Friday Update

It's been a super productive week for quilting!  Clearly, I'm not one of those quilters who just have one project going at a time, and work on it until it's done.

Last weekend at the Lake my sister helped me pin baste two tops from my UFO pile, a twin-sized redwork Christmas quilt and Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street from 2013.  I'm seriously trying to put a dent in the pile of unfinished quilts this spring!  It will take a while to get them quilted though. But, it's real progress!

There was also lots of playing around with my scrap bags while Hubby was ice fishing.  With the 2-inch scraps I finished up another round on a split 9-patch leader/ender project.  Here's what it looks like with three rounds of blocks.  It will be a while before the next round is done because I'll need 28 blocks.  Don't you just love how deliciously scrappy it is?

Speaking of scrappy, have you been keeping up with Circa 2016 sew-along from Temecula Quilt Co.?  Last  week's clue was just one block.  But it was so cute, and I had so many scraps, that I just kept on going.  Can you say "Got Carried Away?"  Here's what the design wall looks like now!

It remains to be seen whether I stick with the sew-along plan, branch off in some new direction, or just make two quilts.

Also on the 'design bed' this week is the start of a denim & flannel rag quilt that my son requested for his birthday.    NOT my favorite materials to work with.  Let's just say that boy's mother really loves him! (wink)  He wanted a very heavy quilt to put across the bottom of the bed.  Having something heavy over his legs helps him sleep better.

If all goes according to plan, this will empty a box of old denim jeans.  And, I've sure gotten mileage out of a set of old flannel sheets that had bears and trees. This must be the third quilt that has blocks from it. But now, they'll be All Gone!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Seasonal Skinnies

I've been so anxious to show you these four little "Skinnies" from Quiltmaker Magazine!  In January our son "hinted" that his lovely bride would like me to make some seasonal wall hangings for their new home for her birthday.  My first thought was this series from 2013 by Margie Ullery.  The fabrics for the Spring Skinnie had been pulled and put in a bag with the magazine a couple of years ago.  I never found the motivation to make it for myself.  But when I could make it for a gift, I went right to work!  They've been finished for a month, but I couldn't share until they were gifted.  So, Happy Birthday to our dear daughter-in-law!

Spring Skinnie - Quiltmaker March/April 2013

Summer Skinnie - Quiltmaker May/June 2013

Fall Skinnie - Quiltmaker July/August 2013

Winter Skinnie- Quiltmaker September/October 2013

 Our son also asked if I would make him a heavy denim quilt for the end of their bed.  So, I guess you'll be seeing that when his birthday rolls around.  I love that he asks me to make quilts for them because I enjoy doing it, and I know they are appreciated.  What a great kid!  

While I'm bragging about him, could I mention that he made his first quilt in 3rd grade, and his second in 6th grade?  A couple of weeks ago he needed to hem a pair of pants for his karate class.  Instead of bringing them to me, he asked me how to do it, then pulled his wife's sewing machine out of the box and hemmed the pants himself.  That's the way to make your mother proud! lol

Flying through February

February is pretty cold here in Minnesota, but my sewing machine has been smokin' hot!  I've had lots of time in the quilting room, and am so happy to have some finishes to share with you.

While cleaning out a corner of the quilting room I came across a redwork cardinal that I did several years ago when I was experimenting with my new embroidery machine.  Time to do something with that!

Turning this into a little one-block 17-inch table topper was a delightful winter afternoon project.  It's all quilted and the binding is ready to hand-sew down tomorrow during my volunteer time sitting at the Welcome Desk at church.

Next, I finished up my version of the Summer Sampler from Temecula Quilt Co. from last summer.  The sampler blocks were supposed to be little 3-inch blocks, but I just wasn't in the mood to make teeny-tinys last summer.  So, I went with full size 6-inch blocks.  That gave me large spaces in the alternate blue blocks to play around with some free-motion quilting.

I went to the Inbox Jaunt and checked out Lori's tutorials for free motion quilting designs.  Lots of very cute ideas there!  It was fun to try some of them out.  I wasn't being very careful.  The quality of my free-motion quilting is, quite frankly, horrible.  But, I learned a lot and became much more comfortable with FMQ than I was before.

One big lesson is that my small sewing machine table is not good for free-motion quilting.  (Yes, I knew that already, but was too lazy to take everything into the dining room table.) The quilt wasn't supported enough and suddenly, right in the middle, it's a tug of war.  It took three days, but I got through it and am really pleased with the finished quilt.  It has a very humble and folk art kind of style.   I hurried outside to take a quick snapshot in the driveway for you before it started snowing again.  (in below-zero temps I might add)  You might be able to see some of the designs in these close-ups.  Every one is different.  Isn't it fun when a quilt that you don't expect to really like, turns out to be one you love?

Iris, apple, house, pie, dandelion, bird, kite, cherries, owl, tomato pincushion,
race car, oak leaf & acorn, bee, turtle, pencil, football, hyacinth, sewing machine, cat, mittens

Candy, dragonfly, windowsill garden, puzzle, baseball, pumpkin, spider & web, house
birdhouse, umbrella, shamrock, thread, bunny, sailboat, heart, fence, apple core, flower, truck, pine tree

Wait, there's more!  Two toddler whole-cloth quilts were finished up too.  I had two pieces of 'cheater cloth' about 1-1/2 yards each.  I loved the fabrics and decided to quilt each of them to a warm and cozy piece of polar fleece.  The Disney Mickey Mouse & Pluto was quilted to blue fleece, and the delicate pink and tan Simple Nature by Cynthia Coultier for Willmington Prints was quilted to a light pink fleece.  Both are copyright prints, so I decided not to post photos of them. But they're cute, and soft, and will be all ready when I need a gift for a new big brother or big sister.

More quilts in the works.  February is always a very productive quilting month around here!

Let it Snow!

Finally, finished quilts to show you!

Who remembers Daisy Kingdom?  These kits were all the fad about 20 years ago.  The printed fabric was meant to be cut apart and used in embellishing sweatshirts, or in other craft projects.  I found this one at the thrift store for under $1 just after Christmas.  Clearly, it was someone's unfinished project!

 A couple of 9-patch blocks, and a little checkerboard strip coordinated perfectly, and this week "Let It Snow" went into the 'Finished!' category.  Perfect timing - we had a huge snowstorm on Tuesday and it gave me the time to finish this up!

Let it Snow!  23 inches square,  original design

The binding still needs to be hand sewn down, but I'm going to call it finished anyway.

I do volunteer work for two organizations, and very frequently there is nothing to do while I wait for the phone to ring, or a visitor to stop in.  So, I've started using that time to sew bindings down.

There is one more quilt in the hand-binding tote that I'm working on, and it's a UFO from last year.  I quilted this with variegated thread, which I usually don't use, and it turned out very nicely.

The whole point of making this quilt was to use up those little red and yellow pinwheels that were left over from another project.  Think I went overboard?  I have the name of the designer that inspired this on a slip of paper here somewhere, but it has mysteriously vanished.  I'll update as soon as it turns up.  But for now, I'm just glad to call it a Finish!  The backing is a heavy yellow flannel print, so it should be a cozy quilt.
Update: The quilt below is inspired by "Cabin in the Woods", an Ellen Murphy design in the book American Homestead Quilts.

Courthouse Pinwheels  44 x 54 inches

And one more carry-over from last year, Tucker, which was a Temecula Quilt Co. sew along.  By adding another star block section I was able to make mine into a cute little table runner.

Project count for 2016:
Unfinished projects on January 1st: 17
Finished by February 5th: 3
Started new: 6
Finished new: 4 (gifts, so I can't show you them yet)

And just to round out the statistics, in 2015 my finishes were:
1 queen quilt
1 twin quilt
7 lap quilts
4 baby/crib quilts
11 wall hangings
6 table runners
6 table topper/candle mats

Linking up with other finishes at Crazy Mom Quilts.blogspot

Tapa Cloth

January 2016 has been a whirlwind of travel for us.  First a quick trip to San Diego, CA.  Then a week later we were off to San Antonio, TX.  Two unexpected escapes from a cold Minnesota winter!

Hawaiian tapa cloth: San Antonio Museum of Art

We didn't see any quilts in the San Antonio museums, but this caught my eye.  In the San Antonio Museum of Art was a Tapa Cloth from Hawaii.  We are used to seeing traditional applique Hawaiian quilts, but this piece of bark 'cloth' has a geometric design that looks just like traditional quilt piecing to me.

Decorated Tapa, or bark cloth, was used in ceremonial clothing for chiefs, mats for ceremonial dances, bed sheets and room partitions in the late 1700's and 1800's.  It might be fun to make a quilt inspired by this piece someday, but the math to figure out how to get the blocks to fit together would be tricky. Could you see it as a decorative runner across the foot of the bed?  Possibilities!

Three Hundred

What a surprise to see that my last post was number 299!  That meant my next post (this one) would be Three Hundred.  It's hard to believe I've had that much to say about quilting from my little corner of the world.  And what pressure!  This post has to be something just a little more significant than a project update.

So I'd like to share a marking tip for dark fabrics that I was recently reminded of, and started using.

Mom's little box of soap slivers, lower right.

Soap.

Yep, that simple old, nearly used up, last little silver of bar soap.

While going through my mother's drawers of sewing notions and supplies I came across a little box filled with little slivers of bar soap.  Memories flooded over me, seeing her use a simple, and basically free, little piece of soap to mark darts and button holes on dark fabrics.

Her mother, and grandmother were both excellent seamstresses, and I would not be surprised that this tip is generations old.

Marking Allietare blacks

I was just about to start marking the diagonals on the black squares for Allietare, and put two-and-two together.  Works like a charm! It makes a much crisper line than chalk, and doesn't keep breaking like my white marking pencils.

It works to mark my quilting lines on this dark burgundy sashing too.  And it's going to wash out, 100%  every time.  It's soap!  The firmer brands like Fels Naptha will get a sharper edge than brands with lotions in them.  So, the perfect marking tool for dark fabrics might already be in your laundry room!

Marking sashings for Cabin in the Woods.

Thanks for coming along with me to Quilt Awhile.  Your encouragement and comments keep me going when the quilting gets tough.  It's so great to have you as friends!
Jean

Mingei Museum finale

Let's complete our tour of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, shall we?  We've seen the red and white quilts on the first floor, and some of the quilts from around the United States.  Here are the rest....

Signature Quilt  Top-  Ethel Shepard
1934, Macon, Georgia

This red and white quilt is truly a Signature quilt top to me!  255 names written in ink and hand embroidered in a running stitch.  Quilts like this always make me ask the question, "How were these people connected?"  This quilt surely has a story to tell.  Names of people and towns, not all in Georgia.  A few, sadly, have a date of death also recorded.

I looked up a few names on Ancestry.  Some could not be found easily, but of the couple that I could quickly identify, they seem to have been born about the same year, 1911-1912.  Doing a little math, and noting that a number of the women have both maiden name and a married name on their block, I wonder if this was made for a 5-year High School Reunion.

I hope the Mingei Museum has had the staff and time to find out the story of this quilt.  There wasn't room for elaboration in their display, but there is so much information on this quilt.  Such a treasure that Ethel Shepard has made!

String Quilt Top - String Triangles
Early 20th century, Kentucky

Oh, this one looks fun!  String pieced triangles set alternately with a single double-pink from Kentucky. This is also unquilted.

Wall Hanging - Frances Osceola
1990's

The next quilt is a wall hanging from Florida.  It features a distinctive regional style of quilting known as Seminole Quilting.  Modern quilting techniques were used in this 1990's piece.

This sampler shows (from top to bottom) Rain, Man-on-Horseback, Broken Arrow, Bones, Sacred Cross, Fire and Lightning.  This may have been made quilt-as-you-go because there are no visible quilting stitches on the wall hanging front.  Perhaps this was paper pieced, to get such crisp edges.


Here's a wonderful basket quilt from Missouri.  What an unusual setting!  Can you see the center medallion of baskets is off-center by one row?  I think the colors in this are delicious, and I've long had a soft spot for basket quilts.   There is beautiful quilting too.  Feathers around each basket handle, and closely spaced parallel lines between.

Quilt - 1840's, Philadelphia, Missouri

Signature Quilt - Elizabeth Dorks Nettles (1865-1944)
1891 - Illinois

Oh my!  Look at the teensy, tiny triangle pieces in this Tree of Life quilt from Illinois!  We're talking small here.  And really detailed quilted feather wreaths in the alternate blocks.  This may look scrappy, but I think it was really very well planned.  Only four fabrics (tan, pink, yellow, dark green with white pinstripe) and muslin.  Each tree appears to have the same color placement of triangles.


Our next quilt is an Amish Quilt from Kalona, Iowa, were there is a Quilt & Textile Museum located in the Kalona Historical Village Welcome Center. That may be an interesting place to visit someday!

Don't you love the polka-dot look that appears in this 'bow tie variation?'

Amish Bow Tie Variation Quilt
1920's, Kalona, Iowa

Here is another Amish quilt - a crib quilt from Kansas.  It is quilted with a cable and leaf design.  It has a real optical illusion kind of look to me.

Amish Crib Quilt c. 1935, Hutchison, Kansas

Let's head to Indiana and a Fan Quilt made from various fabrics, including twill and velveteen.  Don't you love how the black background makes the fan colors Pop?  And it's an interesting setting too, alternating directions rather than having all the fans face the same way.  Love the motion it gives.  Herringbone embroidery using all the same color along the tops and bottoms arcs of the fans gives a unifying element.

Fans Quilt c. 1940, LaGrange County, Indiana
Indiana State Museum collection

Finally, we come to our last quilt.  And it's stunning!  From Hawaii comes a Pineapple Quilt.  This amazing regional style of applique quilt, using only one color and white background, never fails to be a show-stopper.  There's a bit of glare on this one, as it was one protected behind a glass case.

  The art of Quilting was brought to the Hawaiian Islands with missionary women in the 1820's.  The distinctive style that developed focused on the applique of local flowers and plants in a kaleidoscope of pattern.

Pineapple Quilt  20th Century Hawaii

What an enjoyable tour of American Quilting this has been.  Quilts aren't just pieced blocks sewn together.  I had forgotten how many distinctive styles of quilting have developed, each a complement to the other, and each a unique work of art.  

Thanks for joining me at the Mingei Museum on our trip to San Diego, CA.

Until next time - hope you have a chance to Quilt Awhile.