A long time ago, before usb flash drives, flash media was called a jump drive. For those of you who are not technical, bear with me, I promise to be brief. My set up for my Memory Craft 9000 uses 20 year old jump drive technology. The size of the card is gianormous compared to todays flash drives. My memory craft is a work horse and makes fmq possible for me, saving me thousands of dollars in custom quilting fees.
If any of you have a camera (not phone related) chances are it has a removeable media card. I am fortunate enough to have a computer with a smart card reader. I remove the memory device from the camera, insert it into the Mac, and voila, instant photos loaded to computer memory.
The mac is relatively new and under warranty, which apple so graciously repaired. Because I do not have the mac I have no way to upload/edit photos for my blog. What can I say? We all know the world turns without technology. So today’s post is named for the begining era of storage drives, which is the technology I am lacking today.
My weekly jump would be showing a knitted potholder
This is last weeks photo
made with tshirt yarn (I can now say I knit, even if it is using a pin loom).
not a new pic
The baby booties has been quilted, binding sewn and finished with some hand stitching. And I found another use for my cast iron wedge pan and would have showcased some pizza wedges. The weekly jump will just have to wait.
On another note, I have made up my mind that in the coming months I am purchasing a 20 inch longarm and frame. While at shows, I play with many and have narrowed it down to 2. One of which will be at a quilt show I am attending next month. I am excited, but a little un-nerved, it means I will be back in debt again. I am not going to add any software/electronics to it, as I see that as a future upgrade. Right now the amount of tops I have to get done is piling up. My memory craft does great, but I can only move the width of my hand in each motion, which takes weeks to complete. I am hoping to put others to work while I am at work, using the pantographs that will come with the machine, and therefore put a tad of money into savings for the upgrade package. So this is probably fantasy about others working, but I have seen many men take interest in the hobby once a fine large machine shows up (I can just hear Tim the tool man Taylor from the TV sitcom Home Improvement giving his awe, ho, o).
So readers, I will have a post next week with picture goodness. And thank you for reading my blog!
As promised, quilters eye candy uploaded for you. Which one do you like the best? There were so many beautiful quilts. This is just a sampling. I did not take pictures of every quilt, but I took pictures of quilts with shiny silver metallic fabric, Asian satin fabrics, applique, piecing, embroidered, fabric painted with thread and with paint, and the list goes on. Hopefully this group of quilts will appeal to you as well. There were show stoppers, ones when you gaze upon them, it make you say OOOooooooooo, and Aaaahhhhhhhh.
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Some of these photos were at weird angles. There were so many people, and surprisingly I saw many people I knew. I made the comment to one of the people I know, they needed to add cattleguard fence to move the cattle, lol. Then she agreed with a MOOooove! LOL! So about the weird angles, I was there to photograph quilts, not people. The flow of the people was weird this year too. It almost seemed like the way it was laid out created hot spots outside the tri-quilt cubicle (not sure what to call this). And there were many people with scooters, which take up a bigger footprint. Lots of ladies were toting luggage trollys behind them. And of couse, you had those who would stop in the middle of traffic to talk. The amount of people got me out of there quicker,. This one does not like crowds. My impatience builds. The urge too flee becomes too great. I wonder why that is?
One day I will get my nerve up and submit a quilt. I suppose the only thing stopping me is fear. Fear of what? The dreaded quilt police!
During my outing I was also able to use my paint swatches to find fabrics for the Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt. She has dropped hints, so I am going with neutrals, sky blues, cheddar, yellow, and black. I am convinced this is what she will be using, if not that is what I will be using.
The quilt activity here on the home front has not made much progress. The Baby Booties quilt, is now about 75% quilted and I aim to complete that and move onto binding this weekend.
I frequent the thrift stores trying to find______________________fill in the blank. A few months back I found a skein of jersey knit yarn. It was only a dollar. My intention was to make a rug with it, but the rug would not have been very big, so I held onto it for the right project. I knew the right project would present itself.
Fast forward to Wed. I found a rectangular small pin loom at the same thrift store for a dollar. I watched a few youtube videos, and am now knitting a pot holder from the jersey knit. I think it is funny and a play on words, I am saying this is a knit squared square. I do not know how to make text to the 2nd power. So knit, that is double knitted= squared square. Whoa!
Here is that little project. Frugal and utilitarian, right up my alley!
And nice and heavy for good protection. Flexible enough to bend. I did not find anyone on youtube knitting with double knit jersey. It is extremely dense and heavy.
Well this concludes a snippet of my week, I wonder what adventure next week holds? I bet a finish/ reveal…..stay tunned. And thanks for reading my blog!
I am moving right along with the Baby Bootie quilt! I have gotten it all sashed and have it sandwiched for free motion quilting. This one will be complete in no time. I was worried about mixing the white back ground with the off white boot strips. It actually broke up the white monotony. It will be alright, er…I think.
The row going opposite was supposed to be the middle row, but c’est la vie, or That’s life! Babies tend to shake things up anyway, no matter how much you plan and I will probably pass this wisdom onto the first time Mom. If you are interested in the applique pattern of the boot you can get the PDF from my previous post. And today while surfing quilting stuff I actually found the static PDF on Fatquartershop.com. Click on the pattern called caravan roundup. 🙂
Besides surfing the internet for quilting stuff, I also have my daily clicks where I visit daily deals, flash sales, and read Bonnie Hunter’s blog. A couple of weeks ago, she dropped a few hints one day. She had snapped a photo of an antique mall that she visits and said, “wouldn’t this make lovely colors for a quilt”. The picture was of a terra cotta brick with gold accents, black trim. She noted the blue sky and the one white cloud in captured in the photo. A few days later, she showed a couple of black and white photos. I know the contrast in the photos is impossible to read color. But I am pretty sure, it involved black. Then that got me to thinking about the subtle hint she dropped about a beautiful quilty picture. I went back and found the pic and have now started gathering cheddar and blacks for my stash. I found a layer cake with good variety of these two colors.
I wish I could bet all my readers fabric, and if I win, you pay me in fabric of those colors. We shall see if I am right. If I am not, this is probably going to be the next colors of the mystery quilt that I make when I follow along come black friday.
Speculating in oil can make the price go up. I wonder each year when the colors are announced at the end of oct, begining of nov. if quilt shops run low on the colors she has selected? I know I can never find what I want that coordinates with the theme online after it is announced.
And as promised I have the remainder of photos that I took of the quilt hop. Here are a few that are familiar to me.
Above is a doll quilt I received as a gift when I was very young. I have a photo of me when I am 4 and I have the quilt in my hand. I do not remember the face of the person that gave it to me. I am told it was my great grandmother. I always thought my grandmother finished this. This is the quilt I used as an eraser on the chalkboard and this is also the recipient of wood glue. If you get wood glue on a quilt, a soak in water and vinegar will release the glue. It did help this quilt as the glue has been in the fibers now for more than 42 years. But the large chunks of glue are between the quilt top, and the flannel back (no batting).Red on top is my Garlic Marina which was a quilt block swap. I added sashing which created an irish chain affect. The quilt below the red one was a quilt guild selling chances. Beautiful batiks!And here is the quilt while quilting it, the cat came and had babies before it was finished. Thankfully the part she messed up had already been quilted. After quilting and binding with a large blood spot, I gently used some peroxide and a little elbow grease. Washing removed the rest. I have been waiting almost 9 months to use this quilt! I quilted this one half to death, and it turned out softer than I thought.This used to hang in my mothers kitchen. She is the owner. Look at the locket, Look at all those pieces. The maker of this is one of her friends. Her friend did a lovely job.As this reads, it is titled well! Therapy, don’t we all know it! Look at all those small pieces. If you made something like this, would you be able to give it away. I am not certain I could.The piecemakers of our town have a challenge quilt every year. Those who want to participate, all get the same piece of fabric. They have to incorporate it into a block. The winner by votes, wins all the blocks. They then have to sew all the blocks together and make a quilt for display at the hop. All of these blocks are winners, but the center block with Elvis was the one that stole the show!
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A slide show above captured some more. There is a pinwheel made with clown fish (I love that!). There is a 3 dimensional flower (I have made one of those before). There is a ridiculous log cabin of tiny strips, then subcut and resewn into HST log cabin units. It would have been easier just forgetting the log cabin part and sewing squares together. But that is what us quilters do, we cut it up to sew it back together again!
This week I will be attending the Plano Quilt show! Yay! I will have photos of that to share within the coming weeks. This show is not to big and not to small, but the quilts really pack a punch. They usually have some nice show stoppers. And I will get to play with my favorite longarm, the NOLTING. One day I will get one of those machines.
I hope you have enjoyed this post, thanks for reading my blog!
I do not even have this quilt completed and I am naming it! I found this pattern on pinterest, the link is funny and is no longer available at united notions. You cannot just surf and find it. I have tried to link it, it is a pdf, not sure how to get the address from pinterest. Click the link below to download Caravan-roundup cowboy boot pattern compliments of unitednotions.com
Pulling fabrics for this was fun! I made some hilarious choices, and some very cowboy boot looking choices. It will be for a baby girl, so I am having fun with all colors in the spectrum. These are awkward sized so I have purchased some cowboy boot fabric to compliment these in the form of sashing. I am looking forward to free motion quilting these booties too!
And I forgot to include in my last post, the story of the slave quilt. As I think about this quilt, it is uncertain how old it is. Probably around early 1900s. Therefore probably not a slave quilt, but more likely a share cropper quilt.
I spoke with a lady who carried that heavy woolen quilt from each stop on the quilt hop, showing and telling how she acquired it and where. It is rather good condition for its age, wool only fears moths. She told us that she was on the long garage sale that went for miles in the Carolina’s. She picked up the quilt, it was wool and heavy. The lady selling the quilt was a black woman in her 20s, or so the lady guessed. The young black woman said that quilt was from her great-grandmother. Now counting back with the age of the girl and the ages for child bearing long ago, she either had the story wrong, or it was indeed her great-grandmothers who received it from someone else made before her grandmothers time. The surprise was, the new recipient only paid $10 for the antique textile. A bargain no matter the condition. She was going to look into giving it to a museum.
Since she did not get names and dates, a museum can display it, but not tell the story of it. The story is the value. I hope she does get it into a museum. The second surprise, the rectangle blocks of wool were crazy quilt stitched together with the same stitch all through the quilt. Some of the blocks had let go of better stitched times. Peeking into those small areas void of stitches, you can see burlap as the batting, tow sacks! I can only assume that whomever put that quilt together was extremely poor, and made do with what they had. Perhaps it was depression era. But I don’t think so, there was no colors at all in the quilt, they were all suiting wool of drab browns, blacks and greens, tans too. The backing could have been silk or cotton, but of an army green. Any of you textile experts any idea to the age? This lady was carrying around the old quilt in a brand new plastic hobby lobby bag LOL. Oh the story that quilt could tell. The quilt found the right respect with the right home. Sorry no picture :(. At the time I did not know what the conversation would lead to and she slid it in and out of that hobby lobby bag so fast. So what would you say the age is of the quilt? I would say between 1890 and 1915.
It was put together with a stitch such as this:
I have several more pictures I want to show you, but am out of time. I have oodles of quilt hop photos to scale and edit for you. Perhaps next weekend some more will appear as time is passing by sew fast! Promising to make time. Please enjoy every second of everyday, you just never know. Thank you for reading my blog!
So last week was our community’s quilt hop. All us quilters drop our quilts off at the visitor center, and the director gets these quilts hung up all over town. It promotes tourism to bring people to our community and those people get to see the sights all over town, with quilty goodness.
Today I am featuring Alice Wilholt quilts. She is an author of books about applique and quilting. I knew nothing of her before the show, and her quilts are magnificent works of art. Very contrasting, very colorful, very quilted….very beautiful.
I am going to start off with my favorite, I believe this was called Fireworks, but did not take notes, and am relying on my brains memory card which may be throwing an error!
Absolutely stunning! Below are some more of Alice’s quilts. We have a free motion educator, quilter in the area. She is like the Angela Walters in our area, her name is Jackie Brown. I wish I could afford her services, but at about $3000 I would never use that quilt, which in my opinion would not be getting my moneys worth. Perhaps one day I will create a quilt that will tour America with quilt shows, trying to win some ribbons, and perhaps I may take that quilting plunge.
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And here is a quilt that started me down a much different quilting path. On Valentines day this year I played hooky from work. This was on the frame at the SNAP Center being hand quilted on that day. This was one of the hand quilters pieced tops, which is now lovely and LARGE. She made it from beautiful fabrics and it ended up being king size. It was so large that the view was obstructed by one of the vendors set ups. Nice to see that finish!
On Valentines day this year, was quite an adventure which led to my ownership of Abacus, my featherweight, so named because I can really count on him. This led to vintage machines, which led to TOGA, which led to getting a non-running vintage machine going. Many blog posts were because of this day, over this quilt.
Here are more photos not so much grouped specially, just quilts I really liked looking at while at the Hop.
The lines from the contrast in these fabrics is quite fractal, and I love this!The white over the oranges is actually lace, a different technique and definitely worth a share.I believe this is the Lawn Chair pattern and is a freebie at modabakeshop.com. I can see the back of my Jelly Roll Wrong quilt here too.And this quilt was entitled “Quilt Hop”, very nicely done too!This is the last quilt I am showing today, but stay tunned for next weekend as I will have one more post with a gob more of quilts.
So what have I been up too? Well, I figured out backing for my Jewel Box Stars Flambe. I found a bolt of flannel at goodwill that matched my colors perfectly. I need to get this one quilted as it is just too big for me to handle.
And I started another baby quilt. While at the quilt hop, there was a quilt that I took inspiration from. I thought I could make a lovely baby quilt using a cowboy boot motif. I found an old pattern at unitednotions.com and will link that up in my next post. It is a simple applique of cowboy boot pieces. Choosing the fabrics for this one was fun!
Ok, so by the looks of lighting in these photos I need to get a white light instead of whatever is in there now. It has cast a such a yellow glow. This is actually white fabric. Sorry for the picture quality, I am getting used to my new camera.
And lastly, I have purged fabric. I am a bit sad, as my stash represents all my good intentions. At the same time, going through and finding fabric has become overwhelming. The amount I was having to touch to get the right piece, was just too much for my space. I probably donated 100lbs of fabric. Today my sewing group is having a workshop to make pillowcases for children with cancer and kennel quilts for dogs (not sure on the specifics on that one). So, obviously not all poundage will get used today, but I passed it on to a group that can bring joy to the lives of others with it and it will get used. I have made many quilts with that fabric, and I have enjoyed using the fabric for what it was meant to be used for. Even though I have given away the fabric, I still get to enjoy it as it is in my quilts, in my memories, and will keep me warm for years to come. Every time I look at one of the quilts I made scrappy from my gifted stash, I will think of the people who gave me all that fabric, the joy they brought me, the joy I got to create, the joy someone else will create.
Yesterday and today is the big quilt hop in town. All us quilters bring our work to the director of the visitor center, and she sets quilt displays all over town. It is fun finding your own and discovering many beautiful works of art.
There were quilts at the libraries, the museums, the visitor center, the snap center, and the armory (the list goes on)
One place in particular that I visited was the Snap Center. The Snap center is where meals on wheels prepares the food for the local recipients who need it. Those who need it that are able to get out, go to the snap center and eat there. This is also ground zero for hand quilting services done by volunteers which assist the snap center with toilet paper, paper towels, and other non-food items. Out of all the places I visited, this is my favorite every year. Vast selection of any kind of quilt you can name.
The theme this year was Holiday at the snap center, so the pictures posted today will be all holiday based.
When I think of holiday I think of Christmas. I have never made a Christmas quilt, and probably never will as the display time is so short, for so much work. But it is nice to gaze upon others.
This 3D wall hanging was done by my Mother and gifted to a quilter friend.An Album Holiday. I just love the beautiful blue sashing fabrics! Lots of different techniques in this quilt. Nicely done!Here is another version of the album holiday but with no sashing, nice and scrappy with a few extra blocks.And this is a birthday placemat, yeah your birthday IS a holiday, but only if you make it so!A beautiful sampler done with wintery blues!Holidays: Valentines and 4th of July. The Be Mine quilt is made from colors of the heart candies, neat idea ladies!Embroidered quilt squares in a Halloween theme, I know I have never seen anything like this, have you?Here is different spin on a Halloween quilt, witches shoes! My fav is the sandal looking one in the corner. This whole quilt is dreamed up by my Mom. A styled witch, with quite a wardrobe of shoes! (I have read this sentence three times, and no I am not talking about my mother, I am talking about the quilt, for clarification purposes.) That poor green faced woman, her toes must ache! I can relate.A holiday ornament string quilt, with very precise piecing. Nice Job Ruth Ann (a dear follower of my blog and an excellent quilter!)The fabrics in this quilt were brought to you by me! Ok, so I bought a scrap bag from fat quarter shop. With no description other than scraps that were equal to 12 lbs that were anywhere from 3/4 yard to 4 inches. The only thing I did not want was Christmas fabric. And that is what I ended up with, so I gifted much of it to mom. She put it to good use. Very festive and scrappy!A maple leaf quilt ready to warm a body in the fall. Nice variety of fabrics/colors. I need to make one of these!So this quilt was actually at the library due to it’s size. It is probably a door hanging, I know I would love to have it hanging on mine. Just look at his rosy cheeks. This is adorable, I love pictorial quilts!Scrappy Rail Fence Holiday! I like the placement of the white, it is in perfect contrast!I just love these primitive trees! Another great idea, perhaps on the bucket list now!Do any of you have a Thanksgiving quilt? I have never ever even seen one, definately a one of a kind, with a nice message “EAT MORE PIE”! This is a great way to bust up the oranges in the stash!And just look at all this work! A classic twister quilt, wall hanging size. I used to have this tool but gave it away as it intimidated me. Spookily delicious pumpkin, yummy on the eyes!
Well, this concludes holiday in July. I think we have covered all of them…hmmm except for St. Patricks, oh and labor day. But, there is enough labor in each and every one of these quilts, that counts!
Stay tuned, I will continue to post lovely photos of the Quilt Hop. And tell a story about a slave owned quilt. Please subscribe to my blog. I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment in the comment section.
Texas has been hot! Hot! HOT!!! And I am looking forward to less than 105 degrees hopefully tomorrow. Thank goodness I have NOT been out in it, but I can feel the warmth through the walls of my house, especially the afternoon brunt of high temperatures. Just walking 100 ft to the car seems like extra intensive labor due to the excessive temperatures.
It is no secret that this is the height of summer and July is usually hot across the country. I aim to have my jewel box stars quilt top finished by the end of the month. I can do it, I only lack the sashing on one square, and ironing that square and sewing the 5 blocks together for the last row number 6. And rightfully so the theme of this quilt is hot colors of fire like oranges and reds, with golds and yellows too. Flaming Flambe. I am not certain what backing I will use for this quilt, nor do I have a fabric in mind, but I think it needs to be quilted in a flames pattern.
I chose the larger 16 inch blocks, and had pulled so much red fabric from my stash, that the blocks over-runneth the shoe box I had them in. I originally wanted to do every other square in red then white stars. This became to busy for the naked eye. So I sashed them in the scrappy way I know how. I am so close, but pooped now. This quilt was just fabric in my stash on the second of July. And today I almost have a 92 X 110. I have this ridiculously laid out on a twin bed, I was NOT taking it outside for a photo opp.
The only fabric that is uniform is the corner stones in the sashing. I do believe my plan worked and the stars are now more distinguished. There was a oops on my part. They are not every other one between the dark stars and the light stars. Not sure what happened, if I laid it out originally wrong or if I got turned around while making them. Tis fine by me. It does not look like it has rhyme or reason behind its placement.
Tomorrow I drop my quilts off for a show in our local town and promise to post pictures of that event next weekend as time permits. I am looking forward to a top finish and have sent one to the quilters for quilting. They have quite a backlog and it is not expected for at least 10 weeks. That is ok, no hurry, I waited almost a year to send it off anyhow.
Well, I am off to cook tacos for supper. Interested in the recipe? I suppose I need to make a post on my other blog for tacos, be looking for that post. And thank you for reading my blog!
Two things about this post. Originally the idea behind a leader ender quilt is to have pieces ready to be sewn next to your machine to prevent clipping/wasting extra thread, and to prevent the tangle of beginning sewing as you will always have something under presser foot preventing the birds nest (another thread/time waster and this may be a run on sentence ha). I have scrapped the idea of leader ender for the Jewel Box Stars Flambe. !
First of all, logic behind this change, it is going so well that I am treating the play ball charm packs cut by the accuquilt as the leader ender, and am totally focused of Jewel Box Stars Flambé. It is fast and furious and have come a long way since the 2nd when this was announced.
Secondly, I really liked the reds in the corner of the stars and thought what if I were to lay out the stars every other one with whites in the star points. Perhaps I thought this would break up the pattern and you could actually see the star. What do you think?
Every other star in this is white and red. It looks nice on camera but in real life even squinting the stars get lost with all the colors and not so neutrals. A lesson in value of fabric here.
So proceeding I will continue with every other star in white and then red. I will be sashing these and am in search of ideas. I would like to have randomness with the sashing but no so much piecing with the assembly. I am also thinking of a wedge border, which would be beautiful, and I certainly have enough fabric. We will see if I lose steam. I have 24 sixteen inch block sewn, and will be making 5 more.
The true leader ender is now the fabric line called Play Ball. I am working these like a row quilt, some will be like the ones pictured, some with be just hsts. I really have no plan for this quilt just a lazy idea. We will see where the lazy idea takes us.
Also above is another homemade jelly roll for a race one day. It will go into the box ready for a flaming race one of these days. You know I used to dread cutting and pressing fabric in the start of a project, but I am changing my mind on this. It wasn’t the actual process that I dreaded it was the lack of space. I would iron, only to have to iron again and again. Since my thrifty purchase of a wooden clothes dryer, I set a day aside to pull fabrics, starch and press them regardless of size. Once perfectly crisp, I drape them over the rungs of the dryer, and that is where they stay until I pull them off to make cuts. Strips are easily stored there as well, ready to be subcut.
I recently took a class on acrylic pouring. What is acrylic pouring? Google it, you will be amazed at the beautiful sedimentary designs this painting technique produces, and you could be 5 years old and have the same success as someone who is 100. In other words, no skills required! Click here to see a youtube video of this painting in action and directions/how to.
I snapped a photo indoors and though, geez, when I photograph a quilt, I take it outside so the color is true.
So here are photos of inside and outside. I would be interested in selling or trading something for this painting if anyone is interested and totally smitten with it. This painting will probably lead to another hobby. Which is ok, as my dream is to create a canvas, and then create fabric from that most original design.
The funny thing about this painting, when you take a class, you are doing it somewhere else, so you have to make it home with it wet as wet can be. They provided pizza boxes for transport. As much paint was used in the making of this, it was puddled on top. I did not pour it off the edges like some do, and so my flowers, taking a curve in the car, ran off the top edge. My flowers turned to butterfly wings, which is not a bad thing at all. (note all paint ran into the pizza box, so the car was fine, another note as old as my car is, it would have added something pretty to it I suppose). I am still amazed gazing upon this painting at the little eddy currents that formed and then the sediments in the paints brought some to the surface as a lighter sediment. Very earthlike, and very nature like too.
If you have any suggestions for sashing the Jewel Box Flambé drop me a note in the comments section. And thank you for reading my blog!
Some weeks bankrupt me of my sewing energy. I have struggled with this week. My quilting machine is in prison right now (safe in a cool place waiting to have FMQ demonstrated for a demo), I really wanted to quilt. So I tried out the featherweight. It worked!
New machines vs old machines. For those of you lucky enough to have new sewing machine technology and old technology you can get vast differences, while quilting. The reason? Old machines did a regular stitch. All the new machines produce an over lock regular stitch. What is an over lock stitch? It means the threads will stretch with the fabric when you stretch it. With the invent of polyesters and jersey knit, most modern machines accomplish sewing these items perfectly.
These same newer machines, when free motion quilting with them, are electronic and try to over compensate with the over lock stitch which has given all us quilters problems of some type.
The first thing I tried with my featherweight was removing the foot all together and going with nothing. That did not work. The hook and race did not catch the top thread at all. So with feed dogs up, and 1/4 foot on, I managed regular sewing with a bunch of twist and turns through three pieces of batting, in some cases 8 layers of fabric plus the backing. The featherweight did WONDERFUL! No thread tension issues. No PUCKERS! Same weight of thread on the top and bottom. I did try it on a small project, keep in mind the throat space of one of these machines is very small, so your project is going to have to be small. There would be a learning curve for me to go so slow in stitch speed, but I am still amazed by the results!
So a pot holder happened! I had all these squares left over from my spools toga quilt, that I laid them out in a bear paw. The scrappiness of this is right up my alley. I like how the bear paw in the middle formed by joining the blocks as I did.
I also installed the binding with no walking foot, again on my featherweight. Again old technology is easier to use, no over lock of thread which means no tension issues, which translates to a good even stitch.
Have you ever tried to quilt something on your featherweight? Leave a comment in the comment section, I would love to hear about your experience!
Thanks for reading my blog! And I just posted a recipe on my other blog, check out Rhubarb Pudding Cake.
If you are thinking you will see a Jim Belushi style sheet draped over a young body on this blog, think again! T.O.G.A. stands for Treadle On Gathering Academy. I attended 2018’s North East Texas T.O.G.A. If you would like to read more about that experience, please click here.
We all made 6 patch quilt blocks and swapped for a wonderful scrappy future quilt. I am not gonna lie to you but, I had almost all the blocks sewn together and then I just stopped. So this weekend, I had a nice clear place for my design wall (a bed that was getting everything washed), and figured out the last step. I was hung up on that last step not sure what direction I should go.
I put my big girl pants on and sewed. I wanted the 2 inch smaller squares to be part of the border around the quilt, but that meant digging through my stash and re-cutting strips, lots of strips for scrappiness. This is a huge effort and makes an even bigger mess. So I used up what I had already made. I kept it simple.
I also kept all the hst trimmings from using the Simple Folded Corners ruler and decided to corner stone opposite corners of the quilt block central with that motif. Is this how I wanted it exactly? Nope. But I have moved this project half a dozen times because it was in my way, awaiting patiently the last step of assembly, a simple decision. I can now say the top is complete. This drapes nicely on a twin bed, perfect to use and abuse.
Some of these blocks are signed by swap participants. Some of you would think, “how could you use this quilt?” Well, my logic is, as I gaze upon it I remember the wonderful day I shared with complete strangers, but felt completely connected with them. If I never use this quilt, and it becomes handed down after I pass, no one will ever know the story behind the quilt and the names and significance it was in my life, the quilt will have no respect. Using it, will be a reminder everyday that there is kindness in this world. I assume as I age that my noggin will have memory loss. It is already happening a bit. By the time I am elderly, I will not be able to tell the story of that day to my children and grandchildren. So I want the memory….of my family to use it as much as possible in their younger years. Before it wears out, I will put is away. And when I pass, they will remember my stories I told about that day better than I will be able to remember in the later years. They will remember safety, and warmth, and love from their momma’s sewing and finishing the project for them to use. They will remember the the kindness of strangers, and what happens when people come together for a purpose. The quilt will have already earned it’s respect.
All quilters respect quilts, but when you gift a quilt, there is a chance they will never understand the respect the quilt should get. That quilt will probably never be discarded. I new memory will be associated with it. Something that stands for me, and if I am gone, will be more of a treasure with yet more memories attached to it. More memories than the day of completion.
I still have some of the hst’s left over. I am taking all of those and sewing a doll blanket to match somewhat. So if the doll quilt is not taken care of and lost, when they get older, they will see the life size version and remember the doll quilt made with scraps. Let’s face it, life is scrappy, sometimes without the s. They will see that with all those scraps saved, that it does amount to something one day.
Here is the before I could decide what to do with the signed blocks.
And here is after I added some more blocks I sewed as well as those that were sewn for the T.O.G.A. swap.
The lighter prints in these blocks added a neat border on two edges. Very unsymmetrical, and unbalanced, which is what life has been of late.
One large Hst sawtooth corner and one small
And because this was a sewing machine retreat, I modified the 6 patch block with a large hst and a small hst on opposite corners, which created the spool block.
How did I figure this out. It was at the ironing board. Some corners flipped under, and so I played with that idea. And the spool block was then designed into the quilt. I have always wanted a cheddar quilt. And made all the spools with a fabric that was given to me by someone who no longer wanted it. Using the simple folded corners ruler, made this easy. Now I am not sure if I will send this to a longarmer to quilt or if I will do this myself. I have thought of using the bar tack part on my machine for making the top and bottom of button holes. This motif would keep the quilt very soft, but also comply with batting quilting requirements. I am undecided, but want to get this done.
Have you ever participated in a block swap? This is my second this year. I am pleasantly surprised by this swap, everyone minded their 1/4 inch seams so it went together rather well.
If this quilt was under your sewing machine foot, how would you have done it? Differently? Sparsely? Scrappy? Not Scrappy? Spools? No Spools? Different border? When people look at blocks they all get a vision and know of their direction somewhat, what would be your direction with the block below?
Now, I have come into some Rhubarb brought to me from the mid-west and am going to figure out something to make with it. Be looking for that post on my other blog, thecookbookproject.wordpress.com
I really appreciate the comments no matter how long or short. A different perspective, is refreshing. Please leave a comment in the comment section. I enjoy hearing from you!
