Tag: 100 Quilts

100 Quilts · Creating

Family Tree

Elizabeth E.2 Comments

I really shouldn’t let this quilt show its face in the quilt world.  Really, it has that many problems.  But sometimes these quilts are fun to look and to remind myself of how far I’ve come as a quilter.

So the idea was, since we were headed to a family reunion, to make a banner for my husband and I, like I’d made for my mother.  Hers was more successful, and it’s all on account of the quilting.  I hadn’t yet taken a fusible class, so I was working with my old stand-by which unfortunately leaves the fabric like a slab of wallboard.

I cut out the tree, and then traced everyone’s hand for the leaves.  I slabbed on them on to a tone-on-tone background fabric (which, thankfully we don’t have around much as the fabric can change colors turning more yellow–I think the newer ones are better).

I then wrote our name using a Pigma pen, copying the style of my sister-in-law’s handwriting.

Then, for some strange reason, I decided to put it under my machine and quilt it.  Maybe I did that because this idea of quilting the quilt yourself was an idea that was percolating around; back in the Olden Days (when we wore skins and cooked over an open fire and used cardboard templates and cut everything out by scissors) there was no machine quilting on your own machine.  Either you hand-quilted it or you tied your quilt.  That was it.  Then the longarms started showing up, and then the idea came that you of course could do your own quilting.  This quilt is a testament as to why sometimes you shouldn’t.  Or you should take a class and get better.  (Which I’ve tried to do.)

Okay, here comes the prelude to the scary part.  Can you believe I switched out the color in the bobbin?  I did it again this year.  I’d better write this one down on the Things Not To Do list, and tack it up by my machine.

ACK!!! ACK!!! ACK!!!
Don’t you just love all the loose bobbin stitches, the globs of thread that burped out on the back, the horrendously balanced thread tension?  I give myself a little break because I WAS sewing through bunches of wallboard-glued-on-fused fabrics and that’s just about impossible.

But I have to say I learned a lot, and still am continuing to learn about the Big Three Elements of Free-Motion Quilting.  They are:

  • Speed of the machine (how heavy your foot is in on the pedal)
  • Speed of your hands moving the quilt around
  • Tension/Thread/Needle Size.

I now sew with a size 14 Topstitching needle most of the time when I’m machine quilting.  Sometimes I bump up to a 16.  I ALWAYS test drive the thread tension — it can change with the thread you use —  on a small quilt sandwich that I keep by the machine.  And I really hope I never use a different color of thread in the bobbin again. (Cue: sound of head banging.)

Here’s a photo of my parents’ grandchildren all lined up by age.  Not all of them are shown here, but overall there are 27 of them.  And now we’re working on the next generation with nearly 20 great-grandchildren (an adoption or two are in process).  We’ve been at our bi-annual Reunion this past week, where I got to see all those new cute little great-grands, and they got to meet their auntie–me!

Quilts

National Park/Anniversary Quilt

Elizabeth E.4 Comments

The first time I went camping as an adult was with my intended husband, my Dave.  His brother and sister and their children, and Dave and I and my four children all packed up and went camping to a place where a giant German shepherd terrorized the campground and barked all night, the neighbors drank too much and were too noisy, and we burned our foil dinners.  It was perfect.  I was so happy to be there with Dave, and the kids and out in nature.

Fast forward six years and we’d been to a lot of the National Parks in the West and a few on the East coast as well (although not always camping in them).  He proposed to me in Yosemite.  Our first family camping trip was to Zion National Park.  We had dated near the giant redwoods up in San Francisco, and had taken a summer camping trip (sans the kids) to Sequoia and to Kings Canyon. And we’re headed to Yellowstone this week.

One of our local fabric stores had printed up several different sets of orange crate labels since our area is home to the navel orange industry.  I chose the National Parks set and put the labels in an Attic Window setting, then sashed them to further set them off.  I used naturalistic fabrics, and a sky full of stars fabric for the border.

Our local home subdivision is called Canyon Crest, and probably a long time ago before all our homes were built, orange groves probably dotted the area.  The best smell you’ll ever smell is in April, when all the citrus flowers burst into bloom.  It’s better than candy, just standing on a slight hill above the groves on a spring night, the orange blossoms scent surrounding you in the mild temperatures.

More nature scenes on the back.

I go back and forth on the name of this quilt.  Sometimes it’s the National Parks Quilt.  Other times it’s the Anniversary Quilt.  I can’t believe with all our challenges he and I have made it this far–me a crazy single mom with four children (teenager to kindergartener).  He a studious scholar with no children of his own.  We took a leap off our own mountaintop, a jump into the unknown, and yet we’ll celebrate anniversary #22 in a week.  Happy us!!

100 Quilts · Family Quilts · Finishing School Friday

Southern Brights–FSF

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

This is my son Matthew and his wife, Kim.  Sometimes she likes to be called Kimberly.  Other times it’s just Kim.  She’s a bright and sunny personality of a gal, and easily matches my son in energy, determination and love of a good joke.  They’re great.

This is their family, taken at a family camping trip (quickly! and that’s why Emilee has no shoes on), in the mountains above Phoenix Arizona, a place they call their home.  But only for another day or so, because he’s been promoted in his corporate job and they’re off to Cinncinati Ohio.  I love that she would follow him anywhere, so I decided to make her a quilt to honor her love of the Southwest and her bright and sunny personality.

Ta Da!  I give you “Southern Brights.”  It’s a Bento Box block, with lots of wild and crazy fabrics, put together in a bundle by Fabricworm, but of course, I added a few of my own.

My favorite is the little Round Robin fabric with little round robins on it.  I also like the punched-up hugeness of those flowers in the middle.  Change in scale?  This quilt’s got it.  Change in color?  Yep, yep.  Change in value?  Not so much (all medium fabrics) so I threw in some lights and brights to keep the eye moving.

Love the Marimekko fabric on the back, punctuated by a strip of the the Anne Kelle flowers.  Alas, our Crate and Barrel outlet has closed, so now if I want those fabrics, I need to travel an hour and half–instead the previous half-hour.  So I hoard my stash of these, but this quilt just called out for something sunny and bright.

I wish them all success in their new home and new state!

100 Quilts · Creating · Quilts

Cowgirls Write Letters

Elizabeth E.4 Comments

My husband and I lived for a year in Washington, D.C. while he did his sabbatical at the Department of State.  (That’s what they call it.  Most of the rest of us just call it the State Department.)  I investigated any fabric store within reasonable driving distance and one of the ones was Material Girls in La Plata Maryland, about 45 minutes drive from where we lived.  Fast forward a year, and I went back for a visit to see my pal Rhonda, and of course, we had to hit some fabric stores.  Didn’t have a lot of room in the luggage, so I was drawn to the collection of fat quarters they had, and selected as many of this line as I could find.

But what pattern?  Luckily they had a whole rack of Schnibbles patterns, by Miss Rosie’s Quilt Company, and Rhonda and I each chose a couple of them.  I decided on this one, Decoy, then enlarged the blocks, cut them out, and had to piece the border because I was running out of fabric.

But what backing?  Of course it had to be a Western theme.  The cowboys were heavily represented on the front, so I went with the women on the back.

And I had lots of letter fabric, so I envisioned them all out on the plains, posting letters to each other as they herded the cattle wherever cowboys and cowgirls herd cattle.

We all know that the ladies are more frequent letter writers than the men.  So I titled it, Cowgirls Write Letters.  I made it extra tall for my own cowboy to use while he watches his spaghetti westerns on the television.  Thanks, Carrie, for such a great pattern!