Happy 50 Years!

Then that friend, Mary of Zippy Quilts, performed her usual magic and using that fabric and my Criss-Cross pattern, made this up in no time. Or at least it seems like that. And then, she didn’t have enough for an outside border, but went with what she had in her stash. She wrote it up on her blog, Zippy Quilts, which is always worth reading.

While clearing/cleaning out in another spot, I found this bag of –yes– cut binding for that quilt. But now all that fabric is really gone — to a good home in the guild grab bag. So that’s the end of that story.

Here’s my version of Criss-Cross Color, done all in richly colored solids. One of my children now has this quilt, and I hope it gets lots of use.

In keeping with my discovering more and more WIPs from Days Gone Past, I found seven selvage blocks (mentioned in an earlier post). And since I’m playing the News Avoidance-Call Your Congressman game, I figured it was as good a time as any to finish up this stray project.

So I had seven, but made two more in the last few days, so here are all nine. I keep wondering about that white in the middle, but I’m in the business of rehoming my orphan blocks, not creating more. It will stay white.

Basic Tips for Selvage Blocks

(Tips are also in the free download, above, but here’s some different photos)

The triangles are cut and pinned, and now I’m ready to add my first round of selvages. I check to make sure I’m overlapping at least a 1/4″ and then sew it down, keeping my needle about 1/8″ from the edge.

Since I have a range of blues ready to go, I add more. On the upper left, I pieced the selvage so the pears would end up next to the words. It’s not the most perfect piecing job, but the bright side is that it allows you to see that I did piece it. I do try and arrange the markings (words and designs) when I’m cutting and arranging the strips, so they don’t get cut off. And in the last photo, I’m happy that the bright blue will run around the very center of the block (more on that in the Tip Sheet).

In the top left (I assume you are reading this on a desktop, but if you aren’t, it’s probably the first photo in this group if you are reading on a mobile), I noticed I was not as careful as I should have been in getting the strips on straight, and it was only going to get worse.

So I threw in a “half-length” of selvage on the right and stitched it down. Then the next strip would be more straight and level, and I could move forward. This process is pretty forgiving, so try not to sweat the small stuff. The rest of the photos show an early phase (half done), then a fully covered square. Notice that the “tip” has a rather large piece of selvage on there. I have been known to grab a length of fabric from my stash and cut a selvage to fit.

Flip over your completed piece, and trim to 10-1/2″ square.

Four of them, sewn together, yield this pretty thing.

One last tip: I did plan to keep the paper on until the very end, but hey — paper doesn’t move, stretch, or give. [Or if you’ve been watching all the Saturday Night Live (SNL) videos this week, it also doesn’t kick…stretch…or kick.] While some of these selvages are from 25 years ago, they aren’t as old as Sally O’Malley (she’s 50!).

Although, if you need a good laugh, let me stop you right now and remind you to watch the More Cowbell skit. We burst out laughing one early morning, and in spite of the News (shudder), had a smile on our faces for most of the morning.

The other night I couldn’t sleep so wandered into my sewing room. I typically don’t sew in the middle of the night (you know, sharp things) but I decided to piece together my big blocks. I had some repairing to do after taking all the papers off, so did that, then started –very carefully — pinning and sewing the blocks together. It was a wonderful time to think of the fabrics that I’d used, from baby fabrics to bright bolds, to textures. I found repeats in different color ways, backings (they give the longest lengths of selvage), and bits and pieces of other fabrics.

I realized this quilt is now kind of like a fabric journal, a history of my materials and where my quilting journey has taken me over the last fifty years. Just as SNL is celebrating their 50 years of doing comedy sketches, I guess I should celebrate my fifty years of quilting.

Happy 50 to me!