Quilting Jane and Other Projects

Aren’t children wonderful? I don’t understand children who won’t help their parents with technology they don’t understand. As parents, we’ve helped our children, now they’re able to return the assistance. And I’m posting again. Thanks Son #2!

The center applique block for the Wilfred and Cloves quilt is completed and I’m very pleased with how she turned out! I’ve never appliqued a layered flower before. She’ll hang on my display wall until I get around to piecing the rest of the quilt, perhaps next spring sometime?

Approximately 5 years ago, I bought this book, A Baltimore Album by Marsha D. Radtke (The Pastor’s Attic Quilt) with the intentions of making this quilt someday. Most Baltimore Albums are made with poison green and red fabrics with a little yellow thrown in. I like those colors when I see them in other people’s quilts, but I just couldn’t bring myself to use those colors for my quilt. At the October Inspiration Club at the Pumpkinvine Quilt Shop, they had a display of Mayfield fabrics in red, black and beige. I really liked they way they blended and so my Baltimore Album quilt is going to be made with reds, black and beige/cream. The background fabric is the cream with white dots. It feels good to have finally made the decision as to the fabrics I want to use and it feels even better to have started the applique and have a finished block to show you.

I’ve been keeping up with quilting Jane and I’ve completed several rows since the last post.

First is the top triangle border and the corner kite blocks.

 

Top left corner kite.

 

 

 

 

Top row triangles 1, 2 and 3.

 

 

Top row triangles 4, 5 and 6.

 

 

Top row triangles 7, 8 and 9.

 

 

Top row triangles 10, 11 and 12.

 

Top row triangle 13 and the top right corner kite. Just for fun, I added another white with blue fabric to the triangle and I appliqued a circle instead of the oval that Jane had.

Row A has also been quilted. Now remember, when I sewed the left side triangles together, I reversed the placement so the top triangle 1 is on the bottom of the row and the bottom triangle 13 is on the top.

 

Left side triangle 13. I appliqued circles instead of ovals.

 

Row A blocks 1, 2 and 3.

 

Row A blocks 4, 5 and 6.

 

Row A blocks 7, 8 and 9.

 

Row A blocks 10, 11 and 12.

 

Row A block 13 and the right side triangle 1.

I think you all are caught up now with what I’ve been doing for the past several weeks. Linking to Esther’s Wednesday Wow, Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Love, Laugh, Quilt, Patchwork Times, Cooking Up Quilts and Quilt Story.

Charity Applique Blocks

 

I’ve enjoyed appliqueing these charity blocks.

This is Triangle 15, my favorite of the four. I didn’t really have a color scheme, I just appliqued fabrics that I thought looked nice. The background fabric is from my mother’s stash.

 

Triangle 4. The background fabric is a light blue fossil fern fabric. I also did Triangle 3 on the same fat quarter. Even though triangles 3 and 4 normally would be next to each other, since the guild is making a full size bed quilt, we are making additional blocks. My blocks 3 and 4 will not be next to each other in the finished quilt.

And Triangle 3. This is the disappointment block. I decided I was going to try some broderie perse. I don’t know if I did it the right way, I made it the shape of the flower that was supposed to have been EPP’d. I used mom’s older Asian fabrics and they just aren’t as bright and colorful as the newer Asian fabrics. Oh well, it’s finished.

I showed you triangle 16 in this post.

The 4 blocks are finished and I’ll return them to the charity committee during guild Monday evening.

I’m looking forward to starting my Sweet Surrender triangles, but before I start them, I have another applique project I want to make first, just for fun. I’ll show you how far I get with that project next week.

I’m pleased with the quilting progress on my Jane Stickle quilt. So far I’ve been able to quilt a row a week. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it up but I’m going to try. I would really like to have her finished to take along to the Jane Stickle retreat in April.

Last week I showed you the Stars and Sprigs quilt my guild made and donated to the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale. The sale was held yesterday and she brought $2600. The photo used in the post was taken by Marie Troyer. Thanks Marie for sending me the photo and my apologies for not giving you the credit.

Linking up with Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday, Love Laugh Quilt, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Quilt Story, A Quilting Reader’s Garden and Esther’s WOW.

Stars and Sprigs

Every year the Maple Leaf Quilt guild makes and donates a quilt to the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale quilt auction. At the September guild meeting this year’s finished donation was displayed. Here she is, Stars and Sprigs, designed by Kim McLean.

This quilt pattern has both pieced and appliqued blocks, so the piecing people were happy and the appliquers were happy. This quilt was very much a group project. I appliqued four of the applique blocks and also helped with the some of the quilting.

I’m hoping there are 2 people at the auction who really want this quilt. Update 9-27-15 – She sold for $2600. The photo was taken by Marie Troyer.

Also at the guild meeting, the committee in charge of the 2017 donation quilt presented information about the new relief sale quilt. The pattern is Sweet Surrender designed by Sue Cody.

Several of us in the guild are also going to be piecing and appliquing this pattern to make our own quilt, so the guild blocks will be good preparation.

I finally got all the siggie blocks signed so now I can start on the guild blocks. I’m appliquing triangles 3, 4, 15 and 16. This is going to be a scrappy quilt and we are NOT to use white for a back ground.

Triangle 16 is completed. I tried to use brighter colors than I normally use. They worked well on this yellow batik. The little circles are dark red not black. The pink flower is EPP’d using 5/8th” papers. I thought it turned out cute, especially with the fussy cut butterfly center. These triangles are going to be a fun project.

I’m linking to Crazy Mom Quilts, Kathy’s Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching, Cooking up Quilts, Love, Laugh, Quilt and My Quilt Infatuation.

Embroidered Quilt is Pieced

Several months ago, I showed you some quilt blocks I had embroidered years ago. They were sewn together and the quilt needed to be wider. I solved the problem by adding two side borders with flying geese, then a blue border, then a checkerboard border, ending with the blue fabric for the outside border. The top now measures 90″ x 98″, decent size for a bed.

The center blocks have yellowed some over the years. I plan to hand quilt this top someday, maybe by the time she gets quilted, the white fabric I’ve used will have yellowed too.

I know this isn’t a popular style of embroidered quilt but when she is quilted, she will have the quiet dignity that this style of embroidered quilt embraces. She won’t be quilted this winter but perhaps in a year or two.

Linking up with Kathy’s Slow Quilting on Sunday and then on Monday Super Mom-No Cape. On Wednesday I’ll link up with Esther’s Wow, then on Thursday My Quilt Infatuation.

Cherry Blossom Quilt

 

Summer is flying by and it is a very busy time here on the farm, but I have made some time for sewing.

I’m well on the way to recovering from my Jane burnout. I’ve progressed from just sewing strips together, to sewing the 3″ finished 9-patch blocks I pieced last winter into double 9-patches . . . 42 double 9-patches. These are block A for the Cherry Blossom Quilt.

I’ve pieced the centers for the 
for the 30 B blocks. One inch finished HST’s are to be attached next. I have the Thangles ready to sew but it is going to take a while to sew the 600 HST’s needed.

The Cherry Blossom Quilt pattern was designed by Karen H. and you can find the pattern on her blog, faeriesandfibres.blogspot.com. Click on Patterns by Karen H. (She asks that links go directly to her blog.) She has some very pretty patterns she has designed.

The bindings are completed for the 4 little quilts I’ve quilted this summer.

The little Snowman Quilt is a kit I bought a year ago at the Red Button Quilt  Co. booth during the Grand Rapids AQS show in August. He measures 16 1/2″ x 19 1/2″. The middle two were projects from the Prairie Women Sewing Circle, year 3. I especially like the cheddar flange binding on the cheddar and black quilt. The cheddar/black quilt measures 25″ x 29 1/2″. I thought the next quilt was red and black but now I see the red doesn’t stand out as much as I thought it would. I should have added a red flange to the binding. The red/black size is 21″ x 25″. The right quilt was a free pattern from the Temecula Quilt Co. called the 12 Days of Christmas. He measures 18″ x 22″.

The backsides of the 2 left quilts. Both were hand quilted.

 

 

 

 

 

And the 2 quilts hanging on the right side. The left one was hand quilted and the right quilt was stitched on my sewing machine. I was too lazy to attach the even feed foot to my machine so it is not smooth. But that just makes it an interesting texture.

 

 

I decided I was going to use purple fabrics to piece the Seeing Stars BOM by Turning Twenty. I had planned to use a mixture of regular fabrics and batiks but when I started looking, I decided to go with just batiks. It’s amazing what beautiful fabrics we can find in our stashes if we just look. Some of the batiks look blue but have some purple shading in them.

Seeing Stars is a 6 month BOM with 2 patterns coming a month. I’ve downloaded the first 4 patterns but I’ll wait to start until I have the next 2 patterns. I’ll have a busy week of piecing the blocks, then put it all away until I have the rest of the patterns. BOM’s are fun but they get too draggy sometimes, at least it seems that way to me. I’m more of a get ‘er done sort of person.

The 1-1/2″ strips I have been sewing are sewn. Now I’m sub-cutting them into twosies. It doesn’t take long, I use my mat with the 1/2″ slits, then I’ll sew them together and make 4-patches. This is going to be a very slow, very long-term piecing project. After I get the 4 patches pieced, I’ll decide what is next. I have several possibilities I’m turning over in my mind.

Linking up with Esther’s Wednesday WOW! and My Quilt Infatuation NTT and A Quilting Reader’s Garden.

Slow Stitching

Several weeks ago, I pulled out the resale shop crib quilt to work on in the evenings. I finished the applique, then I removed the green embroidery and re-embroidered the alphabet with a lighter green color. It didn’t make any difference, it still looks teale colored. I also embroidered the pink outline.

Earlier I had sprayed water on a section to see if the ink disappeared, it didn’t. So this is an old top that must have been printed 30 plus years ago. Back then they used permanent ink. Why? I don’t know but they did. Anyway, I think the blue ink makes the light green embroidery thread look more teal and it doesn’t match the green applique ribbon.

I asked DIL #2 what she thought. The greens didn’t bother her, but the ink did. Funny how we all notice different things. I had planned to add a border on the outside but she suggested just leaving it like it is, so I did. This winter I will attempt quilting it on my sewing machine.

Then I pulled out the pink hexies I started months ago and I’m hand sewing more of them. They will end up in a crib quilt too. People keep on having babies and I like having crib quilts ready to go for gifts.

Neither of these crib quilts will be WOW! quilts, but they will be loved and used. Nothing is better than that.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday and then on Monday I’ll link up to Super Mom – No Cape! Stitchery Link Party.

Christmas in July

For my birthday last year, a friend gave me a charm pack of Christmas fabric I had admired. I really liked the aqua and red combination, so different from the regular red and green. I held on to the pack, waiting for just the right project. Last Christmas, the Temecula Quilt Co. reposted their 12 Days of Christmas project. Yes, there it was. So I sewed him up and just had the pieced project on display at Christmas time. There were 12 little blocks and each block contained the number of pieces for each day; day 1/1 whole block. Day 12/12 pieces.

Since I’m concentrating on easy projects right now, I decided it was time to quilt this little quilt. I did straight line quilting on my sewing machine. I was too lazy to attach my walking foot so it is a little wonky.

This Christmas wall quilt is the last of the little quilts I pieced last winter. I’m going to have a binding blitz with 4 small quilts to bind but they won’t take long.

I’ve been thinking about what piecing project to work on now. There are so many online quilts and BOM’s to tempt me besides the unfinished projects I’ve already started. Where do I start?

The Fabric Vortex quilt over at Crazy Mom Quilts is very attractive and uses a lot of leftover fabrics. There’s  Cozy Afternoon BOM from Jacquelynne Steves, another great project. I’m downloading the patterns from Turning Twenty’s Seeing Stars BOM. That one really tempted me. They are sewing the blocks in Kaffe Fassett fabrics, I’ve got Kaffe fabrics leftover from last summer’s project.

However, I don’t want to do anything that requires much thinking, I’m still recovering from Jane burnout.

When I was reorganizing my fabric stash, I pulled fabric to be cut into strips, including the Kaffe fabric. So that is what one project is. I’ve cut the fabric into   1-1/2″ strips and I’m sewing the strips together. Eventually they will all end up as 4 patch blocks. There is a general plan for the 4 patches to end up in a quilt but there is no rush.

Several years ago I bought several border print fabrics to make table runners. I made several but was distracted and never finished piecing the rest. Table runners are on the list. And then there are 400 1″ finished HST’s I need to piece for a scrappy quilt.

I will be participating in a siggie (signature) exchange in late fall. I will start piecing those blocks after the sign up ends August 8. So far the number of participants is 55.

I will keep on working at the easy projects for now. Soon I will have my GO back and then I will be full speed ahead again.

I’ve linked up to Esther’s Wednesday Wow.

Little Snowman Quilt

This is another of the little (17″ x 20″) quilts I pieced last winter. They were fun to make, so different from the big quilts I normally produce. I was concerned that having sewn the snowflake buttons on before quilting was going to cause problems, but it hasn’t.

The pattern is called Snowman Love and was a kit I bought from the Red Button Quilt Co. The border design was supposed to have been a kind of free hand drawn scrolling design. Cute design, but I am not good at freehand drawing so I just picked a stencil and traced it off, good enough. The quilting happened on and off last week. I should be able to finish quilting today.

This has been a busy week, we’ve actually had sunshine every day! The wheat has been combined and we’ve started baling straw. Yesterday morning I mowed down 10 rounds of hay. Monday is going to be an extremely busy day but these are the days I dream about in winter. Summer is my favorite season.

I don’t have pictures from my garden but the green beans are producing well. I pulled all the garlic several weeks ago and the heads are drying in the garage. Part of the onions were pulled last week and the rest are ready to be harvested this week. The new red potatoes are delicious. I’m surprised at how well they have produced, they were viciously attacked by potato bugs early on but have come back and yielded well.

I’ve linked to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday.

 

Jane is Pieced!

Here she is, my version of the Jane Stickle civil war quilt.

This isn’t the greatest of photos but it was the best I could do. I am not going to complain about having bright sunshine after all the dreary, rainy days we’ve had this summer!

I attached the borders on Saturday so Jane has been pieced in an 8 month time span. She is going to rest until sometime in August when she’ll be marked for quilting. The plan is to put her in the quilting frame and start the hand quilting in September. It will take as long as it takes.

I’m burnt out on sewing right now so I’ve started sorting through my project tubs. I’m weeding out quilt projects that I no longer want to make. It is interesting how the bright colors I like now are so different from the jewel tones I liked 10 – 15 years ago. Some of the fabric, along with a box of books, will be donated to the Relief Sale in September.

It feels good to have downsized and I hope I can hold firm in my resolution to only purchase fabric when I have a designated use for it.

I’ve linked to Esther’s Wednesday Wow! She’s weeding out her stash too. I’m also linked to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Richard and Tanya Quilts, A Quilting Reader’s Garden, Simply Pieced, My Quilt Infatuation and Crazy Mom Quilts.

This is a LOT more links than I normally link to, but I want to whole world to know, Jane is pieced!

Jane’s Corner Blocks

Last week I finished the triangles for the bottom border of my Jane quilt. I forgot to take a picture of the row with the alternate triangles but I promise you, the row is sewn.

 

I just finished piecing the lower left corner border block. I had pieced the other 3 blocks earlier this week.

I pieced my first Jane block on November 21, 2014 and the last block July 14, 2015. I need to get these borders sewn onto the center section and I hope to be able to show that to you next week. This quilt is almost completely pieced!!!

I’m linking up to Esther’s Wednesday WOW!  and My Quilt Infatuation. Check out the projects other people are working on.