Memory Lane

I have an old quilt to show you below, but first I need to vent a little.  Not that there is anything anyone can do (except slip me a Xanax), but here goes.  

We live on a quiet street one block off the main drag in this city.  It's a bit of a winding street on a rolling hill, no curb, gutter or sidewalk.   The city just oils and pea gravels the street every few years to keep it relatively intact.  On my daily walks, I deal with an occasional car, which usually gives me generous berth (see: no sidewalk). 

Well, yesterday was the official beginning of road construction season.

Said main avenue is getting fixed for a several block stretch, which is all well and good in the end.  But traffic has been diverted and guess who doesn't live on a quiet street anymore?  There is a constant stream of vehicles out my front door.  And the background music to all this is made by some ginormous hammering machinery that is busting up the old concrete on the main thoroughfare.  It sounds like a marching band with a hung over drum section that can't get its stuff together.

There.  I feel a little better.  Then again, it may be because the drum section just went on break.  Maybe they'll find a rhythm and stick to it after knocking back some Joe and Krispy Kremes.

Moving on.  

Guess what my sister found last week while sorting through boxes, getting ready to move?  A quilt from our childhood!  I wish I could say "my old quilt," because I've been searching for it for a few decades, but I can't tell whether the one she found was mine or hers.  

We had matching quilts on our twin beds, made by Mom.  I used to be able to tell them apart because hers was a couple years older, a bit more worn, and had a slightly different red fabric in the sashing.  But after all these years and without the other for comparison, we don't rightly know.  I thought she had left hers behind when she moved from California back home, but she thinks this may be it, in which case mine is still MIA.

It is in totally "loved up" condition.  Weathered and worn, tattered and torn.  I've soaked and gently washed and dried it.  Some of the stains came out, not all.  But beyond that and the overall yellowing, the fabric is simply falling apart.  The funny thing is, this quilt (circa 1961) has a polyester batting that remains in excellent condition.

Still, I love looking at the fabrics in the dresdens (or sunflowers, as Mom called them) almost as much now as I did back when the quilt covered whichever one of us nightly.  

Each block is entirely pieced, not appliqued.  There are 20 "blades" per block—that's 20 Y-seams for the small white pieces that occupy the space between the pointed ends of each blade.  Then the whole circular plate is set into the outer part of the square, which is pieced in four segments.  It is hand quilted.

I found the pattern templates for this block a few years ago as I was going through Mom's things (blogged here).  I don't know why she didn't mail the letter, but it's nice to have that bit of provenance in her own words.

So this is one of the quilts that started my lifelong fascination with fabric.  In the early morning light, before the school day began, I'd study that quilt.  Something to keep in mind when you give someone one of your works.  You may be fostering a budding artist or sewist (or architect or math teacher...).

I'm happy to foster this old quilt for a while again as it has come back to roost.  Here's to a happy homecoming!

Happy Review Year 2012

The year 2012 in review, collage style (click to enlarge).

Four of these are UFOs to be quilted in the New Year, but all in all, considering what else occurred to divert my attention, I'm happy with this picture!

What's on YOUR Bed?

That was the question posed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville a few days ago, with an invitation to link up and show everyone.  It just so happens that I have a Chunky Churndash quilt from one of her free patterns on my bed!

I originally blogged about finishing this quilt here.  In the meantime, different quilts have seen rotation, but a couple weeks ago, I put this one back on.  Spring has sprung, but it's still been pretty chilly at night.

It's a fairly small bedroom with the queen bed taking up most of the space.  Kind of hard to photograph the quilt, but if I stood in the very corners of the room, I could get most of it in frame.  And no, I don't have a headboard on this bed because that's how I roll (translation: I haven't bothered to buy one yet).  I do use pillows, however, usually three or four of them at a time!

Anyway, what I love about this quilt is the super scrappiness of it, and the memories those scraps bring to mind.  I used a lot of my late mother's scraps, along with some of my own, but this was a few years ago when my fabric stash and scrap collection were smaller. There are a few vintage fabrics in there as well, and the narrow red first border is from a man's plaid shirt.

It all came together in a beautiful quilt that remains one of my all-time favorites!

Check out the other wonderful quilts at Bonnie's What's on YOUR Bed linky party!

Kaleidoscope Quilt Finish

Norm was right about the binding; it totally works.

I am happy to report that the kaleidoscope quilt is done.  I gave up waiting for the sun to come out from under the clouds and went ahead with taking photos of it on the deck this morning.  I freezed my freezing fingers off doing it, but that's what big mugs of tea are for, thawing frozen, freezed-off, freezing fingers.

Silly f-words aside, here it is.  Although it's not the '70s rock inspired piece I intended it to be, I do love the finished quilt!

There will be a version 2.0 kaleidoscope quilt that hopefully will achieve the vibe I had planned for this quilt.  In the meantime, I'm reserving the secret name for the second iteration.  (It's based on a song with lyrics weird and iconic enough to inspire, and a glammy, now deceased, front man.  That's all the hints I'm giving on that.)

Norm calls this "the candy quilt."  That's not the alternate name I had in mind, but I can see his point of view.  (There's a part of me that wants to do up the CC label in rainbow-colored embroidery thread with daisies for the asterisks.  Actually, I think a little hand work practice might be nice...)

More photos of the back:

The finale of foldedness:

Thanks to Elizabeth D. of Don't Call Me Betsy for the kaleidoscope quilt-along that provided the motivation and method for making this quilt come together!  See the Flickr group pool for more eye candy and inspiration.

Pips Quilt Top Finish!

I've been calling this quilt Pips in a Basket, but today it was more like Pips in the Breeze. 

What to do when a quilt won't hold still for the camera?  Take action shots, of course.  Seventeen of them, to be exact (don't worry, I'm only posting a couple).  

I finished this quilt top on Wednesday and kept the momentum going by getting a scrappy binding made for it right away.  

I had set aside the Sherbet Pips jelly roll strips that had a mostly gray background, since they wouldn't have worked as well in the top itself.

The inner border of the top is Kona Snow.  The outer border is more Quilter's Candy in Ash from Connecting Threads.

The backing I have in mind for it is a Legacy Studios print from Joann that was on Red Tag clearance a few months ago.  It was such a deal, I bought many yards of it, which turned out to be a good thing.  I just love those bluebirds!

I have Sarah to thank for the giveaway of the cute Sherbet Pips jelly roll in the H2H Quilt Challenge.  The pattern, as I've mentioned before, is Cluck Cluck Sew's Basket Case.  It was very well written and went together slick as a whistle, though I did change the direction some of the seams were pressed so they would nest together.  I also employed the flat side of my seam ripper to guide matched seams under the presser foot without shifting after I'd taken the pin out.  That helped keep the seams lined up nicely when joining blocks together.

So there you have it ~ a fluttery flimsy for Friday!

Checked Off the List

Do you make to-do lists?  I often do, but not always.  Mostly when I'm feeling scatterbrained and need to lasso those runaway thoughts that are doing nothing but kicking up dust.

It was with pleasure that I was finally able to check the Sudoko quilt off the list.  

It's done.  Yee-haw! 

I used (among other stash/new) a five-pack of FQs that I found at my local Goodwill store for $1.49 (blogged HERE).

Blogging about this finish was on the list of things to do today.  

Now I can mark that off too! :)

I'm linking up with Sarah's Can I Get A Whoop-Whoop? today.  Click the button and head on over for a visit or to link up!

Whoop-Whoop Friday - H2H Quilt Done!

I was quick to piece this, slower to finish, but finished it is!

This is my Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Challenge quilt, made with fabric from my swap partner Sharon at Vroomans Quilts and rounded out with some from stash.  The back:

Quilted with a simple meander stipple.  My quilting felt a bit rusty, but I got 'er done.

We are having our deck replaced, and the light was brighter in that part of the yard, so I took some shots there as well.  

The rough tops of the 4x4s  did a pretty good job of holding the quilt in place.

This will be sent off soon to Judi at Green Fairy Quilts, who will be taking all the donated quilts to Romania later this summer.




Click on over to Sarah's to see what kind of progress others are celebrating this week.  Thanks for visiting!

Wave (or Lava Lamp) Quilt Finished!

I am so happy to have finished this quilt!  It is also my last PhD Challenge quilt, so there's that to be stoked about as well.

I pieced this last year using Elizabeth Hartman's New Wave quilt pattern, but I've always thought it looked like lava lamps to me.  That's the direction I went with, both in quilting it and hanging it up to photograph. Tilt your head left or right, and it looks like the waves it was intended to be.

But with the lava lamp thought in mind, I pondered doing something bubbly or swirly with the quilting.  Mind you, I'm still a novice with free-motion quilting, but I thought if I could maybe do a meander with a loop now and then (on right in green, below), it might look something like the blobs that percolate in a lava lamp.

Except that didn't really work when I practiced it.  The meander with loop contained within the shape reminded me too much of a pinball machine.  I dunno, maybe I have an overactive imagination.

So I kept doodling and soon enough the idea of a spiraling loop was hatched.  It seemed to work on paper.  I drew it from the top down (as in a spiral), and I thought it'd be relatively easy to quilt the same way, top to bottom.

Not so much.

The vertical, clockwise motion didn't go so well on my practice quilting pad.  It was herky-jerky and just didn't feel right.  Then I turned the quilt sideways and made the same loops working from left to right, like handwriting.  That felt more natural and proceeded more smoothly.  

Working from the center of the quilt, I "wrote" the loopies, moving to the right along each row between the white "waves."  When I got half the quilt done, I turned the whole works around and did the same thing, working center to outer edge.

But before I did any of the spiral-loopy quilting, I ditch-stitched the white waves. That took a couple hours in itself but was worth it to anchor things in place for the rest of the quilting.

As I've mentioned before, the fabric is a mix of vintage and contemporary.  I like mixing it up. 

Different generations sitting at the same table; everyone gets along, even though grandma's got on a crazy print shirt.  

So, waves or lava lamps, what do you see?  Any clever ideas for a name for this quilt?  How about, "Grandma Invented the Lava Lamp"?  Too long?

Garden Jewels

I managed to get over myself and get this wall hanging done this week. 

And do you hear that?  That is one tremendous sigh of relief coming from me for having finally finished this.

I have felt a little blocked with this project, mainly because I wasn't sure exactly how to approach quilting the cross stitched sections.  Even as I was ditch quilting the frames around the cross stitching, I still wasn't sure, so I proceeded to do the general meandering and quilt everything else but.  

Finally, after some practice on a separate piece, I decided to outline quilt around the veggies and then do a smaller stipple in the outer white spaces.

Well...my machine had its own plans.  It had issues with the type of thread I had switched to on the Aida cloth, and tension troubles, and generally started acting schizophrenic about halfway around the outlining on each block. 

Frustrating.

Finally, by stitching v-e-r-y slowly so as to circumvent the machine spazzing out on me, I was able to get the outline quilting done.  Then I did what any sane person would, at that point.  I switched back to my old Singer and a walking foot and straight-line quilted diagonal lines to anchor each block a bit more.

I do like the way it turned out, and I think my sister is going to be tickled pink with it.  She gave me the dresses (the center floral/veggie print and the blue fabric) to repurpose, as well as the piece of fabric that I used for the back.  The cross stitched pieces were thrifted.  They were in dingy frames, 99 cents apiece, and I bought the lot of them, removed the frames and soaked the stitchery clean. They were so excellently done, they deserved to have a new life.

Sis has a spot on her kitchen wall reserved for this piece, and it's going to look nice hanging there. 

 

(Back)

I'm calling this one "Garden Jewels."  The inspiration was right there in front of me!

Another PhD Challenge project completed—one more to go!  

I'm linking to Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop?  Come join the fun!