Delectable Baskets: Quilt Finish

June 26, 2019June 29, 2019 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Food Basket Quilt_1

Delectable Baskets • Quilt #220
Approximately 70″ wide by 90″ high

Basket_7

Delectable Baskets gets its name because each basket is filled with food — well — food fabrics. I’d been collecting for over twenty years, so I had a few to choose from. In February 2018 I was Queen Bee for the Gridsters, and put up a post about making basket blocks, deciding that I wanted to use my collection of fabrics with food motifs. I sent each of my beemates a couple of squares. (There is a free basket tutorial on that post, if you are interested in making some baskets.)

Baskets of Food quilt top

Not only did my Gridster Beemates send me blocks, but a few other long-time friends sent them also; I had so many blocks that my quilt grew and grew, and then it was overflowing, a lovely dilemma to have. So I pruned it a bit, as I was aiming for twin-size, and still have enough baskets for an upcoming wall-hanging.

Cathy of CJ Designs did an expanded Baptist Fan on it, leaving it nice and soft, which is a good thing, as I intend it for use in the guest bedroom, which is currently the quilting-and-thread-storage bedroom. I promise that maybe I can share.

Food Basket Quilt_4

The back, using some Phillip Jacobs (on the right) and some Marimekko (from Crate and Barrel’s outlet sale some years ago). The signature blocks (the white Xs) are pieced into the Phillip Jacobs, or at least I think that’s who designed that fabric. At any rate, the print is a lovely-as-can-be radishes. Food Basket Quilt_5

Thank you to everyone who sent me blocks. Delectable Baskets has been on my radar for a couple of decades or more, beginning with visits to Fabric Patch quilt shop, the vendor mall in the early years of Road to California, a couple of Southern California Shop Hops, and an occasional trip to Utah. There were no mail-order shops then, as there was no internet then. We bought fabric from JoAnns which it wasn’t then (maybe Cloth World?). I accrued fabrics a yard at a time, a piece at a time, a slow compilation.

This quilt was finished in an era where everything is on hyperdrive. The internet runs, assists and invades our lives, helping and hindering us in our quilting. Sometimes we are in a quilt bubble, making the same quilt (see my Flag Quilt from last post), using the same colors, same fabric lines. Other times it brings us news of friends in Australia, in Japan, Canada, Germany and certainly from around the United States, and allows us to meet and be friends with people all over the world.

Our gathering of Gridsters would not be possible without the internet, and all members, past or present, contribute to my life is a positive and beneficial way.

I am happy to know you all, Gridster Bee member or not. Thank you for enriching my life, making it a veritable feast. I dedicate Delectable Baskets to you.

Free Quilt Pattern · Quick Quilt

Betsy’s Creation: Flag Quilt Top

June 21, 2019December 28, 2023 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Betsy’s Creation • Flag Quilt Top Finished!

Last week in another post, I threw together a fun little worksheet about how to make a flag quilt, then got busy and not only made this quilt top, but also a wallhanging:

In case you didn’t see that free worksheet…

…click here to download a PDF version of this: Betsy’s Creation_OPQuilt

It’s a just a worksheet and assumes you know how to put together a quilt. Why did I have enough for a quilt and a wallhanging? Seems I had a bit of a miscount, excited as I was to be cutting into all my reds, and whites and blues. I overshot my mark of 15 sets.

BetsysCreation_1a — *I put each strip set on my design wall, then added a blue rectangle to coordinate.*

I mixed them around until I found an arrangement I liked, putting four to the side for the wallhanging, then sashed and bordered them with the light blue. I used Painter’s Palette Solids in Aruba (121-100), available from Keepsake Quilting, if your local shop doesn’t carry it.

Then I went outside and fought the breezes to get these few shots.

I did all the cutting, the sewing and fighting-the-breezes-for-a-picture in three days. I tell you that so you know it’s a quick quilt to make. I’ll hang the smaller version in our front hallway in July, but the larger one will be quilted and tucked into the car for fun picnic blanket getaway events.

Happy Red, White and Blue Sewing!

Other Red, White and Blue projects I have made:

Red, White and Blue Star

Sweet Land of Liberty

Red, White and Blue Quilt (friends blocks)

America Is A Tune (it must be sung together)

Happy Fourth of July (Tiny Quilt)

European Patchwork Meeting · Quilts · Textiles & Fabric

Gabrielle Paquin: Design and Graphics

October 1, 2017September 30, 2017 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Moseying along the main street, we headed to Site #7, the Eligse St-Louis, where I wanted to see the French quilter Gabrielle Paquin. Previous to this, in my hotel room in Geneva, I had previewed all the exhibits, looking up the artists and deciding which ones interested me. Paquin was one of them.

EPM Paquin_site1b

EPM Paquin_site1d

I had seen photos of previous years’ exhibits, and the fact that many of them were in churches. But it just doesn’t prepare you for the juxtaposition of the sacred and the quilting, the symbols of religious life coupled with the themes and ideas and colors and patterns of the quilts along the sanctuary walls. It was wonderful.

EPM Paquin_ESE

She spoke some English, and agreed to pose with me. Check out her sweater.

In her biography, she writes:

“For several years, I studied drawing and painting in a school of Fine Arts, my first vocation, and since then, I practice painting as an amateur. Simultaneously, I realized traditional patchworks inspired by American models large format of the 18th and 19th centuries.

“This practice evolved towards the contemporary patchwork and the textile art that I have been practicing assiduously for ten years, thanks to a constant inspiration and stimulated by the numerous exhibitions proposed with selection by a jury of artists and curators of museums.”

You can start to get a sense of the materials that Paquin works in: striped cloth. In this one, she uses larger pieces that her usual strips, and has appliquéd them down to the background with a satin stitch on her machine. I like her small monogram in the lower right corner.

EPM Paquin_3

EPM Paquin_4 EPM Paquin_4a

I didn’t quite catch the name of this one (top, and detail, bottom), but it shows her use of her striped material. I kept wondering if she cut up old shirts, or old clothing, or haunted fabric shops to find all these variations.

I was impressed with the quilting on this piece, as it gave me great ideas.

All the placards were in French, so I’m using Google Translate to write them in English, plus heading over to her website where she has some of these quilts.

She has found so many ways to use this fabric; I didn’t include all her quilts in this series, but many of them.

EPM Paquin_7 — *Two Black Sisters*, 2016.

What a huge impact the simple reversal of value (light-dark) can make!

EPM Paquin_9asite
Looking towards the back of the church. She is sitting there at the table with the white tablecloth, waiting for people to come and talk with her.

EPM Paquin_11

EPM Paquin_12 — *The Eye of the Cyclone*, 2009.

We call cyclones “hurricanes,” and after this year, can definitely relate to the eye of such a storm.

EPM Paquin_13

This title says something about a spider, and it was pinned up to show the creature responsible for this exotic web.

EPM Paquin_9site

Please visit the gallery on her website for more quilts and inspiration.

Note: this series about the European Patchwork Meeting has a main page, with a listing of posts.

200 Quilts · Quilts

Sweet Land of Liberty

June 12, 2017June 7, 2017 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

SweetLandLiberty_front Sweet Land of Liberty
Quilt #182
28″ square SweetLandLiberty_upper border

I started this in January, prepping up the stars and beginning the hand-blanket-stitching a couple of days after my rotator cuff surgery. This was a bright spot during that time, keeping me focused as I moved forward through different steps of what I was calling my “Liberty USA” quilt. SweetLandLiberty_stars

My friend Susan of Patchwork N Play, in Australia, is always hand-quilting her quilts, and I wanted to try that, too.

SweetLandLiberty_star

So I rustled up some patriotic colors of perle cotton from my Oh Christmas Tree quilt, and went to town…well, riding on a pony and all that, because it took some time to do this.

SweetLandLiberty_detail

I cut some fabric for the rod pocket this week and on the selvage, I saw this. Perfect for my title, I thought! SweetLandLiberty_back

It’s up there, stitched onto the rod pocket in the upper right corner.

SweetLandLiberty_label

I listened to Hamilton, the novel, last year and one take-away for me was how imperfect our early Founding Fathers were, but what a magnificent thing they created as they pulled together and figured out our country and its laws. They had patriotism in its purest form: e pluribus unum, out of many, one (our country’s motto). I try to keep that ideal in my head every year as I celebrate our Independence Day.

And yes! I finished the quilt by my self-imposed deadline of July 4th, so that’s great news.

RainbowGardensLiberty — (You’ve seen this photo before…)

This makes three red, white and blue quilts for me.

AQuiltingLife_RWB I’m way behind my friend Sherri, of A Quilting Life, who has over a dozen in this collection. Head over to her blog to get a tour. I’ve got to get busy to catch up with her!

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200 Quilts · Quilts

Rainbow Gardens, redux

June 7, 2017 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

RainbowGardens2017_front

Rainbow Gardens (the original) was made for a swap back in 2015, and I always wished I’d kept it for myself. So this week I did the next, best thing: I made a new one.

RainbowGardens2017_upper corner

I had all but one of the fabrics for this 18″ mini quilt still in my stash, as I pretty much hoard my Kaffe Fasset fabrics. I tried to quilt it the same, too, using my favorite Magnifico Thread from Superior Threads. But the backing is different, as is the label:

RainbowGardens2017_back RainbowGardens2017_label RainbowGardens17_corner

The backing is “pindar paisley” from Alexander Henry, from 2012. The front of the quilt is all Kaffe Fasset fabrics, some new, some older.

RainbowGardens2017_angle

I also updated the pattern, trimming out this and that, and editing it more tightly, and it is up on Craftsy for sale, if you want to replicate this. And even though it feels strange to say this, I’m going backwards and keeping the number from the original make: this is quilt #148 of mine. RainbowGardensLiberty

I so rarely duplicate my quilts, that this feels a little odd. I have plans to remake one more, but that will come later this summer. After sending off these two quilts to their owners, I wised up and began duplicating everything I swapped from then on. I rather like my quilts, I guess. Have you ever swapped a quilt, and then wished you had it back?

I also finished another quilt this week. Stay tuned.

200 Quilts · Quilts · Tutorial

Single Binding on a Mini Quilt

May 18, 2017 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Mini Quilt Binding Tutorial We all put double layers of fabric bindings on our larger quilts, but have you thought about using a single binding on a smaller quilt? It’s quicker, flatter, and really–are you going to wear out those edges any time soon? And if you do, won’t you just repair them? That idea came from Gwen Marston, in one of her last workshops. That idea — that a quilter would just repair them if they became worn — is why she uses single bindings on all her quilts. Mini Quilt Binding_1 Start by squaring up your mini-quilt. Yes, that is a gigantor square ruler, and I use it a lot, actually. Mini Quilt Binding_2 Prepare your hanging corners, by cutting a larger square (for a 24″ quilt, I use a 5 1/2″ square), folding in half, diagonally, and pinning it in the upper corners of your mini, against the back, matching raw edges to the edge of your quilt.

Mini Quilt Binding_115a (Here’s what it looks like on another quilt, as my corners just disappeared on this one.)

Mini Quilt Binding_3 Cut strips of fabric (lengthwise, if you can) about 1 1/2″ wide and the size of two sides. Pin, then stitch on, using a 1/4-inch seam.

Mini Quilt Binding_6 Repeat for upper and lower edges. Pin and stitch, but watch out that you don’t veer off on those corners (I pin them). Mini Quilt Binding_5 Mini Quilt Binding_7 Square up the corner, and cut off the excess, both underneath (above) and on the outer edge (below).
Mini Quilt Binding_8 While this looks angular, it isn’t. Mini Quilt Binding_9 Press binding out away from quilt. Mini Quilt Binding_10 Fold up lower edge, so the raw edge of the binding meets the raw edges of the quilt. Mini Quilt Binding_11 Fold it up again, covering the raw edges of the quilt. Pin in place, and then repeat with the sides: Mini Quilt Binding_12 Mini Quilt Binding_13 Hand stitch all the way around, or if you are a confident quilter, you can use a glue stick to affix the binding edges down, then machine stitch. I personally don’t like the machine stitching, as I think it makes the edges too rigid, but “To each his own,” said the Old Lady as she kissed the cow. (My Dad used to say that all the time.) Mini Quilt Binding_14 Here’s the corner already on, but it’s hard to see. I cut a dowel the width of the quilt, minus 2″ and slip it into place. Then I hang my minis, balancing it on a push pin. Mini Quilt Binding_15 Mini Quilt Binding_a Thanks to all who came to the Trunk Show and to all who sent their best wishes. It was a lovely evening! If your guild would like to see my Abecedary of Quilts Trunk Show, just drop me a note.