Monday, January 28

HL - Road to OK? and a busy weekend

Or at least I think that is what this one is.

This weekend I had a house to myself, well not including the dogs that is. So Saturday I had a "ladies who lunch" kind of day - which included a class on combining zen tangle and free motion quilting on my aging lady of a sewing machine, picking up Snowball, lunch at the Yard House, some shopping in Santana Row, and a trip to Jo-Ann's to see if they had anything workable for the quilts I'm working on. Success or near-success on all points.

Once I got home I pieced the remaining blocks for the Jacob's Ladder Road to Oklahoma (I think). There were only enough to complete nine blocks, but that was enough to turn this into a king size spread. There were many more pieces for partial blocks, and I put together a strip of them thinking I would insert them into the back of this monster.

The next day was shining bright and the coffee was fresh and hot. I sewed the blocks into strips (two of them) and then attached the strips to the main body of the quilt. "Modern" quilts these days tend to not include borders but this isn't one of those. I pieced two borders to attach and then the top was done. It took a lot longer on the machine than it does to type out in a blog post, trust me on that.

I had rescued a long piece of red toile print fabric from Hazel's stash, and felt that it would make a perfect backing. Measure (88"/100"), slice the back and where are those blocks? I *still* can't find them and I have put everything away since then. (Let me see, I sewed them together, ironed them, admired them, and then where did they go?) I've since decided that it was the quilting muse telling me it wasn't the best choice, so moving on I've extended the red toile with some navy pin-dot that will be used for the binding as well. I will piece the back some time this week and then it will be ready for drop off this weekend.

Opinion please - I'm auditioning the cream/chocolate toile for the space blocks in the churn dash. I'm thinking this is going to be low volume, the muslin in the pieced blocks is very, um, rough? It's a loose, coarse weave and all the churns are scrappy prints that look like they were printed anywhere from the 60's to the 90's - maybe even up to 2010. There's not going to be a match to anything, but I'm kinda liking this.


Monday, January 21

HL - Lone star & ???

Two more tops are ready for the quilter this weekend. I can hardly wait to see how the one I dropped off comes back.

So first - the Lone Star. As previously shown, it was quiet, shy, and almost nondescript, in spite of the bold colors Hazel used for the diamond shapes. A simple change out of the fill colors from that baby blue to teal and the whole thing has a new look. She glows! I had to do inset seams but they either weren't as bad as I expected or I didn't do them right.. It surpasses my expectations though. A modern print for the back and I'm thinking of binding in red. Let me know what you think. It's 80" x 80", so a decent bed size.

The second is ready to go as well. Hazel had assembled 14 2x2 sets of the blocks, however one was too small to be used with the others and two had been misassembled. Three of the 2x2 sets she had stripped together. My job - assemble three more strips and join them together, well after fixing one of the poor assemble jobs. A simple yellow border and I am done with this top. My question to you - what's the name of this block? I can see houses or arrows or pinwheels or ??? This one is too small for even a twin bed so it'll become a couch snuggle blanket.


And a quick p.s. Larry Bob, one of the dogs we adopted last year, definitely has allergies. The worst ones are for ragweed and oak trees, but he also has allergies for human dander, redwood trees and soybeans and about 15 other things. Looks like I get to do allergy shots. Poor doggie. (Larry Bob is the dark boy, and Sophie is the tan girlie)










Sunday, January 13

HL - Snowball + 9 Patch

So I fibbed. It turns out that this beauty is actually the first one that is ready for the quilter to get her hands on.

It's a combination of scrappy nine-patch and snowball blocks that probably has an official name (let me know if you know!) that are grounded by the use of a medium blue. The body of the quilt was complete, and no extra blocks or pieces of blocks were found to add to it. Each of the blocks is 5.75" square. At 9 x 10 blocks, it's a smidge more than 4' x 4'. There are yards of the blue fabric in the stash I brought home, but she used it in so many projects that I'm afraid to cut any more than necessary in case I need it for something else.

My contribution to this top is a 5.75" border of pink polka dot fabric. The medium blue shows up in the corners in a nine-patch block, just to tie the bits together. The back will be the very happy floral print, that for some reason seems to meld with all the scrappy prints that Hazel used. A binding of a slightly darker blue will tie the two together after its quilted.

I actually consider this to be a companion piece to an existing quilt we have in the house. The pink and blue turtle quilt was made for Mark by his Granny (paternal). Granny was a prolific quilter herself. We are fortunate to have a quilt made by her hands, as after her passing there was a fire at the farm and the majority of her quilts were destroyed.

On his tenth birthday, Mark was out at the farm and his Granny brought him to the bedroom. There was the quilt laid out, made especially for him. Even then he understood what a labor of love it was. It's machine pieced & appliqued, and hand quilted, with embroidery details for the turtle faces. The binding was replaced by Hazel in 2007 as it was frayed quite badly.  The border is original to the quilt.  I'm still trying to figure out the "fencing" print that was used...

It's a good feeling to have something ready to be quilted. It's overwhelming, almost, the amount of unfinished projects that were left behind.

Progress on the Lone Star - fill pieces removed, need to iron/starch the star so it will stop fraying and be easier to reassemble. I can't find my big ruler so the hunt is on! I'll need it before I try to cut the replacement pieces.













Sunday, January 6

HL - Purple Log Cabin Quilt

I think this might actually be the first one I finish. It's a purple log cabin square, consisting of two solids and two prints. Hazel has enough centers for 42 squares, or a 7 x 6 arrangement. Happily, she had finished ten of the blocks and sewn them together so I know what she intended.

It may be the first I finish as all the strips are cut, and, lucky for me, the only time I will have to match seams is when I join the blocks together. No bias, no points, just simple straight lines. Again, the prints aren't exactly my first choice, and I wouldn't be so fond of the solids as she so obviously was, but looking at the web and the books these days, she may have been ahead of her time with a modern quilt look. And note too, that even in a so very purple palette, she's still managed a touch of red.

What would you think if I removed the last two of the ten blocks and rearranged them more into a concentric light/dark pattern? I know there is a name for it, but I haven't used my google-fu yet!

The machines are still in the shop, so I've been organizing and sorting and planning and clearing. I should have them back by next weekend tho - fingers crossed...