Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

This last one is awesome.
It is so colorful and so huge...it fits a king size bed.
Mother crocheted it for me when I was 8 months pregnant with my first child....and that child will turn 34 years old on July 3rd....so this afghan is 34 years old!!!
It still looks just as great as the day she gave it to me...I toss it into the washer and dryer

I think your mother was a master craftsman crocheter, Dabs. She did right by closings if you've washed it for 34 years and it still looks brand new. That's the hardest thing to do--conceal threads and have them stay that way through washings.

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, Dabs. I've made the ruffles on a few handmade potholders in the past. They take a ton of time, but they're really fantastic. When I do ruffled work, it's usually done in in a number 10 crochet yarn, though I've seen beautiful articles made with finer yarns. Talk about gorgeous! They're just the thickest, most beautiful works in the world. I really love this one, and if you can double crochet three or four times into the same space, you can do that kind of work, too, because that's all it is, over and over and over. I really go crazy for lace. Ruffled crochet over a surface is well worth whatever time you put into it, it's just absolutely dazzling if you ever get anything like that. That is just so fabulous, Dabs. I bet she put a thousand hours in it.

 

[Dabs]

Wow, Dabs. I've made the ruffles on a few handmade potholders in the past. They take a ton of time, but they're really fantastic. When I do ruffled work, it's usually done in in a number 10 crochet yarn, though I've seen beautiful articles made with finer yarns. Talk about gorgeous! They're just the thickest, most beautiful works in the world. I really love this one, and if you can double crochet three or four times into the same space, you can do that kind of work, too, because that's all it is, over and over and over. I really go crazy for lace. Ruffled crochet over a surface is well worth whatever time you put into it, it's just absolutely dazzling if you ever get anything like that. That is just so fabulous, Dabs. I bet she put a thousand hours in it.

Thanks Becki.....this is the one that I saw in a pattern book...it was a baby afghan....but I loved the ruffled pattern and the pastel colors....so Mother used thicker yarn and made it much bigger...it's one of my favorites *smiles*

 

[freedombecki]

After seeing all that awesome needlework, I'm so revved again, Dabs. Thanks again for sharing it. I had a little surgery on an ingrown toenail, and now I can stand for longer times than just a minute or two without all that pain. I didn't realize how debilitating it was until 4 days after the surgery I could stand up for a couple of hours without having to sit down every two or 3 minutes due to horrible pain. For the first time in 3 years, I finished quilting that little red checkerboard quilt top, in a day and had it bound too. Unfortunately, my machine overheated after 8 hours, and I was still raring to go. So I just got another machine out of the closet and finished it up. It also got bound, but the only shot I got of it before putting it away until I have a stack quilted is here, before binding:

The smaller pic is of the little samplet I made the other day which I thought might photograph better under the copier's hood, since it was smaller and gave more of the checkerboard "feel." I'd like to make a pillow top of the sample piece. It's about 10" square and with 2.5" border like the quilt's side, it would then be 15", the perfect pillow size.

 

[freedombecki]

Today, I just did grunt work--I have a huge box of long strips I sewed together thinking "I'll get around to it"=--and have been cutting them into 3" and 1.75" slices to make into squarish windmills and 4-patch pieces for future quilts. I probably sewed 30 or 40 pieces the equivalent of 5" patches, I wasn't counting. They all got pressed, every inch cut, and patches completed. I'm determined to finish off that barrel of twosie strips someday, and a lot of my quilts show those squares lately.

 

[freedombecki]

Today, I did a few more blocks in the morning. One I finally found the right two fabrics to sew together, made a long strip, which made 2 pinwheels and 4 4-patch squares, which will likely wind up part or parts of 3 or 4 quilts in the future. The trouble with doing several quilts at a time is that you spend a lot of time making small parts to be used in larger parts, then a quilt, and another, and another, etc. But you first spend several days sewing the different parts together. From patriotic fabrics, I am saving a 6.5" strip of twosies from all the red with a light and blue strip with a light color to sew the logs into a "Chinese coins" style quilt someday. I already had sewn enough logs to do two rows, which is half of the wheelchair-sized quilt (or child's quilt.) The nice thing about red and blue is they are such pretty quilts when you're done, they can be used for quilts for kids, too, if the need is there.

The darker blue with its pretty light was one that came about, when I ran into the cutest strip I'd cut from fabric that perished under heavy use into so many quilts over the past 6 months. so it may be the last piece, unless I have the good fortune of finding some more of the fabric if I simply set it aside to squeeze and feel once in a while. It's the first square.

The second square is nostalgic, because it not only reminds me of the quilt shop keeper here who picks the prettiest fabrics available - she bought a few bird fabrics after I told her how much I loved birds, so I was thrilled to see it when it showed up a couple of months later, as did other bird prints she picked. The light yellow with little grey hearts and gold branch of leaves is dear to me, because it was one of the first partial collection from the RJR fabric company my quilt fabric store business I bought to sell at my shop 25 years ago when it opened up. I had two pieces that had to be sewn together, because that's all I had left. It will be given away to a hugs child who needs a warm winter quilt when the weather turns chilly and damp. I hope the quilter does a good job, because I'm making tops for the quilt guild's charity bees who do quilts for all kinds of community purposes nearby.

The reason I sew strips together and let the seam show with imperfectly-matched pieces of the same fabric, is because one of my first projects was for a dear woman whose mother had made 4 tops, placed them in her wardrobe box to "quilt later" for her 4 children. Two of the children died before her, and the lady who brought it to me was dying of cancer, though I didn't know it, and tried to get her to quilt them herself, but she kept telling me, no, that she was just too tired from her cancer most days to do detailed crafts like quilting. Her mother, the quilt maker, had sewn pieces of odds and ends together on the Colonial Lady pattern that has been popular since who knows when and inhabits a page or two in pattern books in the twentieth century for sure, and I don't even know who the designer is. I saw one of my relatives sewing embroidery details on a Colonial Lady square when I was growing up. Sometimes it took someone 20 years between other chores and raising children to finish one, and sometimes, they were just doing the detailed embroidery for a neighbor's quilt, who was able to parse squares amongst several friends, so she could finish it in a year for a beloved young woman in the family. I don't remember exactly who was working on that square, but I remember it, and I thought how fun it was to do colorbook stuff using fabric.

Pardon the ramblings of a quilt enthusiast. Here are the squares I enjoyed the most in the last couple of days since I posted a pic (you can see the faint outline of a seam line on the upper right hand block in light yellow calico, in memory of Dorothy's mother, who made the Colonial Lady quilt I wound up machine quilting on my longarm of yesteryear. From a distance, you couldn't tell some of the ladies' long hoop skirts were pieced together from strips that were probably leftover from somebody's dressmaking task sometime between the turn of the century and 1939):

 

[freedombecki]

Yesterday, I took 8 small quilt tops, a large batik quilt top I made before leaving Wyoming a few years back, and the red quilted checkerboard small quilt to the Charity Bees sewing day. There were a lot of people there that day, more than I've ever seen at a meeting, and 3 of them were quilting small quilts I made earlier (bless 'em!) I worked on but didn't finish a country lanes-type of stripey quilt, left over from flag quilts I had made for veterans. In the picture below, I haven't added an outer border, but when I do it will be of stars on dark blue. That will hopefully compliment the gross red stripes against the light. I'm adding a slightly blurred picture (it's all I have of part of my avatar flag from which I had a lot of extra stripes to make this little charity quilt. Whether they give this to a wounded soldier or a child, I don't know for certain. All I know is the guild I belong to is strong on quilter education to anyone in the community, generous in its doing for and giving to the poor, the lonely, the suffering, and soldiers who were hurt badly in the war. They also give a scholarship to a person at the local university who is getting an education in home economics.

I'm tired tonight, so the blue border will just have to be done tomorrow.

Please pray for techeiny who underwent surgery on his eyes yesterday. Thanks. <hugs>

becki

Oh, yes. I kept getting customer requests for how-tos on the quilt, so I wrote my last little pamphlet with how-tos, and it was badly written because at the time my fibromyalgia was horrible. There was a silver lining to my little cloud, though. I had wonderful customers, some of whom knew someone else whose life-as-they-knew-it was shattered by this nutty syndrome. They bought the book and made their own flag quilt. I was so tickled when we sold 20 copies (self-published). In a small and remote town, that's a best seller.

 

[freedombecki]

It's a good day when things get done well. It didn't take long to just put a border on this little quilt, so it's now done! Yay!

 

[freedombecki]

Today, a quilt was completed that was started last year in the quilt-as-you-go (recently aka fun and done) method. We actually got a picture of the square quilt before I deep sixed it in my UFO pile (UnFinished Objects). So here goes, start to finish (may take a couple of more posts).

Red Log Star:

 

[freedombecki]

More Red Log Star: last picture shows back of the quilted, assembled quilt main section:

 

[freedombecki]

Even more, finished front showing side and top borders, plus a picture of the unfinished and unbordered quilt-as-you-go-on-the-sewing-machine progress - either last year or early this year.

 

[freedombecki]

The quilt must have been started last year. I just turned in 10 more quilts on Tuesday. I think when I started counting in January, that red and white quilt was sitting on my stack of UFOs. This is the second quilt completed since Tuesday, and happily, this one was quilted. It took 8 hours to quilt the borders and add the bright red binding. Whew! I'm glad that one's out of my hair now. I do love this quilt.

No, she does not intentionally start things and let them pile up a year to feel great when it finally is done!

 

[freedombecki]

For the past few days, I've been developing a new pattern. Today, there were enough squares to do a child quilt that turned out to be 43x64 when finished, including borders. The pattern seems like a puzzle, so I just played around and left one obvious flaw in the layout. To make matters worse, somewhere in the middle of the quiltmaking process, I noticed an off-smell when ironing that comes when dacron makes up part of the fiber. So that pure white Swiss pima cotton I thought I was working with is actually nothing more than cheap dimestore percale, the kind you can see through. lol Not a saver quilt, except I loved the boho colors in the border I picked after the top was done. I made a special trip to the quilt shop to get it, too.

Here are excerpts from the finished top, which reminds me of bird feeders, in a way, so its name is the Boho Bird Feeder Quilt:

 

[freedombecki]

More Boho Birdfeeder quilt top scans:

 

[freedombecki]

the design process is not complete on the boho birdfeeder pattern. It has a lot of possibilities. The squares turned out to be future 9 inch blocks, so I had a really nice 9.5" square grid ruler from creative grid ruler company. They have them in all sizes, but it's so nice when something you're working on fits one of their amazing pieces of equipment. They're clearview. They're accurate. They have self-grids you can see through, so you have nothing extra to buy and paste on, trying to get it straight. I love it!

I guess it's back to the drawing board time. This square is kind of like the old cracker box quilt square that is traditionally about 6" square, at least from recent findings.

From About Quilt Block Patterns, free pattern Cracker Box Block

There's also a link on the page to the Cracker Box Pattern:

I'll come back to this sometime soon, I hope. It looks like a fun quilt, and it can even be done in scraps, and not solely matched collections of stuff.
​

 

[freedombecki]

The Cracker Box quilt has little representation online, considering that it looks and indeed is a simple square that is easy to construct, easy to sew, and makes up quickly into a quilt in less than 8 hours, using 9" squares. The square in the center should finish at around 6.25 inches. Cut a square of the light that is 6" on the diagonal to make triangles for the 2 light sides and a square of the dark that is 6" square and is sewn to the top and bottom of the strips.

 

[freedombecki]

It's been a good day. One quilt more for the Charity closet, more in the works, and it's time to say good night, hope each child in america has a warm blanket in the wintertime. We can only do one at a time, and pray for those who distribute our little efforts to those children who have little going for them, are in abuse shelters, or for reasons I cannot fathom, are abused so horrifically they are removed from a home that should love and welcome children and train them to be good influences in their society.

Bless the beasts and the children. I have a special love for birds. They bring so much music and character into our yards, thoughts, and images of them that honor their beauty grace walls across America.

 

[copsnrobbers]

Hi Becki...

cops

 

[freedombecki]

Cops? Well, I donated about 25 quilts a year for 5 years to Squad Car Quilts in Wyoming. It's cold in the winter, and people who've been in wrecks that caused them to go into a fatal shock situation,, so I donated quilts to give as the policeman saw fit--to someone in shock who only needed to be wrapped up in a blanket to help them through their angst to survive long enough till a medic arrived, or to a newcomer family not acquainted with the deadly and debilitating diseases of pneumonia and rheumatic fever, prevalent in the area of our city. Ancient tribes were said to have entirely avoided the area to keep away from the sore throats caused by the 20 streptococcus bacteria that for some reason thrive in the climate of that area's soil, water, and wildlife. That could be death or severe disability for many who did not have penicillin to battle it. In fact, a large group of Mormons passing through the area had to stop their covered wagon journey west to deal with "fever." When all was said and done, I think about 95% of them died at one of the most beautiful mountainside areas in the world, near Independence Rock, Wyoming. One of the fevers of the 20 strep bugs is scarlet fever. Sore throats in cold weather can quickly turn into pneumonia, which if untreated has a large percentage of death associated with the disease, now called "Scarletina." Another species of the strep family prevalent in the area is known as the cause of Rheumatic Fever, which can permanently damage the victim's heart valves and cause an early fatal heart attack. The Oregon Trail, the Mormon's Trail, and 8 or 10 other westward trails pass within 30 miles of the vicinity, so going west trails were littered with graves of people who died of "hardships" along the way. Poor folks often do not seek medical help when they have a "mere" sore throat and can die of complications that could be quickly and effectively remedied by simply visiting the county health department and requesting a throat swab. The community doctors for years donated time and antibiotics to the program to keep people from dying off, and for years, they and their spouses held a throat swab program for schools, where a lot of strep is passed from person to person when kids slobber over the same baloney sandwich or cookie sharing.

Eventually, the police department secretary said the city had decided to put standard blankets in the squad cars. Seems there were 35 squad cars, and I couldn't do that many in a year. Besides, the cops were to distribute them. Their gifts were anonymous, so I never heard even so much as one story about who received one of the quilts. I got over it, though. One group we donated quilts to said their need was for larger quilts, not baby-sized (which are easy, fast, and can be made on a prolific basis), so I started making them 60x80 minimum and threw in a few larger quilts to adequately cover family needs. I made a point of reading the weekly fire reports to see if there were local families who needed quilts when they lost all their belongings to a fire.

The best place to put your charity is where there is trouble, and I loved the squad car quilt program, because cops always seem to find themselves in the middle of trouble. I'm glad the city got in the habit of furnishing blankets to the police department. There are people far wealthier than someone who runs a marginally-profitable business that a quilt store is, and they must have provided the funds if the cops ever mentioned fewer deaths occurred from shock when victims were wrapped in blankets.

Cops are super stars, people just don't know it until they've gotten involved in their communities and discover where people are helped right and left by cops and firefighters, usually on the job (or not).

Well, time to go.

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, yeah, and by the way, my little flunkie "crackerbox" quilt is gonna look more like "chain links." I decided they had to be 6" finished, so with the centers I picked, it called for smaller triangles than I used outside the slanted bars centers. I went for the 6 inch finishe. All I'd have to do is add a ball here and there...hahahaha...

Here are a couple of my wannabe cracker box "chains" with uncut border fabric to show the why of my bizarro-world color choices. The quilt shop lady had a better fiscal week because of my off-the-wall choices there last week.

I'm throwing in an illustrative chain block to illustrate what a real cracker box square looks like by comparison to the elongated look my chain links will have.