Lattice for a Little Lady

This lattice quilt was made with a charm pack from the Missouri Star Quilt Company using their  "Lattice Quilt" tutorial. Actually, the instructions are also in their BLOCK magazine...can't seem to lay my hands on it, but it was from the first year of the magazine. 

Jenny suggested laying the blocks out and testing the tones by snapping a b&w photo...which I did. That helped with placement. 

I used some extra scraps of fabric from my daughter's toddler days. At the time I was piecing this our granddaughter was not yet a twinkle in her father's eye, but I was able to put this together ahead of her birth and in time for the baby shower. (Yea!) 

Now she's six months old and sitting pretty!

Finished!

Figuring placement.

Labeled on front with machine stitched strip of red.

Another chance to practice free motion.

Backing fabric was too pretty to cut, so it found a home here.

Love a Piped Binding!

This small project was a 2013 foray into free motion quilting (FMQ) using a zigzag in free motion. It sat on my bookshelf for these many months and a couple of years (sigh) unbound. 

Recently I decided to bind it using a piped binding method explained in detail here. [<--- click there.] [[or....here:

http://www.52quilts.com/2012/05/tuesday-tutorial-susies-magic-binding.html ].

1. Shows the finished front. 2. Shows the best corner of the four using the piped binding method. 3. Shows the little triangle that I worked into the upper two back corners beneath the binding, so that the piece may be hung by slipping a project width dowel beneath the triangles.  

This is the back of the finally finished project.

Thankful for Henry Ford

Guys are wonderful, but they are hard to buy for, don't you think? When I saw this BBQ towel project in an old Quilt-It Today  magazine*, it seemed the perfect project for the fellas. 

Anyway, it was already December before I got started, and I had not ever done applique, so somehow I figured that using my embroidery machine might avoid that particular hurdle. Henry Ford to the rescue with his assembly line method of construction, and I was off to the races.

Assembly was a bit of blur, and I can say now,  should there ever be a "next time", I'll opt for researching applique over doing the embroidery, as I definitely remember having fits getting the lettering lined up and stitched with my little embroidery machine. (We're not friends, yet. I haven't even named it.)

Finding the exact Argyle printed fabric as was used in the magazine for the band was what made me decide to do multiples. The issue was the May/June 2013 of Quilt-It Today, and the shopping didn't take place until December of that year. Seemed providential.

So, next time you think maybe I'll make that little project, go ahead and get enough supplies to go all Ford-like, assembly-line fashion and roll out a production line that will put last year's models to shame!

*A web search suggests that Quilt-It Today magazine is no longer in print. It seems their back stash is being offered for sale in UK. Guess I have a bit of a collector's item in my short stack.

Quilt Show... Falling Off a Log

Teresa Belyea is Sandy's assistant in our local quilting group. She is a prolific quilter and usually does quilts in very bold and vibrant colors. Color-wise one would never know this was her work, but scope and precision-wise, it's her all over. And her creative playfulness in naming the quilt is also evident. Well, whatever else she had in mind when naming it, though, surely it was not the usual pre-phrase, "As Easy as..."!

The tonal-induced design is more evident in the photo than in viewing the actual quilt, so my friends and I just had to step back and look at this one again (and again). 

Don't you love the four patches in the border???

Quilt Show Third Day... a Quilt With Real Heritage

Katherine Weathers' quilt entitled "Daddy Was a Bee Keeper" is packed with heritage. Little wonder it would garner some recognition at the Heritage Quilters' Fanfare! 

Based on the design of a quilt made by her great grandmother some time before 1891, Mrs. Weathers changed up some of the math making the sawtooth squares measure one inch, rather than the original quilt's 3/4 inch and adjusting the setting triangles accordingly. She stuck to the green and white, though, and ended up with a really charming reproduction.

The quilt label tells all, and shows both the original quilter and the inspirational quilt...or vice versa, perhaps.

Quilt Show . Glacier Star

Glacier Star by Linda Snellgrove
I think this quilt won "Viewers Choice" award. Linda is a member of our quilting circle, so aren't we proud of her work?

 There was another quilt by the same name and style, but smaller. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of it. 

Linda had the quilting done by Deanna Plotts, who used a track machine for the beautiful quilting. 

Quilt Show!

Heritage Quilters held a show at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama. One of my favorites on display ...not my quilt...just my taste, was this one by Jackie Hicks called "Red Doors and Double Chocolate". Isn't it delicious?!?

I  like the play of the stars and squares and even houses in this design. Her varied blocks used as a border are one of the places your eyes can spend a little travel time. 

This was my first quilt show, and I may just be spoiled, because how can it get much better than this?

A few more quilts will be posted here later. Right now, though, let's just wander in and out of the red doors to a double portion of chocolate. Shall we?

Still Monkeying With It

Not really even sure when I started monkeying with these blocks. The pattern, though, was seen on page 86 in Fons & Porter's Love Of Quilting magazine ... May/June 2010 issue. The polka dot fabric was a Wal-Mart purchase made on one of our overnights in Bristol, TN on the way to see grandchild #1...or perhaps even grandchildren, by then. My intention was to make a single block just to try out the method, but I got a little carried away and then began having the concept of using a rainbow of colors for the points of the star. At last count I have eight blocks. If I go with the layout below, I could stop at this with the following star point colors : red, orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, turquoise, dark blue, and purple.

Each block uses:
one  3.5 " center sqaure    (A)  [monkey center]
four light 2" x 3.5" rectangles  (B) [*]
four light 2" squares  (C)  [corners]
eight dark 2" squares  (D) [star points]

* The stitch and flip method is used to make the points on the rectangle pieces. 

 Anyway... wanted to record this block here, as I tend to loose track of the origins of the projects in holding patterns. These poor monkeys were lost for a few months because of a dash to stash the stash house 
decluttering episode last year.

Hope your monkeys are keeping you in stitches...or vice versa.

Notes on first run of block...from a sewing sleepover, in which the block is identified as either "Ohio Star" or "Variable Star".

Just had an idea for a center square...make one more Ohio Star and use eight colors for the points! 

Making Tracks for Tot's Train Quilt

The train quilt needed to be quilted. The borders were bright yellow (mostly), with a few squares of blue. Suddenly, the squares took on the semblance of tunnels in my mind, and all that was needed was a track to run through them. Free motion to the rescue! All aboard! Looks like we'll be running on time, after all!

Patriotic Mosaic Lap Quilt ... Continued

"WITH THE LIGHT FROM ABOVE"
quilt completed and ready for presentation.

Top left shows the finished quilt in black and white. Some people seem better able to see the flag and dove if viewed in B&W. The actual quilt colors appear in bottom right section of grid. The two other sections show the label attached on the bottom right corner of the quilt's back.

If you look closely you can see the quilting used. Free motion stars were worked on the blue and white patches. Waved lines were used on the red and white stripes, and various free motion feathering was used on the dove's wings and tail. Quilt back is anti-pill fleece.

You Are Getting BEAR-ry Sleepy!

Finishing up day on this quilt was just fraught with mis-placed stitches that had to be removed and bobbins that emptied at just the wrong moment, etc. etc., making the "letting go" much easier!

      Second time attending a Blanket Dayz quilting/knitting/crocheting day for the local chapter of Project Linus. A friend from church had told me about the event after she found out I liked to quilt. Quilts and blankets are provided for the local hospitals. Some quilts go to teens, so it's not all baby quilts. 

       My first project was too ambitious for this type of thing, but I had seen the appliqued bears quilt in a book quilt instructor Sandy had given me, and I just wanted to give it a try. Project Linus provided me with most of the fabric. I already had the brown for the bears, and used some old trim for some of the decorative bedding. 

       A young lady from our regular quilting group let me have some scraps she had already pieced and trimmed away, which became the pink patchwork blanket for the bear in the upper left corner of the quilt.

      I enjoyed doing this quilt, but will definitely choose something more straightforward for next time 'round. Sure hope whoever gets this one enjoys the little bears as much as I have.

Leftovers .... Yum!

                                           Third Patriotic Quilt
When the first two veteran's home quilts were finished, I found I had made one block over-sized of the Godey Star, and decided to use it as a center block for this one. The red white and blue strips were also remnants of the Homeland quilt. I added some solid blue, and appliqued the stars that were cut from leftover squares from the patriotic mosaic quilt. The quilting on this one was based on a free motion design called "icicle lights" by Leah Day. I decided to do some free style fireworks in that middle pathway beside the stripes. All in all, this quilt, that almost wasn't, may be my favorite of the three.  

1st patriotic quilt - the mosaic

2nd Patriotic quilt - the Godey stars


So, when you have some interesting scraps, consider how they may become your next project. You may surprise yourself, too!

Dedication to a vet was penned on back of the remnant quilt in a be-ribboned star shape.

Go Go Godey!

Nancy Zieman's video for half square triangles was the inspiration for this quilt. I really liked the Godey block she illustrated at the 13.53 minute mark of her instructional video entitled "No-Hassle Half Square Triangles", which aired October 2014. 

Squares of fabric were leftover from my patriotic mosaic quilt. Many of those fabrics had been garnered from a share pile at quilting class, and the share pile was intended for the veteran's care facility quilting project. So, I decided to see if I had enough extra fabric to get a secondary smaller lap quilt put together in time for the donation. 

Rummaging through my own stash I found some 1980's fabric featuring patriotic sections that gave a faux pieced look. Fussy-cut and sashed to size, they made a great filler for the Godey blocks. From that point getting the rest of the borders was just a question of color and width. I went for a stripe and came up with the Homeland Stars and Bars lap quilt pictured below.

Label on quilt back.