Headed to Mobile

 I will soon head south to Mobile, AL to present a Lecture and Workshop for the Azalea City Quilt Guild.

Tuesday September 13, 2022 the Lecture is the ever-popular "Time Management for Quilters", 10 am, Regency Church of Christ. Full of ideas and suggestions for making the most of the time we have to be our creative selves:

On Wednesday we will spend the day making a Charming Sampler, using Charm packs we buy and love but don't know what to do with:

Sample 1 approx. 34" 

Sample 2 approx.34"

The Guild was happy to report this class filled almost immediately and asked if we could add more students. Of course. So we will be a full house at 25 students. 

Making small blocks, these are 3", is a good way to improve piecing skills and play with colors. Students who take this Workshop report learning so much more than they expected to, tips that will improve all their piecing going forward.

Mobile is as far away from my home as possible and still be in Alabama, it will take all day to get there. But there will be wonderful seafood dinners and I really look forward to that. And making new friends with this guild.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

Changes and Dodging a Bullet

This is a quilt I made almost 25 years ago. It is an off-center Log Cabin, begun in a workshop with Jane Hall in 1995, finished in 1997. It's about 30" square:

The other day one of the Sunday Sew and Sews asked about it as it has been hanging on a rod in my studio for about 20 years.  I took it off the rod to show them and it was SO DUSTY! Embarrassing! This baby needed a bath.

After pulling a big collection of fabrics for a new project, I thought I'd better pre-wash the darkest ones. Here is the complete collection, give or take a few: 

Here are the darkest fabrics, after pre-washing:

What is the problem, you say? I washed the quilt in with these DARK fabrics and FORGOT to add a Color Catcher! I only realized that after the load was washed and I was putting everything in the dryer. I quickly grabbed the quilt and studied it for signs of bleeding fabrics on the white logs of the quilt. 

I must be living right because there was no bleeding anywhere and all the fabrics and  the quilt look fine. Sheesh! I won't try that trick again.

 I enjoy writing this Blog--begun December 31, 2011. It serves as my Diary/Journal and a way to teach what I know how to do to others who want to learn that stuff.

We are approaching 3200 followers. Most of those follow by email--using the built-in email subscription service that came with Blogger, the base platform for blogspot.com blogs. Recently, we were notified that in July 2021, Feedburner, that subscription service, would be going away. 

Thousands of us who use Blogspot.com to publish our blogs are looking for solutions. Some come at a cost to me--something I don't want to use. I have not monetized this Blog, so there are no ads for you to close or skip past, and I don't want there to be. But if I had to pay $50-100/month to provide access to an email subscription, that money would  have to come from somewhere.

So, at the moment, this is what I know are your options if you currently follow this Blog by email:

1. Use Bloglovin.com to follow all the blogs you like to follow. I use this and have been very happy with it. Daily I get an email showing me a few of the blogs I follow that have a new post. I go to My Feed on bloglovin.com, an account I set up there, and can read through any new blogs that are posted. I can see the info in a simple format or open the Original Post to have access to all the sidebars and Comments section. Free to me and the bloggers. I have a link right here for you to use to go to Bloglovin.com. Currently, almost 740 of you follow this Blog that way.

2. Use Feedly.com--the same process as Bloglovin'. The free version allows you to have 100 blogs in your account. I have not used it but almost 100 of you do.

3. If you have a Google account, like if you use Gmail.com, you can follow with Blogger--there is a Follow link right here for that. Currently, over 270 of you use this method. I don't know much about it but am guessing it's very similar to the two methods above.

4. OR you could remember to come to this Blog every Wednesday and Sunday, when I usually post, to read the new Blog. Personally, since I follow at least 50 blogs, that would take me a lot of time to do. Some of those post daily, some weekly, some hardly ever. Most I would forget to go look at and would surely miss a lot of quilt-related information I don't want to miss.

As new solutions become available, I will let you know about them. Until July, those who follow by email won't see any change. After July 1, POOF!--I might be gone from your inbox and I would truly miss you. 

Any of you who know of solutions to this--which will effect many thousands of Bloggers who use Blogspot.com, please Comment Below with your suggestion. Thanks!

Let's quilt.

Barbara

An OLDIE, Finished

Time for a little break from the Special Exhibit quilts for this post. 

 Recently, I was looking for what to quilt next, and found this small piece, made years ago, that was even basted and ready to go.

It's about 34" square. I think the pattern came from an old book by Mary Ellen Hopkins, who encouraged quilters to create their own designs, using basic traditional blocks in various layouts. 

I am a fan of ruler work quilting, particularly curved crosshatching. I am inspired a lot by Natalia Bonner, her books and her videos and classes.  This was so much fun to figure out and then execute: 

Although it is hard to see, I also designed a scalloped border in the dark fabric--here is a closeup--maybe you can see it:

This quilt has one of my favorite light fabrics--I wish I had yards and yards of it. I think it was a Gutcheon print--it came in several colorways--I loved this one:

It took a couple days to design the quilting and then execute it. Really fun and now it's finished!

Let's quilt.

Barbara

For Sale #3

The fabrics and books sold really well so now I'm offering a dozen small quilts, mostly doll, baby or crib size. Some were class samples, all are priced to go to a new home. They are taking up space needed for larger quilts so they must go.

This the last Sale post for this year--stay tuned for regular quilty posts going forward.

DOLL QUILT:

1. Star with Borders, 19.5" square, $40:  SOLD

SMALL QUILTS:

2. Double 4-Patch, 21" square, $50:

3. Ruby Baskets, 22" square, $50:

4. Christmas Star, 29" square, $75: SOLD

5. Baby Bargello, 24" x 31", $50:

BABY AND CRIB QUILTS:

6. Opposites Attract, 36" x 39", $100:

7. Oriental Half Squares, 26" x 31", $60:

8. Red, White and Blue Friendship Stars, 44" square, $60:  SOLD

9. Hearts and Nine Patches, 29" x 33", $70: SOLD

10. Scrappy Trips, 46" square, $75: SOLD

11. The Temperature Quilt, 31" x 34", $65:

12. Bali Star, 36" square, $60: SOLD

Feel free to share this with non-quilters--I know you can make your own but they can't.

Let's quilt,

Barbara

Busy Week = New Finishes

In the last week I have quilted, bound and put labels on four quilts, fairly small ones. It's good to have them in the "Done" column:

The X-block, or Old Italian Block is one of my favorites. I love to teach it and I love to make it. More information in this tutorial:  X Marks the Spot  This one has 3" blocks, it is 16" x 20" and was made from a charm pack of "Rachel Remembered 1820-1850" by Betsy Chutchian for Moda:

Twinkling Stars is my applique' sample for the Patchwork barn instructions--find it here.

I was eager to get it completely finished so I could wash it to see: 1.if it shrunk and 2. how the applique's feel after washing--they were made with Wash-Away Applique' Sheets by C&T Publishing:

It was 29.5" square before washing and 29" square after washing. It has wool batting so I laid it out to air dry after washing. The applique's feel very soft, not stiff at all like they were before washing. The Applique' Sheets package says "Sheets dissolve into tiny fibers leaving no residue".

Temecula Quilt Company had a weekly sew-along this year that drew me in. The 1880's Sampler Sew Along has 4" blocks, mostly made with half square triangles. It is a replica of an antique quilt. Mine is 31" x 40". I thought I would add another border but decided to stop with just one, like the original quilt:

Finally, Kisses + Hugs., AKA Japanese X and + is done. I have taught this several times, and really enjoy these very scrappy blocks. When I decided it would be the quilt to bring to Houston to help decorate the Education office, I had to quilt and bind it. Done. It is 45" x 60":

Now I have to get my two garments made for Houston. So this was my pre-Houston quilt marathon. There are several more quilts basted, just waiting for quilting. As soon as the garments are done I'll get right on the next one, Temecula Quilt Company, Circa 2016:

And one more thing happened in the last week--Stella became a BIG SISTER--welcome to the world, Samuel:

Let's quilt!

Barbara

One Quilt, One Day, Start to Finish

Yesterday I made this quilt:

OK, so it is only 11" x 13" but it's finished!

The backstory:

Our guild, the Heritage Quilters of Huntsville, is having a little contest this year:

1. Check a book out from our large library
2. Make a quilt from the book
3. Bring the quilt to a guild meeting
4. Fill out a slip
5. At the end of the guild year, August, two people will win $50 gift certificates to my favorite shop, Patches & Stitches .

I had known about this for a few months with no plans to participate. At the last guild meeting, Thursday, the Librarian made a pitch for this because, more than half way through the year, there was only ONE participant, the Librarian herself.

So the next day I was in Patches on other business and since our library is housed there, I checked out this book, Little Handfuls of Scraps  by Edyta Sitar:

That night I looked all through the book--there are several designs I really like in it. I selected the one I wanted to make, Sophie, page 66.

The next day, yesterday, I was ready to begin about 11 a.m. I selected all the fabrics from a shoebox full of reproduction prints I keep close at hand. All the pieces were cut out and assembled on a flannel board I use to take blocks ready to sew from the cutting table to the  machine:

I sewed and  pressed, took a short lunch break, sewed and pressed some more and  had the top done pretty quickly. I cut the batting and backing to size, ready for quilting.

My plan was to hand-quilt it as I needed a hand project for evening sewing. But first I would stitch-in-the-ditch on the Bernina Q20 sit-down longarm machine. That didn't take long so I thought, I'll just machine quilt the entire thing. That didn't take long either, less than 45 minutes to fill the squares with "orange peel" designs, using curved rulers.

Next, it was time to trim it, cut and create the binding, cut and create the hanging sleeve, and attach the binding and sleeve by machine.  By 3 p.m. it was done. Last evening I hand-stitched the binding and sleeve in place and this morning I hung it in the hallway.

So, one quilt, one day. I sent an email to the Librarian to let her know her pitch was heard by at least one of us. She was happy. Next month I'll take it to show and put my name in the hat.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

More Stash and Simple WhatNots Club

 

 

I learned about these wonderful fabric bundles recently on Lori's blog, Humble Quilts. They come from Two Thimbles Quilt shop in Bellingham, WA. There is 2 yards in each bundle, 12 strips, 6" wide by WOF, and the cost of $14.95 seems very reasonable to me. So I bought 3 of them.  I could have bought 4 and paid the same on shipping,  something I forgot to check before I placed the order.  The best part is there is only 1 fabric in the 36 pieces I already have so it was a great stash enhancement event! Their service was excellent--I placed the order on Wednesday and the Priority box arrived today, Saturday.  Thanks, Lori!

There was very little Civil War/1800's fabric at Spring Market.  Most lines are bright and clear and a lot of solids.  The new lines are pretty fabrics, but I still love 1800's repros a lot.  So that is how I justify adding to my collection.  I will use several of these in my Stars in a Time Warp quilt. 

Last night was the Simple WhatNots Club by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass Fabrics that I am conducting at my local shop.  Here are 2 quilts completed from last month's pattern:

Michelle did 16 blocks, Anna did 9, both are great

The pattern is called Cloud Nine and those blocks are 3.75" finished.  I love how you get a little bitty Churn Dash/Monkey Wrench were the blocks come together at the corners. 

This is the pattern we are doing for May, called True Blue.  Each block is 6" finished.  I used one background fabric where the pattern uses several.  My tip for these small blocks is to use a small stitch, 2.0 or 12/inch, and press all the seams open.  These 2 blocks will become part of my WhatNots Sampler quilt, where I am combining the parts of many of these small quilts into one large quilt.  See my post about the parts on the design wall here.  There is only one month to go and I am working on that project now. 

Last night I also told the group about Becky Goldsmith's wonderful new book:

The Quilter's Practical Guide to Color, by Becky Goldsmith


 

I botch the title, I'm afraid.  Becky did a blog this morning about this, featuring a short video tutorial on color:  Color Tutorial.  She quoted my email to her about how much I like this book and think it will be so helpful to quilters.  I plan to teach 4 classes from this book and I'm calling it Color College.  We'll have Fall Semester this September, Winter Semester in January, Spring semester in May  and Summer School, in summer 2016.  Each class will be independent of each other.  The plan is to use 4 of the projects in the book to teach skills with color and by the end of the 4 classes, the students will have read the book.  I know many quilters buy great books, flip through them and don't read them.  You will get lots of out this book if you READ it!

May you all have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday and remember:  We are the Home of the Free, thanks to the Brave.

Let's quilt!

Barbara

Small Projects Finished

In two weeks the first Simple WhatNots Club will be wrapping up at my local shop, Patches & Stitches.  I plan to devote this session to finishing techniques.  So I've gotten a few of these little quilts quilted and bound, or partially bound, so I can demo a few methods. 

 

"MEANDERING":  This one I bound with one of the fat quarters of striped fabric in the collection .  I usually bind with straight grain cut the width of fabric but stripes lend themselves to being sewn on the bias.  I also machine stitched this one in place after turning it to the back--I'll have some tips on how to do that.  Approximately 18" x 24".  The buttons are sewn on the teal blocks to cover some funky stitching--I free motion quilted the petals--still have a long way to go with that but the buttons cover the majority of the "issues" with the quilting.  Finished is better than perfect.

"WIDDLYTINKS":   This one called for tiny yo-yos--I opted for buttons instead.  This binding shows what NOT to do--cut and sew straight or your corners will be "pokey" like these.  Approximately 12" x 15"

"LILY":  My favorite in the first collection.   I quilted this with the walking foot and will use it to demo how to trim the outside edges and how I join binding strips--with a bias seam.  I add a hanging to sleeve to 99% of the quilts I make and will demo that on this project too.  28" square.

The second collection of The Simple WhatNots Club has been announced and the shop is doing this club one more time, from January to June, 2015.  See the projects here.  We only have room for 30 people to sit for the two-hour monthly demo.  Many in this first club are signing up again--they love Kim Diehl fabrics and have learned a few things. 

Another fun project I completed was a Quiltalong small mystery quilt from Lori D of Humble Quilts.

 

This she calls Cascadia.  I've done several of Lori's little quiltalong quilts--they are fast and easy and I enjoy making something fairly quickly. I had a bunch of 2" finished four-patches already completed  so that made it easy to get this one done.  18.5" x 17".
Folks in the string block swap I put together have decided what colors/design they want for their blocks.  I wrote about that here.  That tutorial showed how to split the block exactly in half with two different colors.  Three of the seven of us want a 1" finished strip down the center of the block, like this:

 

This takes a little care, lining up a 1.5" cut strip exactly down the center of the paper foundation.  I pin that to hold it, then add strips on either side.  These are blocks that were made for my in a previous swap--I want light colors on one side, dark colors on the other.  There are many design possibilities with these blocks, just like Log Cabin blocks. 

Finally, I started Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt, even though I said I would not until I got a few more things done.  There are over 23,000 people on her Facebook group, Quiltville's Open Studio, and I think most of them got started this Friday November 28, when the first clue was released.  Click the Grand Illusion link below to go to Bonnie's Blog--then  click on Grand Illusion Mystery in the heading--the introduction and Part 1 are posted--or click here.  Each Friday until the end of 2014 she'll have another part of instructions.  Here are my first little 4" finished units:

I am not in a hurry to complete this so I'll use it for my leader/ender project.  The fun part for me is picking all the fabrics and I wrote about that here.

That will do it for now.  I'm almost finished Little Letters and will have that to show next time.  Linking up to Bonnie's Monday Mystery and Patchwork Times.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

New Little Quilt

Last week, when I should have been doing other things,  I used 2 of those little 2.5" quilters' candy square packs and made this little quilt for a friend:



 

It's titled "9" x 9", and is 18.5" square.  The fabrics are Le Belle Fleur by French General for Moda.  It's just a simple little wallhanging/table throw but I think she will like it--despite its' imperfections.  And it was done in one day.  Sometimes I just have to create something start to finish.

Now I'm working on two garments for Houston.  The first, a tabard vest, is almost done and the second, a jacket, gets underway today.  Also, still binding the X Block Swap quilt, with kitten help so it takes longer. 

Also today, I'll make all the quilt labels I need to get made and sew them on the quilts.  The show quilts need labels and I try to make permanent labels for all my quilts--since I won't live forever. 

Check out Judy L's blog to see what other quilters are doing. 

Let's quilt!

Barbara

Small Feathers

I seem to have a thing for Feathered Star blocks and made this one to commemorate the 2013 Raffle quilt I created for our guild show, which is this October.   Here is my "baby":

I'm still hand quilting it--the wool batt is luscious to quilt with.  Then I'll bind it and add a sleeve.  It's 26" square and those feathers are 13/16" finished, the star is 12" finished.

Here is the "mama": 

It's 84" square and the star is 15" finished.  Tickets are still available for this beauty--just contact me and I'll fix you right up with as many tickets as you want--$1 each and you do not have to be present to win.

The kittens are getting adjusted.  The male was diagnosed on Saturday with a parasite, Coccidiosis, and is taking 3 meds to clear it up and control his "problem".  And we have to watch for symptoms in the female--she tested negative but it's early and she may still develop it.  They are 12 weeks old now and growing.  They sleep most of the time, then run and chase each other hard for a few minutes, then eat, "go", and sleep some more. 

Check out Judy L's Design Wall Monday blog to see what others are doing--I seem to make it by Tuesday!

Let's quilt!

Barbara

Support Your Local Artist

Those of us who create stuff know the feeling when someone else likes what we have made.  And if someone buys one of our works, that's a great feeling--knowing the art we made touched another person enough that they wanted to own and enjoy it.

I have an old friend, from kindergarten as best we can remember, who is a quilt artist with several awards to her credits, several large commissions in public spaces, and terrific small quilts for sale at Tidewater Gallery in Swansboro, NC.  Her name is Eileen Williams and you can see her work here.

As someone who loves the beach and ocean and rarely gets there, I wanted a piece of Eileen's art to admire and remind me of the sea so I bought this piece:

Reach for the Stars
9" x 12"
 

Eileen is featured in the current issue of Quilting Arts magazine, June/July 2013--a terrific article about her and her work. 

We have a few interesting things in common:  we grew up just a couple blocks from each other and went to the same elementary, junior and high schools in Philadelphia.  After college, she went in the Navy and I joined the Marine Corps.  We both married Marine Lieutenants from Alabama, and raised sons--she has 3, I have 2.  And we both found our artistic outlet in quiltmaking--though our styles are very different, our passion is the same. 

Now I have to find the perfect spot in my home for this beauty--somewhere I can see it every day, smell the salt air and hear the waves. 

If you get the opportunity to support a local artist, do it!  It's good for the soul--of both of you.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara