Christmas in xxJulyxx ~ well, August

July August September?

Hi everyone!  Schedules, projects, best-laid plans---these were projects meant to be accomplished over the winter and early spring 2020. Somehow between the abject terror, the nightmares, the mask making boredom, these two projects were shoved aside.

You may remember this fabulously  fun and energetic Christmas sampler I bought last December, on FB Marketplace, for I think 30.oo. The green looked, in the photos, like a deep jade; but on arrival I found out that was how it looked under flash photo'ing; in real life the green is a true ghastly deep GREEN. Took me awhile to get past that. Here is the original post, if you're interested to reread HERE  .

This was supposed to be my Christmas in July project, always fun but not an annual event. Late to the party---it is after all, late August--- but the other night I sewed the backing...

and repaired the pointy bias corners:

And began the laborious task of pressing the top for my quilter. A  bit of a hopeless task, the days are so humid that no amount of pressing ''took''. I hope Lori C. will be able to work her magic anyway.*
As I began to press and trim the threads on the back, I took a closer look at  work done by maker Shirey Funke in 1988.
Definitely before the time of quilt police and absolutely required ''scant'' 1/4" seams:

And oh my, those seams are pressed every which way and sewed over, so I can't fix them

The thread is odd, almost string, many times thicker than regular sewing thread that seems to thinner every year. And the stitches are odd. Could it have been made on a treadle machine? The top was made in 1988, long past-the treadle era, I know.

Despite the freestyle rule-ignoring piecing, the blocks on the front look pretty darn good. Very charming. Good points.

The quilt even had its label enclosed; the seller told me Shirley is still living, now in a  nursing home, in I think Ohio. [I pray she is well and wish she could see how her quilt is being finished and loved.]

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*Note:
Quilter Lori C. /Quilters Imagination. prefers tops to be well trimmed and well pressed; strings and treads removed. Her reasoning is sound, she say that a square crisply pressed quilt will result in a square perfectly quilted quilt. I'm afraid imperfection may abound in this one. But I love Shirey's quilt, in spite of/ because of?

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My other Christmas quilt is Silent Night; it was on deck to finish the piecing of the stars when the Covid and mask making hit in early March. This is where I left the project, in I think 2017. I have 11 more stars to make:

The reason to get this done is that the border was to be my summer hand sewing work. I keep getting stalled at this point because the borders have to go on before the applique, yet I don't want to haul around a huge quilt top all summer. What I think I'll do is piece just the bottom, including partial side borders, and do the applique on just the long strip; then I'll seam on the rest later.

This quilt is for my own use at Christmas, I loved it for being a blue and white Christmas or winter quilt. Maybe the indigo snowman fabric is a bit dark? but it is deep blue. Too late now to make changes anyway.

More soon. Tiny Baskets is done except its label. I talked L into doing an embroidered label for it. It is my pandemic quilt, but I ll save that for another day, as right now it's tumbling in the dryer, hopefully the heat shrinkage will hide its flaws. Like Shirley, perfection is not my nature.

Mo is doing well....
[notice Mo doesn't have regular dog fur, his coat is plushy like a toy animal, like velvet.]

Have a great week; stay safe and careful.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

shorebirds, sent by a friend asking me what these are; he says plovers, but I think they're ruddy turnstones who pass through briefly in late summer. They're rare here. They will reappear in large numbers in January or February, in their red=brown plumage, on their journey to their arctic nesting grounds.here