I found the blog Fairies & Fibres hosted by Karen Hseveral years ago. She is an EPP extraordinaire but she also has some interesting quilt patterns for pieced quilts. Click on quilts by Karen H. in the heading of her blog and scroll down.
Several years ago I made her pattern, Cherry Blossoms. Of course I made the quilt larger than her pattern and added the pieced border.
I've always wanted to make her 9-Patches & Baskets pattern. I can't believe I did this during the summer, but I actually started the quilt last week. Many years ago I sewed strips and pieces and made a large quantity of 3" finished 9-patch blocks. I used some of them in my double 9-patch quilt but I still had a large basket of the blocks left, perfect for Karen's quilt. I've run out of 9-patches that have neutral corners so I'll finish the quilt another day. This was a fun and quick piecing project since I had most of the 9-patches already pieced.
Of course I modified the pattern to suit me. My quilt is going to be king sized. Also all of Karen's 9-patches had dark corners. I pieced my quilt with alternating 9-patches so they would interlock with each other. I'm going go through the small pieces of fabrics around here and make more 9-patches. Hopefully I'll have enough pieced to finish piecing this quilt sometime this winter.
I need to add 3 more rows with the blue squares (already pieced) and 4 more rows of 9-patches. I'll worry about piecing the basket border after the center is completed. Now I need to return to Nearly Insane.
The end of July through the middle of October is the busiest time on the farm for me. Besides the challenge of hay making, the garden's bounty is ripening and ready to be preserved. There isn't much time in the day for sewing. When I do have time to sew, I need to work on something that can be put down and picked up easily, nothing challenging. Nearly Insane has been put on the back burner and I have worked on the RSC blocks. The August color for the RSC is neutrals. Well, that won't work for me, I'm making the actual rainbow colors for my quilt. I only have 2 more colors to make, pink and orange so I pulled out the appropriate 4-patches and made the blocks. I'm making 28 blocks of each color. I sew the blocks in groups of 3 so I can vary the fabrics. The first group makes 10 blocks, the next two groups make 9 blocks each.
First I organize the squares.
Then I web sew the first two vertical rows together. I sew all the first vertical rows.
Then I add the third vertical row.
Finally the 4th vertical row is added.
After all the blocks have been webbed together, I press them and then start sewing the rows together. After all the rows are sewn together they get a final press.
Here are a few of the pink blocks for display.
I also sewed the orange blocks. Now orange is a challenge for me because it is NOT a color I especially like. In fact, when I joined the RSC, I didn't have very many orange fabrics at all. The fabrics with the dots are left over fabric from making the pinwheel crib quilts along with a few other fabrics. I actually ordered a fat quarter bundle of orange fabrics from Connecting Threads so I would have a variety of orange to use. They turned out ok. I'm still not excited about orange but I can live with these blocks. When I started making the RSC blocks, I was using leftover white on white fabrics. I've use them up! I needed to expand the selection fabrics to be used for the solid squares. The little squares finish at 1" and the solid squares are 2". I'll be putting these blocks away until later in autumn when I have time to sew the blocks into a top. Linking to - Scrap Happy Saturday,Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Quilter's Monday, Fiber Tuesday, My Quilt Infatuation,Finished Or Not Friday,Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!
Working with hand work is a good way to unwind and relax in the evenings. Lately I have been embroidering.
I finished the block with the blue applique. I am so glad I appliqued the little heart. Looks so much better than my fill in embroidery stitches would have. Using variegated thread makes embroidering so much easier because I never have to change the color of my thread! I used #12 pearl cotton on these blocks.
Then I embroidered these two blocks. Do you see the difference? Click to enlarge them. The block on the left has been embroidered with the outline stitch. This is my normal stitch, one that I have been using for 50 years. It just comes natural to me. The block on the right is embroidered with a back stitch. This is the stitch that Gail Pan used for most of the projects in her book. It was very hard for me to have even stitches. You know what this means, practice, practice and more practice.
If I don't feel like embroidering, then I knit dishcloths. This is one I finished this week. Every time I show a knitted dishcloth, someone asks for the pattern and what kind of yarn I use. I use Lily brand cotton yarn and here is the pattern. I don't know where I found this pattern, I do know it was a free pattern where ever I found it. Seed Stitch Dish Cloth - With a size #4 circular needle cast on 40 stitches. Row 1 & 2 – knit. Row 3 & 4 – Knit 2 *K1 P1 repeat from * across to last 2 stitches k2. Repeat rows 1 – 4 for pattern until measures 9” (same as bottom edge), ending with Rows 1 & 2. Bind off. Linking to - Slow Stitching Sunday, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Love Laugh Quilt, Em's Scrapbag,Super Mom - No Cape,Esther's Wednesday Wow!, Finished Or Not Friday,Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Friday Night With Friends
