Finally Finished Tea Towel Challenge 2014 Quilt

Hoo boy, this has been a long time coming. I finally finished the Tea Towel Challenge 2014 quilt!

I had the flimsy sewn together way back in May 2014.  Nevertheless, at long last, here is the whole enchilada.  Quilted, bound, and hung on the wall last evening, right before the trick-or-treaters started ringing the doorbell.

I was a little stumped as to how to quilt it (it waited a year and a half...ya think?), but once I decided to finally put my nose to the grindstone, I knew it would require a bit of quilting in the ditch for starters.  So that's where I began.  

As things proceeded, I started to get a better inkling about the quilting.  I'd scribble down ideas as they occurred to me.  Funny how that usually happened while I was in the middle of something less than creative, namely my day job. 

Some doodles worked, others not so much.  It's why they make seam rippers.  Thankfully, there wasn't a whole lot of stitch-picking, just here and there. 

In the end, I determined that, overall, less was more with the quilting.  I didn't want to cover up those chickens in the center of the tea towel with anything that would detract, so I followed a lot of the black outlines around the chickens and then filled in with quilted scallops, squiggles, lines, and loops to approximate feathers, etc.

I sewed some tiny yellow beads in the chicken breast areas, for lack of a better idea how to quilt that particular space.  And just for kicks, I put a bead in the center of each eye as well.   The beads make me smile! 

For the quilting in the eight orange and green blocks in the outer border, I used a few different shapes characteristic of George Briard designs:  Spirals, leaves, diamonds, and an orange peel kind of thing (click to enlarge).

The feathers/leaves were loopy quilted.  A close meander filled in the yellow background around them.

I'm definitely doing the happy dance about this finish—with Sarah and the gang at Can I Get a Whoop Whoop!

Two and a Half and Some Change

In the past couple weeks, I finished two more kennel quilts, Nos. 14 and 15, and have No. 16 in the flimsy stage.  

(Kennel Quilts No. 15 and 14)

(No. 14)

(Back of No. 14)

(No. 16 flimsy)

In between those things, I also managed to baste a UFO that has been sitting around for quite a while, the Tea Towel Challenge 2014 quilt.

I attended to this task mainly because I had to open a brand new, king-sized package of batting but only needed a smallish piece for No. 15 kennel quilt.  Figured I may as well cut the batting for two things at once for economy's sake, rather than just chop a chunk out.

I think the fall colors may have had something to do with wanting to work on it, too, though.  As I spread out the backing (above) on the floor and taped it down, I fell in love with it all over again.  It's been out of sight and mind for nine months.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the saying goes.  Hopefully, it won't take me that long to quilt it, but you never know.

No. 16 kennel quilt has an interesting backing too (below).  I was using the scraps of a butterfly print scrubs fabric to make HSTs and then assembled those flying geese style.  I had an odd number, though and needed one more to make the last set.  That is where the pile of scraps/trimmings came in handy.  I poked around and found just enough to create some "made" fabric for the last triangle.

Can you tell which is the "made" piece?  It's the one on the lower right.

I've had some fun thrifting recently, too.  I had a 25% off deal at Goodwill to use during the month August.  It slipped my mind until the very last day of the month, when I ventured in to see what treasures may be waiting.

How 'bout some mid-century California pottery?  Why yes, that will do, thank you.

Call them wings, paisleys, or a yin-yang dish.  Or be functionally descriptive and call them chip-and-dip trays or a lazy susan.  It's all good. Really good!

I was captivated by the color of this creamer.  Another mid-century era piece in the Rhythm pattern by Homer Laughlin. 

The code stamped on the bottom indicates this creamer was made in 1956.

A couple sweet books came home with me that day as well.

Last week, a friend of mine called to say he had found me a "Rembrandt" at a yard sale.  

Of course, he and I know that means a vintage paint-by-number, and that's a-okay with me!

What's in those baskets, do you think?  Flowers?  Bunches of radishes?  Berries or beets?  Maybe some things are meant to be a mystery!

A Little of This...

Sometimes what seems like the logical order of things is anything but.  Or perhaps the logic is in the eye (brain) of the beholder (thinker).

At any rate, the Tea Towel Challenge flimsy had to come off the design wall for the 16-patch and X-blocks to go up.  It seemed to me that rather than continue with sewing together the 16-patch and X-blocks, I should (at long last) take the next step on the Tea Towel flimsy.  That was to machine stitch around the fused-on feathers (or leaves—again, eye of the beholder).

I used Brother Everett's blanket stitch for the task.  I wanted the thread to be fine with a bit of a sheen, and Isacord worked nicely.  Thing is, the programmed blanket stitch is a little wonky.  There is a little jiggle in the couple of straight stitches between the zigzag stitch into the body of the applique, which I couldn't seem to work out by fiddling with various settings.  So it is what it is, and thankfully that is mostly hidden along the edge of the appliqued pieces.

We did a little antique mall browsing yesterday and I found these Georges Briard trays.

I guess I now have an official collection of Briard trays.  Three's a charm.  Counting patterns, not strictly numbers.

You may recall that the tea towel in the center of the challenge quilt is a vintage Georges Briard.

Music for a Monday morning:  Grammy-nominated Jarle Bernhoft has talent coming out his ears.  I can barely fathom playing guitar and singing at the same time, but to record and build upon all those loops and keep it flowing in time in a funky song to boot?  Prepare to be amazed.

Many Things Monday

Brother Everett and I have been kicking the can further on up the road, metaphorically speaking, moving incrementally forward on a few different things.  Namely, a couple of backings for two quilt flimsies which have been on the design wall for a long enough time.

Here is a peek at the backing for the Tea Towel Challenge 2014 quilt.

The next step on the Tea Towel Challenge quilt is to machine applique around the fused feather/leaf shapes.  Now that I've gotten a little more comfortable with the new machine, I'm ready to get started on that job.

The backing for the improv quilt (above) is from a vintage fabric found at the thrift store sometime in the last six months.  Since it was only 30-some inches wide, I needed to sew two lengths of it together to make it wide enough.  

The next step on that quilt will be to machine quilt in the ditch, and then I may add some hand quilting in perle (pearl?) cotton.  I've never done that before, so it'll be a new experience for me.

Sarah is having a 16-patch quilt-along (see link on sidebar).  I've been unsure what kind of quilt I wanted to make with 16 patches, so I've dragged my feet a bit on getting started.  I did find some 2-1/2 inch olive and brown squares in the scrap bin, however, and just for kicks and giggles, I sewed what was left of those onto a variety of brown scraps, ending up with two 16-patches like so.

I love bright colors, but I'm also very compelled by earthy tones like this.  These are orphan blocks for now, but you never know when inspiration will come along and carry them away into another project. 

As I got to looking around the sewing room, I spied the lovely stack of hand-dyed fabric I'd won recently in the Crossing the Drunkard's Path quilt-along from Vicki Welsh.  Aren't they gorgeous?

I started grouping some of the pieces into light/dark (-ish) pairs and, in the process, hit upon an idea for the 16-patch blocks, to be arranged in a 16-patch and X's quilt (a/k/a Good Night Irene).  I just need to decide on the background fabric, but I'm leaning toward a light gray low-volume print in the stash, assuming I've got enough of it or can find more, if necessary.

I decided it was time to change up the office space Pyrex display.  So it went from this fall-like aggregation:

To this:

This seemed especially appropriate as Valentine's Day approaches, but really it's true all year round.  I *heart* Pyrex!

Here is something else I *heart* lately.  This will definitely make your taste buds tingle.

And your lips burn.  That's a good thing, right?

Tea Towel Quilt Top

The Tea Towel Challenge 2014 quilt top is done. Woot!
I went with some square-in-a-square cornerstones and a piano key border to finish it up.  I had sketched out a couple other ideas that looked good on paper, but in reality they just seemed muddle things up.

"Keep it simple" seemed to be the way to go.  No need to get all fussy for fussy's sake.

We'll see; maybe I can fuss-up the backing a little.  Or not.  I do have some corner triangles trimmed from the square-in-a-square blocks and a failed curvy piece or two, and you know how I love leftovers.
All those cool Georges Briard shapes I had hoped to translate to fabric didn't, uh, materialize.  However, I have an idea to quilt some of them into the cornerstones.  That ought to be interesting and fun.  

(Am I making up the cornerstone verbiage?  Are the blocks in the corners called something else?)

I still need to edge-stitch around the appliqued pieces.  They're just fused on at the moment.

And all that blather in my last post about shaking things up, well, as it turned out, there's not so much shaking here in the end.  There's a definite symmetry, control, and balance.  I think a little whimsy and fun, too.  Overall, I'm quite happy with it! 

On to the quilting of it now, although I may take a break and do something else for a while first.