Pink and Brown Quilts

Reilly's quilt is one of my pink and brown quilts, but I have recently finished another one that I haven't mentioned here. Awhile back the Senior Center quilting group that I lead started making some lap-size quilts using strips and the quilt-as-you-go technique. It took me longer to finish mine than it did the rest of the ladies, but I finally got mine finished and gave it to the Center to put in their shop to sell. Here it is finished and here is a close-up of one corner Here is photo of the back of the quilt . It is always good to learn at least one thing with each project - one of the things I learned with this one is how to make rounded corners. That required me to review how to do a continuous bias binding. I especially like the way a stripe fabric looks in a bias binding, so was pleased with the way this turned out. I cut many more strips than needed however, so could probably make another one without cutting any more fabric. Instead I will just add them to my collection of strips of different widths for another project. This was the same process that we used for the table runners we were taught at Retreat this year, just a different size, and with sashing added. I really like it as a quick to do quilt.
Working on this project also prompted me to investigate walking feet. I have never been happy with the one that came with my Brother CS6000i, so just didn't use it much, but these seams were pretty thick so I contacted a Brother dealer to see if there was a different foot I could get. He said that if my foot did not say "Brother" on it then it probably wasn't a Brother one, and my original one did not, so I ordered one from him, and it seems to be doing much better.
Yesterday I started quilting Reilly's quilt - my first pink and brown quilt. Here are the 4 blocks I've done so far. On the right you can still see the marking pen I use to trace the stencil design, but I will spray it tonight with some water and it will go away. I am outlining the individual sections of the pink and brown sections, and will be alternating the two stencil designs for the cream sections.

Reilly's quilt and some table runners

As usual when I start a new blog entry, I wonder where to start. I have been working on several projects since my last posting. My newest granddaughter Reilly's quilt - the Squarin' Around that I mentioned in my last entry - is now ready for some borders. Here is the center - and a couple of possible borders - I am going to GA again next week and will take the center and the possible borders with me for her parents to help me decide what to use for the borders. I think the brown with cream dots will be the backing. I'm sure I have thought this before, but I really do think this was the hardest quilt to piece that I have ever done. I like the way it turned out -- but not sure I would want to try it again!

Last spring our guild had a workshop on quilt-as-you-go table runners. I have finally finished 2 - one I started in the workshop and one that I did while helping the Senior Center ladies learn how. Here are the two of them and here they are with the backing showing. When the piecing is finished all you have to do is add the binding. These have been very popular at our guild recently - one lady recently showed 13 she had made!

Senior Center Gift Quilts Finished

Last Friday the quilting group that I lead at the Senior Center presented the two quilts we have been working on for months to the director and associate director of the Center. Both are the Turning Twenty pattern, one in blues - with a large lighthouse panel on the back - because the assoc. director likes blue, and reminds us of that every day we are there, and he likes lighthouses. We made this one for the director - I used some large pieces of sunflower print on the back - At the time we were making this one the director was involved in getting a raised garden going behind the building, so we thought lots of floral prints would be appropriate. These were both made out of fabrics donated to the Center. One of the members of our group has a long-arm, and though she didn't want to volunteer to quilt them both she was willing to show me how to use a pantograph so I quilted both of them. The quality of the quilting does not stand up to hers, but we got them done - and the recipients seemed to like them. If they suspected anything during those months we were working on them they were kind enough not to say so. I am hoping that the woman who took some pictures will send them to me so I can add them to my collection. Here are the labels -the is Ray's and this is Jeri's I was finishing up the labels about 2 hours before their monthly musical program at the Center! I had quilted Jeri's the previous Friday, and though the other ladies said they would help me bind it at our meeting on Wednesday, I decided I didn't want to ruin the surprise by having one of them ask who it was for at that late date, so I just did the binding - and the labels - myself.

Back of Lillian's Quilt and the Quilt Frame at the Senior Center

Last night I finished the backing for Lillian's quilt - Here is the front . I have the backing and batting together now, just need to add the top to them and I will be ready to baste it.

Today I went to the Maury River Senior Center, where I lead a quilting group and teach a computer class, to demonstrate using a quilting frame during a community festival. Yesterday I took the Pantry Quilt over to set it all up. The frame I was using was a Hinterburg that was donated to the Center. We had to drill a bigger hole in each side of the legs to get the bolt thru that is a attached to a stabilizing piece. One of the gears on it was turned the wrong way, but we couldn't figure out how to get it off. We even tried hammering it off but it wouldn't budge. This afternoon, as I was taking the quilt off the frame, the director of the Center showed me that the gear has a screw - no wonder hammering it wouldn't make it come off!

DH came over to see how it was going for me and took a couple of pictures. Here's the long view and a closer up shot - In the backgroud you can see my Grandmother's Flower Garden, that is still a work in progress, and the Turning Twenty top we recently finished. The sampler on the wall with the gold sashing is the one our group made for the Center last year.

Pantry Quilt Backing is Done!

I've never pieced anything this big this quickly. Saturday night and Sunday night I worked out a design using leftover fabric from the front of the quilt and a few fabrics that I bought for the front but never used. After several hours of drawing, measuring, etc I discarded the first design I had and then came up with this one. Sunday night I started cutting out the pieces, then this morning I started putting the pieces together. You can't see it but there is a white square in each corner. My thinking is that when I have finished quilting it I could add a few appliqued jars to the large white area, but I don't want to add them now. I am planning for the hand quilting to be outlining the jars, inside and out so I wouldn't want to have jars on the back that would have the quilting around jars on the front showing. However, I have plenty of time to think about this because it will be a long time before I finish the hand quilting on it, unless there are lots of people helping me quilt it at the Senior Center this Saturday.

Next I need to lay out the batting, trim it on one side and piece it on one end. Then I will be ready to begin basting. I have been spray-basting smaller things in the last year or so, but because this is so big I think I will baste it by hand. I'll be using my big Q-Snap frame to do that. I don't use it much for quilting as the height does not suit me, but it is convenient for basting.

Fallen Leaves, Turning Twenty and GFG Progress

Last week I finally finished my Fallen Leaves wallhanging. It is a tissue foundation pattern from Cindi Edgerton that was fun to do. I bought mine as a kit at Cottonwood in Charlottesville, VA - primarily because I couldn't resist the fabric that was in the kit for the border and backing. I searched online until I found more of it to save for another project. This is a project that I started last September when I bought the kit, then it languished while I worked on and completed other more pressing projects, mostlly for other people. I had even finished most of the quilting on it - just had to finish up some of the borders and bind it. Now I am looking for a special spot in our house for it to hang. I am pleased with the way the quilting turned out. I just used a regular foot and left the feed dogs up - I'm not ready to cut loose with free motion yet - and found that I was able to move the quilt around enough to to make the wavy lines thru the leaves. There was a lot of starting, stopping, and turning in the border but it is a good example of where I am now in my quilting odyssey.

The Senior Center group that I quilt with has finished the top of the Turning Twenty quilt that we have been working on. We are planning to make the backing by using a lighthouse fabric in the center and a light taupe fabric surrounding it, since the recipient really likes lighthouses. I should have that pieced by our meeting next Wednesday, then we can begin sewing together the blocks we have for a 2nd one. These will be gifts for the director and assistant director at the Center - one of them knows who this one is for, but neither of them yet know about the other one, which is a pretty neat trick when both of them are usually there when we are meeting and working on them. Both of them are being made from fabric donated to the Senior Center, either by us or by other quilters in our area.

I am also continuing to work on my Grandmother's Flower Garden. This picture shows the progress to date - 4 rows of the 9 I expect to do will be done when I finish attaching the last flower on the left in the bottom row. I have laid out some of the fabrics I think I will use for the next row - the pink and green one is finished and the pink and blue one is partially finished.

We went to the Atlanta area again last weekend for a family wedding, a Braves game and to check in on some of the grandkids. I had time to make a quick stop at Tiny Stitches in Marietta where I met Melinda in person. I will definitely go back to that shop!

My Guild's Quilt Show and Allie's Quilts

My Guild, Rockbridge Pieceworkers Quilt Guild, has a quilt show as part of the Rockbridge Regional Fair in July. I joined the guild in August 2006, but was not ready to put anything in last year's show. This year I put two of my quilts in the show - the T-shirt quilt and the Butterflies and Hydrangeas quilt . Neither of them won a prize, but it was neat to see them displayed in a public place. The quilting group that I lead at our local Senior Center also put a quilt in the show that several of us worked on, so that was neat for those ladies to see their handiwork on display.
For me the best part of the quilt show was that our youngest daughter entered 5 of her quilted wallhangings in the show. I am showing them here with their labels so you can see what she said about each one. She is in her second year of working on organic farms in the Columbia County, New York area. "Flame," "Chocolate," "Bodo," "Wiltsie Bridge," and "El Corazon." She has painted on some of them, and I think just did a terrific job on them. She has an art background, but has only been quilting for a couple of years.

Allie just recently finished a quilt for the daughter of her current employers that they commissioned her to make for their daughter's wedding. Here is a picture of her and my hubby with that quilt - She designed the quilt herself, cut out all those orange flowers from some batik fabric and machine appliqued them on, machine quilted the quilt and included some botanical designs in the quilting and has a quote from Khalil Gibran quilted in cursive writing around the border - Quite an amazing job I thought! The couple did not see the quilt until the reception, where it was hanging up for all to see.

OC updates and our Senior Center Sampler

I am happy to report that I finished all of the blocks for Clue #3 in the Orange Crush Mystery and got a start on #4. Here are all of Clue #3 and 2 of them up close. And here are the 6 I've done of Clue #4. For #4, I have all the strips cut, then lay out one of each as Bonnie suggests, cut them with the Easy Angle ruler, sew one strips' sets together at a time, position them on the cutting mat, then place my 4-patches into those 4-5 blocks, trying not to have the same fabric twice in one block ~~ guess that makes mine a "controlled scrappy" arrangement. I'd like to move along on this project some more this week, but first I need to do some work on the sampler quilt we are doing at the Senior Center.

Last Wednesday at the Center we (read that as "I") got the 4 rows sewn together on the fronts. We are doing this as a quilt-as-you-go so each block has already been quilted. Now I need to begin the work on the back, positioning the batting, trimming off some of the batting, and figuring out how to fold one side of the backing pieces over the others so that it looks neat when finished. I am hoping some some of the other ladies will be able/willing to help with the handwork of stitching the backing pieces together. I've not done this before except on a sample, so we'll see how it goes. This quilt will be given to the Center to hang when we finish. Then we are going to start work on some Turning Twenty quilts.

Senior Center Quilting - pt 2

After we finished the placemats for the Meals on Wheels participants some of the Seniors in our quilt group wanted to do something for ourselves. One of the Senior Center Board members had given me a couple of pictures of a jar, or pantry, quilt that he and his wife saw on display in the Midwest during a cross-country trip. I had seen the blocks on Janet Wickell's Quilting About site for a ginger jar and also the more traditional mason jars. I printed these out for the ladies and we decided to each get some fabrics and share them with the rest of us. So far one lady has made 4 wall hangings or small quilts using these patterns, two are quilting or ready to quilt wall hangings, and I am ready for the borders of mine. Here are pictures of the top 5 rows of mine, and the bottom two rows, and the strips of braided border that I have done so far. I will be putting the woodgrain fabric on the sides, then a narrow border of the background fabric before I attempt to sew on the braided borders. They are pretty stretchy so I am concerned about how to do that neatly, but I have gotten some advice from folks on the Quiltville Chat group so hopefully it will turn out OK. I got the directions for doing this border from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com

A couple of weeks ago I was telling the Sr Center ladies about my Atlanta Shop Hop fun and how some of the ladies on the bus tour wanted to see how I made the Grandmother's Flower Garden pieces with Quilt Patis. Two of them got interested in making some of their own so I shared some of my florals with them and they are off and running with it. They will probably be finished before me! Here is a photo I took yesterday of my GFG - with some of the top row partially finished and auditioning for a position!

I think that those who are going to do the Pantry Quilt are far enough along on them that we can begin thinking about what to do next. Last summer and fall we made 20 blocks for a sampler quilt to donate to the Senior Center and some of us are in the process of quilting those blocks, then we will assemble them as a quilt-as-you-go. I am thinking ahead to our next project. I'd like to do one of Bonnie's scrap quilts for the Center to raffle or to have on display. If we give it to the Center we can use some of the fabric that has been donated to us and each of us could make some blocks then we could sew them together. I'm going to show them pictures of some of those quilts in the next week or so and see what they think of that.

Senior Center Quilting

In May of last year I asked the folks at the Senior Center where I volunteer as a computer teacher and Medicare Part D advisor if there was any interest in my starting a quilting group there. My idea was just to get together with others who like to quilt, NOT to teach a class. Well, yes, there seemed to be some interest, but of course more interest in my teaching than in everyone just "doing." So, I needed to plan something for each week's meeting. A few had done some quilting before, but several had never quilted, and some did not have sewing machines. The first few weeks we spent going thru the fabric contributions on hand at the Center, then we decided to do a sampler quilt. Each of us - at that time about 8-10 - were to do 1 or 2 blocks. I brought in lots of patterns for them to choose from and some more fabrics. We eventually got 20 blocks made, then I showed them how we could assemble it as a quilt-as-you-go quilt with several different ones maybe helping with the quilting of the blocks. Some of the blocks had to have a bit added to the edges to make them be the right size, but I have done that to most of the ones that needed it. I'll post pictures of mine when I finish quilting them.

Before we finished this project I had the idea to make placemats to give to the Meals on Wheels participants that are fed out of the Senior Center. Turns out there are at least 60 people in that program so we had lots of placemats to make, but a few of us got really busy and by mid-December we had about 70 placemats which were distributed to the Meals on Wheels clients before Christmas. Here is one of the placemats that I made. It is from Six Halves Make a Whole - 6 fabrics -1/2 yard each - of coordinating fabrics make 6 different placemats with each fabric in a different position in each placemat. I wish I had taken a picture of all of them before they were distributed, but the day I brought my camera they had already been rolled up and tied and ready to give out.

In the meantime we had found 20 blocks in a box that was donated to us by the family of a recently deceased quilter that were clearly intended to go together - and with them was enough fabric to use as sashing around these blocks. One of the ladies volunteered to piece them together. I put on two borders, using fabric that we had decided on as a group when we took a field trip to the VA Quilt Museum (about an hour north of here) and to a quilt shop. Then the lady who assembled the quilt took it to do the long-arm quilting on it. I got it back from her about 3 weeks ago and finished it today. At her suggestion I did the binding differently - cutting the backing a bit wider that the top and folding the backing around to the front and blind-stitching it to the front. I thought it was really hard to do the corners neatly that way, but I got it finished and this afternoon I finished the label and gave it to the director at the Senior Center. It will be raffled with the proceeds going to the Senior Center. They had a recent quilt raffle that brought in enough money for them to spend some of it one a Brother sewing machine for the quilters and others who meet there to use. Here is a picture of the quilt on our bed. We are calling it Bertie's Purple Lady because it was Bertie Golden who pieced the blocks. I will take a picture of the label when I am there next week. I wasn't sure it I would be able to finish it this afternoon as I don't often have time to do things I want to do when I meet with them!

More in the next post about what we are working on now.

"Surrounded" Quilt for Son and Daughter-in-Law

A few months ago my son and his family moved into a new house in Athens, GA. I told them I would like to make a wall hanging or lap quilt for their new house and this is the pattern we eventually decided on. It has about 30 different batiks in it, and will backed with a different batik. I just finished adding the borders to it this morning. I will take it with us to GA next weekend so they can the progress on it, then bring it back here to get it quilted. I am hoping the long-arm quilter who is hopefully going to do my T-shirt quilt will also do this one. Son and DIL sent me two of the throw pillows from their sofa and loveseat so I can cover the pillows with some kind of quilted top to go with the quilt. She suggested the same pattern that I used in the quilt, but I am thinking about using some of the same fabrics but doing some kind of paper-pieced design for them.

I took the T-shirt quilt to the long-arm quilter Friday afternoon, along with a sample block for her to practice on. She is hoping to have the sample quilted by Wednesday when we have our Senior Center group meeting. I also got the second border on the quilt that our Senior Center is going to raffle and took that to the quilter as well - so she has a few things to work on. I was interested to see her quilter. She does some freehand work with it, but she also has some patterns that she traces with a laser light and the machine quilts that design. Seems like more skill involved in that than if you have a computer-operated quilter.

I have had some trouble letting go of my t-shirt quilt, feeling like I really wanted to do all of it myself, but knowing I would have a difficult if not impossible time doing that, and that it would not look as good as I want it to if I did do it. I am not ready to totally give up hand-quilting, but as I get more used to the idea of sharing the making of my quilts, I realize that I could make more, and there are SO many I want to make!

The First Quilt I Started

About 23 years ago I took a class at a local fabric shop, which is no longer in business, to make a lap quilt. The teacher used Georgia Bonesteel's book, Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel, and gave us patterns to make the various designs from. I chose 4 bright calico prints and before the class was over I had 19 blocks in various stages of completion - some were quilted and ready to assemble into the quilt, others were pieced with the borders and the cornerstones, others were pieced but no borders -- you get the idea. If we learned how to actually assemble them I did not remember that part.

Fast forward to 2007. I have now been quilting again for about 2 1/2 years, but had not taken out the calico blocks to do anything with them. I had looked at them various times, but couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them, until last week. Our Senior Center group is doing a sampler quilt to hang at the Center, and I thought the quilt-as-you-go method would be a good way to get the individual blocks quilted and assembled. Only problem was - I didn't know how to assemble them. So, I read Georgia Bonesteel's book, which I had bought in the meantime, and studied the handout that one of our guild members had distributed when she gave a workshop on assembling a QAYG quilt. Then I made a sample using the handout, which puts a narrow sashing in between each block, and put two of my calico blocks together as an example of another way of assembling them. Of course, in order to do that I had to decide what I really wanted to do with those 19 blocks, etc. After a few hours of playing around with arrangements I came up with what you see here - 12 blocks which have at least been pieced - and with lots of moving around of pieces, I came up with an arrangement that has one each of the four colors in each 4-patch at the corners of the blocks.


As I work with these blocks I have started liking the quilt more, even though it still does not "go" with anything in our house, it will be a nice quilt to have for the TV room -- and it has a history to it as well. The woman who taught the class was our youngest daughter's nursery school teacher, her husband was my boss at that time at the university library, she and I and her husband all went to the same college in TN (though we did not know each other then), and it turned out that she and my younger sister with Big Sister/Little Sister in their college sorority -- so we had a few ties. She and her husband no longer live here - when they moved away my husband took her husband's job - but we have seen them occasionally at library meetings. I will definitely have to send her a picture of the quilt when I do finish it! So now, thanks to my Senior Center group, this quilt has moved way up on the list of WIPs that I want to work on finishing. Of course this is not the only project that is calling me this month, but it is on the "short list."

Here are the first 2 blocks sewn together -

Beginning a new blog

Welcome to my new blog. I was previously on My Quilt Blog - and plan to keep my previous posts on that blog for the time being. I am hoping that this one will be a bit easier to maintain and that therefore I will post more often. I have a website - that has a Quilting Links page - where I try to document my progress on my quilting projects.

In the last few days I have been working on:
(1) a lap quilt for my son and his wife - using all batiks and a pattern from Four Paws Quilting called "Surrounded." I have just finished piecing the 35 blocks and am letting it rest while I decide on the exact placement of each block
(2) a wall hanging for oldest daugher and her husband - "Van Gogh's View" from the July/August '07 issue of McCall's Quilting - I have one more row to attach to the rest of the quilt, then need to continue tacking down the folded pieces on each of 190+ blocks
(3) four blocks for a demo for the Quilt Qlub group I lead at our local Senior Center - this Wed. I am going to show them how we can finish a sampler quilt we have all contributed to by quilting it one block at a time
(4) another placemat for the Quilt Qlub's project to make enough placemats to distribute to the 60 recipients of Meals on Wheels - we hope to be able to do this by this Christmas
(5) ordered fabric to make a Peter Rabbit quilt for a young woman I work for at my volunteer job at our local hospital. It is "Storybook Bunnies," from June/July '07 issue of Quilt.

This week I hope to work on:
(1) my Hydrangeas and Butterflies wallhanging - I am going to a quilting class on Monday nights this fall where our theme is to finish a WIP - I have LOTS to choose from, but this one is more nearly finished than most! The hand quilting is finished on it except for 3 1/2 sides of the border, then need to bind it
(2) measure, cut and sew the borders on a quilt for the Senior Center group that one of the other members assembled. The blocks she used were in a large donation we received from the widower of a lady in our area. We are hoping to raffle the quilt in her memory for the benefit of the Senior Center.
(3) complete my Quilt-As-You-Go demo for the Seniors by Wednesday afternoon
(4) meet with the other 2 members of the Retreat Committee for our guild to continue planning for the retreat in May
(5) determine the placement of the blocks for Surrounded and sew them together
(6) finish assemblying Van Gogh's View and do some more tacking on those blocks
(7) finish at least one more of the International New York Beauty blocks on Quilter's Corner Club - I've done 2 so far and we have patterns for 8
(8) participate in the Curve It Up challenge on One Stitch at a TIme
(9) anxiously await Carol Doak's October Block of the Month pattern that she promises will be out sometime this week on her Yahool Group page

Well, that sounds like enough for one week! I plan to use this blog to help me stay focused on what I want to do next. I have so many quilty things in the works that it is hard to decide what to do next sometimes! So why do I want to start new ones like #7, 8, 9 above? I guess it is because I am more of a starter than a finisher - a bit of quilty ADD! I like to think it is just because I love all things quilty and just want to do it all! I did just recently straighten up my quilting/guest room so now I can find all of my quilting and counted cross stitch things -- I think the listings above are kind of just another way of organization. After all, I was a librarian for years before I retired, so organization is well-ingrained in me!

Wish me luck on accomplishing at least most of the 9 items listed above!