Quilts

WIP–Bee Blocks (post revised)

June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

UPDATE: I’ve revised this post, because this morning I realized that TODAY is Wednesday, not yesterday (when I’d originally written it: we’re a little foggy on life over here), so today I am linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

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I joined a new bee (newby! newby!). I am honored to be included in the Always Bee Learning bee, and the first block’s fabrics have arrived to be sewn (they have different rules than the Mid-Century Modern bee). But Linda’s blocks for the MCM bee still hadn’t been made, and I like to honor my deadlines.

So I gimped down to the sewing room, pulled out a drawer and put a pillow on it for the left foot, got out my portable iron and pad and put it on the table on the right. I figured it was good to be sewing as long as I wasn’t putting any weight on the foot, right? (I’m really hoping that MY idea of “partial weight-bearing” agrees with the doctor’s).

But had to stand for a few minutes on my right leg while I cut the strips, then I sat and sewed. And twisted to iron, but finished up one block before dinner.

After dinner I finished the other one (normally we only do one, but everyone else was doing two and I didn’t want to be a slacker); I packaged it to mail tomorrow, hopefully making it to Florida by July 1st. That small block in the front? We do signature blocks with our Mid-Century Modern (MCM) bee.

This is what Linda is doing with them: using them to border another set of blocks from another bee. She says she’s stuck about what to do in the corner–maybe a rounded version of the stack?–so if you have any ideas, head over to her blog and leave her a comment. It’s always interesting to see our bee blocks being used. Another quilter in this bee finished up her quilt (scroll down to the Mid-Century Modern quilt in neutral fabrics); I hope when it’s my turn I can be as successful.

As I lay in bed yesterday, I did make a button for that new bee:

At least I can be somewhat productive when I lay around here.

What else am I working on? Well, another July 1st deadline is for this month’s Schnibbles quilt. My husband brought up a camp chair (small chair we use when we go camping) and I could slide it in the cubby hole of my sewing desk, and yes, I did get some of that top quilted last night. While I can only quilt for a short while, it feels good to be productive and to see a quilt take shape.

hanging Kaleidoscope Quilt

Thanks, all, for your nice comments about Kaleidoscope (in previous post). My husband hung it up in the hallway this morning. It brings a smile to my face as I slowly make my way up the stairs. Here it is again:

Final thought: Happy Birthday, Rhonda! You are an inspiration, always.

Quilts

Feather

May 7, 2013 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

When Suz of PatchworkNPlay said she wanted to do an Anna Maria Horner Feather for her monthly block (I think that link will get you there or just Google it), I started in on some new territory. For one thing, this block is really tall–like 17 1/2″ tall and about 9 1/2″ wide. On the screen it always looks so dainty. This is not dainty, but bold and much more interesting than I had thought.

Because Suz lives Down Under, as we Americans call it, or OZ, as they like to call Australia, and she sent us her background fabric via air mail, I was desperate not to screw this up. So I laid out my fabrics in the colors she’d requested, then printed out TWO copies of the pattern and laid it all out, too.

As per Suz’s advice, I followed *this visual tutorial* to paper piece the feather blades. What I learned: thinner through the middle works better than thicker. Work really hard to keep on the angle suggested on the pattern. And even if you biff on those two things, it will still come out just fine. Our group has made several:

Mine’s on the top, laying sideways.

We each also including a signature block. I have a template I use because I’ve spelled the name of my blog wrong more than once (which is why if you want to reach me you can just type in OPQuilt and it will get here).

Done! for the month of May. Now I want to make a bunch more!

Quilts

Ring Out, Wild Bells

December 30, 2012December 28, 2024 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Every New Year’s this poem, In Memoriam, by Lord Alfred Tennyson, has been recited in Sweden to welcome in the new year. It’s one of my favorite hymns, not only because of the arrangement (the Marsdon tune, arramged by Crawford Gates in an especially riveting D-minor key, which gives it a haunting quality) but mainly because the last stanza urges us to “Ring in the . . . larger heart, the kindlier hand,” among other things. And while I could say that the wording might be reversed, giving us “kindlier heart and larger hand” and that would give us more chances to do quilting, I think I’ll leave it well enough alone and hope for what Tennyson wrote.

Yesterday I just finished the quilt I started one year ago. This is a terrible, horrible blurry picture, but you get the drift. That’s what happens when you finish up late at night, and the pin wall has all sorts of other things pinned around the edges. Better pictures are coming. The fabric is Countdown to Christmas by Sweetwater, and the pattern is by Angela and found on Moda Bake Shop. Since the stars and I went several rounds before I finally was declared the victor, and because I think they look beyond wonky in some blocks, I’ve been thinking about the book Star Mother’s Youngest Child, a delightful story of how a wonderfully ugly little child comes down to earth to see what Christmas is all about, and ends up sharing the hearth with a grumpy old woman (which I certainly was at one point in this quilt’s construction). It’s okay that nobody but me will know what it means, but I like that title: Star Mother’s Youngest Child.

I’m at the point of deciding whether to just piece up the extras for the back, or to take the last steps and make the shams that could go with this so as to decorate the guest room for the holidays. I’ll just make up two star blocks, for they measure 16″ and then border them and call it a day. It IS New Year’s Eve tomorrow, and I don’t have much on the schedule, so why not?

This is the stack from IKEA that I finally got washed up and ironed (yes, I’m one of those), excepting the bottom red/white snowflake fabric, which I bought on my way home from Utah in a bookstore that also carried fabric. How great is that? Forget coffee. Give me books and fabric and I’m happy. But that red snowflake fabric is destined to back the wonky snowman quilt I started LAST November, which is the next to go up on the pin wall, while I can still listen to Christmas carols and before the urge to clean out closets creeps in with the New Year.

(Self portrait)

I’m too old for resolutions, but I try to put down some things that have me looking forward, for that is where the future is. One is our newest theme for Four-in-Art: trees. I took lots of photos of snowy trees while in Utah, and here’s a photo that my husband snapped of me in a lull in my photo-snapping.

But the one tree I remember was by the side of the highway while I was driving up north, covered in glittery frost and standing completely out in a field, all by itself. I did see snowy trees on the way home, but most were obliterated by a huge snowstorm which had me sitting up straight in the driver’s seat, clenching the steering wheel, praying that the semi-trucks would stay in their tracks and I could stay in mine. I don’t know how the folks do it who live in snowy climes–you have my admiration.

Another bright spot is the Mid-Century Modern Bee. All of us Mid-Century Modern quilters are gathered together by Cindy, of Live a Colorful Life. She and I had fun creating the logo together when she visited in November, and I look forward to participating with such a distinguished group of quilters.

I don’t know what this New Year will hold. Certainly the Mayan calendar is going to go for another round of days, so I guess we should too. I hope to add to my 200 Quilts list, with another quilt just back from the quilter and awaiting the binding, then the documentation onto the list. I hope to write more, both on this blog and others that I maintain, to teach well in the classroom, to read some books, and attend some quilting conferences (next up is Road to California, with its emphasis on glitter and crystals (not a fan), but hopefully I’ll find one or two that I love).

I hope that you are gathering some bright spots together in your future, and that we are all able, like Tennyson, to “Ring in the . . . larger heart, the kindlier hand.” Happy New Year of Quilting!