She Made Do

I've been too busy helping my fella friend to do any sewing so today I am sharing photos of one of the few antique quilts in my collection. I bought this about 20 years ago when my guild took a bus trip to Kalona, Iowa. I have no history on it, but it is 130 years old or more. 

The pattern is a variation of the Union Square or Contrary Wife block. Don't you just love how we can't keep the names straight.  Isn't  it interesting how the blocks are sometimes scrappy and sometimes not. Two of the blocks have a pair of little triangles arranged wrong. Have you ever done that on purpose in one of your quilts. Nobody is perfect, so you better not try to achieve it in your quilts. Wouldn't want to insult God. Like there's a chance I'd make a "perfect" quilt. HA

This quilt came complete with a nice hole in it  in  the center square on the block on the far left in the picture below.  I hear it is typical for old quilts to have a hole like this. If not made from a mouse, than likely from bed springs. I guess I ought to repair it so handling the quilt doesn't stress the hole and make it bigger. I'll have to put it on my list. The long some-day list, of course.

I counted the different scraps in this quilt once and came up with 78 different prints used. It was easier to count than you'd think. First all the pinks, than the browns, than the oranges. . . I pull it out once in a while especially like a week or two ago when I was tempted by an antique quilt on ebay.

Things aren't likely to settle down with my fella friend real soon. It looks like he will be moving. Just how soon  or where to we don't know. Mental illness is ugly to deal with. It brings me great joy to know that I am making a difference in his life.
Time to check out the blogs linked at Judy's.

It's My Therapy

My fella friend has been needing my help so I haven't had much time to sew. At least I got 5 more blocks almost done that are a bit lighter than the others.

We had quilting at church on Tuesday. We weren't very productive but we had a good time. We got word that one of our group will no longer be able to join us but hopes to sew from home for us. Of the three quilters that joined our group in October, one decided against joining us, one will be sewing from home and the third I haven't seen yet. But Sue has decided to join us for a while. She already knows a number of the gals too, so that should just add to the fun. We worked on the string blocks from last month, and I unloaded about 10 more kits.

A friend  stopped yesterday with her husband. She started talking about gathering fabric for her next quilt and He started rolling his eyes. So I took him up to my Quilt Warehouse and gave him an education. He didn't have too much to say except "But you make money with your quilting."  And although that's true I still quilt in excess of what I need for my books and classes and lectures. I told him that quilting is my therapy and boy do I need the therapy. She can take it from there.

For the Curious

I know some of you took some Process Pledge to enlighten others as to how you work and made decisions on your quilts. In case you are a new reader, this is a glimpse of how I often work. First I make a bunch of blocks that I like. Then I try various settings. So far I have made 13 of my Flying Geese blocks.

I tried setting them on the diagonal, but it does nothing for me. At least alternating with plain blocks. I don't think I'd like this with any kind of alternate block- light, dark, pieced or appliqued. Set straight either.

  Then I tried setting them with sashing. Surprisingly, I liked this enough to try it with a dark sashing, too.  Okay, maybe this is too dark.  I just grabbed some brown strips from my 2 1/2" strip scrap box.

I guess it's back to the original plan.  Not sure how big I want this yet, but I think I need to lighten it up a bit with the next few blocks I make. As much as I like this, I'm thinking like Nann. I'd like this just fine if it were in bright colors. Please someone do it so I can see how much better great it could look either way.

 I hope your International Quilting Weekend was productive, too. To see other settings I have tried for some of the other quilts I have made, click on "variations" under Labels.

Winners Announced

 I came down with a Wicked Cold and my fella friend needed a little extra help the last few days. That meant no quilting time. The weekend is only half over and with it being International Quilting Weekend I'm feeling kinda bad  now that I haven't been quilting.  But, I will fix that as soon as this is posted.  I'm feeling it now.   Am I the only one that didn't notice that National Quilting Day changed to International Quilting Weekend?  I guess I don't stay on top of things in the quilting world like I used to.

I guess I will get back to my flying geese project. The plans for this so far is to join the blocks side-by-side, without sashing. That was the point of adding a third flying geese unit to each side then the rectangle to square up each quarter block. As I said before, I really don't like sashing and I thought modifying the block like this would separate the pinwheels enough visually and make it easier to construct cause the points won't meet at the edges of the block making it all lumpy. Well, I hope that  was clearer than mud.

Thank you to everyone that stopped to visit during the blog hop.  And thanks doubly to those of you that decided to follow me. It's always nice to know someone will read my ramblings.  I will be checking on your sites soon. If I'd known I was not going to be able to post the winners till now, I would have extended the date of the giveaway till now. Sorry to make you wait, but maybe that makes it more fun for you.

The following are WINNERS, please contact me so I can send you a package snailmail.
Quilting Babcia
Evelyn
Sandra
Nicolesender
NancySue
RhondaD

I hope We get  to do some quality quilting this weekend.

Willpower

Have you ever seen an ugly quilt?  If not, I'd guess you never checked out ebay. Occasionally I browse ebay for antique quilt tops. I had Sue here the other day and we bid on a top. About the only good thing I could say about it is that it's colorful.  Sue wanted it cause it had 1940's prints; her favorite. The prints are pastels like the 1930's, but they are larger designs. Yes, she got it. Here it is.

I'm not saying this is ugly. It's just easy to see why there are so many tops that never got quilted. We couldn't smooth this thing flat on the wall for nothing. At first she got it just to enjoy the variety of 1940's prints. Now she's thinking of taking it apart and remaking it with one color for the melons between the blocks. Knowing her, she probably will and it will be gorgeous.

I have always had pretty good willpower when it comes to spending money. I really don't care for shopping, except for fabric of course. Today I came pretty close to spending too much on an antique quilt top. I found a top on ebay the other day, made an offer today and wouldn't go any higher before the auction ended. I don't regret it yet. I just felt they wanted too much especially considering what all the others were going for.  Will I set out to copy it? Find another to bid on? Either would be easy to do, meanwhile both will stay on my "to do" list.
It's not too late for anyone to participate in the "Blog Hop with Giveaways". Check my last post.

It's Party Time

Welcome to everyone participating in this winter's quilter's blog hop going on from March 8 to the 14th. This is my first time joining the fun. For my regular readers that don't know, you can follow this link to hop to blogs hosting give-aways.  If you are new hear, allow me to show you around.
I post once or twice  a week about my quilting life. I don't host mysteries or quilt alongs and I don't post many tutorials either. I figure why repeat so much of what is out there already. This is simply my online diary of my quilting and where others can find me and my stuff, like the links in the sidebar to my web page, books and patterns etc. My web page is where you'll find my bio and info to invite me to teach for your guild, show or shop.  My favorite topic to teach is my Thirtysomething concept. I've made over 75 quilts with the Thirtysomething units though they haven't all been posted here. Two books feature half of them. And I'm currently working on a Thritysomething block book. You can see a few of those blocks below that are part of my give-away.

 My Give-Away
The cabinet where I keep my orphan blocks is kinda crowded, so I'm cleaning out. Some of the blocks will go to the comfort quilts I make. But that pile has is pretty deep too. So I am offering one to you. That means 6 lucky winners. Numbers 1 to 5 plus a mystery block. All you need to do is tell my which one of these 12 1/2" blocks you'd like. Winners will be chosen randomly. Then check back to see if you've won so I can get your address.

Tutorials
Please take a minute to check out my tutorials on Thirtysomething units and arranging Orphan blocks in a sampler quilt.

Happy Hoppers will  follow this link. Good Luck.

Blocks, Borders and Binding Oh, My!

Lots of cutting yesterday during the storm. But First I did some sewing on this Broken Dishes quilt. It's been ready to put together for a month, but I kept overlooking it. I want to put a scrappy border on this thing so then I cut  that. The blocks are all together now, but since it's getting big and harder to get on the wall, I'll wait for a picture when it is pressed and the border is on.

 

Then I cut a Binding and a few other Borders for other quilts. Then I cut some Blocks for the Flying Geese quilt, the Flying Dutchman variation I showed Monday.  I did use 3 full bobbins and was happy with how the day was going with a fresh new blade. Then I nicked the edge of the blade on the table and cussed and quit for the night.  I'm going to go iron the Broken Dishes quilt now.

Cabin Fever

Would you believe this was the start of the pink and brown quilt I planned to make? After stacking up my Civil War pinks and browns and viewing such quilts on google images I reconsidered. This is the block anyway. I've been wanting to do something with flying geese for a while. I prefer to make 'em the old fashioned way. I rotary cut individual, loose triangles, sew them together and press. Amen. It will be fun to see how big this one gets.

I was browsing through the catalog from Hancock's the other day. I was so close to placing an order when Sue came over with Cabin Fever. It's not like she gave it to me or anything, but I wanted to find some more blue to border the Delectable Mountains quilt.  So yesterday we went on a shop hop. Good thing I checked that the furthest shop of choice was closed on Sunday. Milton was first.  I only stopped once on the way there to check the map. It just didn't look familiar in winter. They had the blue I needed and I was low on greens and I had to check the clearance and yes, I was having a good time. And no, these won't all go in the same quilt. Janesville next. We walked in on a sale. Yippee. I love their Civil War prints. I think I showed pretty good restraint considering the sale. I was looking for what I saw in the catalog and I found them.

 Not far from there was Delavan. I'd never been between those two shops so I had to stop and check the map again. We stopped there and was surprised that they were to find them closed. I don't think that is usual for them. I must have missed my turn on the way back home from Delavan so stopped to look at the map one more time. Again I was heading in the right direction. In fact, I liked the route so much that I will go that way from now on. I know Walworth county better than Sue, but not as good as I thought. We passed the Elkhorn shop too but they too are closed on Sundays. Actually we already spent enough, we just weren't ready to go home. So then we stopped for a sandwich.

We were glad to get out of the house. We first thought we'd go on Tuesday but the forecast is for 6 to 8" more snow. That's fine with me. I've got quilting to  do. And I'll go check out the blogs linked up at Judy's.

Clarifying How I Handle Scraps

 Martingale posted to their site and sent a newsletter about how I sort my  scraps, but omitted some info.
They also have their scrap books on SALE this week. 

 So to clarify, I generally do not cut down my scraps to fill my boxes of specific sized strips. I do for the squares and triangles, but only if the right sized strip is about 10" or shorter. Most of the scraps are truly leftovers. I set aside in a separate drawer the chunks or other larger scraps till I know what I want from them. The shorter odd width strips are also set aside for either string quilts or odd-width log cabin quilts. Once this system is set up it takes very little time to maintain. You could sort and file your scraps as you go or throw them in a small basket on your cutting table and empty it periodically. I am ready to do it again now.

Fabric for most of my quilts are carefully chosen to color coordinate or be in the same style. I do NOT do the kitchen sink variety where any and every scrap the right size is used. I do not hesitate to cut a strip from the main stash to use in a quilt. If i don't use it all, it goes in the basket then later gets filed in the correct box of strips.

Also since I use the Easy Angle ruler for cutting triangles, I do not need one box for 2 1/2" strips/squares and one for 2 7/8" strips or squares when I only need the 2 1/2".
I am sure many quilters don't generate enough scraps to use this system, but there are many of us out there that use a similar system and find it very efficient. Hope this helps.
To view the scrap quilts I made in the last year, click on "2012 top" in the sidebar under labels.