Category: Quilts

Finishing School Friday · Quilts

Gingham Quilt Top All Done!

Elizabeth E.4 Comments

I sewed steadily while listening to The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafron, a worldwide bestseller when it was released in 2001, and finished my gingham quilt top.  At an especially gripping part of the novel, I sewed in a border block backwards.

I discovered this AFTER I’d dropped it off at the quilter, so had to run back there this morning and retrieve the quilt top to fix it.  She’ll have it to me in time for our Gingham Reveal Date, which is July 4th.  And no, I’m not going to show you the quilt before that.  Okay, maybe a little.

All I’ve got to say is I’m converted to gingham!

On the sewing part: some of the gingham was that lighter weight fabric that is found in JoAnn’s and some of it was cotton.  I really had no trouble at all sewing them together.  I used Kona white as the accent, and the blend fabrics worked fine with the cotton.  My thread was the polyester Guterman from JoAnn’s, and the only difference is how it smells when you press it–you’ll see.  But don’t hesitate to grab some large check ginghams and mix them with the cottons you can buy.  It all worked just fine.

Krista, of KristaStitched, and I dreamed up this gingham thing because I’d come into a load of ginghams.  I researched where to buy more (see this post) and bought a few more.  The finished quilt is so amazingly fun.  There’s just something about gingham that says summer and high spirits and picnics and lazy days.  I’m so glad we decided to do this, and I hope you’ll all play along!

This coming Wednesday, June 6th, we’re hosting a giveaway on three different blogs (ours, plus Cindy’s blog: Live A Colorful Life), for a chance to win one of these fat quarter bundles, which also includes in each bundle is a full half-yard of Kona white.  If you win the Gingham Giveaway, you agree to make a quilt or a block or a mini-quilt or something and post it on your blog  and link back to our blogs as well. For my blog, I want your entry to include a favorite summertime memory from your childhood, whether it be a childhood game or event or taste or activity, so start those memory engines.

And judging from the following photos, snapped in secret in Macy’s, gingham is going great guns in ready-to-wear also.

and this one from my Dad, who writes:
I’m expressing my pain on being photographed. It’s like shooting yourself.

Ah, Dad.  Now you know why I like to be on THIS side of the camera lens.  But in answer to your question–yes, that’s a gingham shirt too!

Quilts

WIP-Gingham Quilt

Elizabeth E.7 Comments

I spent the better part of the evening last night researching potential blocks for my gingham quilt–got to get that done so I can move on to other summer projects.  Here’s a slideshow of my Work In Progress: Gingham.  I’m going to make up some samples today to entice you to comment on the Gingham Giveaway Day.  It’s a week away!

WIP–Freshly Pieced

Imagine Lee’s Logo here from Freshly Pieced Fabrics. Because of the vagaries of WordPress slide shows, if I put that image in here it will show up as one of the slides–so, please forgive that it’s not here, yet hop over to her blog to see other great Works in Progress!

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As you have probably figured out by now, gingham is a strong graphic print that has its Own Thing To Say in a quilt.  So after working with these prints and blocks (digitally, using my QuiltPro program) I think lots of white makes gingham really shine.  I also like minimal seams, for as Roberta Horton noted in her seminal book on working with plaids, Plaids & Stripes, the more seaming done with a check, plaid, or gingham, the busier the design will be.

I think any modern-type design could be used successfully, as many of them are based on simple shapes (think: squares, rectangles) with minimal piecing.  One example of this is Lee’s of Freshly Pieced Modern Meadow quilt here or Mod Times here.  Ashley’s quilts (of Film in the Fridge) trend towards this variety and some examples that would work well are here and here.  And who can’t find a quilt to love over at Red Pepper?  Her latest quilt here would look really beautiful with a pop of gingham in those centers, as would her version of flying geese here.  So I think ginghams, although indicative of an earlier, more nostalgic time, could adapt to the modern life easily.

Hope I’ve given you some ideas for a quilt block or two, or even a quilt.  And check back next week for the Gingham Giveaway: three different sets of fat quarters (that also include a full half-yard of Kona white)!

Quilts

Cleaning Up the Study/Happy Memorial Day!

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

What my sewing study looked like at the end of the semester, after I’d posted grades.

Way leads on to way. . . getting worse.

Ahhhhh.

Before I exploded the room, I was working on a little quilt design for a quick summery treat.

Here’s the quilt.  It’s titled Summer Treat, but when I was working on it I called it Ice Cream Treat, as those colors look like you could lick them. I threw in a couple of purple triangles just to make things interesting, for I believe that every quilt should have a full range of lights-to-darks.  Just like any good photograph.

Here’s the block.  Since it’s a 12 inch block, this should go together quickly.  I’ll post some templates tomorrow and hopefully a shot of one of my refreshing Summer Treat blocks.  Now that my study’s all cleaned up, it’s time to pull out the fabrics and put that clean space to use.

Happy Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, as my mother calls it.  She and Dad have already started putting flowers on the graves of those relatives who have gone before, adding another one or two each year (everyone gets buried near them–kind of our psychic home away from home).  I appreciate that they honor the original meaning of the holiday, and it makes me think about my grandmothers and my one grandfather who I knew best.

We’ll be heading out to the main street near our house to cheer on thousands of motorcyclists for Rolling Thunder West Coast, an homage to Rolling Thunder, East Coast.  We saw that one when we lived in DC–so many bikes came over that bridge on their way past Lincoln’s Memorial and on to the Mall.  Last year for West Coast Rolling Thunder we had about 4,000 bikers and I waved my little American flag and hollered.  It was great.

Barbeque for us?  Maybe.  Or maybe we’ll just go out for a burger and let others do the grilling for us.  But I’ve already picked up the strawberries for our Summer Strawberry Cake (recipe on my cooking blog).  That’s they beauty of all the children grown–life’s a bit more flexible around the edges.  And of course–some sewing in my nice clean study.

Happy Memorial Day!

Quilts · Something to Think About

Gingham Dresses

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

A few years ago, my granddaughter wore this Dorothy blue-gingham dress for trick-or-treating, a gift from her grandmother on the other side of the family (and a hand-me-down from her older sister).  A classic.

A couple of years later, her younger sister wore it on her trick-or-treating forays, and the youngest granddaughter from that family will probably wear it also in a couple of years.

What is it about this blue gingham dress?  What is it about gingham?  Since I’ve been on an gingham jag, several have left comments that indicate there’s a certain nostalgia for this fabric.  It seems to be associated with childhood, easier times, a dress that had lots of gathers, a dress with a big bow in the back.  Gingham always looks crisp, clean and fresh.  Gingham just has that certain something that reminds of us when we were children, of when staying out until after dark was a delicious treat as we played Hide and Seek, or Red Rover-Red Rover.

Gingham was for dress-up occasions, like Easter Sunday.  There’s an old home movie of three of us sisters all decked out in gingham dresses, with white rickrack along the neckline and armholes.  Mine was pink, Susan’s was blue, Cynthia had a large gingham on in a blue color and Christine, my eldest sister, was apparently too old for gingham as she wore a simple shift.  The quality of the movie was spotty, as home movie cameras were a new thing, the focus flitting as from person to person.  (My parents were just trying to learn this new technology, only they didn’t call it that–it was a great new invention!)  But gingham is ageless, and like Simone, in the earlier posts, when we throw on some gingham it carries with it not only its history (back to England) but also our particular group of memories and associations.

For me, it will always be that pink gingham dress, flounced and tied with a big fat bow at the back, worn on hot summer days.  Or the backing for my second son’s baby quilt–the large blue check a counterpoint to the colorful sashed nine-patches.  Or the flip side of my daughter’s baby quilt, those pink gingham checks making her soft skin glow in those few baby pictures I have of her.

Or perhaps, after this, it will be this summer, with its events and hot days, as I cut and sew new memories with new friends.  Come and sew some gingham with us!