PQ 9.5: A Stitch in Time

I have long said that if my dad had been born 100 years earlier we would have been on a wagon train going West.  After a childhood of imagining that revisionist history, I eventually came to the conclusion that I would make a terrible pioneer.  I cannot keep track of my needles! 

If you think about it, a needle is a very important tool.  In a world where you have to make almost everything you need to take care of your tools.  Some things you can make or repair, a new handle for the axe, a new edge on the plowshare.  A good blacksmith can make nails and forks.  But needles?  Needles are another story.   I haven't researched how needles were made pre-Industrial Revolution.  There were stages between sharpening bone and post Industrial Revolution machine production.   Even historic needles are fine. From reading diaries of the women who traveled the Oregon Trail I've learned that a needle was a precious commodity. 

And I am notorious for losing my needles.  I try not to lose them in carpets and furniture and am successful for the most part but where they actually go?  I have no idea.  And so I would make a terrible pioneer.  My clothes would be ragged and the canvas on my tent would be un-patched.  It would not be pretty.

So my stitch in time quilt is a nod to those brave women who packed their precious things in a covered wagon and headed west, needle in hand, to face a vast unknown landscape.

The image is of the interior of a covered wagon.  Notice the fancy chair, spinning wheel, butter churn and what looks to be boxes of silverware and likely other tools.  I love the pretty dresses hanging on the pegs. 

The picture is printed on fabric and is embellished with embroidery floss.  The binding is a ruffle (new technique for me) made of a modern calico fabric.  It measures approximately 8 x 10 inches.  This quilt continues my Western Expansion theme for the Project Quilting challenges this year.

You can read more about Project Quilting and check out all the amazing quilts made this week on Kim Lapacek's Blog. 

 

PQ 9.2 Little House on the Prairie Points

This was not the best week of quilting for me.  I was on travel for much of the week.  I was able to plan a gorgeous quilt that was going to twin size.  I managed to go to Hancocks of Paducah with that plan in hand.  And I couldn't find the right fabric.  Well, that and the fact that the twin sized quilt wants prairie points.  It would take at best guess a couple hundred prairie points.  Given that I have no idea how to sew prairie points or how to finish the binding once I put them on, making a smaller project to practice seemed like the better idea. 

I do seem to have a theme going this season.  This is an historical picture of some women and horses standing in front of a soddy, a cabin made of sod, in Nebraska.  Because, of course, prairie points make me think of Little House on the Prairie. 

The picture is printed on fabric.  It is lightly quilted with No 3 Perl Cotton.  the binding is my first attempt at continuous prairie points (OK any prairie points).  I learned many things from this.  Making miniature prairie points for a first project is not the best idea.  I have no idea how to finish/attach/do anything with the corners.  This continuous strip thing will work really well once I make it big enough to collect and hide my raw edges and once I figure out the whole corner thing.

So why prairie points for my triangles?  Because I am a rebel.  I made triangles by cutting squares. 

This quilt is part of Project Quilting Season 9.  The challenge was triangulation.  This quilt measures about 5 x 8 inches.  I quilt just outside of St Louis, MO. 

PQ 9.1 Hometown Love: Fairplay

 I had big plans for this week.  Big Plans!

I've lived a lot of different places so I had a number of wonderful towns to choose from:  two coasts, mountains, flat lands, small towns, big cities, impressive landscapes.  However, I quickly choose a place I've never actually lived.  I've never had it on my drivers license and I've never even had a mailing address there.  But I did spend a portion of every year from the time I was eight years old until now missing at most two years.  As a kid, I was in school or in this town so I feel like I grew up there.  The town is Fairplay, Colorado.  It is deep in the heart of South Park.  (Yes, South Park is a real place.  Yes the cartoonists are from the next valley over.  Yes that is a thing.)

Having decided on the town the pattern was also a no brainer.  I was going to make delectable mountains.  I'd made a table runner a couple years ago for the PQ challenge and knew it was well within my skill set.  I could make a lot of those blocks with relative ease and could therefore go quickly.  I looked on line and saw a variation that looked liked an Irish Chain.  It was perfect.  

Now for the fabric.  I recently found a box of fabric that had been 'lost' in the move double digit years ago.  It had lots of treasures including several sets of fabric.  I remember some of them. Others, not so much.  However, there was one set that I obviously purchased in a quilt shop. Most likely a long gone shop in Fairplay.  It has gorgeous columbine and iris fabrics and coordinating purples and greens.   Combined with a white background it would be a glorious tribute to my 'hometown'.

Looking at the picture at the top of the post, you can clearly see that there aren't any iris or columbine or mountains in my quilt.  You see, the math doesn't work.  I was going to make cheater mountains.   My 9 inch blocks would turn into 8 inch half square triangles which would turn into a rectangle that would be about 12 x 8 inch mountains.  Those are are rectangles.  Sewing two of them together makes a block that is 12 x 16.  Still not a square.  And I needed squares to make rotate and make the pretty chain looking pattern.  I spent much of the week convinced that I could add some to the middle and I would get the right shape and it would all work out.  Unfortunately, adding fabric in the only direction that wouldn't disrupt the pattern merely exacerbated the problem.  So... no simple mountains for me. The only way to make the pattern is to go old school with lots of bias and half square triangles.  By the time I figured that out, it was way too late to get the size quilt I wanted to make finished in time.  And besides, I couldn't find my triangle paper without which this isn't happening!

So, I pouted for another day.  Then I drew some sketches.  But my flying geese paper was too big and I was still pouting and not going to try and make up the 5 paper piece patterns I would need.

I started looking for pictures of Fairplay.  I found one of the Sheldon Jackson Memorial Church.  It is a church that is so iconic... well I have to digress and tell another story.  You see I got married in that church.  I was living in DC.  My then fiance  (whose family laid claim to come from from that next valley over) was in Michigan and my mom was in Fairplay.  There were logistics.  I bought my dress in DC and was looking for a veil.  I found one in a small bridal consignment shop.  When I described my dress to the owner (long sleeve, cotton jacquard) for an August wedding, I got the usual response.  "You are insane.  You will sweat to death."  But I started to explain that I was getting married in a small town in Colorado called Fai.... "Fairplay." the owner replied "in that beautiful little church."  It turned out she spent time nearby and always wanted to attend a wedding in that church.  So I invited her.  She came.  It was special.  The picture above is my flower girl sitting on a bench in the beautiful garden of that beautiful church.  A church so memorable that a shop owner half a continent away knew about it.

Back to the quilt...  I started playing with a picture and finally settled upon an sketchy version.  I printed it on fabric and then hand quilted/embellished with with quilting cotton and number 5 perl cotton.  I had to add some of the beautiful flowers from the garden and a hint of the Colorado blue sky.  The binding is a tiny strip of my favorite forget-me-knot fabric, as appropriate as the iris and columbine.  My stitching leaves a lot to be desired.  We won't look at the back.  This was a great project to ease me back into quilting and hand stitching.  (It has been so long I don't even have a quilts 2017 folder.)  I am ready to see what the next challenges bring.

The quilt is approximately 7 x 10 inches.  It is printed on cotton with cotton backing and binding.  The batting is a synthetic.  It is hand quilted with cotton and perl cotton.

Project Quilting is the brain child of Kim Lapacek.  You can see all of the amazing quilts produced in response to this challenge here. 

PQ8.3 Texture: Feelings....

I've had quilter's block (and not in a good way) for a while now.  I've been trying to get back into the groove by at least making something for the PQ challenges.  This week it was Texture.  As in, be inspired by texture.  Since my view for the entire week has been looking at fleece and badges in my sewing room there wasn't a lot of additional inspiration to be found. HOWEVER, as I was thinking about texture, I realized that an important part of texture is touching and that is Feelings*.  (Whoa, whoa, whoa, whooooooaa feeeeeelings...  just had to share the ear worm!) 

So, given that this is February,  I made tiny little textured quilt showing the feeling of love.  For a number of reasons it had to be hand sewn.  So it is a 6 inch square quilted with seed stitch using two strands of #3 Pearl cotton.  The 'binding is a simple blanket stitch. (Yes, that seemed MUCH easier than cutting and stitching a binding... at least at the start.)  And it is finished!  Just maybe I'll get around to making are 'real' quilt again one of these days (direct your flame wars elsewhere, it is a long standing joke around here and I almost didn't survive the PQ season where I challenged myself to make big quilts.)

Thanks for the inspiration from all of the amazing quilters who are participating and even more thanks to Kim and the evil dreamer of inspirations, Trish. 




*Come on, Trish... you knew I couldn't play it straight! 

Dozens

From the complete lack of posts on my blog it seems like I've been a complete slacker all summer.  That really isn't the case.  I've been traveling a bit which has slowed me down but mostly I've been making things by the dozens.  If I ever get a chance to breathe, I will post pics.  But hopefully by the time I can breathe, the shows will be over and I won't have anything left.... a girl can dream!

Today I was sick of staring at the machines and mess.  When I saw a post that our LQS was having a hexie demo in an hour I jumped.  I called up my quilty friend Bev and said I'd be by to pick her up in 45 minutes.  A quick shower, a wild hunt for a clean shirt, a wee bit of ironing and I was there. 

I expected a 10 minute talk.  What we encountered was a lesson complete with $5 kit.  There turned out to be 5 of us total with one fantastic teacher.  She taught us English Paper Piecing.  Clearly Bev and I were more used to hand work than the others because we both finished basting, stitching and appliqueing before the time was up. 

Half-way through I realized I was making a mini quilt AND that it was still September.  That meant I actually had a project for the Project Quilting September Off-season challenge!  All I had to do was dash home stitch on the back, fill it with the (provided, can you believe it) bag of walnut shells and I was done!  Woo Hoo.

Best of all I think that I could do a hexie project.  To all my #talknt friends, yes, I've gone to the dark side.  I resisted for a long time but they got me in the end.  I did manage to resist buying the papers but I'm not sure it is going to last long.  I could be sitting here using up scraps instead of typing... 

PQ 5:6 Triangles, Flying Geese at Sunset

Whew!  It is finally the last week of Kim Lapaceck's  Project Quilting.  A week I looked forward to with equal parts excitement, sadness and dread.  Excitement, because it is always exciting to get the new challenge.  To spend time thinking about what to make and to figure out how to do it.  Sadness, because PQ is over for another year and I will miss these bi-weekly challenges and more importantly bi-weekly deadlines to get a quilt finished.  (During the 6 weeks of project quilting, I managed to finish 9 quilt projects.)

And then the dread...  As you may know, my personal challenge this season was to make large quilts.  Big enough to cover up Spud 1.

I started small with the baby-sized Snailerpark trash quilt.  The real challenge on this one was the Free Motion Quilting. 

Week 2 saw the production of a bigger but still rather smallish picnic quilt.  Stitching over all of those flat-felled seams and pockets almost did in me and my machine. 

Week 3 was larger still with the good wrap up on the couch Good N Plenty quilt. Completely fun and manageable in the time frame!

Week 4 was the 60 x 60 inch big star quilt, made of half square triangles and hand quilted.  In three days.  From start to finish.  Totally exhausted!

Week 5, the even larger, twin sized Jam and Bread quilt, again made of triangles.  This time the triangles were quarter square triangles.  I didn't think I could possibly get this one finished.  A trip out of town.  A pieced backing.  The need to go to use the tables in the multipurpose room at church to get it basted.  A wee bit of assistance on that from the spuds on Saturday night, and I managed a finish.

Thus the dread of week 6.  Was I up to the challenge of making the next size up?  A full sized quilt in keeping with the pattern of the rest of the season.  Dread.

I might have made it except for one thing. Triangles.  The week 6 challenge was triangles.  That is all.  Triangles for two weeks from a quilter who just doesn't do triangles unless she absolutely has to and now more triangles.  A giant full-sized quilt with more triangles.   Let's just say I did a wee bit of whining. For most of the week, I was pretty much convinced that this one lone triangle-shaped coaster made of chalkboard fabric was going to be my entry.

But Thursday night, I couldn't help myself.  I had to do at least a little bit better.  Since I wasn't going to be able to go large and I didn't want to go home, I decided to try and tackle paper piecing.  I've tried many times.  I've sat through the classes at least three times.  I always come up short.   Literally.  My pieces are always sewn on too short.

This was the week to conquer my fear.  I found a pattern for flying geese in a circle.  I printed out a couple patterns and I went for it.  Amazingly enough, only the very last piece of the last block was too short.  I made two blocks.  Added some coordinating fabric and called it quits.

And so you have Flying Geese at Sunset.  Sunset of time.  Sunset of the season.  Sunset colors.  It measures approximately 12 x 16 inches.  It is made from some lovely quilter's cotton I bought on my Birthday last year to make something just for me.  It has a felted poly batting and is hand quilted and hand bound.  And it is finished in time to post as my very last challenge quilt.

Be sure to check out all the other great triangle quilts made this week.  

Thank you Kim for all your hard work producing Project Quilting.  Thank you Diane Lapacek for your evil genius in coming up with the challenges.  And Kudos to the many talented quilters who produce a quilt in a week for no reason other than the challenge is there.

Because she asked so nicely, I've linked this week's post to Go Go Kim's SewJo Saturday link party.  Even more great quilts to admire!

PQ 5.4 Lemoyne Star

Lemoyne Star

When I was a kid, there were several ways through the woods to Grandmother's house.  One of them was on the Lemoyne Road and went through the village of Lemoyne.  Like many small towns at the time it had a grain elevator and rough tracks to cross over.  Lemoyne was further blessed with two State highways.  This was not the preferred route.   Crossing the tracks was difficult.  They were raised up a bit and went behind the elevator.  There was also a difficult approach to the expressways.  They came up at an angle, making it very difficult to see on-coming traffic.  There was always a certain level of anxiety approaching the crossings.  Even as kids, we knew it was tricky, if not down right dangerous.

By the time I learned to drive, they had installed crossing guards on the tracks and there was a new by-pass over Lemoyne Road.  The journey was much easier and we were more likely to go that way.

One bonus of squaring your blocks is that the whole quilt comes out square-er (is that a word?)

That is pretty much how I feel about the traditional Lemoyne Star block.  It has always been one of my favorite blocks but going that route meant cutting out trapezoids and learning Y-seams.  Tricky, if not down right dangerous.

Quilting with Perl Cotton

Then along comes the inestimable Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilt Company with her Big Star Tutorial.  All of the sudden the block became easier and now I am much more likely to sew it.

A closer look at the backing fabric. 

Jenny gives you wonderful instructions for making the block.  Having just finished piecing my second quilt using the technique there are a few things I would add to the instructions:

• If you really want this to look like a traditional Lemoyne Star, you will need to choose solids or small print fabrics that do not have a clear pattern or direction.  

• Pin.  I'm not usually a pinner but the 10x10 inch blocks can slip around when you are sewing them.  A walking foot will help.  Adjusting the pressure on your pressure foot might help (I haven't quite figured that out yet).  Pinning helps.

 

• Anyone who places the ruler and cuts an angle like Jenny must have magic ruler placing, ruler holding and cutting super powers.  No matter how hard I try, I cannot get four perfect 6.75 inch squares every time.  I'm happy if I am close some of the time.  

• It is better to cut as best you can and then trim the blocks down to 6.5 inches.  You will end up with a final block that finishes at 24 inches.  But you will be more likely to keep your points and match your corners.  

• Every seam you sew after you make your half square triangles will be on the BIAS.  The good news is that they can be eased stretched to make your corners meet.  The bad news is that they stretch like crazy which can result in some crazy lumps in your top.  Once again, pin and sew with caution. 

That said, go ahead and make this block.  It is fun and it doesn't take many 24 inch blocks to make a huge quilt in short order.  

Another picture of the whole quilt.  It goes wall to wall in the foyer so I can't get a picture without the hats in it.

The Timeline:

Wednesday after dinner:  Start cutting.  Get all of the blue and most of the white cut.  Make and trim HST for one star.

Thursday:  Buy more fabric.  Cut rest of white fabric.  Cut and trim blocks for the rest the stars.  Get the rows stitched for each of the stars.

Friday morning.  Stitch the rows together to make the stars.  Iron everything.  Arrange and re-arrange the blocks.  Stitch the final nine-patch.

Friday afternoon:  Cut and piece the backing.  Iron everything.  Baste.  Buy pearl cotton.

Quilt top spread out and ready to baste. 

Friday evening:  Start quilting.

Saturday Morning:  Keep quilting.

Saturday afternoon:  Take Spud 1 out to buy shoes.  End up having to drive into the city and take all day.

Saturday evening.  Keep quilting.  Cut and prep binding.  Stitch on binding.

Rounded corners, number fabric and pretty backing.

Sunday (after midnight):  Finish!  Take terrible nightime indoor pictures and write blog post.

Whew!

I love gingham binding!

The details.  This quilt measures 72 x 72 inches.  It is made up of 9 Lemoyne Star blocks.  The fabrics are all quilters cottons.  The white background fabrics are all white on white prints.  It has a poly batting and pieced quilter's cotton backing.  The binding is gingham.  It is hand quilted with No 5 Perl Cotton.  The binding is machine stitched.

Add captionFor some reason, these big star quilts turn the spuds into quilt monsters.  They always throw the quilt over their head and start running around.  I can never really get a clear picture of them because they are moving so fast.

This quilt was created as part of Project Quilting Season 5.  Challenge 4 is "Across the Universe". 

 All of the blue fabrics in the quilt are stars or space themed this quilt represents the theme in a number of ways.  Traveling across space and time in memory recalling those trips to Grandma's house and traveling across the vast expanse of the quilt both by hand and machine in the time available also seem fitting to the theme.

Project Quilting is the brain child of Kim Lapacek of Persimon Dreams.  The challenges are dreamed up by Diane Lapacek.  Quilters are given one week to come up with a completed quilted project inspired by the challenge prompt.  Be sure to check out the website, the Project Quilting Flickr group and the Challenge Quilts and Project Quilting Face Book pages for more great quilts.

First Snow!

That means it is winter.  And I haven't updated anything since what seems like summer.  I'm just going to toss in some pictures of things I've been making rather than try to catch up individually. 

Quilt finish!  Only one in months for the Craftster Mini Art Quilt Swap. 

My partners theme was a story called "The Yellow Wallpaper".   It is a pretty dark Victorian tale about a woman who is confined and starts to see a woman in the wallpaper.  She tries to free her.

She tries to free her.  My partner is also an amazing and very  modern quilter.  She loves bright modern colors and wanted bright modern fabrics.  I did what I could to reconcile the two notions.  Probably not getting very far on either one.  But it was fun.  The yellow isn't very modern but it was pretty wallpaper-y.  I liked using the Madrona Road bits because of the implied story.

I couldn't bring myself to actually rip up the quilt.  I know it needed it.  Instead I left it intact and applied the shreds over the top.  My partner could remove them and finish off the binding if she preferred. 

It is hand quilted with teardrop shapes that mimic the face in the center.  The face is an Urban Threads design and is repeated in the top left, although I doubt anyone will ever find it.

This is the stunning quilt she made for me.  I love it!

OK.  That is enough for today.  Hope you all are doing well.  I'll be back with more as soon as I can.  

Project Quilting 4:4 Seeing Stars

This week's entry in the Project Quilting: Seeing Stars challenge.

This is made using the tutorial  by Janice from Better off Thread at Sew Mama Sew.   The directions in the tutorial are clear and simple. The piece went together easily.  I didn't cut half square triangles for the stars.  I just laid scraps across the blocks, made sure they would cover and stitched them down.  It was easiest to square up when I left the entire background block intact before trimming.  However, that left a little more bulk in the seam.  Not really a problem except in a couple of spots where I had to iron against the bulk in order to get the seams to nest.  I left the last bit of the smallest star as a strip rather than separate blocks.  There are a couple other places where that would work and I would probably do that if I was going to us the block for a larger quilt.

I tried this pattern because I have been working out some different designs with blocks of different sizes in my head and I wanted to see how these fit together.  I think I have a handle on the strategy and will be trying some of those ideas in the future. 

The quilting is wonky stitches with pearl cotton.  It probably needs more quilting.  However, it really needs to have beads or buttons and I don't have the correct type of either at the moment.  

The Details: 
The block measures 20 x 20 inches.  It is made from a dark blue (navy?) Kona and scraps from my stash. The backing is muslin.  It is hand quilted with #12 Pearl cotton.  There are no hanging devices on the back as yet. 

I still have to get a decent picture of it.  Here is a slightly different angle with a closer view of the stitching.

I will post more details and pictures tomorrow when the sun is out.  Unfortunately that won't be until after the PQ deadline of noon.  Thus, a quick shot. 

Wall Hanging

A few years ago, I took my MIL to the fabric store to pick out blue fabric for a lake quilt.  She picked out one or two blue fabrics and the rest were a bit different.  I've been working out how to make something with them for quite a while now.  I finally hit on making some Teesha Moore style 'pillows'.  That led to adding in the photos I originally intended to use frames out TM style.  I finally called it finished this year for her Christmas gift.  

  
A close up of one a section. 

Gramma being squished by the spuds in one panel.

And the back. 

Orange Stash Finish!

Yay!  I am finally done with this one.  I started it over the summer.  It is the same as the Kaffee Quilt I started, finished and gifted at the same time.  This one was primarily stash fabrics.  The little slice of fabric you can see in the middle on the left is the one Mr-I-need-a-quilt-for-a-gift choose.

 I ended up using the sunflower with the dragon fly as the anchor fabric.  It has the orange, teal, brown, yellow/green and white in it.  From there, I just pulled anything that had those colors in it and used it. 

I love the binding fabric.  It was a purchase.  I really like the orange, yellow and white plaid. 

This quilt is all 6 inch squares.  It was hand quilted with pearl cotton.  

My corners, they don't always meet.  I got over that a very long time ago!

Here is the whole thing laid out on the coffee table.  It was supposed to be a table topper.  I think it is probably too busy for that.  I'll have to ponder where it goes or to whom it really belongs. 

Details:  approximately 34 inches square.  Made from quilters cotton in my stash.  The backing is muslin.  Machine pieced.  Hand quilted with number 3 and number 5 pearl cotton.  Binding attached by machine and finished by hand. 

Barn Quilt. Finally!

 You may recall this detail from my barn quilt, started months ago in response to a challenge at Kim's Crafty Apple. 

 Well, it is finally finished.  I used a bandana print for the binding.  I'm not too sure that I like it but it is finished. 

Here is a picture of the back including the fast finish triangles for hanging it. 

The quilt is made from quilter's cotton and some hand dyed fabric.  It is machine pieced and hand quilted using various threads.  It measures 10.5 x 12.5 inches. 

I think I will put it up for sale in my shop. 

More of the Same

We've had some fun picking fabrics to make some gifts.  I liked the 6 inch squares on the Charming Kaffe quilt enough that I did the same thing again.  

 We started with some pretty crazy mix of teal, orange and brown. 

It cried out for hand quilting.  I used a bit of pearl 3 and finished with pearl 5.  It turned out to be easier using the thinner thread with the larger needle.  The stitching is finished.  Now it just needs the binding. 

Posting in the Hand Made Parade!

Charming Kaffe

  Just pictures of this one now that it is finished.

My birthday treat of  a pack of Kaffe Fasset charm squares with the intention of deliberately making one project using only fabrics from one designer.

Didn't happen.

The little bit of yardage I bought for filler and binding... on the Kaffe shelf.  Not Kaffe.

The details.  Made from 6 inch charm squares.  Machine pieced.  Hand quilted with number 5 perle cotton.  The backing is muslin.  It is about 34 inches square.

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