a log cabin block that I didn't finish because it was an "extra."  So I sewed a strip of the border fabric around it and made it into the label.  It's so tiny -- 2" across!  It was hard to write on it, what with all those seams. 

Now I'm looking forward to catching up with some of my UFO projects and starting a quilt for my son and his fiancee!

Chemistry and Quilting

Mr. Cavins' Perspective

My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Cavins, was wonderful!  I LOVED chemistry!  He had lots of little quips to help us think about the "pieces" of chemistry -- electrons, atoms, molecules -- and as I worked on this quilt, I realized that his quips applied to quilts as well.  One of his favorites was:

"The scale of observation creates the phenomenon."

This means that things look different depending on how close or far away your perspective.  If you look at a table, do you see atoms?  molecules?  wood fibers?  a piece of furniture?  Well, this applies to a quilt as well.

My main project while I've been in Florida has been the log cabin Christmas quilt for my friend.  As I said in a previous post, sewing those tiny (1/2" finished) logs resulted in some rather wonky blocks. 

When I looked at my wonky blocks, I saw all the mistakes -- trapezoids where there should be squares, angles that were more or less than 90 degrees:

But when I stepped away and looked at the entire quilt top, it looked nice!  Everything seems to work together, and the odd shapes and lines feel kind of homey.  At the atomic scale (each unit) the pieces were OK, if not perfect.  At the molecular scale, the blocks looked pretty weird.  But somehow, when you stand back, the entire quilt top seems to work.  Maybe not as a quilt-show ribbon-winner, but as a gift of love.

Arghh!  Knots!

One big problem has appeared.  I decided to quilt the white areas rather densely with 1/2" cross-hatching.  That means LOTS of rows of stitching.  On other quilts I've just left the threads at the ends of the rows and then knotted and tucked them into the batting by hand later.  This time I wanted to save time and effort, so I took 2-3 stitches at 0 length at the beginning and end of each row of quilting.  Arghh!  I'd used thin batting, and the knots at each end just poked through the batting and onto the back of the quilt!

Believe me, these knots are huge!  And VISIBLE!

I am just appalled!  I posted my problem on a wonderful web site that I subscribe to, The Quilting Board.  I got several good ideas:  wash it (the knots often disappear), paint the knots with a permanent marker (well, maybe), applique over the knotted areas using vines and heart-shaped leaves (I like that idea!).

The good news is that I've only quilted the three white triangular areas at the top of the heart.  The rest (the center and the two big corners at the bottom), I'll do what I should have done all along -- leave the ends loose and then hand-knot and bury the ends when I'm done.

I'm not sure yet what I'll do about the knots.  Guess I'll go ahead and quilt the other areas and then re-assess.  Maybe the scale of observation will improve the phenomenon. 

A Christmas Valentine

...Or is it a Valentine Christmas?

In my last post I showed you some log cabin blocks that I'd been working on:

The last few days I worked on blocks that are half-red/half-white.  I was determined to make them better than the red ones (pretty good chance of that!).  I squared them up after each unit was added.  Boy, was that time-consuming!  The smallest units still came out wobbly, but as the blocks grew in size, the accuracy improved.  Not great, but definitely better.

I went back to trim the red ones and found out that they are almost all undersized.  There are only six of them, so I'm thinking about making them over again.  I don't have enough of the original fabrics with me, though.  Gotta think about it some more.

The quilt top is coming togther, though!

These blocks are 4" unfinished (more or less, LOL!).  There remain the 12 all-white blocks.  I'd love to get them finished over the next 3 days, so the top-minus-borders would be done on Valentine's Day.  Not bad for a Christmas present, yes?  I doubt it will happen though -- the pressing and squaring take way longer than the sewing.  And then there are the red blocks...

Southern Stitching!

Returning to Real Life

Today I worked on quilt blocks for the first time in over a month!  Can you say "Happy!"?  My husband just retired and wanted to get away from his old routine for a while, so we are spending a couple of months in Florida.  Sure, there's the beach, the pool, places to explore, lots of friends to visit.  But I insisted that I NEEDED to quilt, too!

I'd cut the strips for the log cabin heart quilt that I'm making for my dear friend, Annie.  So dear that when I gave her a picture of the pattern for Christmas, she was delighted.  How can you not love a friend like that?!  This afternoon, my second day in Florida, I stitched up the 6 red blocks.  Talk about wonky!  The strips are only 1" wide; the finished blocks are 4".  Two wobbly stitches and the whole seam is weird.  I decided that I would embrace the wonkiness and plow on.

These haven't been squared up yet, so they aren't quite as bad  -- uh, wonky -- as they look.  I plan to wait until I finish the rest of the blocks and then square everything to the smallest block.  The quilt is less than 30" square, so B3 (border, backing, binding) should go pretty quickly.  I can't wait to drive over to Miami and give it to her.  Merry Christmas!

Another Quilt Gift

Speaking of gifts, my daughter gave me the nicest quilt gift for Christmas!

The necklace has a locket with a piece of an antique wool quilt inside.  You can open it up and touch it.

Isn't it pretty?  I love it!