Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[Sunshine]

Hi, Beckums. Well, I see I do have some catching up to do. Am back working on my cross stitch quilt.

Yea!!! I love it!!! Can you post a scan of one of your newer squares so everyone can see? And -

Allie Baba also told me the other day she was thinking about pulling her long-set-aside quilt and might be finishing it over the holidays, or at least getting back into it.

notica importante!

Don't forget, these are the shortest days of the year due to the proximity of the winter solstice, and it's Seasonal Affective Disorder time. (SAD) Fight it tooth and nail by turning on double the light around your work station the month before and the month after Dec.22. (or whenever solstice is, which is the shortest day of the year). Also, if entertaining, provide plenty of light and only reduce the lights shortly to enjoy tree lights.

I can't believe how good it is to have Sunshine back with us for a little while!

Sure. I'll try to get that done today. If not, tomorrow. I've already called in at work for tomorrow. I managed to get a cold and my doctor's office was closed Christmas Eve. So, I have to deal with that tomorrow. This year, kids went to the other inlaws, and I guess with me getting the crud it was a good year to do that! LOL.

I may be able to resurrect that maple leaf quilt top as well.

 

[freedombecki]

High winds making lights flicker today. Thanks Sunshine! Whenever you feel like posting your stuff is great! Just take it easy I'm trying to visualize you as over that cold and me like twiggy minus the anorexia. Unfortunately, I think Twiggy was taller than 5'1."

 

[Sunshine]

High winds making lights flicker today. Thanks Sunshine! Whenever you feel like posting your stuff is great! Just take it easy I'm trying to visualize you as over that cold and me like twiggy minus the anorexia. Unfortunately, I think Twiggy was taller than 5'1."

LMAO! I believe in that vizualization stuff.

 

[Sunshine]

Here go go Beckums: Here is an almost finished block. There is a row that edges all of them that I haven't done on any. My hoop is round and I want t get an oval one which will make doing the edges a bit easier, I hope. (This is a photo. I can't get my scanner to scan. And it won't do a whole block anyway.)

I have the blocks for another one after this. I want to do one in a lavendar, or orchid color, and a different design. I'd like to have one finished for each of my kids. I chose green for this one because when I was a teen my mother did the quilting on one for a woman abd all the cross stitch was green. I think hers was all the same shade. Mine is n DMC thread 700 and 702. The design was so large I thought doing two shades would give a bit more variety. The one my mother quilted had green backing, so her white stitches showed when you turned it over. It was really pretty. I always wanted one like it.

I can't find the maple leaf top. I think it may be with the one my grandmother did that I couldn't find last year. I've some time off in April and I need to do some reorganizing. Maybe I'll run across it then.

 

[freedombecki]

Ooooo That green is gorgeous, Sunshine! I'm going back to green when the red blocks on my quilts for the next 2 or 3 weeks are done. I was going to do yellow, then orange, then purple, but that green is gorgeous. I went through a green phase here and did 10 green quilts then a turquoise stage and did 10 of those. It's a new year. I can do colors in any order. It's just a lot more convenient to have a ton of reds handy instead of having to put them up and drag a ton of the next color out. A lot more gets done if you work through a color group and use up all you can.

Your quilt is going to be a knockout! I love it!

 

[freedombecki]

For the last few days, cutting reds and lights has been the inspiration in the Chocolate-covered Cherries series, and so many reds are just shouting "take me, take me!"

So here is a scan of the 7 inch finished log cabin-style block in fabrics that are just a joy to sew all day on. Also, there is a blank square barn-raising log cabin schema that you can click on and print out if you are planning a 36-block square log cabin. The filled-in areas on a copy show how the log cabin blocks will be placed. It saves a lot of time and effort to make a schema. Otherwise, blocks can and do get put up wrong, which makes for a quirky effect. People used to leave something called the "obvious flaw" in order to show that only the Lord is perfect. Some quilters never made a quilt without an obvious flaw to show their faith, others to show they were not perfections, thank you very much. That's why you will see so many older quilts that are a little ringy here and there.

 

[Sunshine]

Ooooo That green is gorgeous, Sunshine! I'm going back to green when the red blocks on my quilts for the next 2 or 3 weeks are done. I was going to do yellow, then orange, then purple, but that green is gorgeous. I went through a green phase here and did 10 green quilts then a turquoise stage and did 10 of those. It's a new year. I can do colors in any order. It's just a lot more convenient to have a ton of reds handy instead of having to put them up and drag a ton of the next color out. A lot more gets done if you work through a color group and use up all you can.

Your quilt is going to be a knockout! I love it!

Yeah, I like the monocrhomatic look. A while back I posted several Celtic knots I did. They can be a booger. They are counted cross stitch. I used to take them with me when I had to fly. I made sure the knot and various sections were outlined and shaded where the lines crossed according to the pattern. Then while I was on the plane, all I had to do was the single and predominant color to fill it all in. No thinkig required. It has helped me overcome my fear of flying. Funny thing, there is one, and I may have posted it, I don't recall, but when the plane took off I got the direction of the thread in one row backward. It shows, but I have not changed it because it makes me think of my trip.

This quilt is really more of a Zen activity for me than something to be accomplished. It is repetitive, little thinking involved, and I can zone out for a while at the end of a long hard day.

 

[freedombecki]

Ooooo That green is gorgeous, Sunshine! I'm going back to green when the red blocks on my quilts for the next 2 or 3 weeks are done. I was going to do yellow, then orange, then purple, but that green is gorgeous. I went through a green phase here and did 10 green quilts then a turquoise stage and did 10 of those. It's a new year. I can do colors in any order. It's just a lot more convenient to have a ton of reds handy instead of having to put them up and drag a ton of the next color out. A lot more gets done if you work through a color group and use up all you can.

Your quilt is going to be a knockout! I love it!

Yeah, I like the monocrhomatic look. A while back I posted several Celtic knots I did. They can be a booger. They are counted cross stitch. I used to take them with me when I had to fly. I made sure the knot and various sections were outlined and shaded where the lines crossed according to the pattern. Then while I was on the plane, all I had to do was the single and predominant color to fill it all in. No thinkig required. It has helped me overcome my fear of flying. Funny thing, there is one, and I may have posted it, I don't recall, but when the plane took off I got the direction of the thread in one row backward. It shows, but I have not changed it because it makes me think of my trip.

This quilt is really more of a Zen activity for me than something to be accomplished. It is repetitive, little thinking involved, and I can zone out for a while at the end of a long hard day.

That must take a lot of skill and planning to outline an area to be embroidered with cross stitch. I'd like to remember that if I ever do any again. The log cabin block is a zen for me. Years ago, I made 23 log cabins for the annual "Jewels of the Platte" show I conducted for 6 or 7 years, I'm thinking there were 7 shows. The last show, I had fibromyalgia so bad, and it was such a harsh thing to put up and remove large quilts, I decided not to do that again. Not only that, but I couldn't stand to quilt any more either, and was sitting a lot just making new fabric quilt tops for the windows for many moons.

Anyway, back to "zen" and techniques, I've learned to make a block (to ensure it looks like it's supposed to look), then measure the lengths, calculate in the seam allowance (1/4") then cut all strips prior to beginning even the center to its same size contrast square. I love it best when all the strips are added in a clockwise order, so you learn to turn the raw edge of the unfinished block and figure out a way to sew logs on so that when you look at the right side, the pieces fall continuously into a clockwise fashion.
It's easy, and I spent much of today doing just that on the last 24 blocks of the 36-block log cabin work. Just the 2 last rows x 24 = 48 more strips. It seems like so few, but I have to stop working occasionally and do something else due to muscle contractions in this chilly weather.

It's so good to hear you're getting a little therapy from your beautiful work, and I appreciate seeing people's own projects from time to time, as I love all kinds of traditional handwork and have had classes in many of them. It's just that when Pfaff granted my shop a dealership, I'd already trained at Theta's School of Sewing at Oklahoma City on my 1471 back when it was "top of the line." In the years we were dealers, I totally loved all the things you could get a sewing machine to do, especially the "pen and ink" look of free motion machine embroidery. Some day when I get all these little charity quilt tops done, I'd like to do a year of machine drawing from my old college sketch book which eventually got filled up. Well, have to get going, Sunshine. Keep us posted when you work on anything.

1) A Barn Raising Scrappy quilt from Big Horn Quilts dot com:

 

[freedombecki]

Here's an old-fashioned type Barn Raising Log Cabin Quilt:

 

[freedombecki]

I'm fond of this one I found on Bing. It mentions a JW Quilt source:

 

[Sunshine]

Wow, those are all sensational.

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, those are all sensational.

Thank you, Sunshine. There are never enough pretty quilts, so people just make them.

I have files stuffed with pictures and links to the best of the best, yet still, someone comes up with a new and revolutionary looking quilt in every state of this great country every day of the year. A year of factory experience years ago gave me an ease with machine speed techniques.

Quilters love log cabin for the possibilities its many arrangements provide. And chain sewing the logs together with precuts speeds the process and eases the "it doesn't fit" issue with accuracy and ease.



Edit: add strips and log quilts from stuffed files:

 

[freedombecki]

All 36 squares are done. They just need to be sewn together into the 36-square schema added somewhere above this post.

Squares completed late last night:

 

[freedombecki]

3 more scans of blocks finished last night:

 

[freedombecki]

Scans of Blocks 9, 10, and 11:

 

[freedombecki]

Scans of blocks 12, 13, and 14, finished last night:

 

[freedombecki]

Scans of blocks 15, 16, and 17, finished last night:

 

[freedombecki]

Scans of blocks 18, 19, and 20, finished last night:

 

[freedombecki]

Scans of blocks 21, 22, and 23 finished last night:

 

[freedombecki]

10 or 11 blocks may not have been shown on the first dozen blocks that were completed a few days ago. It's time to go sew them all together and do what it takes to complete the quilt top for a child at the shelter or for whatever purpose my sisters at Charity Bees pick for the quilt.

Scans of blocks 24, 25, and 26 finished last night: