Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

I sewed two dozen chains today. Love the colors, though.

*yawn* Nite all!

 

[freedombecki]

It took several days to get a system down pat to quickly put together the chains. I found it. Hopefully, the next one will not take a calendar week from the time the square is designed and a mockup made.

I finally ended up calling it the "Chain Link Quilt" after putting little square sets between the sashes that kind of link the chains. The monkey fabric is one of the favorite children's fabrics I've ever worked with, although there was a truly astonishing one about 10 years ago of little wild cats in a brilliant shade of paprika. I'm not even sure I got to save a square of that one anywhere. I used it like it was going out of style. And when I re-ordered there was no more to be had anywhere. lol

Anyway, here's the squares of links and the final scan shows how they "link."

The quilt measured 44x68" when I finished. There are 60 chain link squares.

 

[freedombecki]

I designed a less artistic tall pine tree that will fit perfectly on a child's quilt. I'm torn about whether to go ahead and do the natural-looking one or just do the easy one. I guess I could go get my artwork books and show them here. Back in a bit.

Ok, I was scribbling and did the ascending tree today. The more natural-looking tree was done sometime in the last few days. The tile twosie quilt had been gelling in my mind after I saw a pioneer quilt with a truly ungracious center. We don't tear old quilts apart and remake them. We go to the drawing board and fix the problem. I guess that's the sum of my endeavor. I try to fix problems in old designs. The quilt I saw in a museum reminds me of the song from Paint Your Wagon... "Where am I goin', I don't know, when will I be there I ain't certain..." (Which is also exactly how I felt at first.) Fortunately, I found my pencil collection and instead of penning it, I was able to do it in spite of at least 20 erasures from taking the wrong way. I know it can be further honed, but that's for another quilter, maybe one who sees this quilt (if I ever get around to it) and decides it too should be "fixed."

The more power to 'em!

 

[freedombecki]

I really have been wanting to do that tree quilt, but I remembered after posting that last night, this morning when I got up, and went for completing the little windmills I made from each corresponding chainlink at the time I finished the same link. Instead of wasting thread, if you just have another couple of pieces to sew instead of taking the whole piece off the machine leaving a 5" tail of thread on each change, you can get an additional quilt from the continuous feeding of pieces on the tailgate of the last one, wasting very little thread between "changes". Anyway, this quilt is the "Boho Birds Quilt." I worked on it 10 hours from start to finish. Here are 3 scans from the completed top:

 

[freedombecki]

I just noticed something. On my monitor, the colors aren't nearly as bright as the actual quilt, and I'm not sure why. The completed top measures around 42x56 or 58 inches, give or take an inch. When I had it laid out, it was well over 60" long, but on-point bias edges have a tendency to eat a little more fabric than if you work on the weave. Not only that, but you have to figure in a cutting measurement of 7/8" v. 1/2" when you are sewing half squares, and it could be the same for on-point sewing as the windmill quilt above is. Before the borders were added, it was 37x50" or thereabouts.

 

[freedombecki]

There are already 4 quilts in the July stack, and it's only July 6. Yay!!!!

 

[freedombecki]

Took the Mosaic quilt designed sometime this past month and am putting it into pink. I couldn't believe how quickly the little center section went together last night. Today's only progress was to sew all 23 strips of the quilt (930/42), iron, and lay them on the cutting table to be cut into 3" squares tomorrow morning. I'm beat because we walked around the lake a few times when my brother came for a visit. He fixed the lawn mower, fixed the old car, and we went shopping looking for him a banjo. I don't know why, he just wants one. He didn't want to pay for a new one though. I ought to go back and get it, have it forwarded to his house for him. I couldn't even begin to pay him back for all the stuff he did for us in the past year. He's the best brother in the world.

So here's the Pink Mosaic center (see design 4 or 5 posts above in pencil):

 

[freedombecki]

As I'm working on the pink Ziggurat mosaic, I wasn't feeling well, and kept piecing things badly and using the seam ripper a half dozen times, and at least 3 times where four or more squares had to be taken off four other squares due to being upside down.

This type of quilt would be better with less frenetic fabric choices, but oh, well, that never occurred to me after I got started. I love the material, but it's just so confusing. I didn't sleep well, seem to have a virus and am running on empty.

Well, tomorrow has got to be a better day. I love this little quilt. I stuck myself enough times with the seam ripper, but didn't break the skin.

Just sayin.'

I'm so tired it feels like a train is on top of my shoulders. Some of it is just fibromyalgia talking.

Good evening, and God bless.

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, thank you kindly for the rep. I so wasn't expecting it. The ziggurat is done, and has 672 pieces in the symmetric "staircases" placed around the center (shown above). I'm so pleased with it, I truly regret not being able to photograph it, and it does need a border. It has been eating the majority of my waking hours for the last 4 days and nights, and it will be another hour and a half placing the border around.

It's just going to be a simple border. I shot my time wad on the puzzle the quilt tended to be around the middle horizontal squares area. It was total confusion in certain areas. I will have to clean up my act, divide the quilt into 5 sections, isolating the confusion area as the east-west line between two unfriendly and contentions rivals. There really was no need to take 4 days to do a 1.5 day job. None: but I did it all by myself!

Here are some scans of finished areas on the quilt, starting with a corner.

 

[freedombecki]

Other views and the center:

 

[freedombecki]

Today is a happy day. The final 2 borders (though small) were added this morning, and I'm so happy to be done. I'm free!!!

Ziggurat quilt border:

 

[freedombecki]

I just saw the best quilt show since the NY red and white show I saw online that was held in NYC in March this or last year, and you would have to see this gifted man's work to appreciate what art quilts can be. His name is Luke Haynes, he is an architect from Seattle WA and he is making some of the most gorgeous stuff you ever saw. Please visit his blog if you want to do yourself a favor. I briefly glanced at it for the past 2 hours, hardly opened more than a few pages, and he has archives back I would like to go back and visit sometime. He has done endless amazing works of art, you just need to set yourself some time and see more than I did in a couple of hours it seems. He's just amazing. I invited him to come here and share whatever he'd like to, but he probably has a lot better things to do. As I said, do yourself a favor--go here and explore:

Luke Haynes blog​

 

[freedombecki]

Today was spent vacuuming under the sewing machine, and while I was down there, I looked under my bed, took out last winter's leftover thread boxes, vacuumed and wiped them down, then moved about 15 boxes with leftovers in them & reviewed their content. Tomorrow, I hit the other side of the room, move that bunch of boxes (they're bigger) and will try to sort into color groups. That means no sewing.

But you have to regroup now and then. So regroup it is.

In the meantime, here's a quilt by she who could not wait for her mama to finish the quilt so she could claim it (a find at quiltingboard.com):

That's one of the reasons why my quilt tops go into sealed plastic bags.
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[freedombecki]

^^^That said, I think I will go reward myself by making a crazy quilted square from some scraps I found on the floor and washed up.

​

 

[Amelia]

Today was spent vacuuming under the sewing machine, and while I was down there, I looked under my bed, took out last winter's leftover thread boxes, vacuumed and wiped them down, then moved about 15 boxes with leftovers in them & reviewed their content. Tomorrow, I hit the other side of the room, move that bunch of boxes (they're bigger) and will try to sort into color groups. That means no sewing.

But you have to regroup now and then. So regroup it is.

In the meantime, here's a quilt by she who could not wait for her mama to finish the quilt so she could claim it (a find at quiltingboard.com):

That's one of the reasons why my quilt tops go into sealed plastic bags.
​

awwwwwww

 

[freedombecki]

Today was spent vacuuming under the sewing machine, and while I was down there, I looked under my bed, took out last winter's leftover thread boxes, vacuumed and wiped them down, then moved about 15 boxes with leftovers in them & reviewed their content. Tomorrow, I hit the other side of the room, move that bunch of boxes (they're bigger) and will try to sort into color groups. That means no sewing.

But you have to regroup now and then. So regroup it is.

In the meantime, here's a quilt by she who could not wait for her mama to finish the quilt so she could claim it (a find at quiltingboard.com):

That's one of the reasons why my quilt tops go into sealed plastic bags.
​

awwwwwww

Thanks, amelia. I have to be a little calloused. I have two of the most precious animals anywhere in the world--Touch the boy cat, and Music the girl dog. I'm allergic to both of them. I have to sleep with 2 closed doors between me and my 2 sweeties. They have to sleep with 2 closed doors between each other or there would be 2 pet cemetary spots filled right away. I can hug and cuddle them for less than a minute, when I have to go wash everywhere I touched them or suffer the consequences. And I take an allergy pill just so I can touch them a couple of times a day and wash the touching off.

So, my quilt tops go into plastic baggies. They go to needy kids, and one things kids do not need is a blanket covered with allergens that would make the 1 in 10 kids ill due to allergies. *sigh*

 

[freedombecki]

Working on another star quilt, nothing to show, however. on this one, I grouped a very cheerful pale teal with a brilliant modern hot orange and some light green old-fashioned printed flowers that are tiny, packed and show pumpkin-orange aster blossoms, pine green leaves, and some darkish teal buds. The light green cut into small squares that measure 1.25" when finished. I cut a hundred browns to mix in (or more since I really didn't count) with greens, reds, blues, and turquoise/teals plus what few thirties fabrics that were darker than the light green tiny print (possibly a 20s print or 70s replication of 20s print). The light green material arrived in an e-bay bid sale in which only 2 or 3 greens were in the 150 estate fabrics that came in a 40-pound box. I couldn't believe how fantastic those fabrics were. All the fabrics had been washed, pressed, measured, and tagged with tape as to size of the piece. The seller did a lot of homework, and for $96, I got the same # of yards I would have paid around $1200 at today's prices of $11 per yard. I'm now starting to understand why we pay what Europe was paying 25 years ago--our transportation costs went through the roof when the price of gasoline practically matched prices Great Britain and France were paying 25 years ago. From what I've seen online of Great Britain's and Dutch's cottons, they are selling fabrics that cost over $20 per yard, and many extra-fine prints are already knocking on the door of $30 per yard. Of course, they are paying for the long-staple traditional silk-like Egyptian cottons that route through the Middle East to reach their European destinations. Our fine cotton, just as beautiful, was manufactured at Kobe, Japan, until a huge temblor levelled Kobe about 6 or 7 years ago (maybe longer, maybe not, I can't remember exactly when now, having retired 3 years ago).

Anyway, I did a lot of digging through at least one cache of brown fabrics in a huge bin in one of the bedrooms I converted into my fabric storage area for often-used fabrics that are graded as to color. I still have more browns I haven't cut yet, if I care to cut more, and I'm pretty sure somewhere, there is another group of browns. Who knows! I still have 9 bins of fabric from the Church closet that was cleaned out a year or so ago, and have used from only one of the bins to make a charity quilt. I gathered all the red scraps and did a star like the one I'm doing now with browns and assorted colors all around, except the earlier one dominated in reds and was so fun.

I'm including a picture of one of the log cabin star quilts I did earlier this year or late last year, one, I'm not sure when, but in the last year, for sure. Instead of yellow, the one I'm doing for the past few days had a light blue print around the log cabin star, followed by orange and white modern square rounds and the 1.25" squares in border, except this time all the lights are the light green print described above. When and if I get it done soon, the outside border will be composed of the remainder of the pleasant bright orange modern print. I so love this quilt.

Oh, yes. The second picture is of the quilt I finished (finally!) last week. Since something has malfunctioned between my printer and computer, I have no way of showing the finished quilt tops now, so sorry. Thanks to those who drop by and say hello. It has a positive effect on my production of quilt tops for the charity closet the local quilt guild has.

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, and I just have to do this one when I'm done with this last star quilt. It's the tree up above that I charted somewhere one day and was reasonably pleased with the outcome. I'll have to cut more greens, but not more browns, since they're all cut and raring to go. Ok, not so raring to go. I did cut an extra set of the + or - 100 browns, but I have 8 hours of intesive sewing just to get the 3-400 squares border completed. I finished 48 squares last night, but won't have enough to attach to the top and bottom edge until I have the first 100 sewn. The vertical area is already longer than the horizontal areas, so by the time I'm done, there well may be closer to over 400 squares because the number of squares on the sides will require an additional 100 squares since I've been doubling borders by adding larger ones top and bottom than side to side. That's too complex unless you're into postage stamp quiltmaking. Tawwy.

Here's my heart's desire for this upcoming week: to complete this quilt top, designed who knows when earlier this year: (I have to start dating my schemas!)

I think the sky will be done in a diamond pattern made from turquoise fabrics I have on hand.

 

[freedombecki]

Time to sew and sew. This is the boring part. The good part is when the small parts do something that adds sparkle to the rest of the quilt. The postage stamps on the first row, though, take such a long time. The green fabric will make this different from the totally scrappy ones. Not sure what it will look like yet. Signing off. Hope everyone has a totally wonderful weekend, what is left of it, that is.

See if there's a picture somewhere online to get the juices flowing again...
here we go: a controlled postage stamp small quilt with a diamond in the center--in some neutral colors:

quilts of Shady Maple
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[freedombecki]

This one, too is a controlled postage stamp quilt both as a top and in quilt sections (quilt as you go, sort of):

credits to soft expressions
I recommend the book. This is just one of the howtos inside:





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