Vintage Christmas

 In 1984 I made a Christmas quilt from pre-printed blocks.  It was the sixth quilt I had ever made.  No classes or instructions, no teacher.  My lack of skills clearly showed.  Can you see any actual quilting in this photo?  I thought not.  The only quilting it has was stitched 1/4 inch on each side of the seams around each motif and where the red and green met.  Never having heard of a walking foot, I fought with this big quilt to get that little bit of quilting done on my old Bernina Nova.  (How I miss that little machine!  It was a high school graduation gift from my parents.  The foot pedal died, and can't be replaced.)

86 x 86 inch Christmas quilt made in 1984

Wall hanging 2021

My choice of backing left something to be desired as well.  I used a vellux blanket fabric and no batting.  Now, this wasn't too bad considering the light use the quilt was given.  It was on the bed a couple weeks a year at most.

Over time though, the rubber in the vellux disintegrated. Yuck!  It was a sticky mess!  In 2009 I ripped the backing off - which wasn't hard considering the lack of quilting.  It basically fell apart in my hands.  The red, and some of the green fabric was re-used in other quilts.  The four corner motifs were made into hot pads with insulated batting and denim backing. The rest went in to the orphan block box.

Now, in 2021, more of those panels have a new life.  Last weekend I made this wall hanging for our cabin to add a festive holiday spirit to the hallway.  It was a fun, quick project for the holidays.  It looks a little wobbly in this photo from the way it is hanging.  Some of the other motifs will probably become placemats.  

Wishing you, and yours a very Blessed Christmas!

Just Takes 10?

 A series of doctor appointments this fall had me looking through my orphan blocks to sew up a small quilt so I could hand-sew binding on as I waited.  You never know how blocks will speak to you, but inspiration struck, and the result is this very Christmas-looking red and green lap quilt.  

The blocks have been sitting neglected in my box for ten years.  In 2012, Gail at Sentimental Stitches had a sew-along called Just Takes 2.  It was a lovely two-color red and white quilt.  I chose green and white for mine and enthusiastically dove right in.  Eventually though, I just couldn't keep up.  After making about 1/3 of the blocks, I stopped.  Was my background fabric was too busy?  Was it all too green? I'm not sure what.  No matter.  

Some leftover pices of the background fabrics were with the blocks.  I framed eight smaller blocks to be the same size as eight larger blocks and put them all together with a barn red sashing fabric.  The backing and binding is a cute homespun plaid from deep stash with just the right shades of green and red.  

It has a new home on the sofa at the lake cabin.  So cozy!  Since it took ten years to get these blocks into a quilt, maybe I should call it Just Takes 10!

Dorothy's Rainbow table runner

 Here's how the little table runner turned out.  The quilt pieces and blocks came from a thrift store called Dorothy's Rainbow.  The finished 15 x 45 inch runner rightfully bears the name.  

The background is cream, but the photo makes them look yellow. Only a couple cream pieces and four HST blocks had to be added from my stash to make things all work out evenly. 

The navy and red look so sweet together in these vintage blocks.  The fabrics seem to be from the 1960's and early 1970's.

Bag of vintage blocks

 Sometimes it's just impossible to drop by a thrift store and not give something a new home.  Recently I stopped in at the little store that supports the food shelf in the small town near our cabin.  This little bag of 3-inch fabric squares and some partially made blocks came home with me for a mere $1.50.  Of course I also made a cash donation to the food shelf, and dropped off 5 boxes of items that will not be making their way into our remodeled cabin.  Win, win!

What sweet fabrics I discovered when I got home!  Clearly they were the discards and leftover pieces from some quilter's projects in the 1970's.  Some fabrics were much older, maybe late 50's or early 60's.  

The fabrics in the little 4-patch are adorable!
That red mini-print is definitely 1970's.

There were four finished blocks in red, white and navy.
Hopefully I can make another four to put with them.

Not sure what these were, but they're coming apart.
Every seam is double stitched and backstitched.  UGH!

What would you do with these seven blocks?

A Little Unity

 Last July, with the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, Bonnie Hunter graciously shared a mystery sew-along "Unity" on her Quiltville blog.  So many quilters, sewing as one.  Joined together in a sisterhood of creativity, even as we spent much of the year as isolated as possible to reduce risk of illness.

The first few rounds were enjoyable, and I was able to keep up.  But my attention was pulled away by other priorities.  By the time round 4 came my piecing was falling behind.  I wasn't sure I liked that particular star in the color values I had going.  I also realized that I didn't need another large quilt in those colors.  I love a pop of turquoise, but this was really too much for me.  It needed to be tamed down, and sized down too.  

So, I chose a different star block for round 4 and then added a dark blue border.   As it was being completed, the January 6th assault on the Capitol building was in the news.  Such an awful and divided time in our nation.  It's been named "A Little Unity" as a reminder of these stressful times and its smaller size.  The backing is 59-inch wide gray fleece.  58x58 finished size.

A lesson in (in)consistency

 Over several years my tiny 1-1/4 inch scraps have been turned into log cabin blocks.  The first 24 were done about the same time and put together into a rectangle.  This winter I picked it up again and added 8 more blocks on each end to create a table runner for our rebuilt cabin.  The original blocks were pieced on one machine, but the newer ones were done on a different one.   All seemed well until the quilting was finished and the edges needed to be trimmed straight.  Oops!  Looks like the earlier blocks in the center were smaller than the more recently made blocks.  The poor dear has an hourglass shape!  

You can see the batting showing along the sides in the center.  But all the quilting is DONE, and it's not coming out.  She'll get a black binding to try and camouflage the fact that I've trimmed a half inch or more off of each side on the ends.  You won't tell, will you? It will be our secret.

Storm at Sea

Storm at Sea is the one quilt that I have wanted to make for years, but was never sure I was ready to tackle that kind of challenge.  Fabrics were found and saved up a bit at a time.  Some yummy hand dyed light blues from Vicki Walsh that I won in a contest...  Leftover batiks from another project...  And a couple lucky Thrift Store finds... Finally, in June 2019 I decided to give it a try.  

Patterns were pulled out and examined from a number of books in my 'library'.   Not one of them was exactly right.  The dark blue diamond blocks needed to be a specific size to take advantage of a wide stripe fabric I wanted to use.  So, I drafted my own pattern to get the right size block.  Then came cutting and piecing sample blocks.  I had to adjust the size of the diamond block pattern a time or two, but finally got the right combination.  A bit at a time it came together.  All the fabrics were pre-washed, some a number of times because the dye ran.  

Over the past year Storm at Sea took shape.  One of the last things I did in August 2020 on the wide open spaces of our cabin kitchen floor was to sandwich and pin two queen size quilts.  Storm at Sea was one of those.  Then we turned our attention to a full-scale rebuild at the cabin and quilting was put aside.

By December the quilting was underway and the cabin interior was nearly finished.  Stitch in the ditch was done and then I stalled out.  Did it need more quilting?  Yes.  No.  Yes.  Maybe?

Last weekend I gave it a good looking over again.  From the back there seems to be enough quilting.  Or at least it seems balanced in density.  So let's call it a finish and put it on the bed in the brand new cabin.  

The quilt is actually scrappier than it looks in the photo.  There were at least five light blues used, two white prints, a purple batik and three navy prints.  The border batik makes an appearance in some half of the square-in-square blocks too. They all blend so well!   Here it is draped over the sofa.