Ta-Da! Some Finished Quilt Tops

Sometimes it seems I never finish anything I start. I need fabric or batting or time. I need to tear out or remake. I despair and walk away. So I am very satisfied to have actually finished a quilt top.

The Fox Kit quilt from Sew Fresh Quilts is done. This is more complicated to assemble than I usually attempt. Thankfully, Lorna's instructions are amazing with step by step colored illustrations.

Next up is my process on the Vintage Baseball quilt from Northwater Quilts.

I have already altered the original pattern with the use of the Tigers fabric. I want to turn this into a lap quilt. Instead of adding pennants in the corners I will add them in an additional border, one for each pennant year.

I am also planning on --gasp-- not hand quilting these quilts. I will have them machine quilted. I have hand quilted 95% of my quilts since 1991. I machine quilted smaller artsy pieces. 

I am getting into the 21st c. of quiltmaking.

I have a few corners to clean up with additional appliqué, but am thrilled to have finessed the last border on Love Entwined!

I still can't face the next border, so will set it aside for a bit. This quilt will be hand quilted, when I decide it is finished.

WIP and A New Hanky

I have been motivated to get some work done.

I have been making Esther Alui's new pieced quilt Little Hazel. She is now on Facebook and we have been sharing photos of our progress. I am using reproduction fabrics in red, indigo, and ivory. I thought it would be much harder than it is! The star was done last month. This month we are doing the two concentric circles.

 The leaf vine strip fabric is better than I imagined! I love what it does!

I finished the last side of the first border on Love Entwined and am eager to get it finished! I sewed the first solid border and the top and bottom borders together. You can see how wonky my appliquéd zig zag borders turned out. I have finished the last border and just need to complete the corner blocks!

And I have been preparing appliqué blocks for the reproduction 1857 Sampler from Gay Bomer of Sentimental Stitches. Some gals are using such wonderful creative color and fabric choices. I am using colors similar to the original quilt. Interestingly, the quilt is similar to the Houseman Quilt in Florence Peto's article is shared here. Both have blocks with various appliqué' motifs and leaf shapes in the corners that make a secondary design.

My quilt guild has a challenge: a 24" x 24" quilt showing your favorite season. I used printed fabric to creative a 'typical' Michigan autumn scene. I need to quilt and bind it before May.

My Fox quilt is stopped until I find the right fabric for the fox. The trees branches and leaves part is done.

I bought a Faith Austen handkerchief of mushrooms. So cute! I organized my collection and counted over 1,000 handkerchiefs. About 200 are designer/signed hankies.

It has turned bitter cold again. Our doggies have been sleeping in. They don't want to get up in this weather. But just wait until it turns warm, and Kamikaze (White Dog) will be barking at 5:30 eager to enjoy the day!

Perfect weather to stay in and stitch.

OverDrive's Big Library Read; What I Am Working On

I am reading OverDrive's Big Library Read, the 'first ever global eBook club". OverDrive is the service that allows me to borrow eBooks from my local library.

The book is Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary With the Bard by Laura Bates. Bates is a Shakespeare professor who went into Chicago's maximum security prisons to teach prisoners in solitary confinement. The book chronicles the journey of one prisoner and how Shakespeare changed his life.

To join in and get the eBook visit http://biglibraryread.com/
Read about the book on Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/shakespeare-saved-my-life-excerpt-_n_3133831.html?

The Decorative Painting group I joined met yesterday and I came home with a metal planter with a bird's nest on it. I feel pretty good since I have not painted for several years. They are a nice group.

I finished one more border on Love Entwined-- I have to do another just like it still.

Love Entwined Border Two

Finally completed!

Love Entwined First Border

FINALLY! I finished one border of Love Entwined! The pattern is based on a 1790 coverlet found in Averil Colby's book Patchwork Quilts, and the pattern was designed by Esther Aliu and is available on her Yahoo group.

I am about half way through appliqueing the second short border. The long side borders and corner block patterns are already printed and waiting for my attention. I used some preprinted fabrics for the floral basket.

I cut my applique shapes, thread baste them into position, and needle turn applique. My shapes are not perfect. But it was either tear out, restart, or embrace the wonkiness. Well, I decided to embrace the wonkiness. My colors and use of polkadot fabrics already started me on the wonky trail!

Love Entwined Center Completed

 

I finished the last corner floral vase on the Love Entwined applique quilt. Esther Aliu's Yahoo group has hundreds of people from across the world making this 1790 reproduction. The variety of interpretations is mind boggling!

 

The next pattern will not be released until the 15th, so I have time to work on my "Green Heroes" quilt, which has been languishing for months waiting me to finish the hand quilting. I am quilting motifs relevant to each "hero". Adolph Leopold, author of Sand County Almanac, has images from his book cover with a heron. Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has a forest and, hopefully a recognizable creek.

 

 

Leopold founded a new way of looking at the wilderness, and forged an new ethic:
"The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land."

 

Dillard's 1974 book won the Pulitzer Prize. Her observations of nature and thoughts about life and God were very inspiring to me when I read her book when it came out. 

 

Meantime we in Michigan have undergone a terrific snow storm just a week after 50,000 people got their power back after an ice storm. We had a mere foot of snow here.

 

Today we finally have some sunshine, but a wind chill that is Arctic. Sounds like good weather for hand quilting on a hoop, because that quilt will keep me warm!

 

 

 

 

 

Love Entwined and a New Embroidery Project!

I have been working on Esther Aliu's Love Entwined applique project. Esther designed a pattern for a remarkable 1790 quilt that appears in Avril Colby's book Patchwork Quilts, and until recently was lost to time. She only had a black and white photograph to work with. Esther has been able to locate the quilt and the Yahoo group making this pattern are encouraging the owner to exhibit it.

There are literally hundreds of people making Love Entwined, and hundreds of different interpretations in color and fabric choices. I found a lovely green for the background and am using fabrics from my stash for the applique. I have a polka dot theme going on in my fabric choices.

You can find out more about Esther at her blog http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/ or join the Yahoo group working on this block of the month pattern at http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/estheraliubom/info

I also started an embroidery project. I created original designs for The Wizard of Oz! Here are the completed blocks. I hope to make this quilt pattern available on my Etsy store, Rosemont Needle Arts. I have finished The Scarcrow and Glenda the Good Witch. I am working on Dorothy and Toto, with The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man, and The Wicked Witch of the West waiting for me to get to them.

Quilting Projects Going Slow...

I have my 'Green Heroes' quilt on the quilt frame but have hardly touched it all summer. The frame is set up in the dining room, which is basically my husband's home office/open area since we gave away our dining room set before we moved. It never fit in in the mid-century parsonages with no formal dining rooms. There is a radio, but no television. I could use books on tape while quilting, but listening to reading out loud puts me to sleep. And I am disgusted by my quilt stitches. Its been too long since I used the frame, and my fingers are not what they used to be. I am quilting a background to the portraits that represent their areas of interest.

I have been working on a difficult hand applique project started by Esther Aliu on her Yahoo groups page. Love Entwined is Esther's pattern based on a quilt pictured in Averil Colby's book Patchwork Quilts, a 1790 wedding coverlet. You can find out more at her blog: http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/2013/06/introducing-love-entwined-1790-marriage.html

I have done a lot of applique over the years, and prefer the needle turn method. Perhaps because I am basically lazy! I know how to use freezer paper templates, or how to do any number of applique methods to create perfect pieces. Still, I persisted in going along in this disorganized way and the piece looks too embarrassing to share with the hundreds of gals world wide who are making this quilt. The photo gallery is full of amazing, and amazingly different, interpretations of this pattern. I chose a great green background, and am using bright fabrics from my stash, many with a polka dot theme. I may finish the center piece and then start over, doing things the right way this time. Next up are floral baskets in the corners. Then there are seven borders, four with applique...What was I thinking?

Life has been throwing me curve balls lately, plus I started the etsy store and am trying to prepare more patterns for sale. I have books and collectibles I need to sell or get rid of, as part of downsizing to fit into our retirement home. And I am working with a contractor to upgrade the energy efficiency of the retirement home, which means lots of research about things I never knew about, or had to know about since I have spent my married life in a church parsonage! So instead of playing with fabric, I am learning about hot water heaters and fiberglass entry doors! Plus my husband had a bacterial infection, with 40 minute trips to town to see the doctor. The doctor gave him an antibiotic and he soon was  feeling better. And then I found our dog had fleas! This is a BIG house with all carpeting on both floors! That is a lot of vacuuming.

I just want to go into my sewing room and play. I have some great handkerchiefs I want to make into my collage wall hangings. At least I am good at that. I need a confidence booster right now!And most of all, the regenerative peace and strength that comes from the creative process!

Choosing embellishments for this basket of flowers hankdkerchief I bought recently on eBay. Sigh. Must get back to it.