WIP–Quilt Frolic

September 13, 2011September 14, 2011 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Thanks to Lee for hosting WIP Wednesday, where we can gather round and have a virtual quilt frolic. Yes. Quilt Frolic. According to the book Wild by Design, by Janet Catherine Berlo and Patricia Cox Crew:

“Numerous early-nineteenth-century diaries refer to the fun to be had at an all-day quilt frolic. We think of ‘quilting bee’ as the term for such an event, but in the early ninteenth century, ‘bee’ was reserved for prosaic tasks, like a corn-husking bee. ‘Frolic’ more accurately capture the excitement and high spirits of a quilting party.”

So, since I’m writing this at night and I’m in my jammies and I can only use a flash in my sewing room, I present to you my slightly less-than-wonderful photo of: Quilt Frolic! My husband left for a business trip and our school has a flex day for the full-time teachers, so I get a free day. And I used it to get this sewn up. My work in progress for this week. So glad to have it at this point. Part of the reason I’ve been sort of hem-hawing around about it is because it didn’t have a name.

Some thought about this “modern quilt,” titled Rubrik’s Cube in the magazine. I hate pressing seams open. Period. Unless I need to control for bulk or for seaming purposes (think “Y” seam), I’m going to go with pressing them to one side. Whether it’s an representation of the Modern Quilt movement currently in our lives or a carryover from dressmaking, I don’t know, but I can’t see the value or it, since it didn’t seem to impact my accuracy at all either. And I missed how the seams “lock” into each other while sewing it (pinning is a pain, but I did it). Since I have some blocks pressed seams to one side and some blocks pressed open I can compare their look on the wall. In this particular pattern I can’t really tell the difference unless I get up close. Can you tell I’ve lived through a lot of quilt cycles and fashions? Yes, I have.

The piecing of the 9-patch parts of the quilt were one demon short of a nightmare. Either there was something wrong in the printed directions, or else the way they were laid out was extremely confusing. Some sort of chart would have been more helpful. I’ll put one on the blog at some point, for those following in my footsteps.

And for those of you readers who skip over all the text and head straight to photos, here’s a close-up, still in “terrible nighttime picture mode.” I had been purchasing lots of Amy Butler and large-scale prints for a long while, and even after I piece the back out of that collection, I’ll still have. . . well. . . probably enough for another quilt or two. Anyone else ever over-buy fabric?

I’m sure that’s like asking if the sky is blue.

Here’s a good morning shot of the quilt–much better lighting.

Click *here* to return to Freshly Pieced Fabrics and Lee’s fab quilt-frolicky blog. Happy Piecing!

WIP–Halloween Quilt

August 31, 2011September 3, 2024 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

So this is the plan.

Our little Quilt Group (Good Heart Quilters) wants to do an exchange of fat quarters in October of Halloween Fabric. I’ve already got mine ready to go, but then I thought–go where? So I got out my quilt program and cooked up this little house quilt. This is digital–I’ll be working on mine for the next month, but I can see someone appliqueing ghosts coming out of doors, embellishments, witches riding in the sky.

I made up the plan for this quilt. I call it “The Plan” because I couldn’t figure out how much bigger to print it out to make it real, honest-to-goodness templates. So, in case you want to make yourself a quick little Halloween House Quilt, here is a free PDF file for download:

halloweenhouseCORRECT Download

Warning — it’s an oldie (but goodie)! I also envisioned using this paper as a place to lay out your cut pieces, so you know you’ve cut the right ones.

Please use the dimensions given to cut your pieces, as believe me when I say I doubt very much it will print to the right scale. Forgive me, I didn’t take that class in college. This post is to get you thinking about what fabrics you’ll use, and how you’ll use them.

I’ll have more later on about construction, but tomorrow I’m getting on an airplane and going to my nephew’s wedding in Salt Lake City, Utah and plan to celebrate some newlyweds. I will have a post on FSFriday, so you can see what I finished this week, and when I return I’ll start into the fabric cutting and piecing for Halloween House Quilt.

I used to link in to this WIP every Wednesday. This post was one of them.

WIP

WIP–New Projects

August 24, 2011September 13, 2011 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

Lee! The ever fabulous Lee! has hosted us all, once again, on her blog Freshly Pieced. Many thanks!

I always seem to have billions of things I want to quilt, to sew, but somehow don’t think to mention them on this blog. Not that I’m going to start right now because I have to leave for school in 10 minutes and I haven’t eaten lunch nor brushed my teeth. I DID finish the grading, though.

But what I did pull out and work on this week was my version of Rubrik’s Crush by Ashley, of Film in the Fridge. I’ve loved this ever since she showed it on her blog in a sneak peek, so I waited until it was published to get my hands on her pattern. It’s a perfect way to show off large-scale prints, yet still have that patchworky feel to the quilt. So I started cutting it out. I got ONE square cut out before I had to stop and move on to other things. Pathetic? Not really, because at least I STARTED.

Where she used Horner’s line of fabrics, I’ve had some Amy Butler Love fabrics lingering in my closet. Plus a few others.

The other thing I’ve been working is my Quilt Journal. It’s been a long process getting the photos ready for this book, getting the book ready (as per my father’s advice, I had a larger spiral added to the spine). I gathered up all the photos I took–one of which involved a trip to Arizona–and bugged/pleaded/asked the other children for photos of the quilts I had made. My eldest son Chad (shown here holding an Amish Sunshine and Shadow quilt) and I photographed quilts in the conference room at his work (no one was around, nor using it). I’ve tried to only include completed quilts in this process, but a couple of tops crept in. A few quilts are gone forever, with no photos, only memories. They are also listed.

It was interesting writing about the quilts that I’d made over 35 years ago, and about how much came back to my memory–the feelings, the frustrations. Each quilt has two pages: the first one with its number (keyed to a master list) and the “verso” where I show the back and include any extraneous photos or details. Writing in this, and sticking in the photos, is an especially satisfying venture.

My total count at this point? 91. If I get going on this Rubrik’s Crush quilt (or the Christmas quilt–see snapshot below), I’ll have some more to add to my list.

This is my goal.

WIP

WIP–Red/White Table Runner

August 17, 2011October 3, 2022 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

Even though my week was somewhat stalled, due to Lack of Personal Energy (that even chocolate and caffeine couldn’t fix), I did force myself to some progress on the Red/White Challenge blocks. I wanted to make a table runner, but didn’t know how it would come together. I played around with a lot of ideas, putting the blocks on point, but in the end, it was all about getting the blocks to interact together. I love how they seemed to “converse” when they were up on my pin wall and I knew if I put them on point, that conversation would vanish.

So I made a mock-up of the blocks with a checkerboard border.

Then I kept switching around the order of the blocks until I got an arrangement I liked.

Stitched together and pinned–ready for quilting! It’s good to have something smaller to work on, because school started this week. For those who don’t know, I teach English at a local community college, and this semester (they rotate our classes) I’m teaching Introduction to Literature. We’re diving into poems right off the bat, so I thought I’d offer up this poem by Billy Collins, as a tribute to what students in literature classes can do to a poem.

Introduction to Poetry

by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996
University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark.

But the most important thing of all is, it’s my daughter’s birthday. Because she developed pari-partum cardiomyopathy upon the birth of her last child–a life-threatening disease–I celebrate every birthday I can. Happy Birthday, Barbara!

And if you’ll indulge me for one more, here’s my husband and I with most of our grandchildren, taken at the last family reunion. I LOVE glow necklaces!