Quilts

Temperature Quilt Top • January 2020

January 15, 2020January 11, 2020 Elizabeth E.20 Comments

One-thousand-ninety-five triangles along with six rectangles make up the face of this heat map quilt, cataloging the temperatures and rainfall of Riverside, California in 2019. I have no plans to make another, but I was pretty proud of myself for keeping up with this, faltering only in my crazybusy November to December (finishing those two months in the first few days of January — which is why I couldn’t get the holiday decorations down until January 7th).

temp colors and chart — Of the four numbers at the top of the fabric square, the color numbers are the three numbers written on the right side. The first number is for cataloging.

Here is the original Temperature Quilt Key, for those on IG who keep asking for it (it lives here, on the blog); it was first published early in the year, outlinging my intents and purposes.

TempQuilt_5

The un-adorned face of the quilt, today in my sewing room.

TempQuilt_5a

I’m thinking of a narrow border before I begin to add other blocks around this quilt, to make it a bit larger.

TempQuilt_6

I embroidered the temps on the corresponding triangles in my Temperature Quilt Key.

TempQuilt_7

I have a lot of triangles leftover, so I thought I’d sew them together, fit them into a pattern, somehow, and sew them on the outside. Seoul Korea Triangle Doorway

I guess I have in mind the doorway we saw in Seoul, triangles everywhere.

ESE with 4 grands Dec 2020

Thought I’d flash up here a photo of me with four of my amazing granddaughters. I have two more, just as far away. They make me look young.

North Country Quilt with Dani

Danielle agreed to help me lay out the interior of my North Country Patchwork Quilt. I finished all the interior pieces; now on to the rings.

MySmallWorldJan_1

While this shows just the sky quilted, I have now finished the quilting on My Small World. I’m still looking for a good title for this quilt, but My Small World is such a great shorthand. I’m determined to have it finished by Road to California, as I’m in two different classes taught by Jen Kingwell, who created this quilt. Yep, I want her to sign a label. Which means I have to get the binding on, then make the label.

Circe book

Finished this, too, just about the time I finished up the quilting. I could listen to narrator on this audio book read the phone directory, she’s that good, but the novel is wonderful by itself.

Do You Tweet?

September 29, 2019September 27, 2019 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Tweet Ladybird

Tweet Shine Tweet Crossroads

Perhaps the UCR Science News was looking for something other than Nobel-prize generating stories or research about saving the world from cancer, but I’m happy that the editor liked my quilts, sent to him by my favorite guy (my husband). The quilts were displayed around University of California’s campus near some of the science buildings (and in the Botannic Garden). Thank you!

DAR Library.jpg

In other news, we visited the (tiny) exhibit at the DAR museum this past week (their library, above) in Washington, DC.

DAR exhibit sign.jpg

More on the exhibit in another post, but I met three quilters while I was there:

From the top left: Beth, a long-time friend (we always meet together at this particular science meeting of our husbands), Rhonda (who I met when I lived in D.C at the local quilt guild), and Bette (who I met online and since have become good friend with via correspondence and phone calls and occasional meetings). But that’s not all the news.

National Press Club

I spoke at the National Press Club, after I was proclaimed Queen of England.
Full story, below.

Headline Queen Elizabeth

Kidding, of course. I merely posed, and the other photo is a leather-embossed rendition of a famous headline, one in a row of famous headlines.

Climate Change Protest

We’d done most of the museums in December when we last visited, and I was wondering what to do one day when the Climate Change Activists staged one of their protests right outside my hotel. I threw on my clothes and went down to watch. I remember how the police used to break up other protests long ago, with tear gas and heavy-handedness. This experience was more like a garden party, as slowly, they encircled the boat parked in the middle of 16th and K. While the activists moved on to march around D.C. the police cut the handcuffs and tethers of those who remained, then towed away the boat. I was quite impressed with the whole experience, both of those who felt strongly about making a statement, and the police officers taking good care of those who they serve. Another reason why I love D.C.

Okay, I promise more serious quilty stuff soon. I’m coming home tonight from my niece’s wedding in the Bay Area, hoping to dive into what I’ve left undone while traveling. Before I left, I did get one quilt to the quilter’s, after auditioning, digitally, many different designs for quilting.

North Country Sept 2019 I also cut more pieces to keep going on my North Country Patchwork Quilt, eeking this one out, bit by bit (photo of what I have so far, above).

Temperature Quilt Sept19.jpg

I did get caught up with my temperature quilt, which is turning out to be very different colors than what I expected. I find it’s easier to do a whole month at a time, than piece-mealing it, day by day.

IE Modern Quilt Guild.jpg

Lastly, this coming Saturday, October 5th, I’ll be presenting a (mostly) modern quilt program at the Inland Empire Modern Quilt Guild in Riverside, California. They are a small modern guild, with a whole group of interested, dedicated quilters. Maybe you’ll be there?

EPP · Free Quilt Pattern · Quilts

EPPing again with French General

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Sometime ago, I glimpsed this quilt in an Instagram feed:

The description says it’s from the North Country of England, so I’ve taken to calling it the North Country Patchwork Quilt. The more I looked at it, the more I liked how those red squares just kind of blended into the background on the outer rings, but floated over the foreground in the middle.

I tried to convince my husband to buy it. That was funny, as he made some comment about didn’t we have enough quilts? Seriously, he’s nearly perfect, but in the end, I decided to go ahead and make it.

too much to do.jpeg

Because I sure need another project.

But the project I need is a hand project, really–one that can be toted around in the car. I finished my hexies project, and I finished (thankfully) my millefiore quilt, so now what am I going to do on long car rides? Just sit there?

Car from the past.jpg

So I drew up the block, working between two different pieces of software: QuiltPro and Affinity Designer, and have created this pattern (click on the following link for free PDF file): North Country Patchwork Quilt

This quilt has 624 pieces in it, and if you divide that by four, you’d have to print out gazillions of the pattern page. So here are my tips for making that go more quickly:

Print off several of the free North Country Patchwork Quilt page. Like 10.

Stack each printed page with about 4-5 plain pieces of paper. Staple them together inside the pieces, as shown on the left.

Cut them apart in chunks, like the image on the right, using an old rotary cutter that you’ve dedicated to paper; or, a guillotine paper cutter; or, your paper scissors.

Then further cut them into the individual shapes: a honeycomb and a square. Remove the staples.

That ought to get you started. No, I didn’t use cardstock, but I had some 24 lb printing paper that I used. And yes, I’m gluing the fabric to these pieces of paper. I used this paper when I did my Shine EPP quilt (most blocks are free on this blog) and it worked out just fine. Repeat this process as you need to.

I’m going to vary from the fabrics in the original quilt, as I fell in love with this Vive La France line of fabrics from French General. I’m over the moon for those dusky blues and strong reds.

I worked out some variations of this quilt in QuiltPro software, and they vary by how much of a border is around the central rectangle. Here they are:

I also had some fun with putting the blocks in more contemporary colors (lower left), but decided I didn’t like that version. The top three are sort of in the colors of the original quilt and it looks like to me, it was someone who was making do with cast-offs from her household clothing, as well as men’s shirtings. But I’m anxious to get going and trying this out in the Vive La France fabrics.

I have no idea how I’m going to sew this together, but I will be concentrating on those arms that come into an X, and somehow I’ll do the red square.

Lastly, a reminder to pre-wash your fabrics: working with reds can be tricky.