Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[beautress]

Well, today the middle part got done of the above 8-rectangle, 4patch windmill, and it turned out to have 5x7=35 squares. An addition of 3 prints of pale greens to bring out the bright in the windmills for a child's enjoyment. Tomorrow, borders undetermined now will be added.

 

[beautress]

The pale greens were so appealing after sleeping on it last night. Not really sleeping on the unfinished quilt top, but just taking a fresh look on it this afternoon when I got around to it. So I started realizing the quilt wasn't demanding a huge outside, it was already plenty big and just needed a little something. So I took the fabric left over from the sets and cut 2.5" strips for the outer border, and found a small striped material for the inner border that looked like a rainbow, so cut those 1. and 3/8 inches wide, which finished to 7/8 of an inch because 7/8 + 7/8 = 1 3/4" which is the width of the strips in the windmill blades. It's now one of the most subtly pretty child's quilt top I've ever turned out, and I would hope I can quilt it to ensure its recipient will have a sturdy and a pretty quilt. We'll see how that goes, if possible. Not much else. I'll see if I can find another 4-blade windmill quilt on Bing! to share, if available. BRB

This quilt was found online and is nothing like my quilt, except for the 4-blade windmill.

Credits: Modern Quilting by B: Single Block Quilt Tutorial Series - Windmill - Part 5, Finished!

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[beautress]

Some finds on bing for windmill quilts (there are a lot more half-square triangle windmill blocks than the square type I'm doing in 1.25x2.5" finished rectangles, into 5" blocks of 8 rectangles each, 4 of which are the blades, and 4 of which are the background. Here goes some finds below

 

[beautress]

Oh, the funny men of the fifties...and a million laughs. Tipping hat to Laurel and Hardy, not to mention the Three Stooges, Moe Joe and Larry, et al.

 

[beautress]

Man, all I did yesterday was shuffle and press sewn strips for another windmill charity quilt, when I really want to make about 10 hero star log cabins--different strip sizes, different format, different everything. If you click on the first thumbnail, it's what a windmill quilt looks like sans sashing. If you click on the second thumbnail, you can envision what I call a hero star. The reason I call it that is because years ago, when our troops were coming home minus body parts from Afghanistan and Iraq, my shop in Wyoming held evening meetings/classes on making purple heart quilts from large hearts shaped like the one on George Washington's purple heart award begun back during Revolutionary War days for American soldiers who were killed or wounded in commission of their duties to protect civilians from the British forces who were killing our Colonial Americans after we declared our Independence on July 4, 1776. Then, I came across these re-arranged log cabin block into star format and liked it so well, when we got tired of doing purple hearts (about 20 quilts later, I started piecing together log cabin blocks to make hero star quilts that fit a lot better into their duffel bags due to the slight smaller size that a 1-man quilt is instead of the full-size quilts we had made. It was a long, arduous project, but after I got fibromyalgia, the quilting became very difficult for me to do, and the war ended close to the same time anyway, but I continued to make a few more smaller quilts for our police department squad cars because they seemed to be just the right size to cover a person who'd been in a car wreck that was attended by our cops in squad cars, so I used the hero star for at least 24 quilts I made and donated to the police department for letting me show quilts at city hall, which helped bring a few customers through my business doors in a small town when little else did. I just loved doing those hero stars. I didn't have to use all just one color, and it was a lot of challenging fun for me to see how many quilts I could turn out in 6 months. There were 24 quilts in the show one year, all squad car quilt-sized, and many of the log cabin quilts were hero stars, although a few of the log cabins were formatted into more traditional schemas like "fields and furrows," "barn raising," "zig-zag" and the like. Ah, memories...

 

[beautress]

I'm going to go look up the three format log cabin quilts I mentioned above, and put them here. Keep in mind, I still haven't set up my n ew Canon printer, can't locate the instructions, and there it sits gathering dust, so I have to find stuff somebody else sewed online, while I work to produce all kinds of quilts I can't show from my own scraps, and I'm putting out about 5 quilt tops a month for my sisters in the Tall Pines Quilt Guild's Charity Bees group, which I now just sew quilt tops for, missing most meetings due to eyesight that doesn't do well driving at night.

So here they are, "fields and furrows," "barn raising," "zig-zag" thanks to some wonderful ladies online who make quilts for loved ones, soldiers, and charitable clauses. I hope it inspires someone to do quilts for others. When I'm done here, I'm going upstairs and will try to make some blocks of some kind to make more quilt tops for the bees of at least 2 groups, hoping I can locate their addresses that I wrote down somewhere, not sure where... :eyeroll:

 

[beautress]

The Barn raising quilts I usually do are in the format below:

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[beautress]

Every year, I pick a color. 2018, it was purple. 2019, it's blue.
2019, the Year of blue, and there are some beautiful quilts people have made that are blue. I'm still staring at my unused canon copier, darn.

So here's to the dears who have cameras and make pretty blue quilts! My mother loved blue...

 

[beautress]

Just goofed off all day today. *sigh* Time to go and find a really fantastic quilt. BRB. 20 minutes of fun later...
Ok, a pickle dish quit set my soul on fire tonight.
Starting with the block below, I will upload files when I can, post quilts when they let me.

Pickle Dish Blocks

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[beautress]

New Attitude for Pickle Dish Quilts...

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[beautress]

This quilt just has that art feeling to it.
All the ones I saw today were out of this world.

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[beautress]

More pickle dishes... For some reason, I associate this pattern with something that starts with the word "Indian" though not sure why. I'll look it up one of these days and bring it back why. BTW growing older is not for sissies when it comes to remembering stuff right!

Notice that there are several different but similar quilt types with the same name of "Pickle Dish."
That may be because our mothers saw a quilt back before the days of computers, but when they got home, the remembered what it looked like only in part, and just kept on working on the quilt till it was finished with the name of a quite different quilt than another quilter would have remembered.
More pickle dishes

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[beautress]

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[beautress]

This one is called by its smaller curved piece that reminds us of a "Clamshell" but it uses the Pickle dish format for interest.

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[beautress]

This one seems to be a little of everything...and there's a kitchen sink in there somewhere.

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[beautress]

Does this pickle dish wannabe rock or what?

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[beautress]

Oh, my! Recent net gatherings of quilts are reflecting my love for modern art quilts done in traditional patterns...such contrast. And here it is, Feb. 2nd, time getting close for Valentine's day! Did I see some cuties that could be quickly transformed into charity quilts for a beloved baby (aka child of God). *sigh* Some small gleanings from the net …

Sew many quilts, so little time...





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[beautress]

St. Paddy's Day is coming up soon, too! It's all in good fun! ​

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[beautress]

Oh, my! It's Groundhog's day, Feb 2!!! Grandma's birthday. Unfortunately, she's gone. She was born Feb 2, 1898. I think that may have been 121 years ago. She lived to be 96. I loved her so. Happy birthday, Mattie Beautress Shurtleff!!! You were the best grandma anyone could ever have hoped for. Always busy cooking and making your home available for family and friends. Lucky me.

A Groundhog's Day Baby Quilt from the net: (lower left character, looking for his shadow...)

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[beautress]

Oh, and here's the whole quilt:

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