Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[koshergrl]

But really I liked this one better for some reason:

 

[freedombecki]

But really I liked this one better for some reason:

Great blue herons aren't very blue, but are grayer. The maker of this version fixes the problem and puts the blue back in.

Enjoyed the show at your link! Photobucket is my choice of places to store pictures.

 

[freedombecki]

Pardon my threds! A lot of cutting and sewing, unsewing, and resewing has gone on on these blocks in the past week. I did 3 more blocks, then put the white border on all the blocks (this quilt will have 24 unless I lose one or something.)

Sorry, all I have to show is 3 right now. It's been a day with fighting dementia. I see him getting worse, and it kills my day kind of.

Well, here are 3 more blocks:

 

[Bloodrock44]

Pardon my threds! A lot of cutting and sewing, unsewing, and resewing has gone on on these blocks in the past week. I did 3 more blocks, then put the white border on all the blocks (this quilt will have 24 unless I lose one or something.)

Sorry, all I have to show is 3 right now. It's been a day with fighting dementia. I see him getting worse, and it kills my day kind of.

Well, here are 3 more blocks:

Oh how beautiful! Reminds me of when I was a kid. The ladies in my area would come together and have quilting parties. Do they still do that I wonder?

 

[koshergrl]

Quilting bees. My gramma used to do that too... they'd get out this massive quilting frame, put it on the table, and 3=4 aunties would come over and they'd put the quilts together and tie them.

 

[Bloodrock44]

Quilting bees. My gramma used to do that too... they'd get out this massive quilting frame, put it on the table, and 3=4 aunties would come over and they'd put the quilts together and tie them.

Yes. Quilting bees. That's what they called them. I would sit on the floor and play with my cars and such. The ladies would soon forget I was there and I learned every juicy tidbit about everyone in the community!

 

[Bloodrock44]

Pardon my threds! A lot of cutting and sewing, unsewing, and resewing has gone on on these blocks in the past week. I did 3 more blocks, then put the white border on all the blocks (this quilt will have 24 unless I lose one or something.)

Sorry, all I have to show is 3 right now. It's been a day with fighting dementia. I see him getting worse, and it kills my day kind of.

Well, here are 3 more blocks:

Thank you Becki and Koshergrl for bringing back good memories. Seems the world was much more peaceful then. At least my world was.

 

[freedombecki]

Pardon my threds! A lot of cutting and sewing, unsewing, and resewing has gone on on these blocks in the past week. I did 3 more blocks, then put the white border on all the blocks (this quilt will have 24 unless I lose one or something.)

Sorry, all I have to show is 3 right now. It's been a day with fighting dementia. I see him getting worse, and it kills my day kind of.

Well, here are 3 more blocks:

Oh how beautiful! Reminds me of when I was a kid. The ladies in my area would come together and have quilting parties. Do they still do that I wonder?

I go to Charity Bees about two or three times a year. I have health issues that keeps me indoors a lot although I enjoy an occasional fence walk around my small farm. Most days I can sit and sew or sit and mow. It's a slow trip downstairs, and sometimes I don't go there on account of my trick knee. Other days, there are no problems. Last year, I donated somewhere between 100-110 quilts. This year I'm concentrating on quality over quantity and have done about 48 quilts to date if I finish the one I'm working on today. The ladies at Charity Bees do the quilting and/or tying, and either put them up for sale or give them to the local shelters or senior citizens living centers or hospices in the locale. I love to do ones for children, but people don't like to do the quilting on the larger ones and prefer sewing for the Hugs groups, I think. The ones they sell go to scholarships for the local university students who have a need for support. I pray for the recipients of the quilt, hoping that we can support a special needs child with warmth in cool winter and spring nights that we have here.

Glad you dropped by the quilt thread, Bloodrock44. Glad we brought a good memory back, and I celebrate the love and work of those who gathered together in love to make quilts for beloved family members and community needs in your memory.

The above blocks, well, all I finished after a week were 12, and separated by 2" white sashes, they were large enough for a hugs quilt, so the other 12 will be sashed with a different color when I put the final two 1" lengths with 9 squares each on the next 12 blocks. I'd planned just 1 quilt, but it got into too much perfection work, which comes from using more than 1 cutting mat, more than 1 rotary cutter, and more than 1 different sewing machines. Different manufacturers have their own version of what one inch is, and sometimes a machine is manufactured with a needle position that is one hair off. Multiplied by 64, that's one inch, time to get out the seam ripper to make things right as you can.

I guess that's why I am truly tired of this time-consuming project and decided to make it into two reasonably nice baby quilts. The quilt that was my model is a couple of pages or so back, and it is by far my idea of fabulous. Something happened in the makeup of my blocks that isn't as pleasing as that quilt, and it likely was because I had planned something entirely different with the 5-patch blocks with corner squares of lights. I usually have dark squares, but I made them last year and forgot what the plan was, except possibly to have star points of a darker color. The white just didn't do what darks in the corners would have done for zing! and definition like the model had an abundance of. So much for perfection. It is very elusive to me lately!

 

[Bloodrock44]

Pardon my threds! A lot of cutting and sewing, unsewing, and resewing has gone on on these blocks in the past week. I did 3 more blocks, then put the white border on all the blocks (this quilt will have 24 unless I lose one or something.)

Sorry, all I have to show is 3 right now. It's been a day with fighting dementia. I see him getting worse, and it kills my day kind of.

Well, here are 3 more blocks:

Oh how beautiful! Reminds me of when I was a kid. The ladies in my area would come together and have quilting parties. Do they still do that I wonder?

I go to Charity Bees about two or three times a year. I have health issues that keeps me indoors a lot although I enjoy an occasional fence walk around my small farm. Most days I can sit and sew or sit and mow. It's a slow trip downstairs, and sometimes I don't go there on account of my trick knee. Other days, there are no problems. Last year, I donated somewhere between 100-110 quilts. This year I'm concentrating on quality over quantity and have done about 48 quilts to date if I finish the one I'm working on today. The ladies at Charity Bees do the quilting and/or tying, and either put them up for sale or give them to the local shelters or senior citizens living centers or hospices in the locale. I love to do ones for children, but people don't like to do the quilting on the larger ones and prefer sewing for the Hugs groups, I think. The ones they sell go to scholarships for the local university students who have a need for support. I pray for the recipients of the quilt, hoping that we can support a special needs child with warmth in cool winter and spring nights that we have here.

Glad you dropped by the quilt thread, Bloodrock44. Glad we brought a good memory back, and I celebrate the love and work of those who gathered together in love to make quilts for beloved family members and community needs in your memory.

The above blocks, well, all I finished after a week were 12, and separated by 2" white sashes, they were large enough for a hugs quilt, so the other 12 will be sashed with a different color when I put the final two 1" lengths with 9 squares each on the next 12 blocks. I'd planned just 1 quilt, but it got into too much perfection work, which comes from using more than 1 cutting mat, more than 1 rotary cutter, and more than 1 different sewing machines. Different manufacturers have their own version of what one inch is, and sometimes a machine is manufactured with a needle position that is one hair off. Multiplied by 64, that's one inch, time to get out the seam ripper to make things right as you can.

I guess that's why I am truly tired of this time-consuming project and decided to make it into two reasonably nice baby quilts. The quilt that was my model is a couple of pages or so back, and it is by far my idea of fabulous. Something happened in the makeup of my blocks that isn't as pleasing as that quilt, and it likely was because I had planned something entirely different with the 5-patch blocks with corner squares of lights. I usually have dark squares, but I made them last year and forgot what the plan was, except possibly to have star points of a darker color. The white just didn't do what darks in the corners would have done for zing! and definition like the model had an abundance of. So much for perfection. It is very elusive to me lately!

I'm glad I dropped by too. I have a cousin who does a lot of quilting and I can appreciate the tedious and tireless work it takes. I don't think I could ever muster the patience for something like that. My wife used to make dollhouse furniture. I would watch her work on something for a month and then tear it apart and start all over if she wasn't satisfied.

 

[freedombecki]

12 squares were enough. I'll do the others in another quilt, and at least the major work is done. I've just had so much chronic fatigue and naps day and night (a couple of days I counted 4 naps in which I fell into a deep sleep each time.) So sorry the progress has been slow. I just can't stay awake.

Think this is # 48. It measures 42x54" and here's the outer border. Sorry for the overexposure and getting it crosswise, but that's what the scans do from time to time:

It's naptime today! ​

 

[freedombecki]

My sewing "studio" is right by my orthopedic bed. So instead of napping, I looked at the squares left that didn't have the worrisome 9 inches of resew city strips sewn on. There were 12 of them. I thought, "Oh, how lovely it would be if I just cut 1.5x9.5" strips instead of fooling with those nine misfit postage stamps!!! Then I thought, "The last quilt was a little shorter than I cared it to be even with only 12 blocks as a baby quilt. Therefore this quilt could be made 8 inches longer just by making the 7 group of postage stamps edged with 2.5" strips instead of 1.5" strips!"

And in my mind, I saw: A Magic Carpet Quilt for a kid who really could use a Magic carpet out of an abusive family situation now and then. So I started with the rotary cutter making 1.5"x9.5" sides and 2.5"x9.5" tops and bottoms.

The happy little results are low. I had to really control myself to keep the colors soft, just in case it works better for an under 2 year-old child. I envisioned making pretty embroideries like the exquisite ones [MENTION=31640]koshergrl[/MENTION] and girls have made in the last several months. I got so excited, I forgot about being licked. The magic carpets are pastels on this first quilt, preferably church closet stuff. Oh, wait! That'd be bizarro world. Will stick with pastels.

Into each older life reliving one's childhood starting with puberty and going backward does happen, like the first snow of winter. If my dearly demented sweetie can return to his bachelor freewheeling days, I guess I can return to the point in time when young girls are too tired to do the dishes and do so only under duress, but all revved up when her best friend says "party tonight."

The scans are below and sorry they're a little off-center, but they do look like baby magic carpets and are symmetric, okay, a little symmetric in real life. But the 8x11" screen is unforgiving to 9.5x12" blocks :

 

[Bloodrock44]

My sewing "studio" is right by my orthopedic bed. So instead of napping, I looked at the squares left that didn't have the worrisome 9 inches of resew city strips sewn on. There were 12 of them. I thought, "Oh, how lovely it would be if I just cut 1.5x9.5" strips instead of fooling with those nine misfit postage stamps!!! Then I thought, "The last quilt was a little shorter than I cared it to be even with only 12 blocks as a baby quilt. Therefore this quilt could be made 8 inches longer just by making the 7 group of postage stamps edged with 2.5" strips instead of 1.5" strips!"

And in my mind, I saw: A Magic Carpet Quilt for a kid who really could use a Magic carpet out of an abusive family situation now and then. So I started with the rotary cutter making 1.5"x9.5" sides and 2.5"x9.5" tops and bottoms.

The happy little results are low. I had to really control myself to keep the colors soft, just in case it works better for an under 2 year-old child. I envisioned making pretty embroideries like the exquisite ones [MENTION=31640]koshergrl[/MENTION] and girls have made in the last several months. I got so excited, I forgot about being licked. The magic carpets are pastels on this first quilt, preferably church closet stuff. Oh, wait! That'd be bizarro world. Will stick with pastels.

Into each older life reliving one's childhood starting with puberty and going backward does happen, like the first snow of winter. If my dearly demented sweetie can return to his bachelor freewheeling days, I guess I can return to the point in time when young girls are too tired to do the dishes and do so only under duress, but all revved up when her best friend says "party tonight."

The scans are below and sorry they're a little off-center, but they do look like baby magic carpets and are symmetric, okay, a little symmetric in real life. But the 8x11" screen is unforgiving to 9.5x12" blocks :

Now do you do these by yourself or is it a team thing? If I'm not mistaken my cousin does hers alone. I'm not familiar with that method. I just remember the neighborhood ladies getting together for their bees. And when I say neighborhood, I mean I grew up in the mountains in the sticks and our closest neighbor lived a half mile from us. Sometimes it was quite a walk to get to a quilting bee or canning party. We canned a lot of food too.

 

[freedombecki]

[MENTION=36767]Bloodrock44[/MENTION] - "Now do you do these by yourself or is it a team thing? If I'm not mistaken my cousin does hers alone. I'm not familiar with that method. I just remember the neighborhood ladies getting together for their bees. And when I say neighborhood, I mean I grew up in the mountains in the sticks and our closest neighbor lived a half mile from us. Sometimes it was quite a walk to get to a quilting bee or canning party. We canned a lot of food too."

Due to my illness I quilt alone. I never know when screaming pain is going to hit. I moved to a place in the country 4 years ago so nobody would have to listen to it. Fibromyalgia breaks down its victim's immune systems and the sufferer gets sick a lot when exposed to public germs.

After 12 years of fibromyalgia troubles, I just don't go out any more. A cold that used to be gone in 3 or 4 days can hang on several weeks, or even all winter in cold country. By isolating away from the public, a person is not exposed as much. My husband can still go and get fast foods, but soon, he will not be able to do that any more. He will tell me when that is. I try to shop at 5 am twice a month to get foods high in antioxidants that help, such as fruit, vegetables, etc. He needed quite a bit of supervision 2 years ago. We're down to almost constant supervision now. He can't carry a thought to its conclusion unless you're right there cheering him on through his shaving routine or brushing his teeth. It's very hard to get him to do anything outside, except once in a while he breaks through with mowing the lawn, even if it takes him 2 days and some prompting to do it. That's because he enjoys being outdoors now and then.

There are a couple of other things he does voluntarily, but some things are best left unsaid.

 

[freedombecki]

12 magic carpets finished this morning due to doing a little cutting last night.

#4, 5, and 6:

 

[freedombecki]

Magic Carpets #s 7, 8, and 9:

 

[freedombecki]

Magic Carpets #s 10, 11, and 12:

 

[freedombecki]

A few months back, this gorgeous blue star material by Michael Miller went on sale at the local quilt store. Two yards were cut and came home in the truck.

When those pasty pastels were being done, the big question was "what will show them to best advantage?"

Sleeping on it, this fabric was in my mind when I woke up and was finishing the magic carpets before the sun rose.

The fabric was found on top of the blue bin, under other blue fabrics. It's truly fabulous. Can't wait to get back to the sewing room, so it's off to the races now...

Soon, it will be fun and done!

The "grey" is actually a kind of printed silvery glitter. The fabric sparkles!

 

[freedombecki]

Half of the horizontal sashes are done!

Scans 15, 16 and 17:

 

[freedombecki]

In honor of Allie, I found some some dynamite bird items of embroidery and quilting today. (instead of finishing quilt)

 

[Bloodrock44]

In honor of Allie, I found some some dynamite bird items of embroidery and quilting today. (instead of finishing quilt)

You are really talented Becki. Where do you get the patience to do this? And do you sell your quilts?