Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

That mulling like hot apple cider, was good. Sometimes when you have too much going? It's good to throw in a black and white check or M.C. Escher-style print, but due to selection is probably more repetitive than not. Escher is that Holland-Dutch artist from Amsterdam that created black and white art in which one object morphed across the canvas or rag into something else. For example, the fish that becomes a bird. That gives room to variation in overall width of quilt, or you can add a piano key border that deals with the narrow width issue if longer keys are used at either end, or if you avoid piano keys entirely at the top. Slight variations in vertical and horizontal sashes can also help avoid the "didn't plan it this way, but there ya are with a quick fix wide side" deal and still give a quilt that looks and feels like true planning went into its makeup. Consistency in repair is the key. OR you can just make 12 time-consuming blocks instead of 6 and cut the s.o.s border think bit out entirely. If you have a limited stash and are working on a charm quilt, the 12 block deal could stretch your stash too thin and wind up in unwitting repeats everywhere. Note: a true charm quilt has no repeats, although traditionally 1 repeat is allowed. If you have 10,000 postage stamps in a quilt, you could do it, but you'd first have to line out every single square into dozens of color and value groupings to ensure no repeats, and keep them in 10 clearview plastic sacks of 1,000 different fabrics entirely, plus another sack of new accumulations as you work and shop for fat quarters or acquire postage stamps from the stashes of friends that you know were not in your own stash to start with. A good rule of thumb if you get pieces from a friend, she needs to know you used her pieces. It's complex.

Images for understanding:

1. Escher Morph of fish to bird

2. Escher Tessellation of bird by way of mastery of positive/negative spacing

3. Timeless Treasures, a Traditional black and white print:

 

[Dabs]

Yet one more end area, the center of the log cabin star, and one of the pairs of star points (there are 8 in all on each log cabin star 24" center)

I really like the blended colors here......gorgeous!!

 

[freedombecki]

Hi, Dabs. I'm so pleased you like it. I had made a dozen of the 24" blocks, but can't quilt anymore, so I made up 5 or 6 of them this month to send to the Bees closet.

Thanks for your thoughtful and kind words.

 

[freedombecki]

This one was more fun than a basketful of kittens. I was in the local quilt shop buying yard pieces for this that and the other, and I picked this one. The shopkeeper is a merciful lady, and she noticed I'd picked up a bolt she said she was "tired of looking at." (Yeah, right. It's the cutest little redwork cats I ever saw in a print, but I could only afford 1 yard.) She said "if you take all of it you can have it for half price." Wow! That was too good to pass up, so thanks to Doris, I have plenty to do a couple or 4 of charity quilts, so I am presenting, "Cats, A Blankie." Click on image 3 to see why it was named for cats.

 

[freedombecki]

Woo hoo! My May pile of quilts may hit 10 unless I hit the wall. Sometimes that happens. Right now, I'm thinking about a quilt that is still in parts from a couple of years back. A lick and a promise plus a border, it will be a nice child's quilt. It's the windmill pattern, except this one is all crazy and mixed up colors, as I recollect from the other day. (8 am this morning left computer to find and work on quilt. It's huge compared to the star quilts of late.)
Well, back from the fabric room, spent an hour and a half ripping stuff off and rearranging it, then found a spritely little border left over from the seahorse and blue quilt made a couple of pages back. I may add a border, "froggies" if I can talk a certain someone into having it quilted and distributed to a frogman hero. They are another one of our special forces I gather. If not, it goes to the HEARTS museum quilters, their choice.

Just getting back to this quilt with a completion (YAY!!!) and pictures taken this morning of the 12-block quilt that turned out very close to the size of a twin bed, but not quite. It will hopefully go with a child who is either taller or will have a quilt to grow into and maybe even take to a college dorm someday. I honor Frogmen and all Special Services for this quilt, and am donating it to a shelter because the only fabrics I could find were juvenile, so I had to kind of scrap plans for a patriotic work. Something will come along one of these days, just not yet. I renamed the quilt "Whirlpool of Fun."

 

[freedombecki]

Whirlpool of Fun II

 

[freedombecki]

Whirlpool of Fun post 3

 

[freedombecki]

Whirlpools of Fun IV

 

[freedombecki]

I was just browsing the net, when I ran into this beautiful postage stamp quilt a lady is doing somewhere in the US of A... To me, it is pure eye candy. I know how much work she put into it!

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[Amelia]

That is so bright and cheery!

Postage stamp? Does that mean tiny blocks? Or something about the layout? Or?

 

[freedombecki]

Same blog, I think... and an amazing first quilt out of fabric yo-yos!

credits

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[freedombecki]

That is so bright and cheery!

Postage stamp? Does that mean tiny blocks? Or something about the layout? Or?

Yes. Our grandmothers, who never threw anything away, cut tiny squares left over from dresses and shirts they made from 36" wide cotton materials, sewed them together as best they could, and made "postage stamp" quilts--some only made it to doll bed quilts, others went into making little hot pads for their kitchens or gifts. They've even made toys for children with them.

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[freedombecki]

That is so bright and cheery!

Postage stamp? Does that mean tiny blocks? Or something about the layout? Or?

That reminds me...

 

[freedombecki]

Last Tuesday, I took 10 quilts down to the Charity Bees closet, so I got to give my friends a small quilt show of the 10 quilts I finished for May. They liked Cats A Blankie so well, I think I'd better make several of them If I have the supplies, that is. Last week, as I was lamenting at the USMB Coffee Shop, I sewed everything together upside down or attached parts to the wrong parts to get such gibberish, I ripped and redid a whole lot of stupid. Then, I had a 2 day lag of confusion when 2 of the squares didn't do right, and the white fabric used went the wrong way on two out of 9 16-patch squares. Naturally, you couldn't fix it because of the arrangement selection I used of lights and darks and every-other. So overnight, in my mind's eye I kept trying to figure out what to do. Well, Eureka, they'd all be going the same way if I made the 16-patches into 5-patch, 25 square blocks and made sure strong reds were in all 4 corners. That way, no prob!!! It didn't take long to get the 9 squares right, and I thought that if I did 4 more blocks, I could do a 3x5 block (15 blocks) quilt for an older child that would be a good deal for a kid temporarily held in an abuse shelter. With adequate borders, etc, it might even cover his or her toes through the first year of college or so. I now do not know which of the 13 squares are the 2 that went the wrong way, because now, all of them now can easily be interchanged and still be stacked with the white-on-white slubbed stripes consistent with either latitude or longitude. I didn't photograph them on the scanner that way, however, so you will see a little bit of who knows what if you click on the thumbnails.
Block 1
Block 2
Block 3

 

[freedombecki]

Block 4
Block 5
Block 6

 

[freedombecki]

Block 7
Block 8
Block 9

 

[freedombecki]

Block 10
Block 11
Block 12

 

[freedombecki]

I had a lot of red squares left over (on purpose) since I may visit this agenda again. I sewed 64 different (well, I thought) squares. Guess which one is duplicated. I only used 63 fabrics. I will rep the first person who can tell within 24 hours unless I really, really run out of rep. hahaha. This is an easy one to describe, so it will probably be the first person who gets here who posts.

Block 13
Red Square with 63 fabrics (not all of the blocks are on the screen because it's 8.5x11 inches, and my blocks are 10.5" squares. However, enough is visible to see a double.

If nobody guesses right in 24 hours, I get to choose who gets the rep. Deal? OK! Oh, yes. Please post your rep below. Guesses pm'd will not count.

 

[Dabs]

Same blog, I think... and an amazing first quilt out of fabric yo-yos!

credits

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This is awesome!!
So gorgeous....breath-taking...it's beautimus!!!
I love it

 

[freedombecki]

Same blog, I think... and an amazing first quilt out of fabric yo-yos!

credits

​

This is awesome!!
So gorgeous....breath-taking...it's beautimus!!!
I love it

Thanks, Dabs! I had a stellar past several days in front of the sewing machine lately, and as I was piddling around trying to organize the sewing table, I found the new gadget I got from an ebay seller last time we were talking about yo-yo quilts around here a few weeks back. I got the biggest one to make big yoyos. I have two tons plus of quilt fabric in my stash, and that'd be a great way to get rid of some of it sometime. It's really neat. It has little holes in it and it snaps your fabric into place and you trim later instead of before. I've made a lot of yoyos in the past, and wouldn't a vest be so cute out of yoyos?