Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[Bloodrock44]

Looking at blue quilts, I ran across one that reminded me of all Sunshine's work!

Did you make this one @freedombecki ? It is so beautiful. I am going to visit my cousin soon. She does her own quilts and posts pictures of them on Facebook. She is very talented. Almost as good as yours.

No, I didn't make that one. It came from the quilting board dot com by one of their members. I do not do hand embroidery any more, Bloodrock, but when I'm not making a charity quilt top, I am keeping up on what others do by surfing the net by Bing. This one was from a kit likely and was done exceptionally well. Also, our friend on this thread, Sunshine, embroiders quilt squares from time to time, and I thought it would inspire her to complete her green one sometime soon, as I'm just dying to see it after she gets it quilted by someone else. She spent the better part of a year when she was working on breaks and after hours working on her beauty and wants to complete it for her children. I'd love to help, but I'm not in good enough health to do the actual hard job of quilting any more, but I can make charity tops and take them to the charity bees closet, where eventually, someone will quilt or tie it with 120 members in their group when I joined a few years back. I know a lot of them have busy lives and their own quilts to do, but occasionally, someone loves to at least tie a quilt in the afternoon or so that it takes if they are able to. So I keep going. All I have is a scanner to work with, so the little thumbnails of parts of the quilts I do are all that can be shown.

I don't know what it is that fascinates me so with quilting. I guess maybe because when I was growing up all our quilts were handmade and I can remember one quilt that all the ladies who made it stitched their names in it. Have you ever done that?

 

[freedombecki]

Yes. That's a friendship quilt that women in a community gather together, each makes and signs a square, turns it in to someone who sews squares together, then invites everyone to a quilting bee to quilt the quilt for their friend. They call them "signature" or "album" quilts, maybe both. Sometimes it's a surprise, and sometimes it's not, because some communities are so small everyone is needed to work on the quilt, including she who receives it. It's also common in community or church fundraisers to make such a quilt and raffle it for something like fixtures for a city park, a baptismal font or altar fund for a church, etc.

One of my quilts earned $1900 to keep open an art gallery for the summer years ago. They gave me a "lifetime membership." to their art guild, which was a total surprise. I loved doing it. The downside is hearing it about not winning the quilt from members who bought lots and lots of tickets. Oh, well. They were very loving people to tease and josh me. AND you know the drill--no good deed ever goes unpunished.

 

[freedombecki]

The Center of this quilt was started about 5 or 6 years ago in Wyoming and was moved to our home in Walker County, TX, when we retired. I added borders to the center at or around the time we moved, from fabrics in my shop. The envelope squares around the top of the 28" square were added yesterday, and the lower envelope squares will be added hopefully soon. I'd truly like to get this quilt out of the way, but needed a red one in the stack. It's a cheerful color, and like blue monochromatic quilts, all-red quilts are loved by children and adults. My philosophy comes from the religious learnings of my youth--give your best, not your worst. So the bottom line for me is to make something for needy causes as good as if they were for my own family, and don't hold back. To me, it's not a gift unless you put your best into it, whether it's an idea, a dazzling array of color, or a simple, comforting dash of color to cradle someone who needs warmth and love. And I believe that's only something God can do, so I pray constantly for mercy upon us in my vespers at night, because I believe he listens and as he listened to Jacob who wrestled with the angel of the Lord, he lets us win small favors because he is always a caring entity who loves his creation, which is us, imho.

/philosophical binge, pardon me.

Here's the Willow Tree scans, at least 3 here and 3 in the next frame:

 

[freedombecki]

The top border of envelopes and squares:

 

[freedombecki]

Also, found other artists' envelope squares and quilts (not made by me) just for examples of the different looks you can get from this fun square which is quite traditional:

 

[freedombecki]

Envelope squares I found made by bloggers around the net (not made by me):

 

[Bloodrock44]

The Center of this quilt was started about 5 or 6 years ago in Wyoming and was moved to our home in Walker County, TX, when we retired. I added borders to the center at or around the time we moved, from fabrics in my shop. The envelope squares around the top of the 28" square were added yesterday, and the lower envelope squares will be added hopefully soon. I'd truly like to get this quilt out of the way, but needed a red one in the stack. It's a cheerful color, and like blue monochromatic quilts, all-red quilts are loved by children and adults. My philosophy comes from the religious learnings of my youth--give your best, not your worst. So the bottom line for me is to make something for needy causes as good as if they were for my own family, and don't hold back. To me, it's not a gift unless you put your best into it, whether it's an idea, a dazzling array of color, or a simple, comforting dash of color to cradle someone who needs warmth and love. And I believe that's only something God can do, so I pray constantly for mercy upon us in my vespers at night, because I believe he listens and as he listened to Jacob who wrestled with the angel of the Lord, he lets us win small favors because he is always a caring entity who loves his creation, which is us, imho.

/philosophical binge, pardon me.

Here's the Willow Tree scans, at least 3 here and 3 in the next frame:

Very nice. This link to the "Quilting Club" just happened to pop up on my Facebook page this morning. If you have FB you can check it out. https://www.facebook.com/quiltingclub?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, Bloodrock! I'll look into it!

 

[freedombecki]

It's done! I'm free!

 

[koshergrl]

Woo hooooooo!

 

[freedombecki]

I'm having a hard time getting started on the final quilt of this group. There are 9 quilts sitting on the chest of drawers, and I have all the orange fabrics in the world out. I just can't make up my mind what to do yet. Too many ideas!

 

[Bloodrock44]

I'm having a hard time getting started on the final quilt of this group. There are 9 quilts sitting on the chest of drawers, and I have all the orange fabrics in the world out. I just can't make up my mind what to do yet. Too many ideas!

Get to work young lady. I want pictures!

 

[BDBoop]

I'm having a hard time getting started on the final quilt of this group. There are 9 quilts sitting on the chest of drawers, and I have all the orange fabrics in the world out. I just can't make up my mind what to do yet. Too many ideas!

It'll come to you once it gets sorted out in your mind.

 

[freedombecki]

I'm having a hard time getting started on the final quilt of this group. There are 9 quilts sitting on the chest of drawers, and I have all the orange fabrics in the world out. I just can't make up my mind what to do yet. Too many ideas!

It'll come to you once it gets sorted out in your mind.

Lol! I just thought about it this morning, and decided I really had enjoyed doing the log cabin style. and that the courthouse steps version was fine. So. rather than mull about it might as well go for the gold, even if it meant 3 days. Well that didn't happen I was done by 1 o'clock. All the squares are the same. so not sure how they will be sewn together. think I'll blindfold myself and count by a large whole number divisible only by itself.

Well, really not likely, but this one comes in Horizontal and Vertical, depending on how you turn them

Here's the block (x 30. Each has 19 pieces in it, so there are going to be at least 570 log pieces in the quilt).

This is the approximate color of the orange that looks red orange in my printer's version

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, yes, it's a lot brighter orange than pictured. Today, my bargain basement printer was in a red-orange mood. This one is a sunny Sunkist orange. The yellows are a little subdued, so I guess printer decided it should all be subdued.

I pursued "how tos" in Bing! by researching what others had done with their courthouse steps. First of all, they planned something. Didn't happen here! ~

Edit: of all the quilts, the third one looks like one that would work with my particular blocks, although a 5x6 arrangement could get tricky. Except instead of using red, that would likely be either a very bright yellow or white. (Yes, white it may have to be).

 

[freedombecki]

And some more courthouse steps ~ coulda, woulda, shoulda planned it...

 

[freedombecki]

The orange quilt is done, took all day, but I'm so tired from pushing the envelope around, I'm just gonna hit the sack and will measure and post pictures tomorrow, hopefully. This will be the tenth quilt for the last 30 days, it's a happy time to get back into the groove of sewing. We've also had some dear little puffy clouds above, so the temperature is not as outrageous as usual for September, which often sizzles. We could use a little more rain, though.

We have a number of posters at USMB who have sons who are either in basic training, the Navy, or other services. Please add them and their families to your prayer list for strength, courage, and safety, if you do that kind of a thing. Thanks.

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, I forgot to take a picture of the little white detail on the quilt that separates the blocks. It's somewhat bigger than the quilts that have 24 blocks. This one had 30 blocks, plus the little 1/2" stripe of white to give it a little character.

Today, I needed some light pink fabric, so I went to the fabric shop which houses the charity bees quilt closet and delivered 10 quilt tops. All but 3 of them were log cabin style quilts, each having 4 or 500 pieces, some more. Oh, yes, the little postage stamp quilts had a lot more pieces than planned, but they were fun. I seem to be feeling my oats and happier now that my quilting routine is back down pat. I need to make a couple of quilts that are completely quilted. One of the guild members said they were having problems recruiting people to do quilting. If I could just do a couple that turned out well, that'd be a really good thing. I've really enjoyed making tops when I was feeling so bad, it was like a light in a dark room being able to do anything that would benefit a poor child, or at least, just thinking about it. Now, I'll just try to make and complete a quilt by starting off with a quilt-as-you-go simple quilt, maybe. Yep. That will be dandy.

 

[freedombecki]

I couldn't get my act together on the pink quilt after coming home from the quilt store. Too many sugar plums dancing through the head?

Yep, prolly. Anyway, I got some ideas off the web...

So here are think pink 1, 2, and 3.

Tomorrow's gotta be in the pink if this quilt is ever going to get off the ground!

 

[Sunshine]

Finished the Celtic knot on the plane. Going to stop at Hobby Lobby and see if I can find a frame today. But square ones are hard to find. When I was painting a lot, I always ordered from Graphik Dimensions which is now pictureframes.com. If I can't find one at HL, I will order one from there. Will post today or tomorrow. Today is doctor day in Nashville.