Tiny Baskets ~ a Finish

*be loving * be hopeful  * be joyful *  be kind *

Good morning everyone, Today is a glorious late summer day and I've been invited to my friend;s house to see his beautiful heirloom veggie crop.

Cantaloupe and an unseen wonky watermelon...

More eggplants!

And I decided to bring my just-finished Tiny Baskets [aka Baskets of Blessings] on a little photo shoot road trip.

The sun was actually too intense to get good pictures as the screen is blotted out by the glare. Point, shoot, hope for the best.

On the grey fences...

On the hydrangeas. H Isaias turned the blue flowers prematurely to dusty pink, too bad. But pretty.

In the herb garden, with the whale folkart sculpture:

In the beautiful large driftwood ''find''---looks like a section of a cupola?

On the newer fence.

This fence will make a fabulous display background for my quilt photos when it turns grey over the next couple years.

Close ups, with shells.

This is the back, an unusual print with tiny baskets. I also used this print for the flower's stems and leaves, which were raw edge appliqued with a running stitch.

The Flower is a fabric from friend Penny, as are many of the fabrics, from her and other friends. All ''vintage'' treasured scraps.

Back home, Mo is baffled.

He expects photos to be of HIM.
The little quilt doesn't fit this end table but I'm putting it here anyway, for a few days so I can enjoy it.

This was such a fun, inspiring, special project, from one of my FB quilting groups. Designed and shared by Julie Porter during the height of the early summer Covid-19 pandemic---each basket holds thoughts and prayers, to share, to strive for.

The mottoes or blessings are embroidered, not my best craft but I did what I could. I did talk friend L into embroidering the label, not ready yet. The Tiny Baskets blocks and embroidered blocks are just 3" finished.
The duck egg blue ''seaweed'' fabric, below, left is very special, a tiny piece from Cape Cod, from my mom, then friend Mel helped me find a small amount more. I think it's Shelbourne Museum repro fabric, a museum much loved by my dad for its quilts and stoneware.

Have a great weekend.

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach.....

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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 

Almost-Almost Amish

Hi everyone! How was your week? It has gotten cooler and drier here, but I think hot summer will be back by Sunday. This past week I finished quilting and binding my Almost Almost Amish little quilt, from last fall's mystery sewalong on Humble Quilts. The sewalong was called Almost Amish; I add the qualifier because my version doesn't ''pop"! like many other participants' versions did/ should.

In the end, I like it a lot.

Here it before and after washing. Not much crinkle when washed, a useful way to hide any flaws. I think the leftover batting I used was Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 or similar, from cutaway leftovers, maybe from a crib quilt where I asked Lori C for soft and puffy. My usual Warm and Natural shrinks much more.

This project started on a sour note---I was so excited to be making an Amish quilt, my first love of quilt styles long ago. On FB I wrote about the color challenges and how I had pored over web fabric stores' virtual swatches, what to order, what would work? You know me, I am always very enthusiastic and positive, maybe a little too?---and a commenter  shot me down so meanly, saying, "What's the big deal, it is only 18" square. [insert implied Yeesh here.]"

Boy did I ever feel stupid.

 My intent, besides just loving the project idea was to start a discussion of choosing colors, especially for a mystery sewalong. I deleted my post and scuttled away in tears.

Once my fabrics came I rethought the incident, and decided to sew along anyway, but the poor little quilt, actually more like 24" square, never really charmed me. But come summer days when my intended handwork project has not been prepped yet, end of August, I was happy to have it to hand quilt.

Oddly it was hard to do the final piecing. There's a lot of crossings of blocks and lines that had to line up.

And a flaw because it was a mystery [non-quilty friends, this means we get instructions to make components but do not know what the final outcome will be],

...it is plagued by poor color placement. The pink squares visually form circles or wreaths; the turquoise squares remain stodgy nine patches and don't glow or create the wreath-y optical illusion. If I had known ahead of time what/ where I would have corrected that. As it is, it seems asymmetric or lopsided.

Add in my choice of backing, sweet fabric, but I made many mask this spring using that fabric and hair tie elastics, when the virus raged here and no elastic was available to buy. Bad memories, one of the worst times of my life.

This week I could NOT for the life of me find the turquoise binding fabric. I spent a whole day looking and yes, in the end it was right where it belonged.
sigh. This quilt is jinxed.

Now it is done, and pretty? Would an Amish child have loved it, c. 1950? Did the Amish even make doll quilts? Can't say as I have ever seen one. HERE

Below, auditioning it round the cottage, where should it be displayed?

Will the ocean sunshine fade the black to nasty brown?
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Off topic, Penny made the quinoa salad I recc a month or so ago. Has avocado, bacon/ ham, etc. Penny served hers warm, as it is chilly right now in her home in South Africa. Don't forget to try this, it is delicious. And visit Penny on IG, her name is penecat; she is a talented photographer.

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Mo is doing well. I am back to stage one retraining him, in regard to separation anxiety. So far all is well. Still on soft food, and no chews, though, makes a puggy sad. Tonight I made him ice cream for tomorrow's deck time, to cheer him up.

Have a good weekend!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...