Christmas Treat Wallhanging

April 22, 2013October 15, 2019 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

So, out here on the old sewing ranch-a-roo, I finished up Christmas Treat (name is courtesy of my husband) and took it outside to pose for pictures. The front.

The back is an old Alexander Henry fabric with quirky angels flying everywhere. I’ve hoarded this and now only have about a yard of the black colorway.

The label. I like to print mine out and border them before I stitch them on. If you do a search for “labels” in the search box on the blog, you’ll find posts about how I do my labels.

The final full shot. It’s #111 on my 200 Quilts list. It’s a big day because of the following four reasons:

1–this is my first Finish a Long completed. I probably won’t finish the blue flowers at this time as the shop owner likes that it shows the back;
2–I actually did some free motion quilting on this that I’m not mostly ashamed of. Don’t look too closely, as I don’t do enough of it to show it off, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out;
3–I took this sample (above, of Christmas Treat and below, of Lollypop Tree block) to Bluebird Quilts & Gallery, my local quilt shop, and she booked me in to teach two classes.

4) my husband took a new picture of me that I think is a pretty good rendition of who I am at this point in my life. As the Mid-Century Moderns know, we scrupulously monitor our images, preferring instead to be behind the lens instead of in front of it.

About photographs: we swim in a sea of digital images, and most are out of our control, as was demonstrated by the plethora of images that came forward about the Boston Marathon tragedy. Our grandparents had a handful. Our great-grandparents had, like, maybe three. So does having so many pictures make it any easier to find one you like of yourself? If you’re like me, my husband took about ten shots before I got one that I liked–one that represented on the outside how I generally felt on the inside. So, here it is. Banish all other images to the dustbin. This is the me as I am this week, all sunny yellow in sunny Southern California.

~~Okay, class info:~~
~~Class will be taught at Bluebird Quilts & Gallery, at 22320 Barton Road, Suite A, in Grand Terrace, California (just north of Riverside).~~

~~I’ll teach Wednesday, May 22nd from 10 to 3:30 p.m. and July 29th, from 10 to 3:30 p.m.~~

I need at least four, preferably, five people to carry the class. I’m including the pattern (my own, drawn from the original Lollypop Tree quilt from the 1880s), and freezer paper (have you priced this stuff lately? Whew!). Cost is $50/full day class, including pattern. Call the shop (909) 514-0333 to sign up, if you think you’d like to take the class. They’ll have class supply lists for you when you sign up. Their hours are Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed Saturdays.

200 Quilts · Quilts

Snapshot: Polaroid Quilt finished

March 29, 2013October 3, 2022 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Debbie of A Quilter’s Table hosted a Polaroids swap last summer, and although I put together the top fairly quickly, I didn’t send it to the quilter’s because I wanted to do the quilting. Finally I wised up and took it over to Kathy. Smart move, because now it’s finished and not still hanging on its hanger in the closet.

But it’s all done now! Dave and I snuck out yesterday morning in our jammies to grab the few rays of sun that morning, he holding up the quilt for me. Thanks, hon. (We always have cloudy mornings until mid-summer.)

When I put this up on Instagram, some folks said they wanted to see some details shots of the little blocks. I think of this quilt as kind of a travel, a memory book quilt, with all its little snapshots of different things.

So when I found this circle design, my quilter agreed to quilt it for me; it reminds me of wheels on a car, going round and round for a summer trip.

It was fun to use some old novelties in my stash, like the block that has “2000” on it–from all those turn of the century quilts we were doing thirteen years ago — when we thought all the computers in the whole world were going to crash.

This one’s kind of like an album block. Krista and I hatched up Project Gingham last year after I found a bunch of ginghams at a garage sale. She made this block for me and signed her name. It’s a treasure. How do you make these little blocks? Diagram *on this post.*

I found this stripe-y fabric at a little quilt shop not too far from my house, and it turned out to be perfect. The Polaroids are bordered in Quilter’s Linen in bright green and blue. Tutorial on how to make this quilt *here.*

The backing is a Marimekko print that looks like a grassy field.

And here’s the label. I love the quote from Eudora Welty, a great Southern writer: “A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.” Amen, Eudora. Well said.

This is #110 of 200 lifetime quilts.

200 Quilts · Family Quilts · Quick Quilt · Quilts

Chris’ Welcome-to-the-Family Quilt

March 24, 2013April 2, 2024 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

This is where I was Wednesday morning, after listening to hours and hours of a new audio book: Beautiful Ruins. My mother’s still ~~reading~~ listening to it, so I’ll withhold my review until later. But the really good thing about audio books is that when they are playing on your desktop computer in the same room as the sewing machine, a lot gets sewn, like a quilt top for our new-to-our-family adopted grandson Chris. This is my Sashless Quilt, with the tutorial found *here.*

Full length shot on our front porch, with hands belonging to my tall husband Dave.

This isn’t a complicated quilt, it sews up quickly, and I love using favorites from my stash like the bicycle fabric. I’d been saving that for a long time and this was the perfect use because my son (Chris’ Dad) loves bike riding, owns a bunch of them and takes all his sons out on bike rides.

I started cutting this on Monday, sewed Tuesday and Wednesday morning, quilted Thursday, did the binding on Friday. Hey! I felt like Rita from Red Pepper Quilts, only I’m not listing it in my ETSY shop. (I don’t even have an ETSY shop.)

The “label.” Sometimes with quilts I know will be washed and washed, I don’t mess with a formal label, but simply write directly on the quilt with a Micron Pen.

Glamour shot, reclining on the sofa. I did the basic quilting: stitch in the ditch. I’d played with the idea of doing echo-quilting alongside the seams, but in the end changed my mind.

I gave it to Chris as they arrived on Saturday evening to celebrate my husband’s birthday. Chris’ younger brother Andrew used it first.

Later on, after dinner and all the adults talked, Chris nabbed it and settled into a movie. Or was it a game? I can see that at the dimensions of 46″ x 57″ he will soon outgrow the quilt, but I didn’t want it too big–it’s a “welcome to the family” quilt, like what his brothers received when they were newborns.

Chris seems to like it–I’m so glad!

It’s Quilt #109 on my 200 Quilts list.

200 Quilts · FAL · Finish-A-Long · Quilts

Star Mother’s Youngest Child quilt

March 8, 2013March 31, 2013 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Here’s my second finish for March: Star Mother’s Youngest Child. The book, from which the title of this quilt is taken, was about Star Mother’s youngest boy who came to earth to experience Christmas before he was destined to take his place in the heavens, shining brightly forever. He landed at the home of a cranky old woman, who, childless and alone, just wanted to have one Christmas to celebrate before she died. And so the two came together. The illustrations are charming, and the child’s spikey hair and ugly countenance reminded me of the weirdo star in the bottom left corner, the points going the wrong way even though I tried really hard to get them like the picture of this quilt from the Moda Bake shop pattern. But in the aggregate, I think it all works okay.

Whenever I’m looking for a back, I usually go for whatever cheap fabric I’ve picked up on sale, or snagged from IKEA or the Marimekko from the Crate & Barrel outlet. I went to the guest bedroom closet, where these lengths all hang, washed, pressed and waiting and lo-and-behold! I’d purchased some of this Sweetwater Christmas line when I was buying the rest of the fabrics for this quilt. It had been two years and so I’d forgotten. I pieced it carefully to make the seam as invisible as I could. I’ve tried doing pieced backs. I usually fail at that sort of thing because at that point, I’m just so ready to be DONE.

I had also purchased this black/red stripe for the binding and even if it was on the original, I just didn’t know if it would work for my sensibilities. When I went to quilt night last week, Laurel told me it was just perfect. Sometimes you just need that atta’boy to help get these quilts done. I hand-stitched the binding while 1) watching a movie, 2) attending a baby shower another night, and then 3) coming home and talking to my husband after a long day.

My quilter used Superior’s King Tut in a tight red/green variegated color in a medium meander.

For the label, I scanned a picture from the book when the little child first knocks on the Old Woman’s door, and included a quote from the last pages of the book.

This is #108 on my list of 200 quilts. Frankly, I can’t keep up this pace of finishes unless I stop sleeping or eating (neither of which is very likely). The last two quilts have been in the pipeline for a couple of years, and I just had some extra time this semester and was able to get them finished (along with the help of my quilter). But for today, it’s nice to see this all done, lounging on my sofa.

That makes five Christmas quilts I’ve done in my lifetime: two have been given away, and the other three reside here. It will be fun to get those out this coming December.