Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

Decided to get some fresh air this morning and mowed quite a bit. Got a flat. Came in house and foot cramps started. Drank some milk and grape juice. Cramps in foot eased slightly. Likely it was too much hitting the gas. I worked hard, finishing quilt this morning, riding herd on uncooperative de,emted sweetie, mowed 2.5 hours, it's nap time! I found two "postage-stamp-sized" pieced quilts made in the 1860-1870s, and a contemporary really pretty poppies pillow. Oh, how I love poppies!

The quilts were from Maine, the poppies may have been from someone who made it in the UK on her blog, but it's been a few weeks:

 

[Sunshine]

I have done quite a bit of that. And even then, when I got to the end of my little pillow, I saw huge glaring differences in colors that I didn't catch when I was working it....where I mismatched the threads.

I used to do Celtic knots when I had to fly somewhere. I have one that has almost an entire row of backward stitches. That occurred during take off! I was still in my fear of flying years them. I have a trip planned later this year. I think I'm going to work on the next quilt I have ready to start even if I'm not finished with the tablecloth. It is just too big to take on a plane. Quilt blocks, not so much.

 

[freedombecki]

Organizing squares:


She just divided her postage stamp squares stacks with cardboard strips scotch taped in place! Not a bit expensive!



Copious surface space



My favorite of her 4 quilts, each of which has over 4,000 squares on them

blog link


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[freedombecki]

Museum piece alert!!!​

The Quilt Index​

 

[freedombecki]

The last quilt had a border that wound up having a lot of leftovers since there was no bother in counting. Sometimes the temptation to just sew and have fun obfuscates the need to count carefully to prevent wasting of resources for the next quilt. It usually has a great advantage, but sometimes ends up with a lot of stuff piling up in clearview plastic storage containers, shoeboxes, ziplock (tm) bags, etcetera.

Here's a piece of the red and white border of the last quilt completed the other morning:

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You may not be able to see the triangle shapes on the above white-on-white print due to the lack of acuity on cheap printers. But this isn't really about thrift, it's about what could be, and I saw a pillow at first and have made enough squares to make a pillow top to match the quilt. Haven't decided yet.

Votes:

Make the quilt, then do another quilt:

Make another quilt now:

Please, just say below. This isn't a real contest, and if you're here viewing quilts, welcome, sign in and vote now! It's a great site and a lot of fun people post here.

Oh, here's a little explanation of how I work, now that we've seen other people's methodologies. Picking up 20,000 postage stamps and restacking them into another container really isn't much fun, especially if 52 pickup your older brother pulled on you once (after you agreed with a cross my heart to the consequences) gave you feelings of impatience. It was about as much fun as having a pigtail pulled on at school by the smartass behind you.

So, I purchased some of those plasticized drawers that are 2 or 3" high per drawer and 16 inches by 14 inches or there around to stack and store postage stamps cut out for later use. Each has about 3 drawers, and the first one has mainly 30s fabrics in it, but the second one was just for red and red and white postage stamp pieces. They all measure 1.75" (1 and 3/4 inches) and finish 1.25 (1 1/4) inches. I like them because you can get a few more details in the square if you are fussy cutting a 30s reproduction print, and a lot of other quilter fabrics. The large splashy prints are harder to categorize, so if you have those, you can always just make a couple of stacks for bizarre-world color schemas and make a quilt of them someday, or throw one in here and there for a little annoyance.

Methodology in Scan 1: white print shown with red behind it, hoping that the triangle chips can be seen that cannot be seen in the other white-on-white squares of the chip fabric. Scan 1 also shows a wafer-thin piece of red picked up cheap somewhere that you can see through, so it was backed with white batiste that brings it up to snuff with the 200-count quilter's cottons that are far more opaque. Also if the sheer was a polycotton (which most are) it reduces the smell if you press on the back piece of 100% cotton batiste which does not smell like a chemical plant, at least. I pinned the red, white and green print back so you could see the batiste backing. The others are 1.75" strips cut to be cross cut into 1.75" squares in the near future. A lot of my time lately has been spent trying to cut squares from strips made for the last quilt that just never got crosscut.

Scan 2 shows work progression from sewing the red 1.75" squares onto a white chip 1.75" strip, back to back, to be cut when the entire strip is adorned by 20 or more squares. One end was imperfectly printed, so I started where the perfect white triangular chips start. 6 white 2-patch rectangles are pictured then the red-white-red-white lengths of 4 pieces; then 8 piece patch, and finally, the 16-patch red and white checkerboard with charm pieces on it.

Scan 3 shows 32 patch rectangles in which two 16-patch checkerboard squares were shown together, and in the next post, there will be 3 more 32-patch rectangles. I'm going to leave them that way until I decide whether to just make the pillow sham to match the quilt, or go ahead and go for another baby quilt. I'm reluctant to do that with only a yard of white left, if that much.​

 

[freedombecki]

Scans 4, 5, and 6

 

[koshergrl]

That is so beautiful.

I have always loved red, especially in fabric.

I love orange, too, but when a person loves brown and orange, they don't like to admit it, lol. Thanksgiving colors hahaha

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, koshergrl!

Here's a pillow I found online that is the most like my red and whites, except hers is on point:

 

[Sunshine]

OK, Beckums, I only lack 4 snowflakes having one full pattern done. I'll try to get it posted sometime today.

 

[Sunshine]

Here you go Beckums. My progress so far:

 

[freedombecki]

Here you go Beckums. My progress so far:

Very beautiful, Sunshine! You're fast!

 

[Sunshine]

Here you go Beckums. My progress so far:

Very beautiful, Sunshine! You're fast!

Not sure what day I started. But this design didn't take a full week at 2 hours/day like that quilt did. There are only 5 more of those design sections to do, then there are the borders and snowflakes which I want to try to keep up with as I go if it isn't too annoying. And I'm still stopping while I still want to be stitching. That assures that I will return!

 

[Sunshine]

One day soon, I need to find my round crocheted tablecloth that my grandmother made. I don't know if things like that have any monetary value or not. But it is way old, and last I saw it was in perfect condition.

 

[Sunshine]

When I went upstairs a bit ago, the scissors were in the drawer where I put them. But the cat was sleeping on the tablecloth!

 

[freedombecki]

Miss Kitty? She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!

[ame=http://youtu.be/T0YifXhm-Zc]Beatles - She Loves You - YouTube[/ame]

 

[freedombecki]

Well, nobody voted, so I just got tired of it all and decided to make a pillow to match the other quilt and call it a wrap. I can't do too well quilting even a baby sized quilt, but I can still do 15" pillow tops, which this one measured. I will need to make a 14" pillow, finished, to go in it because of takeup around the edges. We'll see.

Here are some scans of the pillow. There will be a few center squares in every scan, as my copier didn't include instructions for splicing together edges, at least, I don't think so.

 

[freedombecki]

Red and white quilted pillow top, the third side of four:

The quilting stitch is #112 on a Bernina 380. A lot of machines with stitches do this stitch, which is called the "feather" stitch, popular with and known to people who embroider fancy stitches on crazy quilts.

Didn't sleep a wink last night, with visions of sugar plum quilts dancing in my head and a little night music.

So since this task is completed, I just gotta get some shut-eye now!

Love to all for a beautiful new week. May it be filled with joy, good weather, fun things to see and do, and a renewed interest in all those new year's resolutions that need to be back in our faces.

Of course, I already have a pretty good idea of who's naughty and who's nice. (no I don't).

 

[Sunshine]

Miss Kitty? She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Beatles - She Loves You - YouTube

Well, I can't take her with me when I go to Gulf Shores for 2 months. My daughter is going to cat sit. I think I'm going to wear a gown around here for a day or two before and leave it with her at my daughter's house for her to sleep on.

Talked to my brother last night. He is one of the funniest people I've ever known. As irreverent and I am, he is far more so and 100 times funnier. I told him about how the cat is jealous of the stitching and will watch me for 2 hours at a time. His comment: "She's just trying to learn how."

 

[koshergrl]

Well, nobody voted, so I just got tired of it all and decided to make a pillow to match the other quilt and call it a wrap. I can't do too well quilting even a baby sized quilt, but I can still do 15" pillow tops, which this one measured. I will need to make a 14" pillow, finished, to go in it because of takeup around the edges. We'll see.

Here are some scans of the pillow. There will be a few center squares in every scan, as my copier didn't include instructions for splicing together edges, at least, I don't think so.

I'm sorry becki, lol...

 

[koshergrl]

Miss Kitty? She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Beatles - She Loves You - YouTube

Well, I can't take her with me when I go to Gulf Shores for 2 months. My daughter is going to cat sit. I think I'm going to wear a gown around here for a day or two before and leave it with her at my daughter's house for her to sleep on.

Talked to my brother last night. He is one of the funniest people I've ever known. As irreverent and I am, he is far more so and 100 times funnier. I told him about how the cat is jealous of the stitching and will watch me for 2 hours at a time. His comment: "She's just trying to learn how."

I have a hilarious brother too.

We were very, very close growing up but now we rarely speak and haven't seen each other for years. He married a rabid Canadian leftie who has no interest in fostering ties with his family, and he certainly isn't.

But that's okay, we have our own families now. I love him and think of him often.