Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[naomibee]

It was sure nice to get the log cabin quilt knocked out this morning, and I persevered for the rest of the morning to get rid of the flowers on the purple butterfly square and start the Red morpho butterfly (hopefully or something like it. I really need to do research on the one red butterfly I found that was all red)

Here is completed block #5 (purple butterfly like the cover of the packet

Started block #6, Red Butterfly

I have some pillow cases am working on.

 

[freedombecki]

It was sure nice to get the log cabin quilt knocked out this morning, and I persevered for the rest of the morning to get rid of the flowers on the purple butterfly square and start the Red morpho butterfly (hopefully or something like it. I really need to do research on the one red butterfly I found that was all red)

Here is completed block #5 (purple butterfly like the cover of the packet

Started block #6, Red Butterfly

I have some pillow cases am working on.

Well, scan them up! We'd love to see them, [MENTION=19754]naomibee[/MENTION]!

Today this should have been finished, but my dear one locked himself out of the truck twice, so I had to go arovin' around with a backup key. Poor guy.

Instead, I'm tired to my bones, but wanted to at least show I have been steadily stitching away at this. Some days only one or two flowers got done, but finally today, all 4 of them are totally done. The bad deal was, I just ran out of gas physically and emotionally dealing with my dear one's dementia, and one more skill down the tubes. It's rough. He went for over 40 years without ever locking himself out of a car due to his exceptional memory, and now, it's something every day. Hopefully, it was just a full moon or something, when everybody has a screw up or two. I don't know...

 

[freedombecki]

A good night's sleep helps. The red square is done. That's six, and the temptation to turn them into a hugs baby quilt at this point is strong. The cut-away backing came in for any size of quilt square that is desired yesterday, so the other six could be machine done if I can coax one of my better machines to work.

So here's the 6th square, more fun when done:

 

[koshergrl]

I love redwork. LOVE it.

 

[freedombecki]

I love redwork. LOVE it.

Thanks, koshergrl. I used 3 shades of red, and in front of the computer, I have to keep the bright light off, which makes me colorblind to close shades of red for some reason. So if it's looked at critically, it gets really bright and really dark, and neither light nor dark here and there around the outside. I also noticed later that the regular red was sometimes switched with the dark red and the light red on the chain stitches. In fact there are so many screw ups on it I'm not going to worry about it. It's bright and cheerful, that's what I was going for, but exact? Nope--not even close! Progress on it was so chopped up I was convinced it would take a year at one point. It may, too, if I make 2 small quilt out of the 12 squares!

 

[koshergrl]

The variations are what distinguish it from machine work. It's beautiful.

 

[naomibee]

It was sure nice to get the log cabin quilt knocked out this morning, and I persevered for the rest of the morning to get rid of the flowers on the purple butterfly square and start the Red morpho butterfly (hopefully or something like it. I really need to do research on the one red butterfly I found that was all red)

Here is completed block #5 (purple butterfly like the cover of the packet

Started block #6, Red Butterfly

I have some pillow cases am working on.

Well, scan them up! We'd love to see them, [MENTION=19754]naomibee[/MENTION]!

Today this should have been finished, but my dear one locked himself out of the truck twice, so I had to go arovin' around with a backup key. Poor guy.

Instead, I'm tired to my bones, but wanted to at least show I have been steadily stitching away at this. Some days only one or two flowers got done, but finally today, all 4 of them are totally done. The bad deal was, I just ran out of gas physically and emotionally dealing with my dear one's dementia, and one more skill down the tubes. It's rough. He went for over 40 years without ever locking himself out of a car due to his exceptional memory, and now, it's something every day. Hopefully, it was just a full moon or something, when everybody has a screw up or two. I don't know...

i will when i get it done.not much more to go.

 

[BDBoop]

A good night's sleep helps. The red square is done. That's six, and the temptation to turn them into a hugs baby quilt at this point is strong. The cut-away backing came in for any size of quilt square that is desired yesterday, so the other six could be machine done if I can coax one of my better machines to work.

So here's the 6th square, more fun when done:

I love the deep colors!

 

[freedombecki]

I have some pillow cases am working on.

Well, scan them up! We'd love to see them, @naomibee!

Today this should have been finished, but my dear one locked himself out of the truck twice, so I had to go arovin' around with a backup key. Poor guy.

Instead, I'm tired to my bones, but wanted to at least show I have been steadily stitching away at this. Some days only one or two flowers got done, but finally today, all 4 of them are totally done. The bad deal was, I just ran out of gas physically and emotionally dealing with my dear one's dementia, and one more skill down the tubes. It's rough. He went for over 40 years without ever locking himself out of a car due to his exceptional memory, and now, it's something every day. Hopefully, it was just a full moon or something, when everybody has a screw up or two. I don't know...

i will when i get it done.not much more to go.

That will be fun to see.

 

[freedombecki]

The variations are what distinguish it from machine work. It's beautiful.

My Pfaff sews what I tell it to sew. You can program imperfect-looking blanket stitches, for example, up to 120 different ones, just by copying the last thing you did that looked truly imperfect (speaking for myself, that is. )

I'll have to get my machine out and see if I can still remember how to do that. I've done straight stitching for almost 2 years now with those charity quilts I churned out. It's been enjoyable though.

Added some rows around the pink and red quilt started with 3 embroidered quilt squares someone found in the family trunk in an estate. It will be a nice little quilt when done if it looks half as good as my model. Of all things, I tracked the model down online the other day, and it was actually the back of the quilt. ROAR!!! That has to be the best back art I've ever seen!

And all I did today was pull out another group of squares I found on ebay, where someone had done the flowers on this panel, but not the children blocks. I finished up her duckie block by using the same colors one would expect to see on a mallard duck--green head, white ring neck, grayish tan body and blue on the wing, although it may not look much like a wing any more after I sewed stuff all cocklemaimie. Poor lady who sewed the flowers probably expected a more conventional approach to embroidery that my free style. I grow more and more convinced the lack of a dahlia-like flower at the top to correspond with the one at the lower left is why this group of 3 repetitions may have been a factory leftover, with someone just too disgusted to wash & repeat and put 3 blocks with the deficient blocks on a separate pile for factory workers to buy for 2 cents or just take home free, sometimes stuff the factory rejects. That's why there are 3 panels of 4 alike and one unalike, just maybe (not sure). I try to look for clues why I'd get a steal on ebay, and it's fun to figure out why this and why that. I worked in a really picky factory when I was young for one year. Those swimsuits didn't say "Catalina" until supervisor Angie said they could say "Catalina" on them. And there was some truly nice items in the company store of something that may have had such a minor flaw you'd have to be a total expert to figure out why it was there for sale cheap to workers. Their approach to excellence, though never once bothered me. I loved being shown how to make money doing perfect work 500 times a day. I made a game of it most days. They passed quickly. Only one day, I was really bored. I almost left the factory. Glad I didn't. Most days were a lot of fun because you could challenge yourself to a duel, and sometimes that landed you a supervisor visit to put you somewhere else while others caught up with you.

So much for my year in the sewing factory. Oh, yes, I made my first quilt top there. They had a ton of 40s' old swimwear material roughly the size of one foot by two foot "bricks" and I sewed them into a colossal, homey-looking stage curtain for the Christmas melodrama in which employee actors and actresses made fun of the bosses and supervisors with characters in the melodrama being named for this one and that.

The only thing consistent on the block are the previous embroiderer's lovely flowers in pink and purple.Here's my silly mallard ducky who should have been yellow, most likely, to fit in with forties toddlers expectations back then. I really don't know when it was printed, I'm just guessing from the colors the lady did 8 squares with as looking 40s-ish, though I really am just guessing:

[edit --adding 2 more blocks the way they arrived, completely finished.]

[scan 2 is the dog clown block that is finished]

[scan 3 is the elephant block. The elephant is a very pale gray, and it is almost indistinguishable from the somewhat aged percale that has mellowed to a similar color to unbleached muslin. It likely was pure white when new, and it takes about 70 years to age like these squares, another reason I though maybe 40s on these squares. This work may have been left unfinished before I was born. Or was picked up and given to a great grandmother who for some reason couldn't finish it, or a busy mom whose baby was born before the quilt was completed, so with her extra demands, she just put it away until "later," which never came...

It's easy to start a quilt thinking it wouldn't take much more time than a school art project.

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[Mr. H.]

A good night's sleep helps. The red square is done. That's six, and the temptation to turn them into a hugs baby quilt at this point is strong. The cut-away backing came in for any size of quilt square that is desired yesterday, so the other six could be machine done if I can coax one of my better machines to work.

So here's the 6th square, more fun when done:

I love the deep colors!

I love a good night's sleep.

 

[freedombecki]

It's only fair to show a few of the blocks that are already embroidered on this quilt. Ther are four more to do , but will do those tomorrow, because it's so late right now.

Scan 1 This block was received, like the mallard ducky, with some work done.

Scan 2 This is what the instructions probably told what colors to do the ducky in, and/or the embroider favored pink and purple fabrics and used light yellow, due to preference or instructions. There were no instructions when I received the blocks in various stages of completion and incompletion

Scan 3 This is the "Block" block which were toys many American children had when they were growing up, or played with blocks at Kindergarten or Sunday schools back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and just whenever. I'll have to look up the history of children's playing blocks before I finish this one if possible.

 

[BDBoop]

A good night's sleep helps. The red square is done. That's six, and the temptation to turn them into a hugs baby quilt at this point is strong. The cut-away backing came in for any size of quilt square that is desired yesterday, so the other six could be machine done if I can coax one of my better machines to work.

So here's the 6th square, more fun when done:

I love the deep colors!

I love a good night's sleep.

I sympathize - with the new parents in your life.

 

[BDBoop]

Happy weekend! Mine started when I got off work at 4:00 a.m.

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, BDBoop! You, too!

 

[freedombecki]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/8040317-post2472.html - Back to the 4 blocks finished. We spent time yesterday with the two wonderful angels who run the shop back in Wyoming, who are visiting the Houston Fall Quilt Show an hour and a half south of here, to see what's happening in new ideas in quilting for 2014. So I dropped when they left due to this awful junk that Fibromyalgia & its various accomplices, such as CFS, are.

This is 3 of the 4 more blocks of the 16 that were completed on receipt of the package (3 were partly worked on, and 5 had little to nothing embroidered on them.) These were done in varying pinks and colors. She used purple in every block and very little blue. My preference is a balance throughout the color wheel for a child's quilt, but well, it's a happycircumstance to have a lot of the blocks embroidered before starting the work.

 

[freedombecki]

The last one that was found by the estate owner's agents before her passing and sold to me on ebay not to long ago for addition to charity quilts they would be:

 

[BDBoop]

So much pretty!

 

[freedombecki]

Working on another quilt... the 3 vintage green and floral colors that were so finely embroidered probably 70 years ago due to the aging color of the white percale. It's not the first time I've dealt with fabrics that may have been done before my mother was born. Here are some borders I am now sewing around the strip made of the blocks to eventually be a good-sized child or senior quilt.

 

[freedombecki]

Currently on the machine (continued) 3 vintage embroidered florals...