Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[Mr. H.]

This thread is where I retreat for a dose of temporal sanity around here.

 

[koshergrl]

This thread is the only reason I post at usmb.

 

[koshergrl]

One of my next projects...bun covers for ballet, using the little ribbons that came around the flowers that my daughter rec'd backstage. There's maybe 15 of them? Or so?

Anyway, they're all sheer blue ribbon, perfect size for using as the draw string on bun covers.

http://www.mooglyblog.com/all-too-perfect-crocheted-bun-cover/

 

[Mr. H.]

10 best places to see amazing quilts

Well, besides here of course.

 

[koshergrl]

 

[freedombecki]

Finally finished it. I was going to make some white sea shell adornments but the pattern I had was giving me fits so I just made do.....I see toes on that mermaid! Next time I make one, I'll make a liner to go with.

I just noticed..she has it on backwards so you can't see the detail of the fins, lol.

Job well done, Koshergrl! She's adorable!

 

[freedombecki]

10 best places to see amazing quilts

Well, besides here of course.

Mr. H, from your link was included a Museum we visited about 7 weeks ago, before I fell:

Texas Quilt Museum
La Grange, Texas
This Lone Star quilt haven grew out of Houston's mammoth International Quilt Festival, which started in 1974 and now attracts more than 60,000 visitors a year. The museum's collection reflects just a sample of the extraordinary works displayed at the show. The holdings, Tims proudly notes, include his pieces. 979-968-3104; texasquiltmuseum.org

I bought a book there on Texas Quilts III, and it's really wonderful!

 

[freedombecki]

Day before yesterday, the entire day went to making a charity quilt, and it was a little larger than I planned because I added Row 7 to the bottom for a tall tyke expected to be taller yet! I just hope the girls in Charity Bees find the right recipient. It was another turning windmill top, inspired by koshergrl on one of her earlier posts here as an ongoing project she is quilting. I must've made ten of those by now, and they're so much fun to put together, and even the sashing is fun. I had so much fun making them, I must've made a couple of hundred 5.5" blocks into a single stack, and have been whitling on them ever since, adding a yellow block here and an orange block there. This latest one was done in greens, so I have only made 10 quilts so far this year, and it's April already.

We had some really tough days lately with my fall and all those facial fractures and double vision. I really didn't do much, until the day I just said to myself, "enough. It's time to complete something I started." *sigh* Then, having conveniently forgotten the curved circles quilt blocks, I tore into that windmill stack, picked 24 squares, and noticed I was shy of yellow and a good red, so I got busy and first thing you know had 27 squares. I just grabbed the 28th from the remaining pile and decided it would be 4x7 instead of 4x6. I used the bright green from the border of the froggie friend quilt as sashes and setting squares with a white with green print around the bright green. It was a lot of work, but it was different than any other quilt with windmills, and I loved doing it. I hope the Charity bees love it, too. Gosh, I made 10 consecutive quilts with green as borders and themes.

I never made a green quilt in my life until Green became my daughter's love and passion. Then I made her two plus did wallhangings for her bedroom, which she really enjoyed. After that, I realized what a pleasing color she picked, and started just enjoying working with green. As much as I love blue, could I finish a blue quilt? Nope! It took 3 years to finish the blue Victorian quilt, which I never use, but her green quilt, which was equally hard to do due to it being an uneven log cabin circles quilt, was done in under two months and at the time was likely the most pieces in a log cabin quilt ever done by me. (or not). I made so many of them for the squad cars back in my years in Wyoming, that I know at least a couple of them would fit a queen bed, and one in particular would fit a dual king it was so huge. After that, I just made quilts in the 60x80" range, sometimes 96" long if it was for a wounded vet. Those pioneer Wyoming fellows were a tall rangy lot when I first arrived. They had to be big people to survive the 40 below winters that were so common in the 60s and 70s, and long before that!

Well, anyway, my face is itchy and horrid because nerves and muscles were rearranged poorly in the hardest fall I ever had, and needless to mention, you never saw a blacker eye nor one that extended all the way down to below the chin. It was half my face, and it was completely ash black from the bleeding from fractured bones all over. It's healed, thanks to being on people's prayer lists, but I still have a tad of double vision and am going to the specialist one more time with surgery being a possible outcome, and hopefully they will made a decision no later than next week as to whether or not my eye needs surgery's correction or if it is too risky.

Good night all. Please keep Mrs. Bloodrock on your prayer list. She's been in the hospital twice recently and while she seems to be better, she's had a diminished schedule due to her illness. Prayers up!

Oh, yes, and also Sunshine hasn't checked in too often lately. I can only hope she is taking it easy and having beautiful spring weather, colorful flowers, and surrounded by family and her circle of real world friends. Prayers up for comfort for all the suffering caused her by her illness with many good days ahead and good company.

Love,

becki

 

[koshergrl]

Wow becki you've had a time of it. Prayers for healing and alleviation of pain. So sorry about your face! Not a good place to land when falling, I know. I went to bed super early last night, the first night after my daughter's show closed on Sunday. It was glorious.

 

[freedombecki]

Good to hear koshergrl. The time that follows the ending of a production like that is a breath of fresh air after all that love and work goes into it. Hope a wonderful week follows of happiness and joy for a job well done.

 

[koshergrl]

I'm starting on my second bun warmer. I'm using a larger hook (I already was using a larger hook than the original pattern...and the bun warmer I made is almost too small for my girl's hair) and so far it looks really good! I think I messed up the 4th & 5th rows in the first one. The girl is wearing it at school today though, she likes it!

The one I'm doing now is in the same green as the baby's mermaid tail.

 

[freedombecki]

Start with a center piece and sew them together to a foundation:

Work the stitches in a hoop:

Here's an embroidered crazy quilt block:

Oh the work!

Here's a book that makes it foolproof I saw on Amazon and at Connecting threads:

More from "foolproof" crazies:

And Allie Aller's book on Crazy quilting looks fun:

She's doin' it the hard way, but the colors are so cute, I'd just die to look at 12 squares not yet embroidered and think of the months it would take to do it instead of doing a block every couple of days...

I think crazy quilting would be fun, but right now, my better half is demanding lunch soon! C-yas!

 

[koshergrl]

I love crazy quilts. you don't see many anymore.

 

[freedombecki]

I love crazy quilts. you don't see many anymore.

They're a lot of fun. Our guild made one a few years back and used the raffle money to buy scholarships at Sam Houston State University.

I make a crazy quilt now and then. They're a whole lot of fun to use all those embroidery stitches on your sewing machine that never get used for anything else (well, for some.)

 

[BDBoop]

I just wanted to apologize for my behavior last time I visited, and hope I am okay to visit again (on my best behavior). I will understand if the answer is 'no.'

 

[koshergrl]

Yesterday, I finished the infinity houndstooth...today, I made skulls! I'm going to make the boy a scarf:

 

[koshergrl]

This was the first one, variegated worsted cotton, and an f hook (the white skull is acrylic worsted and a G hook):

 

[freedombecki]

Nice work, koshergrl.

Everyone has bad days, BDB.

And I have a headache. This morning instead of drinking coffee, I took a couple of naps because of facial itching on the injury. (indicates healing). Did dishes, cottled miss Music, coddled Mr. Freedom's hurt feelings, went back to bed and fell asleep. Woke up to take Mr. Freedom to lunch, so now, I have to go back to bed to escape the headache and facial itching. Tomorrow when I get up, I am definitely gonna have some coffee!

Love to all

Oh, and Mr. Freedom was so antsy to leave, I didn't get the last two borders on the little quilt I finished the middle of the other day. Hope I have progress to share tomorrow.

Love to all who enter here, with some saved especially our dear Sunshine, who hasn't checked in since 3/31 with a picture of her finished tablecloth. She's on my prayer list every night as are everyone here and our fellow Americans who seem to feel a little divided these days.

 

[koshergrl]

I missed the tablecloth!!!

 

[freedombecki]

I missed the tablecloth!!!

Oh, I knew that could be taken in more ways than one. She didn't show it and said she would wait till she did the rest of the outer rows first. What I meant to say was that I hope she will post it when she's ready, which would be nice if it were soon. But whether she feels like doing all that work or not, it'd sure be nice if she just dropped in to say hello now and then. Maybe she will, but it's been 3 weeks since I heard from her. I just pray that she's comfortable and happy. She spent her entire life making sure other people were comfortable and happy enough to mend properly when devastated by illnesses. She mentioned some time back on one of the threads that she was tempted to go back and help fill in where she used to work. Well, I do miss Ms. Sunshine, but I know she has a lot of friends in her area. She's a credit to her community. Coouldn't possibly blame any of them if they wanted all her time spent in their associations.