Hearts & Wreaths

I found time to applique the center hearts on the last two blocks for Hearts & Wreaths during our August trip to Pennsylvania. The leaves will happen sometime this autumn.

It's frustrating to me that the background yellow never photographs nicely. In these pictures the color looks beige!

The hearts in these two blocks use similar blues but I think they'll work nicely with the other blocks.

As usual, here is a link to my first post about Hearts & Wreaths. That post will give you background information about Hearts & Wreaths and also show you the true color of the yellow!

And here is a link to all of my Hearts & Wreaths posts.

I wrote this post and a few others before I left for Utah in September. I'm home again and playing catch up on everything! In a few weeks I'll give you a review of the changes in the farmer and my lives.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitchin Stuff, Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday

Welsh Beauty

 Another row of hand quilting across Welsh Beauty is done. For this post, I took pictures of all the cross hatching. Here are the pictures from the right edge to the left edge.

This happened as I was quilting, I used all the variegated blue thread on this spool, all 300 yards! Adding those 300 yards to the previous used 400 yards of YLI thread is 700 yards. I've added 100 more yards of YLI thread so the total yards of thread used to date is 800. This quilt just might be the quilt that breaks the 1000 yard mark! 

The quilt that I've hand quilted with the most yards of thread so far is the Pastor's Attic quilt which finished with 885 yards of thread.

One more row across the quilt and I'll start quilting the swags on the top of the quilt!

I was asked last week if I always keep track of the number of yards of thread I use. When I quilted for pay, I always kept track of my thread yardage because I charged by the number of yards of thread. 

Some quilters charge by the number of hours they put into the quilt but all quilters quilt at a different speed. All the hand quilters in my area who quilt for hire are paid by the yardage.

I don't always keep track of the number of yards of thread in a quilt but I do if I know there is going to be a high number of yards. I'm just curious that way.

Last Sunday I had several requests from commenters that they would like to see my hand quilting frame. My frame is a Grace hand quilting frame with 4 rods. I posted about the frame in my November 7, 2021 post. Each rod has a cloth leader which I pin each element of the quilt sandwich. I had been quilting for several months when I took the pictures for the November 7 post so I was unable to show you the cloth leaders. I'll try to remember to do that when I'm at the top of the quilt.

I'm taking another blogging break until sometime in October when I'll share with you what all has been happening this summer.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday

Churn Dash Diva

For the past several months I've been participating in Chooky Blue's Churn Dash SAL. I'm pleased to say my flimsy is finished!

I thought I had the blocks arranged so like fabrics wouldn't be next to each other but I see that didn't happen!

Here is a close up of the lovely pink border fabric and the dark brown sashing.

I decided to use civil war fabrics because I have a well filled tub of them. Originally I was going to use a variety of colors but decided to continue with the pink/brown combination when I saw how lovely they were looking.

An on point setting was used with 2" finished dark brown sashing in between the blocks. The pink cornerstone fabric I've had for years and there is still enough left for another project.

After the brown border was attached, the quilt started talking to me. She said she wanted the outside pink striped fabric to be mitered. Okay, I can do that. If you look closely, you can see part of the mitered corner in the picture below.

Then she started telling me how she wanted to be quilted, hand quilting of course with a outside feather border that has a scalloped edge! The churn dash blocks are supposed to be quilted in an overall design.

I asked how about long arm quilting with an overall Baptist Fan design? That suggestion was promptly refused.

So, that's the plan, hand quilting, outside feather border with a scalloped border. She did agree to waiting a year while I quilt another quilt that has been waiting longer, age before beauty you know. Of course I do need to finish hand quilting Welsh Beauty first.

This is why I've name this quilt, Churn Dash Diva. I've had other quilts talk to me before but never this demanding.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap

Welsh Beauty

Another row of hand quilting across Welsh Beauty has been accomplished.

Here is my quilting from the right side toward the left side.

The corner motif reaches into the quilt. It's nice to quilt something besides crosshatching.

There is 3 - 4 sections of crosshatching until we reach the left side motif.

This is part of the corner motif.

Left edge.

As you can see, I have a puckering problem on the left side. Hopefully I've got it pinned well enough the puckers will quilt out. I don't know why this is happening but I'll be done soon so it shouldn't be too big of a problem.

This is what I'll be quilting next on the right side, a lot of the corner motif.

If you look at the top of this crosshatching, you'll see flowers that belong to the border. There are at least 2 passes of quilting before I reach those flowers. Those weird marks on the quilt are impressions from the pin heads. By the time that section is rolled down and ready to be quilted, they will have disappeared.

In my last post about Welsh Beauty, I told you I'm cutting 10 yards of thread in 1 yard pieces to keep track of how many yards of thread I'm using. This is my high tech method.

I just use this old yardstick to measure. I hold the end of the thread with my right hand then most the spool of thread to the left. When I'm at the left edge of the yardstick, I cut the thread and do it again, counting as I measure.

I then place the yardstick on top of the thread to keep it in place and keep the thread straight. It doesn't tangle doing it this way. The striped fabric is the cloth I keep on the quilt when I'm not quilting. The stick lays on the back of the quilt, I don't take the whole cloth off when I quilt.

That yardstick brings back a lot of memories! They closed so many years ago and it's been at least 20 years since 219 was our area code.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday

Country Fest 2022

During my blogging break, the farmer and I drove to Pennsylvania to visit the grandchildren and their parents. The children are growing so fast!

On the last day of our visit, we attended Country Fest. Every year I donate at least 1 quilt top, sometimes more, to be hand quilted then auctioned in the quilt auction. This year three of my quilts were sold.

Here is a link to quilts sold in this year's auction. I took pictures of my quilts since they're quilted now and I've link to the last post about these quilts.

The first quilt to show you is Stars Around the Garden.  She sold for $1700. The name is listed incorrectly in the sale catalog. I put my own twist on this quilt so she finishes at a larger size than the original pattern. Stars is 93" by 106".

I had suggested using diamonds for the background of this applique, which was a good choice. Of course they stitched in the ditch around the applique.

When no one was looking, I snuck under the rope and took a close up picture of the backside of the quilt. The feather swag is the outside border, the cross hatching the checkerboard border and then the narrow border around the pieced stars. I didn't crawl in far enough to get the backside of the stars or applique.

Here's a link to the Stars Around the Garden pattern. 

Antique Stars variation was another of my quilts and sold for $900. I love how this quilt looks! Antique Stars variation measures 91" by 99".

I had sent the stencils along with the quilt top for this feather cable design. I thought it would be perfect for the outside border. I would have liked to have had a wider outside black border but I ran out of fabric and didn't want to go buy more. The black I had been using was many years old and I knew there was no way I'd find the same fabric. Besides, I'm trying to use the fabric I have on hand, not buy more!

I was disappointed in the quilting on the corners of this star. The small star was a good idea but just didn't fill the space like it should have. I guess I should have sent a stencil to use in the corners but it never occurred to me they would use such a tiny design. 

And a closeup of the Ohio Stars.

I called the quilt Antique Stars but it's based on the Ancient Stars pattern by Sue Garman. I originally had planned to make the whole quilt but ran out of steam piecing all those Ohio Star blocks.

The final quilt was Puss in the Corner and she sold for $875. I didn't get a full picture of this quilt, there was a comforter hanging on the bottom half of the rack. This quilt measures 90" by 103.5".

I wasn't sure how this quilt would sell, not everyone likes red. I was afraid this would be the quilt that no one would want but I was wrong.

Here's a close up of the quilting on the back.

And a closeup of quilting on the side.

Puss in the corner is a traditional pattern and very simple to make. You can make your blocks whatever size you want to make them.

Nancy J. Yoder quilted all 3 of my quilt tops.

We didn't stay for the entire auction, we left after my quilts were sold then headed for Holmes County, Ohio to spend the night at my sister Karen's home. 

The bedroom we slept in had this lovely grandmother's flower garden on the bed. When I asked her where it came from, she told me the pieces were in a box deep in the closet of mom's sewing room. She found it while we were cleaning out mom's stuff after she died.

She didn't know if mother cut the pieces or if it was a kit or where it came from. This quilt isn't the type of handwork our mother normally made. Karen had another quilter finish the piecing and the hand quilting. Isn't this a beautiful quilt!

After a delicious breakfast, we headed for home. The mountains of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and southeastern Ohio are very picturesque. We looked in amazement at the fields in those mountains and wondered how farmers were able to drive a tractor in those steeps fields!

Soon we were in the flatlands of north central Ohio and headed straight west on US 30 towards Fort Wayne. Even though we had several hundred miles and many hours to travel, we felt at home amongst all the corn and soybeans fields. Mountains are beautiful, the flatlands are home.

I checked the mileage after we arrived home, 1300 miles! Our own bed sure felt good that night.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

Churn Dash Fabrics

I know I said I was going to take a blogging break for the rest of August but I couldn't resist. I made it to Caroline's Cotton Cottage and bought the fabric to finish my churn dash quilt!

Of course they didn't have the fabrics in stock that I had imagined in my mind but I do like this striped dark brown fabric. 

There was absolutely NO brown and pink flowered fabric so that idea went down the drain but they did have this lovely pink fern fabric left from the Gene Stratton Porter line. This fabric was used and designed for the Wildflower Woods quilt and will become the outside border of my quilt. Since the dark brown fabric stripes are so subtle, I don't think having striped pink fabric will be too much.

Now I need to find time to sew the quilt into the flimsy stage.

I'm participating in Chookyblue's Churn Dash Block SAL, check out her blog for other SAL participants.

This definitely is the last post for August!

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, UFO Busting, Oh Scrap

Welsh Beauty

There was another row of almost all cross hatching across Welsh Beauty this week but I persevered!

Last week my post included several photos of just cross hatching, I'm not doing that this week!

I have two pictures of the quilting, the right side . . .

And the left side.

While I was quilting, this happened, I emptied this spool of hand quilting thread, all 500 yards! There is more to quilt so now I'm measuring yard pieces of thread, cutting 10 at a time. I'm keeping track.

Total yards of the cream quilting thread used is up to 510. I'm also using a variegated blue thread on the flowers and swags. I'll be emptying that spool before I'm finished also.

I've been asked what I do to entertain myself while hand quilting. I normally watch a detective series on my IPad. The last several weeks I've been rewatching From Candleford to Lark Rise on BritBox. This has been a nice change from shows I normally watch.

Some people were having problems leaving comments on my posts so I made a change and that seems to have helped, people can now leave their comments. 

This is great for you leaving comments, but unfortunately, I'm unable to reply to your comments individually or in the comments section. I can leave a comment but I can't link it to the appropriate question. You need to come back and read the comments to see if I answered your question.

Last week someone asked me what kind of needle I use and what kind of thimble. I use DMC hand quilting needles, #7 and my thimble is an ordinary one that has a concave top. The eye of the #7 is large enough that I can use it for regular hand quilting thread and the #12 Sulky variegated thread. I can quilt small stitches with this size needle. When my neighbor ladies come to quilt, they want a smaller size which I keep on hand for them, they think the #7 is too large.

I'm so used to this type of thimble, I can't use a convex kind. I assume it is DMC brand. This is the type of thimble that my local fabric store sells. You are able to try it on in the package, I wear a medium.

I also have a copper one that I use sometimes that I bought at a store in Utah but the bottom of that thimble is longer than this one. It rubs on my knuckle.

These thimbles are relatively inexpensive which is good because I have a thimble with every hand project so I don't have to look for them.

I have worn out thimbles over the years, the concave top of the thimble becomes thin and the needle pushes through the metal. I just throw that one away and get a new one.

The size needle you use or the type of thimble is a personal choice that only you can make. What matters is if it works for you.

I made it to Wakarusa last week so I took pictures of the Quilt Garden.

The flowers have grown since July.

This sculpture looks so lifelike, at first glance, I always think there really is someone sitting on the bench! You can actually read the words on the newspaper he's holding.

I'm going to be taking a blog break for the rest of August, see you in September!

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday