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

Happy Halloween?

This project has consumed me for a week. The top is done, now to baste and machine quilt it.

What you need to know: I am not much of a Halloween fan. It was always a challenge to create costumes for my boys when they were little then we were surrounded with candy for weeks after. Ugh.

BUT. My son, Andy, LOVES Halloween and always has. He and Lauren start decorating their home October 1, watch at least one horror movie a day for all 31 days, and can't wait for October 31. When he met Lauren and she agreed to go to Zombie Prom with him, where everyone dresses up as Zombies with incredibly ghoulish makeup I told him he'd better keep her. A woman with an education and a job, who loves that kind of thing too? She's a keeper.

SO, when I had Lauren and Andy go into Market in St. Louis last May I should not be surprised they spotted this pattern and took photos and got booth numbers. I wanted them to see all the different kind of quilts, garments, accessories, and other things at Quilt Market, different from the kind of quilts I make. They sure did. Later I bought the pattern, and got glow-in-the dark thread as the pattern suggests for the satin stitching around all those pieces.

Some of those pieces are really tiny. First, I had to trace all the patterns onto fusible web. Then fuse and cut them out of white fabric. Next, I fused the pieces to black backgrounds. Stitching around all those  pieces took a few days.

THEN, there were hundreds of threads to be pulled to the back and tied off. I got my husband  AKA PopPop, involved in this step. His first, and probably last, quilt project. Such sighing and fussing you've never heard:

What you should know about glow-in-the-dark thread: it MELTS when touched with a HOT iron, as I learned when pressing the sashing in place. The pattern warned of this, I learned the hard way. The other thing is the Superior Glow-in-the-Dark thread has 80 yards on the spool--I bought 2 spools thinking that would be plenty--there was about 36" of thread left on the second spool when I finished. Glad I didn't melt more than a few spiderwebs that had to be restitched.

The border fabric is also Glow in the Dark spiderwebs--I found it online in an Etsy shop.  It really does glow in the dark though I can't get a photo to prove it:

The final part of quilting and binding and shipping it off to St. Louis will be the fun part of this project. I hope to have that done in a few days. That might be wishful thinking as I have 2 out of state teaching jobs this month and start several local classes too.

If you are interested in a slightly-used copy of the pattern at a great price, let me know. There will not be another one of these in my future. I will say the directions were excellent:

Happy Halloween!

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