Mid-Year Review

It’s a little early for a mid-year review, but I thought it would make an easy way for me to reconnect here. After a ten-day road trip for family celebrations, I’ve lost my habit of reading and posting. (If I’ve missed big milestones in your life or making, feel free to post links in comments so I can catch up with you!)

In fact, it’s not just the last few weeks, but all year I’ve been slack in posting and less present for reading. (Honestly, that’s okay. We all get to be here just as much as works for us, including me.) One of the things that means is that I haven’t shared a lot of the projects I’ve worked on. That makes it harder for me to keep track, too! So I made a list.

Finished:
1. Fierce Little Bear
2. VA hospital quilt
3. VA hospital quilt
4. Charlotte’s Kitty — the only one I’ve shown you completed
5. This Old House
6. Georgia’s graduation quilt
7. Workshop landscape quilt

All but finished:
8. Fiesta! — I’ll get the binding done today

And then there are a number of works in progress, with varying levels of completion:
1. Resist
2. The Green Man
3. Rooster
4. Claddagh Ring
5. Tatters
6. Snowflake concepts

All of my works in progress are part of my “course work” to learn some methods to tell stories with my quilts. Though stories can be told in many ways, all of these projects focus on using words and pictures for that.

There’s been other stuff, too. For instance, early in the year I submitted a couple of designs to magazines to publish as patterns. (They weren’t accepted.) I might do that again; I might not. So I’ve had enough to do. Ultimately, though, I’d like to share a few of the quilts I’ve finished and talk a bit more about process for them. And I want to comment on some of the applique options I’m trying in my art/story quilt work. Now that I’ve broken ice again here (or is it more like clearing the throat?) I can work through some of that.

This is enough for now. I hope you all have a terrific, productive week. Again, please feel free to link some of your cool stuff for me in comments. I’d love to see what you’re working on, too!

One More Quilt Top Finished

For my recent quilt retreat, I prepped material to sew three quilt tops. Over the two-and-a-half days I got a lot done, including one quilt top finished, one done except borders applied, and one with a boatload of blocks created. I already showed you the first two of them. Now I’ve finished the third quilt top, too.

This will be another quilt intended for my local VA hospital. They have requested quilts finishing at no bigger than 48″ x 60″. The size works well as a lap quilt for most people, but most importantly, the quilts are tangible symbols of appreciation and respect.

I love block quilts with chains. The puss-in-the-corner blocks are so easy to make and create those chains effectively. What doesn’t work in this quilt is the lack of value contrast. Because of the prints used and the fairly narrow range of value, this is all a bit mushy. As you might be able to tell from the close-up photo, though, it’s actually much prettier in person than it shows in the top photo. And I think it will suit one of our hero-patients just right.

With the end of February rolling up on us, I only have one finished quilt in my count for the year, as well as the three completed tops. Another (the house quilt) is in process. But I’ve been working hard on other projects, so I don’t feel (very) sorry for myself.

How’s your year coming along? Are you making progress on things (however you define that) as you’d hoped? 

A Lot of Fun Stuff Going On

It’s been a while since I’ve showed you my current work. A couple of weeks ago I finished binding a project started last year. It was the one that made me tear my hair out, along with thousands of quilting stitches. It’s finished, but it’s for a loved one and I’d like to get it to her before showing it off here. Just in case.

If you’ve been a reader for a long time, you may have noticed (or seen me write) that I often don’t post about projects in their early stages. Mostly that’s because I don’t much like taking pictures, and it’s hard to describe a project without them! The project I’m working on now is much the same. I actually started it months ago, and now finally am getting around to posting. This time, however, it really still is in the early stages.

So what’s been done so far?

1. made 112 flying geese to use in a strip quilt
2. found and pieced together a long strip of border stripe, to use in said strip quilt
3. changed my mind and decided to use the geese and the border stripe for a medallion quilt
4. drew house block to center the medallion
5. sewed house block
6. embroidered embellishments on house block
7. framed house block to stabilize it and standardize the size
8. prepped border stripe (most of the way) to serve as the first showy border

I began the flying geese as I finished making Union. As mentioned before, I was still enjoying the double pinks and browns, and I wanted to combine them with reds, aquas, and teals. Since the fabric was still out, I started cutting pieces for the four-at-a-time method of making geese units, but I didn’t start sewing them until this year.

I’m not sure what inspired me to make a medallion with a house center block. I’ve always been charmed by folk art including early American embroidery samplers, which often featured houses or school buildings. Recently Barbara Brackman posted about quilts with yellow house motifs. Maybe that got me going. I also had a hard time imagining the strip quilt I originally intended. I couldn’t figure out the numbers of strips or what, besides the flying geese, to use. It seemed like it would be a lot more piecing than I wanted, and perhaps without a good enough payoff.

At any rate, I drew that house.

Sometimes the easiest way to do things is the old-fashioned way, and here graph paper and pencil worked just fine.

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I’ll show you what happened from there next time. Before that, the title of this post might merit some explanation. There IS a lot of fun stuff going on, which is good, since one of my primary intentions this year is to have fun.

I’ve had lots of RPT (Real People Time) already this year, and a lot more coming up. On Thursday I’ll have lunch with a dear friend from grad school. She and I lost touch several years ago, and it will be a treat to catch up.

Guild stuff keeps on comin’! Between the presidenting and committee-ing and bylaw reviewing, there’s always enough to keep me busy. Besides that, I decided to go to the three-day retreat in mid-February. That means I have to FIGURE OUT WHAT TO TAKE to keep me busy for three day!!! ACK! So much fun! 🙂 (Imagine that smiley face with a slightly crazed look to the eyes.)

I’m also doing things in my non-guild quilty life that are new and different, but things I’ll wait to explain. Could be a crazy year with that, too.

I updated the blog a bit, gave it a little fresher look. My galleries are finally up-to-date, after languishing without much care for too long.

And then the other personal stuff, including travel coming up. We have four trips pegged already this year and forgive me for hoping that’s all we do!  But really, Son’s wedding? FUN! Granddaughter’s graduation? FUN! And a couple of trips for fun? FUN!!

Okay. That’s enough for this time. I’ll show you more of my house project in the next post.

 

Bear’s Paws On My Quilt Back

Do you remember when President George H.W. Bush declared he did not like broccoli? He had never liked broccoli, since he was a little boy and his mother made him eat it. As an adult and president, he would not eat broccoli!

I do not like to make pieced quilt backs. The ideal quilt back, in my opinion, would be one that came from the store, already the correct size, washed, pressed, and ready to load on my quilting frame. I can’t have that, but as queen of my realm, I have decided to minimize my time making pieced backs. It makes my realm a happier place.

However, now and then, making a pieced back is still the right decision. My current project is a medallion with a bear’s paw block in the center. The top is done and ready to quilt. One of the feature fabrics on the top had very little left, a piece about 20″ x 35″, plus scraps of various sizes.

Fabric design by Julie Paschkis for a Washington State shop hop a few years ago.

As much as I love this fabric, I’m not interested in keeping a small chunk of it around. It is distinctive enough it needs to be used carefully, up to having a quilt designed around it. That’s more responsibility than I want right now!

I decided to use it up in the back of the quilt. That was an easy decision, partly because the other “right” fabric I have wasn’t quite big enough for full coverage.

This piece has stylized deer on it. It’s actually a seasonal fabric called “I Love Christmas.” I don’t know who the designer or maker are. It fits the nature theme of the quilt.

Designing and making a pieced back isn’t quite as much work as for the top. But it does require some thought, especially when using up stuff. After thinking carefully about it, I decided to make four large bear’s paws — not bear’s paw blocks, but the paws that are units of a block. This is the center strip of the back, with the paws “walking” in a direction. Each paw block is 18″ square, so the arrangement is 36″ x 54″. I had to piece in the deer Christmas fabric carefully so I didn’t run out of it. A bonus is I used almost all the rest of the turquoise fabric, too. It has little birds in a tone-on-tone print. Only scraps will be left of all three fabrics.

The back is loaded on the frame now. I need to choose thread color and do some maintenance on the machine before starting. I’m still pondering how to quilt it. But I am making progress.

Christmas Is Coming!

The top of my class Christmas quilt is done, but it needs to be quilted. (I’m still working on the bear’s paw quilt, too. As these get bigger, it’s harder to work on them “at the same time.”)

Here are a few pix. Below is the finished top in as big of a view as I can manage. There are a few “Christmas” fabrics in it, but I rarely buy novelty fabrics. My friend Sharon passed a few of hers to me, so bits of hers show up. Mostly, though, it is other reds, greens, and golds I had in stash. I didn’t buy anything new for this.

Quilt top, laid out on the floor. I can’t get quite high enough to fit the whole thing in view. It’s about 68″ square.

OH, that’s not true. I did buy the green paisley in one of the strip borders. I’d used a different green, cut it and attached it, and simply wasn’t happy with it. This green has more light in it and has more interesting pattern.

A decent view of the center block, which finished at 16″. The green border around it is 2″ wide, taking the segment to 20″ square. Notice how the strip border neither encloses the center block, nor expands it. It is neutral. The swirly line print does draw the eye, but does not direct the eye farther out. This suits, because the center block really is self-contained. With its round shape and circling flying geese, it wouldn’t work as well with something like spraying half-square triangles in the first border.

The outside border is the red plaid at the top of the photo. It helps settle down the riot caused by the pile of packages in the next border, all in scrappy fabrics.

I had fun making the green “packages” with their bows on top. The bows are just flying geese, and they echo the shapes in the hourglasses above, as well as the flying geese in the center and the pinwheels in the corner blocks.

The pinwheel corner blocks are a funny illusion. They’re made of the same block as that ribbon border near the center. It’s called a “Y” block in EQ7. There are 4 of them in a pinwheel block, and using all the same “background” fabric makes it look like a pinwheel on point. The pinwheel spins, as do the flying geese in the center, though going in different directions. Finally, they are one more allusion to a package, as it looks like you’re looking down on the top of a fancy bow.

Over the years I’ve gotten over the wish to make my fabrics match for style. While I do want them to “go” together, there is a pretty broad range, even in a quilt like this. There are 1800s reproductions, a few Christmas fabrics, at least one batik, a fabric sold as wide backing fabric… I enjoyed using the last of a few scraps, evening piecing a few scraps together to make patches big enough. I remember where I bought some of these, including on a family reunion trip in Michigan, on an outing to Illinois with Jim, at chain stores and local quilt shops and one online store. A quilt like this represents a large part of my quilting history, stitching memories into the design.

I plan to keep this quilt. Though we decorate pretty minimally for Christmas, I’ll enjoy having this out, either spread across the dining room table or draped on the stair railing, or even bunched around the two of us on the couch. Some day maybe I’ll give it to one of my kids, instead of the coal they usually get for Christmas. 😉