My Favorite Blankie

This is a quilt I made about 30 years ago. The pattern is Shoofly Star, and is from Marsha McClosky's book, A Dozen Variables. This book (and Marsha's style in general) are what got me hooked on quilting all that time ago.

I wanted this quilt to be thick and warm, and sort of puffy, so I used a double thickness of Mountain Mist 100% polyester batting. Which of course needed to be hand quilted. Well... apparently I didn't baste it good enough, as the top wanted to slip around and bunch up on itself as I quilted. To get it to lay flat I ended up adding more and more quilting, and eventually the bunching "all quilted out" as we like to say.

You can see the quilt is well worn. I love it so much though, because it drapes so beautifully and is nice and warm! But its clearly wearing out, and I really need to make myself a new "Favorite Blankie" and give this poor little Star quilt a break.

Enter my current Flying Geese project.

My intent was to hand quilt this, after machine stitching in-the-ditch down the vertical rows.

The hand quilting was really tough going.  And because I wanted this quilt to be thick, maybe a little puffy, and drape nice like the Star quilt, I used a double thick batting, this time 100% bamboo. Well, the needle doesn't float through bamboo the same as that fluffy Mountain Mist! And, I wanted a "big stitch" look, so used a #12 perle cotton with a #24 Bodin chenille needle. Aaak.. my poor hand! I managed to do one row plus the "squares" where the geese change direction before calling it quits on that method.

On to Plan B, which was the "Hand Quilting" stitch on my Janome. This went well and I got about ten rows done. I really love the look of the (fake) "hand quilting" but I wasn't happy with the overall look of the quilt. I kept telling myself I want that puffy look, but it just was looking ... sloppy. I had to take a break and figure out what I needed to do.

Meanwhile, with the "hand quilt" stitch still set up on my machine, I went ahead and finished the quilting on these two small quilts, which have been languishing in my hand quilting basket for far too long.

That done, I set up my machine for regular, plain, machine quilting.

Starting from the other end of the quilt, I started quilting across the middle of the geese just using a plain stitch, which did give it a nice flat result. But I thought it looked rather boring. I really wanted the "hand quilt" look! Before commencing to rip out the previous rows though, I decided to sleep on it.

Sometime during the night I came up with another idea. I decided to go ahead and quilt all the "geese" seams in-the-ditch. Yep its a lot more work, but it nails everything down a little flatter, and looks much better. I've done several rows now, and I'm liking the result. In the end I think I'm gonna love it. 

Now I should mention, I recently discovered a new (to me, anyway) quilting thread by Superior Threads, called Micro Quilter. Its two-ply, 100 wt. poly, and literally disappears into the seams, making ITD quilting nearly invisible, and less stressful to do. It also blends right into the fabric when quilting over the top of multiple light and dark fabrics.

Now I know many of you are dyed in the wool 100% cotton purists, and I abided by this for years, but I no longer feel that is necessary. Heck, my old quilts (such as the star one above) were pieced with Dual Duty poly/cotton thread, and I've never had an issue with the thread cutting through the fabric or whatever its supposed to do. I believe my quilts will wear out with time anyway, as the intent is that they will be used. Anyway, you might want to try out that thread sometime.

OK, enough for now... time to get back to quilting!

love,
Sandy

Indigo Mini Top Done

The forecast was for rain today, and the plan was to sew. Well dang if it didn't end up being the most beautiful sunny morning, which left me with no excuse to (continue to) put off my yard work.
So out I went, with the intention of pulling some weeds and planting a round of flower seeds then calling it a day, but soon found myself up to my elbows with the hedge trimmer, whacking back a huge geranium that had gotten so out of hand it was smothering everything in its path, including the path.
This became a two hour project. I was nearly done when all of a sudden I heard this zzzzzztttt!!  and saw sparks flying in front of me. In my zeal I had accidentally severed the extension cord with the trimmer.

(Note to self: be more careful when using the hedge trimmer. Husband will not be pleased.) 

Can extension cords be mended? I guess we'll find out!

Meanwhile, I've been working bit by bit on my little Indigo Mini. These tiny 9-patches, which finish at an inch and a half, were a lot more challenging than I anticipated. The indigo fabric is sort of a loose weave, and ravels easily when you try to manipulate it. And when the finished patch is only half an inch, imperfection really shows. Its a good thing I'm not a perfectionist.

Remember the rolls of vintage shirtings I got when I found the indigo? Some of the pieces ended up being a pretty good size, and not too wonky. Kind of weird texture, though. Stiff-ish? I ended up putting them through the washer and dryer (gasp! I know...) but that did soften them up a bit. Not to mention clean them up, as they were pretty filthy. I think they're fine, and love them so much I'll go ahead and use them with similar old fabrics. I auditioned several for the background of this quilt, and this one looked the best with the tiny 9-patches.

The shirting is also a loose weave, and quite thin. You can see the color of the basket right through it.

Not so bad on top of the batting, although still looks a bit yellow-ish, but that's mostly the lighting. You can see a little peek of the backing fabric, also a vintage shirting.

I made sure and trimmed the blue seam allowances so they won't show through. That would have bugged the heck out of me. I basted it last night, and started playing around with some simple hand quilting. 

I felt a tiny twinge in my middle back while I was working in the yard this morning, so I took a couple Advils when I came in. You know how those tiny twinges can turn into a big ache if you're not careful, right? I need to be in good enough shape to baste my Flying Geese top this afternoon, and hopefully get started quilting on it tonight.

I hope you all are having a good weekend, and have some time to sew!

love,
Sandy

Flying Geese

This was a sew-along last year by Sheryl at Temecula Quilt Co. that I failed to follow along with at the time, but got interested in after the fact. What got me interested is when my friend Brenda (who did follow along) showed me her quilt, and my heart nearly stopped. It was (and is) gorgeous! I knew I had to start making geese right away.

I started out using some pre-cuts I had on hand, which had started out 6" wide, but shrunk of course, when I washed them. So I made my geese to finish at 4 1/2" rather than the 5" as I desired. No big deal. I also dug into my scrap bin and got quite a few geese out of there. However I wasn't entirely thrilled with the resulting flock, which looked kind of a mess. (to be fair, the above photo was taken at night, under the ceiling light, which makes it look really warm and rather ghastly, imo)

I decided to take a little more control over the colors, and limit my choices to a palette that was more pleasing to my eye. Blues and browns, tans, grays and creams (but no "white"whites) purples, and blacks. Much better, methinks. (And what a difference natural daylight makes in the photo.) Some of the pre-cuts and scraps still worked, but now the geese were mostly coming out of my main stash. Which isn't a bad thing..

This is the method of construction I decided on, which yielded two geese for each pair of 5 1/2" squares.

I used my "Angler 2" which eliminated the need to draw lines through the squares, and sped things up considerably.

If you look closely, you can see how you position the needle at the top corner. The bottom corner follows the middle line on the Angler (previous photo), as you stitch.

Trim, press out, and repeat on the other side. And don't throw those waste triangles away. I call them bonus triangles, and have already sewn a bunch of them into hourglass blocks and triangle squares (for another yet-undetermined project ~ ).

After auditioning a few layout ideas, I ended up using a random placement, with all the geese flying in the same direction.

I didn't want this to be a copy of my friend's quilt though, so I had to do something to make it "mine" if you know what I mean, so I arranged some of the geese to make top and bottom borders.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any civilized way to sew this together to end up smooth. I snipped and cajoled, swore, and pressed the hell out of everything, but in the end the intersections will not lay flat, and are pretty much a holy mess.  Oh, well.


 I happen to have been hoarding saving a couple large pieces that look like they might make good backing fabric for this quilt.  I don't have quite enough of the larger-scale print, but I really like it so might combine the two in some way. I should figure it out soon (tonight?) so I can get it basted and start the quilting.


Meantime, I washed (or more accurately, soaked and rinsed) some of the smallest scraps of the indigo (previous post) with no bleed issues. After they dried, I pressed them, then went ahead and made three tiny little 9-patches.
  

Yes I'll definitely be making more of these, enough for a cute little mini!


love,
Sandy

Vintage Indigo!

I want to show you what I've been working on, but first I have to share what I lucked into at our quilt fair's Bargain Garden a few weeks ago.

A big pile of vintage indigo scraps!

  Check out the dates on these!

Lots of variety, too. They are what appear to be scraps from garment making, all bunched and somewhat tangled together, but still very usable for a "small quilt" maker such as myself. I think I'll be able to get a lot of 3" to 4" pieces, a few larger ones, and a ton of smaller ones. Many pieces are long and narrow, perfect for sashing strips. I'm visualizing doll quilts, wall hangings, possibly even a lap-size quilt although I wouldn't want to use it as such.

In the same bin were these rolls of vintage shirtings. How perfect!

And these other pieces, tho I'm not sure they're all as old as the indigo. Does it matter? I think they'll all play together quite nicely anyway.

I'm itching to get into these, but I'm a little overwhelmed and intimidated. Should I try to wash them first? It would have to be done very carefully and by hand. Or just press them before cutting? There's so much potential here, I'm not sure where to start. Probably something pretty simple with the smallest pieces.

I'm not sure who donated these scraps, but I'm pretty certain I'm the only one in our guild (or anyone else) who had any interest in them. I know this because I only took a few of the scraps the first night (we open the Bargain Garden to shopping during our Preview Party the night before the quilt fair itself opens) as I didn't want to hog them all for myself. But by Saturday afternoon, after about a thousand women (and a few men) tore through the various piles for their own "finds", the rest of the indigos were still there, pretty much untouched. Well, what's a girl to do? They needed a home, right?

for now....

Sandy

Giveaway quilts on parade

I have been sewing.
Rather furiously, in fact.

Lately it seems every time I turn around someone I know is needing a quilt. Mostly, they are sick. Mostly cancer, in one form or another.
I think I posted a while back that having found my niche making "comfort" quilts, I wanted to have a few on hand just in case someone needed one in a hurry. Well, that was a good thought but the truth is I can still hardly keep up.
I thought I'd go ahead and show you what I've made and given away since I last posted. I'll apologize ahead of time for the crappy photos.

Ralph

This quilt was a UFO for a long time, so fairly easy to quilt up and send it off. My inspiration for this quilt was vintage Welsh quilts, the simple block ones, usually built around a medallion of some sort. I'm happy this quilt has found a loving home. Ralph and Nadine are my sister's sister-and-brother-in-law. Both have late stage cancer.




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Nadine

Nadine's quilt consists of blocks that were intended for something completely different, rejected, and repurposed. I wish I'd taken a picture of the back of hers, as its an Indian Pampalore, or what we used to call a "tapestry" (used for curtains, etc.) back in the day. Very groovy.

Mindy

Mindy is a quilter friend of mine. Her husband Fred was part of a clinical trial for pancreatic cancer, which had the both of them traveling from Santa Cruz, CA to Houston for two or three days, every other week, for over a year. Which, as you can imagine, was stressful and exhausting.
I thought Mindy, being a quilter, would have dozens of quilts around the house but when I when I mentioned that to her, she just looked at me with sad eyes and slowly shook her head. (all the quilts she makes are for disadvantaged kids in our community.)

Fred

 So I showed her pictures of a few quilts I had in the works, and for her to pick one for Fred. She picked the colorful one, but then added that she really loved the Tumbler quilt. I felt she needed a quilt as much as he did, so they got both.  Even though the trial was a success in that it extended Fred's life, it did not cure his cancer and he passed away a couple of weeks ago.

Bert

I had purchased these Diamond Textiles wovens from Rusty Crow at PIQF in October, with the intention of making a "Man Quilt". I had no sooner got it sewn together when I got the word about Bert and the Man Quilt found its home. Bert is my brother Rob's best friend. His cancer diagnosis (terminal) came as a complete shock to everyone.

Teresa

Meanwhile I knew the muted palette of my repro prints weren't going to cut it with Teresa, who is the definition of vivacious and fun. Enter Missouri Star Quilt Co, who had a layer cake of these Kaffe F. fabrics on their "daily deal" one day. I thought they'd be perfect, and fun to make. This is what you call "letting the fabric do the work."

 

  

Doug

I dug into my plaids for this one, having been inspired by some 16-patch quilts I'd seen recently on Pinterest. Doug is my cousin's husband, and has been fighting lymphoma for about a year. Its the curable kind, but unfortunately Doug is having trouble tolerating the treatments, the result being that they keep having to find something new to treat him.

This one, shown in the basting stage, is an enlargement of a small quilt pattern by Carol Hopkins, from one of her Civil War 
Legacies books, I think. It went to my husbands good friend, Bill in Colorado, who has also been diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

This is a pattern from "The Blue and the Gray" by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene. I originally made it as a Vet Quilt, but then I doubted my judgement in giving a "Red Cross" quilt to a wounded soldier. I ended up using it as my own lap quilt, loving how soft it is, with its bamboo batting and flannel back.

A month ago I found out my quilter friend Ann had just undergone major back surgery, and was feeling lonely and sad during her hospital//rehab stay without a quilt, or even "some fabric to fondle."  I immediately knew this quilt was meant for her, so off it went. She was so happy and touched that I gave her a quilt, and it makes me happy my former "favorite blankie" is being loved by her.



All of the above were quilted by me, on my Janome 8200. You can see some added hand quilting on Mindy's Tumbler. Sorry I don't have better pictures, or include more detail pictures. You get the gist, anyway. I've been using my ipad or phone to take photos. I may have to go back to using my husband's camera if I want better results.

I finally have time to take a breath from these, and start something for "me" which I will post about - soon!

love,
Sandy

ps I really struggled with the picture placement and the spacing on this post, but the powers that be (ie Blogger) were not being cooperative. Sorry its such a mess.

pps I just now read Barb's post (see sidebar) and would like to add a word about commenting. I still enjoy reading all my favorite blogs, but for some reason I been having trouble commenting lately. Too many hoops to jump through in some cases, or sometimes they just don't take. So mainly I save myself the frustration and just lurk.  Maybe I should be more patient, and/or try harder.