Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

The car material on the above quilt didn't come out as pretty as it is in real life on my monitor. Oh, well. Today, I finally got all the squares completed for the next windmill quilt that I am calling Birds of Summer Windmill quilt. I had put together a lot of squares yesterday, but today, I joined the squares on the last row and added a light colored stripey border and some red, blue, and yellow songbird material on light blue clouds as the border. Yay! That's 9 of 10 quilt tops for June all done!!!

Last month, it seems log cabins took all my time. This month, it's Windmill/Twister block quilts doing that. I already have at least 35 or 36 of the multi-colored windmills for the next quilt, and wouldn't it be loverly to finish tomorrow. Then I can clean house and do some living for a week before hitting the sewing machine trail again. Oh, I do need to complete a few pillows this month. I've got stuffing coming out the wazoo, and I need to put it in several pillow tops that are already quilted, just need backs.

 

[freedombecki]

Birds of Summer blocks and border II

 

[koshergrl]

I love the windmills.

I have a quilt I still haven't finished that's windmills.....

 

[freedombecki]

Hi, Koshergrl. I worked on another windmill top and got 7 rows by 8 rows. I'm plum tuckered out. For some reason, I got up at 4:30 am and couldn't wait to get started, and realizing I'd need more than 50 blocks, (had 36 blocks stashed away), I'd have to sew. So I sewed red, orange, and lime green windmills because I figured I'd run short of those colors. Well, it was a scrap quilt anyway, and it's pretty scrappy, except it is sewn with colors cascading down from NW to SE kind of in rainbow order, except I got creative with pink by using slightly tinted peaches and light reds here and there, and even a tinted redwood fabric.

I'm so glad the hard part is done. I have the easy part to go. A couple of borders is all it needs. I'm thinking of doing music notes on the two outer borders--a black on white music notes, and then last year someone printed rainbow colored music notes onto a black background, and I have a yard and a half, which is plenty for a border on a 36x 41" start. That was about 8 hours. I'm so tired of windmills. Since January, I've done about 6 or 7 of them. The good side of them is they are faster than 4-patchs. Think I'll run down and get the quilt. It's truly scrappy, and that property causes the rainbow effect to lessen as do the values of the backgrounds. A truly good rainbos is best with all white in-between or all black, usually. Mine is so bizarro world, I'm thinking I could probably call it planet earth if I bordered it with some bluegreen tinted swirl fabric.

 

[freedombecki]

Scrap windmills 6.8.12. There are 56 blocks. They cascade as per color order in a prism. You won't see it here until I do something about learning to use the new camera in the unopened box (secret dread).

So FWIW, here are the block sewn together:

 

[freedombecki]

Just to say, all that work had a great outcome. I kept noticing of the 56 windmills, a lot of them had a light or yellow background. Then, as I was sorting through fabrics, looking for a white with notes to do the prosaic border, I found this fun yellow print with music notes and staff lines on it, so... it really looked good with the dark multicolor note fabric I was considering for a border. Sometimes things just go well in the sewing room, and it's like lightning falling in your lap when that happens. I'm happy with the outcome, and I didn't notice any untoward harping of yellow fabrics in competition with other colors.

Ezekiel "The presence of the Lord is found in the colors of the bow of the sky." He may have been harking back to the story of Noah, when God promised man he would never send another flood like the one of biblical proportions. Ezekiel may have seen a lot of trouble in his day. He spoke of his vision or dream of a time in mankind's future when God could make dry bones would raise up and praise the Him should men ever forget him again. Ezekiel's wheel was multicolored. So is this small quilt, to honor the immortal, invisible God who gives me no such insight but much joy in his presence, though I am so often blind to what is standing right in front of me in the form of his gifts. Scuse my maudlin moment.

The quilt is renamed for it's pretty fabric border. Here are some scans of the Musical windmills of prism quilt I had so much fun making for the last 3 days:

 

[freedombecki]

Musical windmills of prism quilt II

 

[freedombecki]

Musical windmils of prism quilt III

 

[freedombecki]

Yesterday was spent packing up the Brother sewing machine I bought at Wally World until my 2 good machines came back from 2 different repair places, one a Bernina, and one a Pfaff. I moved the sewing area upstairs and now have my little Pfaff sewing machine, its table, a small but adequate cutting table and travel iron and small board that probably is now an antique. Anyway, in the shuffle I found 2 red log cabin stars, an experiment in using 1/8" seam allowances by the second or third block, I decided I didn't care for 1/8" seam allowances, so tossed the squares aside and forgot all about them. They're 20 inches square, so I thought would make a good medallion center for a baby quilt in red and white. I still had some of the Cats-a-Blankie (a few pages back) fabric left over, so put a small border at the sides top and bottom of that along with 3 other borders. If you take a small square and use only one fabric, unless it is a show stopper, you have a quilt that looks like you weren't willing to spend the time to make it look like a handmade quilt. Anyway, I have 6 pics, so will show 3 scans below and 3 scans in the next post.

 

[freedombecki]

And the other three shots of the red lolcats log cabin star quilt:

4, 5, and 6

I don't know if she checks this thread out ever, but I was thinking of Amelia when I did the border!

 

[freedombecki]

Several years ago, I made up a pattern for my friends on ranches who had daughters or sons who were horse-crazy by the time they were 2 years old, and I set aside my tendency to like fine art in place of doing a naive horse pattern that would appeal to these wonderful ranch people who had so little time to quilt due to taking care of horses, cattle, and fences. Fences always seem to need attention. lol

The name of the pattern was "Horsey Run" I made large versions for the quilt, but liked it so well, simplified it here and there to make do for a quilt using many horses in blocks. This was one made up to help sell the pattern. People kept buying the other horsey run quilts I made, plus some were given to the local handicapped children day care in the town where I lived.

I started this a couple of months ago, but until I got other projects unloaded, this one just got put at the bottom of the stack. I deserve the time it took me to reiron the oddball pieces, too. The fabric in the patched pastures came from some store samples sent to the local quilt shop here in Walker County, but were outdated and given to people in Charity Bees group as a routine our that ourquilt store owner does. So here's the finished top a year later. I hope they find a good quilter to make this little quilt rock.

 

[freedombecki]

Horsey Run in Patched Pastures II

 

[freedombecki]

Horsey Run in Patched Pastures III

Some of the rough edges had to be carefully sewn over with the pink solid I picked to border them. It was a task and a half with multiple double seams to make things right. That's because the smaller four-patch squares still weren't large enough to measure up to the framed squares of a different size of square. lol Same fabric manufacturer, pieces didn't fit together right, but they were samples that were just large enough to show what needed to be shown to sell the bolt, I suppose. Anyway, here are the last scans I took

and "The End"

 

[freedombecki]

This is just for me.

It's a log of quilts that I have been piling up since a few days before the end of May. I found 4 finished tops, outright. They still keep popping up 3 years later, but that's because I made them as displays in my quilt store to sell fabric, and when it sold, they were neatly tucked away, unfinished, some not even in one piece, etc. I worked 80 hour weeks for 23 years up until the last couple of years when my fibromyalgia got so bad, I had to pretty much turn things over to others while I tried to find ways to beat the disease. I eventually got a special supplement (called Vital Factors) to take away pain, which felt like I got my life back, but other "sistie-ugliers" that go along with Fibro can do you in, for all practical purposes. There are times of "fibro-fog" CHF, IBS, overdoing, forgetting to take medicine and being back at step 1 in 3 short days of forgetting (due to fibro-fog and the cheerful delusion you are somehow "over it.") I had 11 syndromes when I retired 3 years ago and moved home to Texas. Here, the doctor diagnosed yet another--2 bad parathyroids that screwed up my calcium, put spurs all over my feet bones, crippling me, etc. A surgery squared that problem away, but it took a year to get rid of the bony protruberances everywhere except my hands (thank heavens!) that built up the years nobody knew what was making it more and more difficult to stand on my feet. Anyway, to make a long story short, even on my worst days, I can still usually sit and sew in front of the sewing machine, or I can still sit on the tractor stool and mow 10 of the acres that are not taken up by buildings or house, barn, arena cover, etc. There are days I should just stay in bed all day, with no more rhyme or reason than fibro kicking my butt for 5 years before I found Vital Factors. And winters are sheer hell, due to the affectation of cold on muscle/tendon synapses contractions. hahaha what a mess. Nonetheless, I have fashioned an active life around sitting, and try to spend a little time outside each day walking without getting too tired. It's about 400 steps to the back fence and almost 400 steps to the front. 800 steps is about all I can do, without CFS setting up housekeeping in my beat up body. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). In winter, it changes to "do nothing to get chilled." So I wear thermal underwear from a month before first frost until 2 months after the last one. Hats and gloves, too.

I'm challenging myself this month to make as many quilt tops as I can to keep up my goal of 10 per month for the charity bees closet. I know they will get good and sick of me by December 31, but that's tough. It's my goal, and they can take 3 years to quilt them, until I learn how to quilt the "Fun and Done" method. My muscles do not cooperate with standing before the quilt machine any more, although I have 2, one of which is of professional quality and I probably made 600 quilts on before all was said and done over 20 of the years when I could still quilt. Oh, how I loved to quilt. It is the song of my soul, and so is designing, drawing out designs, refining them until they look right, and then doing the quilt. One of my quilts took 600 hours of library work to find every hat, glove, apron, man's hat, bodices, shirts, pants, skirts of child couples from 50 countries. One other problem was the Chinese couple. I spent 6 weeks until I got the Chinese couple right. Finally, I went to the library (oh, no, here comes the costume lady looking for another book!) and selected a book on Chinese legends and stories from the Chinese culture. I read the whole book. Finally, after thinking about it, it sunk in what I was doing on the drawing board. I was trying to conform the Chinese culture into my little Western World think box. Doh! No wonder a good design didn't happen. Once I cut the crap and began thinking what it was like to be a Chinese person who was right with the world, every puzzle part fell into place, and the design was done in a single afternoon after 6 weeks of unenlightment. The Chinese people have their way of thinking, and it is unlike Western thought and perceptions as it can be. I will just say this. I learned to think of the Chinese people as a gift as deep as the sea and as wide as the world.

Oh, yes, today's list of quilties so far. I went back through the pictures back to the end of May, where this stack of quilt starts, keeping in mind I had found several tops as I was still going through the leftovers of display quilt tops I made over 23 years in business. There are yet more, but I'm not going to worry about that right now. I'm just going to keep on keeping on doing Charity bee tops, and they're not large quilts. I'm still going to keep sending a large quilt now and then for when someone's house burns down and needs a cover, or the Patriotic ones for a Wounded Warrior. I try to give them one big top a year, which they raffle to a soldier who presents his old service card to the commander at the Hearts museum a few miles from here.

Here are my quilts already done to take to the charity b's closet for June, 2012:
1. Patriotic Pumpkin Seed/Football Top - King Size top - 2010
2. School Days and Paper Dolls Top - 2010, but bordered last week.
3. 5-Patch Postage Stamp and Paper Dolls top - 2010
4. Kalahari Puzzle blue border - 2008 or 2009 before May, when we moved to TX
5.Horsey Run in Patched Pastures - 6.12.12
6. Red and White lolcats 8-point log cabin star, started 2009, finished 6.12.12
7. Musical Windmills of Prism - 6.11.12
8. Birds of Summer Windmills 6.07.12
9. Hues of the Open Road (cars border) 6.05.12
10. 4-point Big Hearted Friendship Star quilt, red dot border, 6/03.12
11. RWB Windmill I Quilt Williamsburg navy/red floral border, 6.03.12
12. Blue and White U.S.Army Hero Star quilt, 6.02.12
13. RWB Windmills II Quilt top, Star and Red/blue blossoms border, 6.02.12
14. Green Postage Stamp Quilt 6.01.12
15. Red Filigree Jacobean Postage Stamp quilt 5.29.12
16. Time for Stories Postage Stamp Quilt with child stories, songs, and poetry figures in border, 5.27.12

Some days you just need to make a list. I'm glad I did. I have another red white and blue quilt, somewhere, but I may save that for a different time.

There are 2 weeks and 2 days left in June. I wonder how many quilts I could just keep on keeping on making? I'm having myself a little quilt-off.

Thanks for not looking.

 

[freedombecki]

This morning I got up and realized the quilt I worked on yesterday was not one that would have good proportions, so the first thing I did was rip two seams out. Then did dishes, came here for a spell, and spent the whole afternoon making the list above that nobody looked at. It took 2 hours to get it all written down in my little pink notebook used to record quilts done. I was confused over March, but that may have been the month I crocheted dishrags for the local quilt guild's annual show. I don't get out much, so don't know whether they sold them or not. I hope they put the right price on them so all 50 or 60 of them sold for use in people's kitchens or I've noticed they're pretty good washrags, too, even if they're not turkish towels. They weigh about the same and are 100% cotton, so they can be boiled if not dried properly and left to mold spores. Now, it's time to go put the first border on the 6 squares of the funky monkey quilt. There are enough squares to possibly do 2 quilts and a pillow.
Later, gaters. I have to take that nap first.

 

[freedombecki]

Not finished, but making progress...

 

[freedombecki]

From this morning's workday: from graphs done in my purse notebook, usually made when waiting for food in restaurants. They may be a year, two, or three years old. Anyway, my baby sister always referred to turtles as "Terkels" much to everyone's amusement...

So, I'm showing a couple of drawings. One would have resulted in 1/2" squares to get a 12" block, which was decided against since I've been there, done that, couldn't stand the t-shirt. The other was done, and we left the restaurant before I could redraw into not sure what else, so I just sat down to my machine, started sewing using 2 colors of green and 2 prints of glacier blue water. They're just test runs. The second one looks more like a horned toad reject, but I am posting it all anyhow, so people can understand the creative process postage stamp quilters go through to get a 12" (or close to it) square from their effort.

this one is eleven inches, because it's symmetric from a center vertical row. but asymmetric horizontally since there is a head and tail. The second square was done not according to plan, and it totally sucks imho. With a couple of changes though would make a schema like a horned toad. With this few squares in a design, nothing approaches a complex design or arrangement, reality averaged off in gross squares. About all you can say for it is that it may be construed as graphic. I have 6 scans in this and the next post.

 

[freedombecki]

Scans 4, 5, and 6. 6 is the one that looks like a horned toad with an inverted tail rather than a turtle.

I used a smaller 1-inch block than my usual postage stamps that are 1.25". I thought I could get the whole design on the scanner. I may have to do mockups in 3/4-inch rather than 1-inch if the design is to show on the scanner. I do not care in the least for the size of 1/2" because the 1/4" seam allowances do not sew accurately.

 

[freedombecki]

Sometimes things change when you sleep on it.

This morning I got up, and decided "Oops! The Funky Monkey Quilt needs to be finished." I did, sewing another hundred or so postage stamps for the bottom border and completed going around in the rest of the green border, too. It's done! Yea!

 

[freedombecki]

I also thought long and hard about the turtle quilt, even did a mock up for a child sized quilt using larger squares. That would take a lot of time, which I'm willing to spend, but when you have goal-setting and you're feeling okay, it's nice to quilt ahead. I figured out a way to do some much faster quilts, and I did no quilts to speak of in March, when I was crocheting dish rags for the women's bazaar. They said they had trouble selling them, because they didn't do a "Quilting in the Pines" which they have done as a tradition for 10 years. It's a lot of work and takes very healthy and determined people to do that. All those in that category are looking for ways to work outside their homes and try to help pay the increasing costs of living, pay for kids' college tuition, which seems to be up, and try to do Charity Bee quilting as well. Younger women are not quilting, but working, trying to keep clothes on their childrens' backs as prices spiral upward. Eh, things go up and down, people worry, and their goals change too.

So I drew up a plan and made the first block this morning.

For my series on Checkerboard bi-color quilts. Of course, nobody else is doing what I'm doing right now, but I did find a cute multicolored checkerboard someone made up recently and posted somewhere online... so I'm showing a finished "checkerboard" that probably will not resemble my little simple 2-color checkerboards.