Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

"Red Sky at Summer Night," scans 4, 5, and 6:

 

[freedombecki]

"Red Sky at Summer Night," scans 7, 8, and 9

 

[copsnrobbers]

Becki, You may want to consider sending our new President a quilt. That would be a nice welcome or house warming gift to President Romney and our First Lady Ann.

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, copsnrobbers. My quilts all go to Charity Bees quilt closet for distribution to shelter children whose worlds are often turned upside-down by family strife; senior and veteran care centers; and purple heart wounded soldiers who gave up the good life to take shrapnel, chemical contamination, and such stuff. Any quilts the Bees consider good enough, they sell them to purchase batting for more quilts for those who need support.

Your generous and kindly words are appreciated though. It supports my determined belief that we should give to those who meet with misfortune as good as what we'd give our own child, and the book of Deuteronomy is clear; widows, orphaned, and those whom society shuns are clearly God's most beloved children, and he smiles when we show love and respect for them in spite of what life has handed them in the way of sorrow, poverty, and loss.

I wouldn't be opposed to give a shelter quilt in celebration of his winning the U.S. presidency, however. And he will be barraged with quilts from the good ladies of the Mormon church, some of whom are America's finest quilters, though not as well known as famous quilter/artists due to their anonymity in giving and adherence to traditional quilting. I had the treasured experience of being a friend of one of the Mormon ladies during my years living in the Equality State and owning a quilt store. She loved my books and classes. I loved her allegiance to community and family. I never had a better friend, and was sorry when she passed away after a long, fruitful life of devotion to family, career, and making a beautiful quilt every time I wrote a pattern book while she was alive. I owe her for inspiration and encouragement.

 

[copsnrobbers]

You're welcome.. Nice follow up story.


cops

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, copsnrobbers.

 

[freedombecki]

Too much green fabric around here! So decided to do all green quilts for the Bee closet in September. The little stack is growing, and recent browsing helped find a number of great green quilts that would be easy to do and fun to get for a child or wheelchair recipient (hopefully!) There was a trip around the world quilt which at one point was a little overdone by me, but still, it's nice to start a quilt and not have to look through a book and say, "What do I do next," since you already know after making a half dozen of the same quilt and teaching at least a dozen people to do likewise. So here's the quilt that was found, it had a center that was different and thought would be a good challenge, so it was finished first today and resulted in a 5x7 rectangle of 3" unfinished squares sewn together. The last quilt had lime green in it, and it was so much greener than what was shown, the decision was made to use in the light and dark areas fabrics using lime green. Total fun this afternoon!

a. Green Trip Around the World quilts

b. Lime green center

 

[freedombecki]

That center didn't work out. It was far wider than I thought and would've resulted in a quilt to fit a queen-sized bed.

I just wanted a quilt for a shelter child, which is what is being requested right now, so took a new tack, revising and changing the center. Today, I have half the quilt done, the other half is still in strips not quite all sewn together again. This quilt needed 3 strips cut per color, three inches by three inches to make 2.5" finished squares. With an appropriate border, Hopefully it will work for a child.

1. Center area
2. Along Center at midline
3. Center edge area

 

[freedombecki]

4. Green Trip around the World outer edge at corner of side
5. Green Trip Around the World Quilt outer edge at side, midline
6. Darkest fabric apex at side center area of quilt

 

[freedombecki]

Spent a happy few hours this afternoon finishing the Green Trip Around the World quilt top for Charity Bees to quilt into a warm covering this winter for a shelter kid, and here are the final border scans.

I cannot emphasize how wonderful those who do the work of helping victims of abuse are to take torn lives and put them back into mainstream society after a lot of counsel and pointers on not making disaster repetitive, and I thank God for their counselors.

I also pray for those families who can heal together through anger management correction. That isn't always possible when a traumatized victim has been slapped or punched around until there is a detached retina, a broken jaw, or lost a baby due to being punched intentionally in a pregnant belly, or must deal with untreated spousal schizophrenia, stubborn living under the influence, or asocial disorder for which a victim decides not to seek medical help that when treated, could and might end the need for separation. There is a cure for stupid. It's called change, and the first step is making an appointment with a psychologist if counsel can cure; or psychiatrist if brain chemistry is at fault.

The quilt measures 43x60." It was a happy task.

 

[freedombecki]

There was worlds of 3" strips left over from the Green Trip Around the World Quilt, so not one to run for an easy go of it, I decided the 3" strips would make an easy and quick start for another brick quilt (did a red one a couple of months back), and since the strips are a little wider, that means it takes fewer rows to make the same sized quilt. Unfortunately, when I get a pile of 10 quilts, I take them down to the Charity Bees closet, and I can smell the finish line!

Bricks are cut 3x7.5." Mortar except for outer row are 1" strips cut as needed; outer mortar strips are cut 1.5" and double as the first border; the outer border will be determined when 21 to 23 rows of bricklaying are done. The top and bottom rows as well as all odd rows will have 5 bricks across, and the even rows will have 3x4" half bricks on either end with 4 full 3x7.5" bricks. Somewhere in either calculation, seam allowance or cutting, there seems to be a slight error that causes the 5 brick rows to differ with the 4 + 2 half brick rows. It could be using the weft of the lime mortar fabric I picked is too stretchy and is resulting in a stretched side. Because of that, the next rows I sew will be on the warp, you can take that to the bank, because I can't stand it when my math doesn't match a perfect outcome. It has to be the weft if my math was true. I can't say it with certainty, but it won't be the first time an extra stretchy weft fabric caused a quilter to be an inch per yard off at the joining of rows. A lot of quilters don't mess with weft, they just cut everything vertically. I do all I can to work with wefts going side to side, because if you observe the warp top to bottom rule combined with the weft side to side rule, you get a quilt that stretches from side to side. This may not seem important, but actually, when a quilt is shared, somehow one partner becomes the one who jerks the quilt from side to side, while the other just sizzles upon waking up in the cold of a winter's night after weeks of deprivation of warmth may get irate to hostile. And that's why I like to warp quilts side to side. The mortar lime is a best-manufacturer type fabric and expensive. I'm sewing all kinds of fabric bricks--old, new, expensive, cheap, glazed, etc. When you are doing a charm quilt, some grim discoveries are made--that perfect fabric of scale and texture difference may also be sized to death or even a blend that got mislabeled as a cotton, or even linen or bamboo. Different fabrics have different characteristics. We are seeing manufacturers of quilt fabrics getting into lines of glazed cottons that really have as little give on the weft as the warp. I try to avoid those when picking fabrics for quilts, but church closet offerings can be just about anything.

So here are 3 pictures of the 5 rows I completed before coming here today:

Picture 1 - side shot of Lime Mortar, Green Brick Quilt

Picture 2 - probably willl end up being the bottom portion of the quilt, considering the sunflower print on green seems to have a certain upright appeal.

Picture 3 - the upper part of the 5 bottom rows, if that's what they are. (if a more blatant right-side-up one-way fabric appears, and it gets placed upside-down, that may mean I'm dealing with a top row. Once in a blue moon, I tear out a whole section to right the dominant one-way fabric that got loaded in sidewise or upside-down in a space-cadet moment. It doesn't matter that I have a thousand completed quilt works. The adage "everyone makes a mistake now and then" doesn't seem to apply because I make a lot more than my fair share of errors. That last quilt, the trip around the world? I can't even remember how many pieces got sewn in wrong and had to be ripped and redone (affectionately known as r&r to quilters) due to my ditzing at the wheel.

 

[freedombecki]

Three more rows.

"99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer..."

 

[freedombecki]

Oops! Correction!

 

[freedombecki]

Burnt a little midnight oil to come up with 3 more completed rows and have 6 or 7 rows ready to sew later. It appears there are 11 of the total rows sewn horizontally starting from the bottom and going up. I also cut at least 40 more bricks from different materials between last night and this morning. There will be many happy leftovers for other projects.

Last night's progress, Pictures 7, 8, and 9:

 

[freedombecki]

Correction of Post 771 - Lime Mortar Green Brick Quilt

I need to post a correction on the half bricks that I cut 3x4" and mentioned for some reason they weren't going together right with the next row.

The problem was the size measurement should have been 3 x 3.75 inches, and not 4 inches. I was forgetting about the side piece needing to match the outlying seam, and somehow added in a quarter inch error through oversight. Sorry. If you are making the quilt, please cut the 4" piece 3.75"! That way, with a consistent seam allowance of 1/4" throughout, both pieces will line up exactly. The weft on the fabric for the strips was NOT to blame. My FUZZY MATH was to blame. I am so 'Tawwy.

 

[freedombecki]

Here are 4 more rows ready to sew on to the rest of the quilt. All rows are complete. They just have to be sewn into the quilt at this point. Today was spent doing a lot of sewing. The good thing was, not having to cut any more pieces gave me more time in front of my sewing machine. I'm lucky enough to have a top of the line machine that has a stitch speed of 1000 spms, more or less. That makes short work of a long task. If done by hand, this quilt could easily take a year.

The next 4 rows, pictures 10, 11, and 12:

 

[freedombecki]

It's so much fun to get to the end of a delightful project, and last night, I stayed up sewing to complete the brick portion. Yes, I slept in, but it was totally worth it. Now, all that needs doing is completion of the side mortar, add a border, and feel good and happy about completing this work. The only trouble is, I made yet another math error. When calculating a length of around 64", I completely forgot to add in the 1/2 inch of mortar between the bricks! Doh. This is a monster baby quilt. It's over 6 feet long, and I haven't done the border yet.

I have so loved this project. Each brick is a different material. I think that would be around 23x4+14=106 different fabrics. All the half bricks were the same print not used elsewhere, so all 24 of them were counted as 1 fabric, so I picked one of my prettiest fabrics, cut 2 strips of 3"x45" fabric, into 3x4" strips which I later had to correct to 3 x 3.75-inch (3 1/4") strips because I forgot one 1/4" seam allowance when measuring the 7" finished squares. Along the edges, there is a 1/4" seam allowance, and I was basing the first and last bricks of the 5-brick rows the same as the 3 7" finished ones. Big mistake! So I found out why the strips weren't coming out quite right.

This Baby Huey reaches from near the floor to as high as I can reach up and hold it so that it doesn't touch the carpet. That will teach me to forget to add the mortar to the overall height!

Here are 3 more scans, and I have to get busy today and find the cute frog material for a border, unless something else just pops up and says "I'm here!" You know you're in trouble when your stash fabrics start talkin'! I'm so far past that.

Scan 13, Top Left

Scan 14, Top at central area of quilt

Scan 15, Top Right

 

[freedombecki]

Finished the first border. Whew! I only had about 5 inches left over after joining 2 44" strips of first border along the side. That quilt may be 85 inches or greater long. You have to cut off the white selvage strips and bulk, too. I couldn't find cute froggy fabric. It would have helped to look in the CORRECT place. I apparently looked everywhere else. Got tired of looking, found a start to a green log cabin quilt and spent the afternoon making another top. It went together really quick, considering all the log cabin blocks were about 2/3rds done. In no time, it was 36x43, and tomorrow, when I'm in the mood, I'll have 2 quilts to border.

It would have been my mother's birthday today. She knew I'd be happy to finish 2 quilts in one day, so I think she whispered in God's ear.

The green log star quilt has light green points and a light green diamond center with dark green everywhere else.

 

[freedombecki]

More scans of parts of the blocks and first border (dark solid green)

 

[freedombecki]

Edit Sept 21. Some shots of the border on the Light Green Log Cabin Star's new sidewalk border that was added this morning. I had to cut a lot of fabric, which is why it probably took a total of 6 hours. What a fun way to use a sewing machine. And one more for the stack.

And it measures about 44x52."