The Journey #6

A bit more of a look-back at some of my early work:

The Journey #1
The Journey #2
The Journey #3
The Journey #4

The Journey #5

By the turn of the new Century I had two young men in college and was working full time during tax season, and part-time at several jobs, mostly quilt-related, the rest of the year. A lot of my quiltmaking involved making class samples--if I wanted to make it, I would create a sample to teach it.  Another passion that was developing--replicating antique quilts, in my collection or those I saw in publications or exhibitions. 

Yuletide Elegance, 1997, an original design for a simple Christmas quilt. One 12" block, a Carolina Lily, set on-point, with beautiful quilting designs on the large white alternate squares makes this an easy quilt and one that says "Christmas!" each December when I hang it in the living room. I have taught it several times. It was thrilling to have it featured on the cover of McCall's Quilting, December 1997.

Devil's Claw,  1999,  a replica of an antique quilt I bought. This taught me how much I love scrap quilts, those using lots of fabrics. I call it "Planned Scrappy" because each block has one fabric in common with all the rest and the star points, squares and rectangles in each block are the same, though different from every other block. It is hand quilted and one of my favorites:

Living in the Past, 2005, 70.5" square, based on a pattern by Alice Berg published in American Patchwork and Quilting, October 2000.  I hand quilted this quilt, using a feathered wreath in the large squares--which you cannot see because those are print fabrics. One of my most favorite quilts that I  made completely myself--and today it looks like a great Fall quilt:

A-Symmetrical Six-Pence, 2005. 93" x 109", made in a group swap of 13 quilters. We traded "units" with each other, specifying what colors we wanted, each person then cut the units to the size she wanted and created her own quilt design. This one spent a lot of time on the design wall as I worked to get the design flowing in one direction, then making a turn to the opposite direction: 

Bountiful Blocks,2006,  the pattern is Summer Rose by Glad Creations. Another quilt with lots of fabrics, long-arm quilted by Lisa Marshall. This hangs in my living room and brightens it up:

These are just a few of the many quilts I made in those years. At least another 12 bed size quilts and many wallhangings, crib and throw size quilts. Over the years I  have given away or sold many of the old class samples, there just isn't enough space to store them all. But I have lots more to make so stay tuned...

Let's quilt!

Barbara

Starts and Finishes

I worked at it to the exclusion of all else last week so I could count this one done:

It is the Block by Block quilt made for the Patches & Stitches 40th anniversary. It uses 40 fabrics and has 40 blocks. The first 40 to bring a completed quilt to the shop wins $40 and I was determined to be in the top 20. #17!  Photo of the top here. Quilted on my Bernina Q20 sit down longarm, I enjoyed doing the big loopy designs across the top. I chose 4 different designs for the borders. Finished is better than perfect.

Time for a new start. My Favorite Things is a new quilt/class I am designing that will run for 6 months, from June to December, 2018. It will feature my favorite blocks and students can either make a small quilt each month or make "parts" that will be combined at the end into one large quilt. It's a lecture/demo class, no machines to drag to class, just learn several blocks each month, different ways to make them and ways to use them in quilts. More about the class here.

My fabric pull for this project:

Where did this palette come from? How about the chickens of Kauai?

I often save photos that feature colors I love together. This has been saved since 2006 when my husband and I made a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our 30th anniversary. This will be fun.

The beginning class I teach at Patches & Stitches finished last night--only two students attended the last of 5 sessions but had great quilts to show for their efforts and both are hooked on quilting now, always my goal:

Sharon, her top is complete

Tricia, made 30 blocks and still has two more borders to go. She plans to lengthen it a bit.

They both enjoyed seeing my Block by Block and decided to try that next. I love when students get excited and say "What can I make next?"  Both of these women have their next bed-size quilt projects picked out.

From time to time I participate in online swaps. Lori of Humble Quilts has done a doll quilt swap for several years. I received this one from Judith B along with a pin cushion and photo of her Featherweight machine which she used to make it,  a great touch:

And I gave this one, to Katy S:

It's fun to share small quilts with like-minded quilters.

Time to get a few things done so I can play with My Favorite Things.

Let's Quilt.

Barbara

Long Time Gone

Long Time Gone is a Jen Kingwell pattern I saw in Houston 2016 and liked. I found a Block of the Month on Homestead Hearth and ordered it, receiving fabrics each month over the course of a year--that started in February. Then I found a blog working on it, one block a week, Gnome Angel and decided to use my own fabrics for the first one. This top will be finished in July. Here is what I have so far:

The sashing between these sets of blocks might be gray, or lavender, or something else entirely. Still on the hunt for the perfect background color.

Yesterday I received my swap quilt from Lori's 4th annual doll quilt swap :

This came to me from Jan H, in Markesan, WI. She hand quilted it, very lovely.

Here  is the one I sent to Danice, only about 75 miles west of me:

I finished a small  quilt the other day, part of the samples for my "Work Faster, Not Harder" class:

My free-motion feathers are getting better, practice makes perfect, so they say. I would forget the direction I was going so some of the feathers are not headed in the "right" direction but some baby doll won't care.  The X blocks are 3" small, the instructions can be found on my Tutorial, here.

Our guild program the other night was about "creative backs". Years ago I made a back that took almost as long to make as the front did, but I was determined to use up as much of the fabrics/parts from the front as I could, to NOT put anything away in the closet. I really like this back but didn't have a photo of it. So here is the Front of Purple Plus!:

And here is the Back:

And, wonder of wonders, Delta fixed my suitcase, this came home the other day:

They ordered a replacement pocket and fixed it--no more rip. Who knew they could do that?! It's ready for its' next trip in just a few weeks, to Spring Market in St. Louis, home of my grand-girl, Stella:

                                               

I am eager to do  more ruler work quilting on the Ohio Stars quilt. I got lots of great information in classes in Chicago. Stay tuned,..,

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

Working, Teaching, Creating

I've been having a great time making Curved Flying Geese for the Halo Star Medallion Block of the Month:

I can't show you mine yet, but April 1 the next Blog post of tips will appear--they are NOT AS HARD as I feared, in fact, they are FUN to make.  And what an impact they make in this quilt!

The Smitten Class I started a few weeks ago finished up yesterday.  Here are the wonderful blocks the students have created:

Leigh's soft, subtle Australian-feel set of blocks

Joan's Christmas blocks

Pat's bright, scrappy blocks

Susan's bright, very happy blocks

They had fun and even though each still has work to do, they are happy with their progress and eager to get their quilts made.

I've kept up with the Long Time Gone Sew-A-Long, two weeks, two different blocks. This is a Jen Kingwell pattern and I am using lots of leftover fabrics, mostly brights and black and whites:

10" Bowties

10" Bowties

12" Squares in a Square Stars

I signed up to participate in Lori's Humble Quilts Quilt Swap, her fourth, and the quilt I am gifting to a quilter is ready to ship as soon as I sew on the label. It will be mailed Monday to someone who doesn't know it's coming.  The deadline is May 1 so I am way early. I hope the recipient likes it:

Pattern is by Lori Smith, 16" x 20", 2" blocks

Yesterday I basted the Ohio Stars quilt so now I am eager to start quilting it. I plan to do some decorative designs in the open spaces and some ruler work in the larger stars:

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

The Latest Progress

While my husband is working hard on the garden beds, I've got other kind of beds to work on.

I finished The Scrapbasket Sampler, by Cheri Payne, provided on her Quilts by Cheri Friendship group on Facebook. These are 4" blocks:

26" x 46" 

As usual, I made some changes.  Her applique' on the top border was very primitive and some people did it in wool, it was perfect for that.  I used one of my favorite sayings and did a machine buttonhole stitch with thick black thread.  It was pretty fast as I used Steam-a-Seam 2 so I could draw the letters correctly and then reverse then when putting the fusible of the back side of the fabric.  On the bottom border I kept the basis design put thought to add my initials and the year on the bottom sides.  I love seeing words and dates on quilts so this was fun to do.  Some people used different fabrics for the four borders but after I agonized so in selecting the setting squares, I kept the borders all the same, a lovely mocha brown I bought in Chicago.

Today we got the 20th block from The Splendid Sampler.  Here are the first two rows assembled:

So far I have changed or eliminated three of the blocks--my goal is to get this done fairly quickly each day--new blocks are provided each Thursday and Sunday--at the end of 50 weeks we'll have 100 six-inch blocks.  There are over 80 designers so some of the blocks feature embroidery or other hand-stitching I don't want to do on this quilt.

I'm also keeping up with Circa 2016 from Temecula Quilt Co.  Each Friday there is a new bit of  instruction.  See my center here.  Fortunately, there are only small blocks to do right now, two a week.  But as we will need 120 half square triangles that finish to 1.5" at the end, I'm working on those now--they make the perfect leader/ender project:

Now it's time to get Rajah Revisited caught up before the May instructions appear.

And I'll end by sharing the doll quilt I received this week from the swap hosted by Lori at Humble Quilts. It came to me from Kim A. in Kansas City, MO:

20.5" x 24"

This is a great collection of reproduction fabrics--I found it amazing that Kim only used one fabric I have in my stash, a purple print--odd, since I have a substantial stash of these kinds of prints.  Thanks, Kim and Lori!  Here is the one I sent to Roni H. in Tarpon Springs, FL:

20" square, I think

It's fun to share this little quilts with others in different parts of the country and world!

Let's quilt!

Barbara