Sunday, May 24, 2015

Green Quilt for Karen

A friend from high school talked me into helping her with a quilt for her granddaughter.
She designed it and sent me the diagram and the fabric.
I pieced the top. We made a couple of changes as I did it; I sent pictures it after all the blocks were cut and the components arranged.

Now it's up to her to have it quilted and bound.


Because I had enough leftover fabric, I made her a bonus, a smaller version for her to keep.

(note: the beige pineapple blocks are part of the quilt on the wall that I pinned the top to in order to photograph it.)





Thursday, May 21, 2015

Oma's Quilt

In the early sixties, my grandmother gave me a log cabin quilt.  I'm thinking it was when I turned 21.
She normally gave them as wedding presents, but I was slow, and she was getting older.
In fact, she died before I got married.

I used it and washed it and used it.  It frayed; I mended it.  The edges tore; I mended it.

There's a quilt show here at the library, celebrating 50 years of the town's incorporation.
Oma's quilt is one of the ones on display.
Wonder what she'd think of that!


The second picture shows the colors better.
All the center squares are red.  The "logs" in the log cabin blocks are made of scraps from Oma's sewing and from my mother's scraps.  I still remember some of the skirts and dresses that the pieces represent.
Her color sense was impressive.

No rotary cutters, rulers, and mats.
Just tear the strips and sew them together.
Make the blocks, lay them out on the bed, and get your granddaughter to help you look for touching pieces of the same fabrics.  One of my earliest quilting memories.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Playing with my stash

I've been trying to work on quilting using only the fabrics that I already have.  The other day, I eyed the Rubbermaid tub that holds all my orphan blocks; you know what I mean - the leftovers from previous quilts, the trial ones from a class that didn't quite pan out, the freeform ones from a day of playing...

I made several piles, trying to find some commonalities.

A panel with a wonky house, a tree, a sun and a cloud called me.  I set it on my design board for inspiration.

There were lots of "crumb" blocks available too.   So I put those around the panel, adding in another wonky house.  Didn't have quite enough to finish, so a Hole in the Barn Door one snuck in.

I had to add coping strips to the panel to make it measure a multiple of the crumb blocks.    But I think I wound up with a cute baby quilt.

Quirky, yes.  Colorful, yes.  And look how many orphan blocks I used up!

Next one started with a set of wonky houses.  I trimmed most of them to a common height and put them on the wall.

I found some trees, two little girls, and a dog.   Coped the widths with some nine patches. There was a brown strip in the "chunk box" that looked like a road.  Up it went.


I'm liking this.  But don't want to make it into a baby quilt.
Hmmmm.  What can I add?

Let's see - here are some blue blocks that will look kind of sky-ish.   So much better than that plain strip of blue.  And some strip blocks and nine patches for a top border.

I think the road needs a center line.  Wonder if I have any yellow rickrack?  If not, white or black will do.  Better make a drunkards path to turn the road, since the brown stip doesn't go all the way across anymore.


Root vegetables - how about a garden area?

Oh look, a big red-orange star that could be a sun!    (Have to add more blocks at the top and make it wider now.)  Another small house and some more trees.  More trees.  Oh, trees are fun to grow.

Now I'm making some more veggies from my chunks.  Not orphan blocks, but getting rid of scraps anyway.  This is fun.

BTW, yes, that is a buffalo in the upper right.  Don't know how he got in there, but he seems at home.

I'm thinking the name of this one will be "Around the house" because all of this came from my block orphanage or the chunk box.