Slump

I'm in an awful slump with anything quilting. I have an idea or two rolling around in my head, but can't get anything going. Just let it all set there, and keep trying, I guess. Hopefully, will have some quilty things to share again soon.

Fair Result

This quilt has been several years in the making, but since I did technically finish it since the previous fair, I was able to enter it in the local fair a few weeks ago.

Back Burner

Quilting has really been on the "back burner" for a long time, as I've been involved so deep in yarn stuff, and getting ready for the fair. I already have a quilt for the fair, so quilting right now is a low priority. Nonetheless, at some point, I did get that table runner in the hoop, and have started quilting it.

Runner

After being inspired by something I saw somewhere - Pinterest? - I cut out some pieces the other night to make a small table runner. Today I got them arranged, and sewn together. It's been a stormy day, and as of now (9:30 p.m.), we're not out of the woods yet, with a bad storm to our west headed right at us. Hopefully it will JUST RAIN. Please, Lord, no tornadoes or hail.

Anyway, this is ready for the next steps: Cut out backing and batting, quilt, bind, and done. Be nice for summer, Flag Day, Fourth of July, etc. It's just a smaller one, but may be fun to set something on.

Feed Sack Find

One of my favorite things is Depression-era feed sack material. I just love all the colors and patterns that are unique to this time. At the thrift store the other day, I found this bag of blocks and pieces for $3.50. It's crammed full. I haven't opened it yet. I want to have time to savor it when I do. Here's the view on one side of the bag, a bunch of colorful hexagons.



The other side - I see a Dresden Plate block, among other things.



Love these colors and patterns!

Sewing Bricks

Here awhile back, I decided to cut some rectangles and make a small "brick" quilt top. Then they sat in a stack for quite awhile. Finally the other day I got them sewn together. With the help of a chocolate sundae.

Drying

Washed the reproduction feed sack print fat quarters the other day. Here they are, drying on the line in the Oklahoma breeze under an overcast sky.

A Messy Table Is a Productive Table ...

About three years ago, I cleaned off my dining room table from home, so I could have it looking neater and have a place to work. You have to understand how nice this is, considering the silly house we live in, and that over four years after moving in, I'm still trying to organize and find a place for things.

Anyway, here's the neat table about three years ago:



Then a few days later, I moved it to the corner, to be nearer the outlet to plug my sewing machine in:



Today it looks like THIS:

Retro Feed Sack

Checked out the fat quarters at the nearby quilt store today, and found a couple of retro feed sack prints. LOVE this type of fabric! I want to make something with some original feed sack fabric I have, and also something from the reproduction prints (like these two) that I have.

Baby Comforter

The baby comforter (gift) is finished! Finished it a couple of nights ago, tacking down the binding while listening to it thunder all evening. A few pictures of the last steps:

Tied, trimmed, ready for binding.



Binding strips cut and sewn end-to-end to make a "continuous binding," pressed, ready to sew on.



Beginning to sew binding on.



Finished comforter - front.



Closeup of binding & back. The mom-to-be's preferred colors are soft green, turquoise and lavender. I wanted to use that darker purple to bind it, because it seemed to frame and set off everything the best. I BARELY had enough, but it worked!



The back.



Closeup of front.

Baby Comforter in Progress

About two weeks ago, I got a baby shower invitation in the mail. The mom-to-be is expecting a girl, and her preferred colors are "soft green, lavender and turquoise." Since we are in trying financial circumstances right now, HOMEMADE was the way to go. So in addition to several pairs of knitted baby booties in colors that will hopefully go with the colors on the list, I decided to also make a small baby comforter in similar colors, since that will go faster, being tied instead of quilted.

Night before last, after spending quite awhile working on the knitted booties, I pulled several material choices from the stash. A couple more of these got weeded out, ending with six material patterns.



A stack of the cut squares, six different colors/patterns.



The cut-out squares.





That evening, I also started sewing the blocks together into strips, and the strips together. Got a couple done before bedtime.

Then the next morning (yesterday), I was back at it.



M & M's always help. :) You can see these replaced the three pieces of taffy in the apple bowl in the previous picture, that I ate.



Yesterday evening, the finished top out on the clothesline.



Closeup.



Next steps: Cut backing, cut batting, layer everything, pin together, tie, cut binding, sew binding on, tack binding down. Plus sewing the seams on all the booties. I CAN DO THIS! A week from today is the shower. :)

Trip Around the World

More "this-n-that:" This is a "Trip Around the World" quilt I made back in the mid-1990's. The batting isn't real thick, so it's more of a coverlet than a warm quilt. Put this in the county fair whatever year it was, and got reserve champion.

This-n-That

I was scouring my photo albums for some old pictures, and came across these that were quilt-related. May have posted some before, but if so, here they are again. ha ha

A baby comforter I made when I was expecting our first son. Got this made and put it in the county fair the summer of 1992. Got a blue on it.



Two sisters I went to college with and roomed with, they gave me a bag of scraps that their mother had had from making their outfits through the years. So I made each of them a quilt from the scraps. One got a 7-star pattern, and one got this 9-patch. Mom helped me quilt this 9-patch, so it was set up out at Mom and Dad's house in the living room, over the dining table. Probably around 1992 or 1993 or so, judging by the crib in the background!



This is an Irish Chain quilt I made for friends who were expecting a baby. Worked on this in 1988 and 1989, and put it in the county fair the summer of 1989, before giving it to my friends later. Got a blue on it. This was my first solo try at making a quilt. (The big white "border" is actually a sheet that the quilt was laying on in the yard. The colored squares go right up to the binding.)



Me on the front porch swing at home, holding the Irish Chain quilt. I was in my late 20's. Hadn't met my husband yet. Had just got moved back home from living and working in another town for about a year.



Closeup of the Irish Chain. I had it laying on a sheet out in the yard for photos.



(Note: Yep, I've posted the baby comforter and the 9-patch before. Blame it on poor memory!)

Bricks

Spent yesterday evening cutting out some "bricks" for a small quilt top.

Apple Core

A long time back, I had seen a quilt made from the "Apple Core" or "Double Ax Head" pattern. It intrigued me, the way the pieces fit together, and I wanted to try something like that. So I made a template, and cut out enough pieces to perhaps make a pillow cover.

WELL.

I *eventually* got the rows sewn together, and that was a nightmare! Those curves! I had the worst time.

So now they've sat for quite awhile, with the pieces in rows. Who knows when I'll get the nerve to sew the rows together!

So meanwhile, I'll enjoy them as decoration while they hang out on this little hangar I found at the thrift store. Maybe, just maybe, I'll tackle them one of these days.

Spring and "Jacob's Ladder"

The "Jacob's Ladder" quilt has been a long time coming. I started it way back when we lived in the apartment, probably 5 or 6 years ago. I started making hand-sewn blocks, intending to just do 4 for a wall hanging. Well, somehow through time I decided to make a few more and make it bigger, a small quilt. But before I got all the blocks sewn by hand, we moved into this house. Long story short, I eventually got to sewing with my machine, and finished sewing the blocks by machine. Then I put everything together into a quilt top, and quilted it in a hoop.

There it stopped for awhile. I wasn't in the mood to cut and sew the binding. So I folded it and put it away.

My way of doing binding on a quilt has been a little different - I'd sew 4 seperate strips, one to each side of the quilt. This looks fine, but the corners were tedious because I had to really tack them down and close them up on the back due to the one raw end of strip. Make sense? Anyway, I dreaded the corners, always, when tacking down the binding.

This last fall, a good friend of mine had a quilt project going. Her grandma had made the blocks, she and a friend had put the blocks together into a top, another lady machine quilted it, then she sent it to me for binding. It was a beautiful treasure, and I wanted to do a good job.

I decided I wanted to do a continuous binding, to have the corners be better than I had usually done. Not that the way I'd done them was bad, it was just so tedious. But when I tried to do a continuous binding on a small project awhile back, it DID NOT TURN OUT RIGHT, and I wasn't sure what I'd done.

Well, this quilt sat for quite awhile since fall, with me trying to get the nerve to jump in on this nice quilt. Then I remembered the Jacob's Ladder quilt with no binding on it yet. AHA!! "I'll practice on that."

Well, once again, I'd done whatever I'd done wrong the last time, and it still looked bad. So I'm very thankful for "YouTube." Between that and Google search, I finally figured out what I'd been doing wrong on the corners. I was just folding a certain spot the wrong way. So I ripped the corners and re-folded and re-sewed, and "voila," it worked FINE! YEE-HAAA! This cowgirl quilter was VERY HAPPY.

Then I had all the confidence in the world to tackle my friend's nice big quilt, and it went fine, too. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I was glad to be able to get the quilt back to her before Valentine's Day, which was my "goal." I will now do bindings no other way. LOVE the continuous binding, and how the corners go.

So after several years of on-and-off doing, the blue-and-yellow "Jacob's Ladder" is now folded and hanging above the cabinet that my Granddad Cline made, giving a nice springy effect. (Yes, I'm having spring fever.) I put the wintery things and colors away, and fixed the top of the cabinet with more spring-y colors. The flowers are fake, but I don't care. They at least give something pretty to look at. :) So ... I'll share some pictures of the finished arrangement - enjoy!