Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

Thought for the day: Working on 2 quilts at the same time is harder than working on one.

 

[freedombecki]

This quilt began as a Silver fox quilt project 20 or more years ago that I taught to seniors in our community for free. One of the classes was a Kaleidoscope square that measured 12" square, finished. The center of this quilt was made before that class opened and had 4 squares in it, recolored and joined to make the parts look as if they'd been jiggled around in a real Kaleidoscope and mirrored to show opposites all around.
The scans are not in any particular order, but if you see a part that has rosewood-colored narrow borders around rosewood and pink waves bordered by gilt edges, all the tops of the wave tell the direction of the top of the quilt. For some reason, there was no tearing out a mistake for that reason. That's called a lucky day in the sewing room.

 

[freedombecki]

3 more scans of the Kaleidoscope Medallion Rosewood quilt top

 

[freedombecki]

Scans 7, 8, and 9

 

[freedombecki]

Scans 10, 11, and 12:

 

[freedombecki]

Scan 1 - quilt description for Kaleidoscope Medallion Rosewood quilt

Scan 2 - 1st step Seal Quilt reverse applique

Scan 3 - Medallion around Northern Lights

 

[freedombecki]

seal thumbnail.

 

[Sunshine]

"If I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring..."​

Here it was 31F on the first day of spring! LOL

 

[Sunshine]

Well, Beckums, this week I put my last quilt block in the hoop. But I'm not starting it this weekend. I've got to do a little home straighteng up first. After the design is done, I have to do the border on most of the blocks. I now have an oval hoop to make that a little easier and faster. It just wan't going with the round hoop. Then I will be done with the cross stitich.

 

[Sunshine]

Stir fry steak for lunch. Then I'm cooking ham, baked beans, and potato salad to eat on the rest of the weekend. YUM

 

[freedombecki]

Well, Beckums, this week I put my last quilt block in the hoop. But I'm not starting it this weekend. I've got to do a little home straighteng up first. After the design is done, I have to do the border on most of the blocks. I now have an oval hoop to make that a little easier and faster. It just wan't going with the round hoop. Then I will be done with the cross stitich.

That's a total joy to hear, Sunshine. You've come a long way toward your completion goal, and I think it took getting that next couple of projects lined up to light that fire.

Kudos!

I just piddled around and thought it'd be fun to experiment with opposite color wheel complements and began a quilt I am now calling "Mexican Marketplace White House Steps." The parents took the kids in our family across the border a few times when Dad was Superintendent of schools in Bruni, and in Nuevo Laredo back in then, there was this colorful, bright, amazing marketplace with cheap merchandise that was pretty cool since things were hand-made, tooled leather, embroidered wearables, brightly-dyed feathers and flower ornaments, pots, and great things to give for Christmas. Anyway, on the $.25 allowance we got, you could get a couple of things, so it felt like the big time.

Actually, this project started out with me digging through a box of church closet fabrics they were cleaning out and invited me to take all, so I did. I found 3 suitable for quilting, although a couple may have been blends. So the purple centers were this sturdy kind of heavy sheet material someone had leftovers after whacking out a quilt back from it, probably. I made 4 each of the 3 blocks below (chain sewing), and found fabrics for another 5 or 6 blocks which will be shown soon as I can sew some. It took 6 hours to do 4 sets of 3 different blocks

The seal will get done when I decide whether to hand or machine embroider his details. I want him to be really nice, but either method done well can achieve that.

 

[freedombecki]

Well, it was fun, but doing 4 at once feels like an exercise in underachievement unless you are a very stealthy soul and ran marathons when you were younger or maybe a triathalon.

The peacock feather reminded me of feathers I saw at the Mexican Market that were dyed bright colors like scarlet, hot pink, froufrou purple, cadmium yellow, cerise, etc. So I used it, not having used it since it arrived last year. Sorry the colors from my computer just don't reach out and grab you like the ones I put on the scanner, but the blocks just sizzle together and are a totally fun group. I'm alternating the placement of rows to make the values more outstanding if someone put them all to gray on their HP scanners. If you ensure the values are contrasting, that gives this type of a log cabin square, originally called "white house steps" some zing.

So here are the peacock feather square and four of the 16 squares sewn today at the junction point:

 

[freedombecki]

This historic quilt was made by Bannie Parker in 1919, and is part and parcel of the North Carolina Museum of history and is found at their Log Cabin style White House Steps Quilts page.

I just love this quilt!​

Another one that caught my eye was this Eunice Gillikin's White House Steps quilt made sometime between 1930-1940:​

 

[freedombecki]

Just a little blog touring found this hand-quilted one at brown dog prims blogspot. The artist used what is also known as "back art to back the quilt, plus took a shot of her quilting work at an angle to show how puffy it is. If you look at the top picture, that quilting made her wonky blocks absolutely rock, well, imho:

 

[Sunshine]

Just a little blog touring found this hand-quilted one at brown dog prims blogspot. The artist used what is also known as "back art to back the quilt, plus took a shot of her quilting work at an angle to show how puffy it is. If you look at the top picture, that quilting made her wonky blocks absolutely rock, well, imho:

WOW. That would make you stagger when you get up at night to go to the bathroom.

The ham and beans are in the oven. Just have to put the potato salad together. Going to have a wonderful old fashion lunch today, with some left over for sandwiches.

 

[Sunshine]

OK, think I'm going to skip today working on the last block. I'm working on a migraine for some reason. I did get the chores done. I told my neighbor that my house is kee deep. He told me not to worry with it, that I will have plenty of time to get into my life when I retire. But some things you just can't sit down next to forever.

 

[freedombecki]

I've been having this quirky love affair with op art, Sunshine, since I read the book "Masters of Deception--Escher, Dali and the Artists of Optical Illusion."

​

In my shop were all the latest optical art fabrics, which went over like a lead balloon in the West, where people are still trying to eke a living out of a hostile arctic desert--one of the drawbacks of being raised in the city but spending one's adult years on the literal frontier of America's badlands, which became a most fond place in my heart forever.

I had lots of customers with your exact feeling on the subject, until I started making wall-hangings that made the fabrics viable as borders, frames, and a little something to add pizzazz to a humdrum theme. Then they got it, and whatever fabric I displayed as such was sold quickly. Only trouble was, I had thousands of bolts I couldn't possibly show each and every delicious opportunity but just hoped for good teachers to drop by and make some good waves with our offerings. Didn't happen. As a consequence, that's why I came home to TX when I retired with at least a hundred unfinished projects, with me hopping between teaching machine instructions, free classes, charity sewing sessions with free instructions and materials, etc., to make quilts for soldiers, the homeless, those whose homes burned, the hospice, squad car quilts for cops, and 2 day care centers--one at a junior college for student moms, and one handicapped day care center that had been started in our church and grew into a full-child care facility for working families who had a severely disabled child and couldn't leave them to support the family. We just did what we could for whoever needed it. People moved to Wyoming who had no idea what 40 degrees below zero is in high winds that send the chill factor down 60 more degrees or more. Some came to the state in summertime with no more than sweaters to keep warm with. <gong!> One cold night cured them of that nonsense.

 

[freedombecki]

Two x 4 = 8 blocks finished today, this one is a time eater.

 

[freedombecki]

OK, think I'm going to skip today working on the last block. I'm working on a migraine for some reason. I did get the chores done. I told my neighbor that my house is kee deep. He told me not to worry with it, that I will have plenty of time to get into my life when I retire. But some things you just can't sit down next to forever.

Hope and pray your migraine is better today, Sunshine.

I had a little one yesterday, so I spent the day wishing it would go away. I cratered last night and just went to bed, before I got to read everything I wanted to. Today, I just planted myself in front of the sewing machine after taking a lovely walk. It was cool and sunny, and spring flowers are just everywhere here.

 

[freedombecki]

Today, 24 blocks of 6 different pairs of Mexican marketplace colors were done, and sewed one each into the little quilt start from the other day.

Here are 3 of the new blocks: