Ingenuous Flattery

                One quote about imitation says, “Imitation is disingenuous flattery.” That would mean the flattery is insincere; so, I’ve named this little quilt “Ingenuous Flattery”.  Feel free to call it “IF” for short.

The name starts and ends here, as the Linus quilt will be donated without that kind of fanfare. I did, however, add my own little signature label alongside the official Linus one this time. Something from school days, I guess: “Always sign and date your work,” even in this case, if it is only an initials-only representative "signature".

For the design I chose to closely imitate a design of Kaye England seen in Quilt Almanac 2011 magazine, page 9. Kaye’s pattern called “Jelly Stars” had stars of varied fabrics, so the end look is different, but I really liked how the roses in this donation quilt played together. If Kaye ever sees this post, I hope she agrees.

There was just enough of the border fabric to make the mitered border, but because of a “measure twice/ cut once” error, I ended up having to piece one edge of it… my bad. Fortunately, it is not too noticeable. It is of note only because it is one of the lessons I re-learned in constructing this one. Wouldn’t it be great if I would learn to exercise the lessons I’ve already “learned”?

Quilting an "echo" around each star
worked well. 

If you ever decide to use a two-color binding, may I suggest you think and rethink which color you want on which side before you cut and join your colors? Only after having cut the strips for the front (smaller strip) and the back (larger strip), did I do my rethink. So, rather than reconstruct, I just attached the binding to the back and pulled to the front, finishing out by hand rather than machine stitching the final fold. 

This one finished at 42" square, if you were wondering.

Piece Out, Linus!

 Sometimes, some seasons of my quilting experience, all I want to do is piece. Don't ask me to cut, or sandwich, or actually quilt! That is one extremely cool thing about quilting for the Linus Project. Our local group, at least, lets you do what you want. If you never get to that sweet spot of wanting to quilt, you can hand in the pieced top for someone else, someone who likes to sandwich and quilt, someone who may even have a longarm machine at the ready, to complete your pieced top. How cool is that? So, I can piece and send it out the door to Linus, no worries. 

Piece out, Linus, indeed!

The above design is from an "EASY" (!?!) quilt pattern I ran across in the March/April 2013 magazine Quilt It Today. The one featured on page 22 was called "Paisley Paradise" and was cool and seaside summery in tone. The no-name quilt top I made was pieced with a thirteen or fourteen year old boy in mind. Linus often lags in quilt offerings that seem just right for boys in their 'tweens'. Happenly, this was also M&M's candy's 75th anniversary! 

That reminds me. One problem I ran into with this one was that my final border was just a smidge wider than the WOF. I really didn't want to cut one of the M&M's off in order to get the extra width needed. What to do? Well, what I did was make some tri/rec pieces to put at the center points of each border. Problem solved.

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. 

Foto to Fabric

     Our quilt group wanted to do a project together this year, so we were offered the opportunity to make patriotic lap quilts for a local veterans' hospital. I never could find any fabric that seemed to inspire. I have so many projects underway, I needed something fairly straightforward and quick, but nothing caught my imagination. Finally, though, I saw this beautiful photo online and decided to reduce it to the largest pixels possible to still produce a recognizable image from a reasonable distance. 
       Printout in hand, I began cutting 3.5 inch squares primarily from varied red, white, and blue fabrics. Next, I identified areas in the now pixelized photo that would need to have two-toned squares, and made half-square-triangles as needed. 
      To test the effectiveness of my fabric choices, I laid them out in columns and rows before committing them to stitching. Once satisfied with the layout, I picked up each column in order and clamped with a clothespin on which the appropriate column number had been written with a Sharpie pen.
      Next I will sew the squares together a column at a time, then join the columns. My plan is to somehow attach this to a piece of federal blue fleece for a really toasty warm lap quilt.
     Oh! And best of all, with this quilt, my local 14 month-old grand-boy joined me in playing with the fabric. (Fuzzily portrayed below...)

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Meanwhile, Happy Veteran's Day!

----------------to be continued. --------------------