Quilting Round Up ~ mid-May to mid-June

Hello! Mo and I just got home from a long sunset walk, celebrating the Solstice and a glorious sunset on this first day of summer. As I move my sewing work from machine sewing to hand work only on the deck and beach, I am looking at what I have going and I'm feeling a smidge overwhelmed. First up, Temecula Quilt Company's 1880 Sampler. 4 [4 1/2"]" blocks. Here are the most recent.

Isn't my chicken wire window prop cute!

But this past week we were taxed with the assignment of making FIVE crazy blocks, each incorporating an adorable but perhaps intimidating 2" block in each. My mind skidded to a horrified halt.I really enjoy this project. I can usually get one a week done, or four or five at a time. Nine or ten? I'm not so sure and who knows what this week will bring.

These blocks were all fun to make though, so I'll dither along as best I can.
Here they are with their worksheets. I don't follow the instructions though so I only print the barest dimensions.

If we go back and look at the inspiration quilt, there is little or no blue in it, so I am moving to a Hideous [Jamestown by Nancy Gere]  palette of poison greens, yellows, reds, double pinks, instead.

I did do one blue star, because I wanted to look through my Turkey red fabrics and fell in love with the center piece here.

Here are all the blocks so far. 19. I'm not sure how many we are going to make, 52 +? or what, so this is drop in the bucket time, also discouraging in a way. I hate falling behind.

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Pattern photo, NOT my work

Here is another project that I am working on in a lackadaisical way. It's called Feathered Star and is by Jan Patek, a very old pattern that has been resurrected for a FB sewalong. I think the quilt is beautiful. But the directions and patterns are hopelessly awful. Plan  is to do only the applique bits this summer, then set it aside. Or I may just drop the project entirely. Unusual for me but I am unhappy with it.
I subbed pineapples for the clunky Tulips. The pineapples could have more color and contrast but I am trying to stay within the parameters of the black and cream original [even though it really was red/ white/ and blue, it seems, on close inspection of the marginally useful photo]. But see how the original Tulips form almost abstract tassels from the shield of the Star center. The fabrics for the PAs and my changes have negated that. Not good.

Now I am doing the Birds in Baskets blocks.

Pattern photo, not my work, below. Fabrics provided in the sewalong are beautiful but  dark and  dull, above.

pattern photo, not my work

Then there is the handles problem.

You can see that  my finished piece exactly matches the pattern, on the  original printout, right? Look at the handles. BUT pattern photo shows the handles somewhat set in, with little ears. And truly the handle should be even more. And then the side spacers are set oddly with a short seam and a cutaway. Why? I am annoyed with myself because I knew the handles looked bad and that seam looked awkward but I was following a not at all clear pattern.

pattern

It is crucial in a design like this that each block finishes exactly as intended or the whole thing won't go together. So I didn't fix the handle and with 3 1/2 birds done [think tiny, finicky], I can't see redoing it. It is the exact size, as I perceive what the exact size ought to be...but who knows, it's a Jan Patek pattern.

I always say I never have unfinished projects but this one may be UFO number one, sadly. I'm pretty upset right now. Cute though. And no saltbox house with dog, since it's early.

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Last on the sewing list is my SG Album project with Barbara Brackman. I have a few weeks before I'm behind with that one.  No pics. I guess that's on deck for the next rainy day. [October?]. I don't mind getting behind on BB projects, there's no show and tell or competitiveness in her projects.

For some reason I am struggling with my beach sewing, mostly due to the high winds. Tomorrow I plan to prep Bitty for hand quilting, leaving tiny appliques for deck  time. And I might...just might!...soon start my all applique Christmas quilt.

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Happy Solstice, Welcome summer.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

April Quilting

Good rainy Thursday, my friends! Oh the dreariness of a frigid day in April, a bright January day would be an improvement.  April is two/thirds over already, not getting as much done as I had hoped and planned. The focal project of the month was to be Silent Night,below, all those tedious  dark blue and white stars, yawn. [more on it later.]

The April SG block from Barbara Brackman is an 8-pointed Friendship Star. Very intriguing and fun to think about! A challenge that totally distracted me from my planned project.

Points like this are sewed by what is called  Y seams or set in seams. I don't mind them at all, much easier than getting a bunch of points to match.

The secret is a precision  pattern, none of that EQ [Electric Quilt, a computer pattern thing] how-to copy and print to scale stuff for me. I drafted both the 12" and 9" Stars.

Pattern templates: I am maybe the only person left in the world who uses scissors and who makes cardboard templates for hand drawn pattern. But hey, it works for me!

Blue, 12", was first.

Somehow I got sidetracked and had the notion that pansies would be appropriate:  Pensees is their French name, meaning ''thoughts'', and they were, in Victorian times, a symbol of remembrance of school friends, and so on. I forgot the quilt design predates that idea but I like them anyway.
[*LOL, I typed school FIENDS instead of friends! Yeah we all went to school with mean girls, right?]

I wanted to use the pansies from this bluework print, taken from the idea of rework embroidery a fad that began around 1880 and ran through about 1930, blue dating later than red. It was hard to cut into this small piece, a fat quarter I guess.

This worked so well I immediately began 9 '' Hideous the next day.

Garish purple and poison green with badly chosen red corners. The value is wrong and hides the star shape. Frolicking goats for the center circle. It was that or the kid smoking a crack pipe, lower right.

I love the purple toile and actually thought about using it as the setting fabric too. Too bad I didn't check out the motifs before I decided to fussy cut,

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Next up is a  vintage quilt top I found on a fun new FB selling page. I actually won an auction there!
[Happy Vintage Linens and Sheets?].

Plaids like this can be brand new, made last week, or date from anywhere back to the late 1800s. This top is probably from 1920-1940. The fabrics are not rough or thick like modern ''homespun'', a term quilters use for wovens* like this. [*The design is woven with colored threads, not printed on or dyed.]

The half square triangles are BIG, I think 5" --- bigger than the palm of your hand. A subtle autumn feeling.

I also loved the poverty blocks, where the triangles are carefully pieced, not cut from a whole.

I'm airing it out, it's a bit musty, and auditioning backing. This assortment came from Connecting  Threads. Clementine's Bonnet HERE  Their fabric, while not inexpensive, is less costly than regular online quilt fabrics.

These are the two front runners:

the tomato red is pretty, but I adore the duck egg blue. I want yardage of this print, it is sooooo beautiful, color, sheen/ hand/ the tiny dots on the background , called  picotage.

The meandering Oak Leaves and Acorns on the left is intriguing too.

Again beautifully engraved printing. But it reads beige/ boring from a few feet away. I like my backings to pop or do something, anything.

[so that makes three quilts soon for the quilter, the queue is getting too long! Discouraging in a way.]

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And then--back to Silent Night.  It's a quilt I'm making because I want a blue Christmas / Winter quilt with a snowman on it, not because I think it's fun to make.

This is not an entertaining project, it's quite tedious.

I am very glad I laid out the blocks today for photos. It gave me a sudden glimpse of the finished size of the quilt. Jan Patek has a way of designing HUGE quilts. I had already planned to remove one horizontal row to make the quilt square, but now I am gong to remove another horizontal row and  a vertical row. I'll reassess at that point but I think that will be plenty big for my queen bed; I don't like quilts to hang all down to the floor, do you? And size is money, a smaller quilt will cost less to quilt later on.

So now I must make 25 white stars; ten are done so far. That's 100 Flying geese blocks that must be absolutely 2/1/2 " x 4 1/2" or the Stars won't go together. That's a lotta not-fun Geese,  not at all like the wild and crazy random Geese on my When the Wild Geese Fly quilt, made last winter.

I also cut the ''sky'' cornerstones XL. You can see where they are hanging over the at the ends, untrimmed.  The blocks get trimmed to exactly 8 1/2".  I have 10 made so far, plus the appliqued alternates.

For some reason it's not a good start-and-stop pattern: I keep forgetting how to make it and also have cut the blocks wrong at least twice!
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This is a wonderful photo from Weather Bug. Inspiration for a Star and moon quilt, isn't it beautiful.

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In Mo-Land, Mo has been naughty. He had a tantrum, tossed all the sofa cushions and throw pillows down and around. Then he dragged his blanky over to make a nest. Then he threw up. I sat in it of course, in nice clothes, when I got home. What a freakin' mess. Mo was bored, I suppose, he seemed quite pleased as he sat on the other, clean sofa and smirked while I cleaned.

have a good weekend. No snow, right? Please....

love

lizzy

gone to the beach......