Current Project

A blogging friend asked me to show the current project I have going.  I found this pattern in the April, l999 (issue 37) American Patchwork & Quilting magazine.  Since it's a paper pieced project and uses lots of tiny scraps, I jumped right in on it.  That was a couple of years ago, and this winter and spring I picked it back up and plan to finish the piecing at least.  The name, Scrap Apple, comes from the fact that it's the Pineapple block made from scraps.

This was with the picture: "Quiltmaker Betty Lenz pulled scraps from her stash to make the 120 foundation pieced Pineapple blocks for the center of this quilt.  She also used scraps to applique flowers on a solid black background for a stunning finish."

The blocks are six inches, finished, and I have put a dime on the pattern to show how small the pieces are.

I have pieced 88 of the 120 needed, so I'm getting there.  I try to piece at least one block each afternoon.  I love doing this, picking and sorting through the little colorful scraps and seeing the finished blocks made from pieces so small that most would be thrown away.  I think it will be a pretty quilt.  "Waste not, want not."

A follow-up to the previous post:

Easter Sunday came on my birthday this year and so the girls brought supper that evening.  One daughter brought a bag of 50 gladiolus bulbs to give half of them to me.  Ah-ha!  A perfect chance to "pass off" the little doll head!  While she was busy with something else, I offered to open the package, then let her count out the bulbs.  When I opened the bag, I slipped the doll inside with the bulbs; he's almost the same color and size.  She put her hand inside the bag, and said, "I think this one must be ..." (rotten) and lifted out Shelby.  We all had a big laugh!  Isn't laughter supposed to be the best medicine anyway?

Have a good 'un!

Charlotte

Remember these blocks?

These, with many more blocks, are what they have become:

a big, colorful quilt top.  The scrap pile seems no smaller ~ sigh ~  Most points matched up perfectly which made me happy.  What do you think about using black in a quilt?  I think it makes the colors pop!  Now on to another project....

Charlotte

Flying Geese Quilt Top

I believe this year is following in the footsteps of last year, for here it is the middle of January already!  How can we slow it down?  And how we wish for some days with sunshine after a month of dreary, damp weather.  Do we never stop complaining about the weather?

I feel like I've made good use of my time so far; remember the flying geese blocks I was piecing, hoping to use up some scraps?  The top is finished ~

and as soon as I feel like working with a big lining fabric I'll put it on the frames to quilt, after I've checked to make sure all the papers are removed; sure don't want any surprises when I'm quilting! It turned out to be a BIG top.  During really cold days my sewing room is too cool to work in comfortably, so I have other projects to work on (another post :)  Remember those triangles left over from these blocks that I just couldn't throw away?  Here they are, paired up with white triangles, trimmed to size and boxed up, waiting for another time.

Waste not, want not~

Charlotte

Using a New Quilt

Yesterday morning the temperature was 15* ~ brr-rr!  Time to put the best flannel sheets on the bed for sure.  I'd been putting a throw and an afghan over my light weight quilt at night and then each morning they had to be folded and put away.  I needed another quilt.  My new quilts had just been in the cupboard for years; why not use one of them?  After all, shouldn't I enjoy the work of my hands instead of keeping them for someone else?  But there's this old saying, when you sleep under a new quilt, what you dream will come true.  Oh boy!  I've been having some disturbing dreams, not dreams that frighten me, just ones that leave a feeling of uncertainty or dread.  A lot of them include my late mother and daddy; usually I'm visiting them in a health center or something where I have to go through all these crowded, dirty little rooms before I find them.  I hate that!  But I decided to take a chance, and this is the quilt I put on my bed:

It is actually made of two different blocks: some kind of star block, and the court house steps block, and quilted in a clam shell design.  Most of the fabrics are homespun plaids.  I've always pictured this quilt in a log cabin.

Well, today I'm happy to say, I slept warm and cozy and had nary a bad dream!  So I guess I'm in the clear!

Charlotte

September ~ Hope Chest

Did you give up on me?  It was very close, but finally finished on the last day of September!  So much has been going on here the past month: big chickens (which went out last week), more hay to bale and haul, garden harvest of tomatoes and peas, all of which I'm very thankful!  So I grabbed every spare minute to work on a crazy quilt.

"Crazy quilts, born of necessity, were made in an all-over design consisting of pieces of material, regardless of size or color...They were sewed together in crazy fashion, usually on an inner lining ..."  Marguerite  Ickis/The Standard book of Quilt Making and Collecting.

My fabric pieces were scraps given to me by my mother-in-law several years ago; most are large prints left from shirts, etc. she had made for her grandchildren in the 1980s.  I pieced the blocks on newspaper, then trimmed them to size.  A quilt with such a busy pattern needs no fancy quilting stitches, (as if I could!) therefore I simply quilted along each seam line, except in the solid red, where I did a melon-shaped pattern.

 The quilt measures approximately 52 1/2" x 62 1/2", a good size to throw over the foot of the bed on a cold night ~ or

as a lap quilt to snuggle under while reading or watching TV ~ or,

spread it on the ground for a picnic lunch.

And while we're talking crazy, how did this fella get to be in the middle of the quilt?  Perhaps the bowl of chips can be set over him. (Also, I see a seam I skipped :()  Now to come up with an October project!

Charlotte

Washday at Sam and Sue's

In the weeks before our rain shower, I took refuge in the sewing room to look at something other than dried up flowers and dust.  There was this sweet pattern I had printed off the internet, called Washday at Sam and Sue's Wall Hanging; I don't really know who designed the pattern, but the name, Adrienne Franklin was under the title.  Also, it may have been printed by the Cranston Print Works Company; a lot of Wal Mart's fabric comes from this company.

Now I'm not real fond of wall hangings for my home, so I have in mind this piece would make a cute baby quilt; it seems more suited for a baby girl, thus the light green border.

The clothesline was made by couching with a zig- zag stitch over blue worsted weight yarn.

This was the first applique work I had done using the blanket stitch on my new sewing machine.  I did o.k. with it until I came to a corner, then I usually made a small boo-boo, and now I realize I should have practiced with the machine stitch on a larger piece first.

Of course there had to be quilts to wash and hang!

The clothes are pinned with embroidered pegs and really they just gave life to the piece.

And doesn't every clothesline have to be a fly-over for a bird or two?

After this top is quilted I'll put a hanging sleeve on the back just in case the person who gets it might want to use it as a wall hanging.  It would be sorta cute in a laundry room wouldn't it?

Charlotte

Kitchen Quilts

Perhaps the fact that I grew up in a home where every penny was pinched is the reason I like to take care of the things I have.  I guess we always knew that once we got something nice we'd better take care of it, because it might be a long time, or never, before another could be bought to replace it.

So, even though the saleslady said the table had a tough finish on it, one that could withstand hot bowls and scratches, I still felt better to put some sort of protection under them, and a lot of the time that protection came in the form of a magazine which was close by.

When the December, 2001, issue of American Patchwork and Quilting came, there was an article about kitchen quilts, another name for the ordinary potholder.  To qualify as a kitchen quilt, a potholder had to have a flat fabric top -- whether whole cloth, pieced, appliqued, or embroidered -- be layered with batting and backing, and be quilted and bound.  One of these would look much better on the table than a magazine! 

 

Two appliqued kitchen quilts,

 

 

two pieced kitchen quilts (the one in front isn't quilted yet)

 

 

Now whether it's a bean pot,

 

 

or a tea pot, the table is protected from heat.  And they look much better than a magazine, don't you think?

 

These measure approximately nine inches square.

 

Charlotte

 

 

 

Baby Bed

Primitive?  Maybe ordinary you'll say.  Seventy eight years ago, Daddy made this little bed for my sister, and then 6 1/2 years later, I slept in it.  He made it with hand tools, splitting the cedar and gluing the posts and rails together.  Of course the bed wouldn't meet today's safety standards because the rails are too far apart; but we didn't fall out or get our heads caught between them. 

I don't know where the bed was during my growing up years; perhaps it was loaned out.  But sometime it came back to my parents house, and with a shortage of space there, Daddy tried to take the bed apart; it refused to be taken down.  It finally came to live  with me.  I made bumper pads and fitted sheets for it, and grandchildren slept in it.  After there were no more babies to use the bed, it became a place to pile stuffed toys and extra pillows, etc.

Last week I decided to give it new purpose, so I moved it into my bedroom and put some of my new quilts in it.

 

I like the way it looks!

 

Charlotte

Blue String Stars Quilt

In April I wrote about this quilt and how I had to piece a strip to make the lining long enough.  Then I put it in the frames, so it took me almost five months to finish it.

 

It's a really long quilt ~ why I ever thought it needed to be this long, I have no idea, since no one in my family is this tall!  I remember thinking it would take me all summer to finish it, and it did, even though the drought kept me from the hay fields.   But finally, it's finished!

 

I turned back one corner of the quilt so the row of lengthening strips can be seen.  Since the inner border of the quilt was a red print, I added red prints to border the strips and also for the binding; gives a real punch to the blue.

 

 

The quilt was machine pieced and hand quilted.  You gotta love blue to like this quilt!

 

We've been without chickens for about two weeks now, and won't get anymore for a few days, so I have a baby quilt in the frames, hoping to finish it before going back to work.

 

Charlotte

 

 

 

Beyond Saving

A blogging friend from http://patchofzinnias.blogspot.com/2012/01 , has started the new year with a 366 Challenge (leap year gives us 366 days you know). She intends to donate, gift, or toss out one item from her home for each day of the year. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?

I really try to keep the clutter cleared out; actually the most cluttered room in this house is Popa's office, and I don't dare clear anything out of there. lol

The challenge encouraged me to look through some closets where things had been shoved back. I found two old feather pillows with quills sticking out here and there and the ticking seams coming open, a little pink baby blanket with frayed binding, and two old pillow shams. On the bottom of the shelf was an old quilt stored inside a plastic bag. I remember putting it in the bag because it smelled like old crayons and I didn't want it touching anything else. When I got it out and smelled it, the odor was gone! Maybe a good wash and it could be used again, so into the machine it went. Now my washing machine doesn't know the difference between the delicate cycle and the regular cycle; it swishes just as fast no matter the setting. Imagine my surprise when I opened the washer and attempted to lift it out, and balls of cotton went everywhere! Parts of the quilt had simply disintegrated and its innards had spilled out!

Now this made me sad, because many of the little 1 1/2 inch squares were made of scraps from clothing I had worn as a child, and I even recognized some from Mama's dresses.

I cut off a section that was still intact; perhaps a little stuffed bear could be made out of it. But that would just be another clutter in the closet! I'll think about it ~~~

Can you believe this post? I must be desperate to write about a tattered quilt!

Smiles, Charlotte

Quilt Beginnings, part 2

Another repost:

When Mama retired from the job in town, I got to spend more time with her. My husband and girls were back in school so I would go over, spend a few hours quilting with her, and eat the wonderful meal she always prepared; delicious, baked sweet potatoes were always waiting for me. I knew my stitches were not as neat and tidy as hers, even though her fingers were knotted from arthritis. She never complained about my stitches, but rather encouraged me to continue.

By this time she was entering quilts in the county fair and most always won blue ribbons. One of the most tedious tops she pieced was called Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors. It was made from melon shaped pieces, each one from a different fabric. Can’t you just imagine what a chore it must have been to get perfect points where those melons joined? She had developed her own technique of using a little gathering thread to draw them together. This is a picture of one of her Joseph’s Coats.

Now I had pieced a few tops myself and did machine quilting but was never really pleased with the stitching on them. I believe the first top I pieced was a Drunkard’s Path; I was a teenager at the time. Each block was made from a different print and the solid parts were made from feed sacks that had been dyed a light blue. That quilt, all faded and tattered, is now in my husband’s tool shed, used to cover things in cold weather. I went on to more difficult patterns such as the Double Wedding Ring, made from scraps given to me by my husband’s grandmother. It became one of the first quilts I quilted by hand.

Daddy made some quilting frames for me and soon I was laying out lining, batting and top on the carpet, pinning and rolling it all up. That was such a chore for me and became even worse as I aged. So, sometime back, my husband made some new frames for me; they have three rollers and now I can put up a quilt in a jiffy, by myself, standing up, and the whole thing is neater and smoother.

These are my frames: no fancy additions, just very workable; also a nice cabinet for storing completed quilts and tops. (The quilt is called String Bars, from the book, Liberated String Quilts by Gwen Marston.) I'll have to learn how to put the pictures in the right place. For some reason they want to load in front of the script.

This is my sewing area, with cabinets also made by my husband, from oak harvested from our own land. It was supposed to have doors on the upper shelves, but I’ve come to like the open look. My machine is a simple Singer; I like the control I have over the speed but it drives me nuts when it comes to unthreading the needle unless I have the needle positioned to come down before cutting the thread.

Next post I will continue the quilting saga. Have a good day!!
Charlotte

This was the quilt

I had planned to take to the fair. I didn't have a fair schedule to know when entries were to be made, so I'll just put it back and wait for next year. The center blocks are hand pieced, then hand appliqued onto the white, and the flowers are also hand appliqued.

Charlotte

Cheerful Quilt

After the sadness of the past week, I'll post something a little more cheerful. This quilt was made a few years ago like one I had seen on HGTV's Simply Quilts, named Posy Pots. The quilt combines Irish Chain blocks and applique blocks, and is great for beginners or as a quick quilt for quilting veterans. The instructions were provided by guest, Nancy Martin. They might still be available on the archives of Simply Quilts, I'm not sure. Her quilt was made smaller to be used as a picnic quilt; I made mine larger, about twin sized. The applique blocks were made by the freezer paper method; too special to be used for a picnic.

Colors in the Snow

Yesterday we had snow again; I believe it's the third time this winter, which I know doesn't seem like much to some folks, but for us, 8-10 inches is a lot. This morning the temperature had been as low as -1* sometime before we got up. Of course when I got ready to go to the chicken houses the Kubota didn't want to start, so I walked up there, taking it very carefully so as not to fall. Snow does make it difficult to do the farm work and takes away from quilting time.

This quilt was finished last summer when it was hot enough my hands sweated and had to be rinsed off now and then in cool water. Now I took it outside for the picture in the snow; colors to brighten our world. I'm sure my neighbors wondered why I was hanging a quilt out on a day like today. It's a log cabin quilt; isn't it amazing how many ways log cabin blocks can be arranged to make a whole new look? And, they're also very easy to piece, making an excellent choice for a beginner. I pieced mine on paper, just because I can't always make a perfect quarter inch seam allowance otherwise.

I wish I could have taken the picture without messing up the beautiful snow.

This picture may be difficult for you to see what I want to show you. Notice the tall, thin, white thing sticking out of the top of the fence post? That is an upside down icicle. lol Apparently the post was full of water and when the water froze it forced the ice upward. We thought it was pretty unique.

So, I'm off to quilt for about an hour, my designated time to work on what's in the frames. Here's hoping you're safe and warm.

Let's Wrap Up In This

This is a quilt just meant for winter nights! It is mostly made from homespun fabrics, making it cozy and soft. There are two block patterns: courthouse steps and stars. The backing is a small navy homespun plaid, and I quilted it in the clam shell design. Wouldn't it be nice in a log cabin? or on a boy's bed?

Can We Pretend It's Spring?

We're in the grips of winter, with a low this morning of nine degrees; the wonderful sunshine has warmed us up to thirty nine degrees this afternoon. Don't we wish spring could come sooner? We're already getting seed catalogs in the mail, but it's hard to visualize flower gardens when there is snow covering the beds. I don't have as much luck growing pretty flowers as I did back before the trees grew so tall; they sap all the moisture from the beds in the summer. By the time the ground warms up in the spring and I plant seeds, dry spells come and the tiny plants shrivel up. We use our wells for the chickens so I don't do much watering. I have better luck with flowers grown from bulbs: irises, Asiatic lilies, and daylilies, and of course they don't bloom all summer.

So, can we take a look at this quilt of mine, and pretend it's spring? This picture was made before it was quilted but I did finish it and called it my "Garden Pathway". I think the real name for it is "Boston Commons". I first saw this pattern on an antique quilt for sale on eBay; the white strips were left free of applique, only quilted. It took me a while to figure out how to draft the pattern, so I began with a doll quilt, then paper pieced the squares (since I'm not too good with 1/4" seam allowances on my machine). The flowers, leaves, and vines are hand appliqued.

I wanted to add more than flowers, so I cut the butterflies and birds from another piece of fabric and appliqued them. This method is called broderie perse. Of course every flower garden has ladybugs, bees, spiders, and spider webs, so I included some for a little bit of whimsey in the quilt.

Now this quilt comes with a little story: it won a purple ribbon at the county fair and I was asked if I would like to send it on to a larger fair. I agreed to do so, and added a hanging sleeve to the back which is a requirement at the fair; however, it wasn't hung, but rather spread out over a table with all sorts of other fair entries set on top of it. To say the least I was upset, fearing it would return home with dirty spots on all that white area, but it came back looking none the worse for the way it was displayed. But, I didn't send my quilt this year; I don't want a hanging sleeve on my bed quilts, nor do I want to use them as table toppers.

It's Already Been Done

After posting photos of the Wal Mart contest blocks, it was suggested that I use the idea to make an entire quilt. Well, it's already been done:

I used the free paper piecing pattern created by Caryl Bryer Fallert (www.bryerpatch.com/pattern/pattern.htm) when I made the contest block. I loved working with the small flying geese in a circle pattern, so decided to use it in a baby quilt. I chose to hand applique dutch dolls and farmer boys inside the circles, then I did reverse applique to put the circles onto the blocks, and finished it off with a flying geese border. The scrappy geese gave the quilt a lot of color. I entered the quilt in our county fair last fall and it came home with this ribbon; no explanation for its purpose, but a note on the back of the quilt said, "Judges loved this quilt", so I was honored. This is a perfect pattern for using up tiny scraps!

Quilts for Granddaughters

Besides the two grandsons, I have four granddaughters who also got a quilt that same year. There are no pictures of the quilts I made for the two oldest girls, but one was an appliqued lady with her bonnet and the other was made by a pattern from the book, Folk Art Quilts, by Sandy Bonsib. It was primiarly made from homespun fabrics.

The little Dutch dolls quilt was made for Brandie; machine appliqued, hand quilted, and the dresses were made from scraps left from her mother's little dresses.
Another Dutch doll, this time set together with attic windows sashing. Although each little girl is in the same pose, I used my imagination and added different things she seemed to be looking at, such as flowers, bees, a cat, etc., as shown in the three pictures below. Lily got this quilt.

I'm sorta noted for adding some whimsy to my quilts.

The basket quilt was made for a step granddaughter, Jessie. The flowers were machine appliqued, the baskets machine pieced, and then quilted by hand.

Now, to get one ready for each grandkid for a wedding gift, which, hopefully won't be any time soon! because I'm getting slower all the time.

Charlotte