The string quilts I pieced in December and January have been quilted.
The queen sized one was quilted by Joy from Calico Point. You'll need to be satisfied with pictures taken while the quilt is displayed on our bed. It is frigid outside with record wind chill factors. It's bad enough to go outside for barn chores, I'm not going outside to take quilt pictures!
This picture is of the bottom of the quilt. The center ended up square. To turn it into a rectangle I added a row of white sashing and then a row of straight strings to the top and bottom of the quilt. She measures 90" by 104".
For the quilting, I selected this happy flower design.
A picture of the center.
If whoever ends up with this quilt gets tired of looking at the front, they can turn it over and have the bright, cheery whole cloth side up. I quilted the crib quilt myself on my home sewing machine. Quilting on my machine is not my favorite thing to do so I just do it and get it done.
My Babylock Melody has a curvy line design, I push a couple of buttons, change the stitch length and I'm ready to quilt. A view from the front.
And here's the back which does show the quilting better. This crib quilt was quilted several weeks before the other quilt came back. The temperatures were cold but not the frigid weather we're experiencing now.
A couple of pictures in the snow by the old tree stump. This crib quilt measures 42" by 49". I did wash this quilt. I was concerned about bleeding and wanted to take care of that before it was donated. I was very happy to see there was no bleeding. In January I had show you a box full of strings or strips that I was going to empty in 2019.
So far I've pieced two queen sized log cabin quilts and the third one is waiting to be sewn together. These three quilts are in autumn colors. This picture take inside because it's too cold outside.
There are very few of those colors left in the box but the box is still full! I must have had them really packed in there. This picture taken last week before it was so cold. This design was popular back in the late 90's in my area. It's especially nice for hand quilting. These two flimsies and the one not sewn together yet will be donated to the school auction my Pennsylvania grandchildren attend. Someone else will quilt them.
I'm halfway finished with row 3 on the Pastor's Attic so this means I'm halfway finished with the quilting! What wonderful feeling! You guys are so kind with your remarks. Several of you have talked about how competitive this quilt will be in a show. I'm not a show person, I make my quilts for me, that's what makes me happy. That's enough. This quilt may be exhibited at the Sauder Quilt Show in Archbold Ohio sometime but I'm not sending her out to a national show. I don't even exhibit at the Shipshewana Quilt show and that's only a 20 minute drive from my home. Hand quilted quilts are going the way of machine quilted quilts, a LOT of quilting. Two years ago at the Shipshewana Quilt Show, the champion hand quilted quilt had been quilted with over 8,000 yard of thread and it took her 8 years! It was a whole cloth quilt but that was still a LOT of hand quilting. At the Sauder Quilt show last year, the winning hand quilted quilt didn't have 8,000 yards of thread but it had several thousand yards. I'm not even going to attempt that amount. If I quilted this quilt with diamonds 1/2" apart, I could have probably bumped the thread count up to several thousand yards but I have a life. I'm not willing to put that much work into quilting a quilt that would take me years. This was the 15th week of quilting on this quilt. At this rate it will be the middle of May when I complete this quilt, if then. I have a more outside work when spring comes, it may be in the frame even longer. If entering competitive quilt shows is your thing, go for it and I wish you well.
Here is the quilting I've completed this week.
I had started this center block last week but hadn't finished it.
This week I started quilting the applique on row 3 which is the center row of the Pastor's Attic quilt. I'm not halfway finished, I need to quilt to the end of this row before that happens.
However, I have reached a milestone of sorts with my quilting. The first spool of thread, which held 400 yards of thread, is empty!
I really like YLI thread.
I buy my YLI thread at Yoder's or Lolly's in Shipshewana. I googled YLI thread to see where you can purchase it on line. Here is a link to YLI , there were other businesses listed. I suggest you google it and check for yourself. Here is how far I quilted this week.
Right side border.
First right applique block. Yes, this is the correct orientation for this block. On an older bed, this would drape on the side so it would look correct. You only notice when the block has a vase.
Second right applique block. It takes awhile to get into all those little crevices.
Thank you for all the kind comments you all leave about my quilting. I'm not very good about reply to your comments unless a direct question is asked. I really try to stay focused on not spending too much time on the computer reading blogs. An hour can slip by and it only seems like a few minutes. That hour is gone and I didn't stitch at all!
This week I quilted all the way across the row. The quilting
was mostly quilting the background fabric in between row 2 and 3 so you will get to see all the pretty designs in the corners! I'm just going to show you the pictures and not make comments like I normally do.
Those pictures weren't in the correct order but they show you what I've done.
When I quilt in between the applique rows, I don't go straight across. I'll quilt the design in the corners .
I have several new projects I would like to make this year. One of them is Ancient Stars, a Sue Garman pattern. This is not a fast, speedy, whip it up in a month quilt, at least not for me. I first saw this pattern sewn into quilts at a Jane Stickle Retreat. Three friends had challenged each other to make the quilt and they were showing them in Show & Tell. Each friend had made the quilt in a different color scheme, red/black, cheddar/black and a green/brown combination. They were all beautiful! It made me want to start sewing stars immediately. I ordered the pattern when I got home from the retreat, it has patiently waited several years on the bucket list. I have a LOT of civil war fabrics so that's what I'm using. The center of the quilt consists of 4-1/2" finished Ohio star blocks, a lot of them! If I make 10 Ohio stars a month for 10 months, I'll have all the Ohio stars I need. I'm going to make my stars in many colors but I couldn't decide which color to start with. So for 2019 I'm going to sew along following the RSC color of the month. The QST's will be the color of the month.
Here are the 11 Ohio stars I've pieced for January. I know I said I need 10 a month but I accidentally cut extra triangles so I sewed 11 stars. The bottom right star is not an Ohio star, he's an evening star. The Ohio stars are for the center section of the quilt, there will be an outer border of evening stars. I made one evening star to test my paper piecing pattern, it's correct. Yes, I'm foundation paper piecing these stars. They're still not perfect but they are more correctly paper pieced than if I were making them without the paper. The paper piecing is my own addition to the pattern, they were not provided in the pattern.
I need a bazillion 1" finished HST's too. I'm also sewing those for the RSC even though I sewed some black ones this month. Here are the first 60 of many to come. I am using Thangles for paper piecing these little guys. When I first decided to make this pattern, my intentions were to make it exactly like the pattern. Then I thought about how much more interesting the center would look if the Ohio stars were placed on point, my favorite way. Then I thought about a couple of other changes. I'm not sure how this quilt is going to look when I get him completed but one thing for sure, it won't look like the picture on the cover of the pattern. For now I'm going to concentrate on piecing the HST's and the Ohio Stars, the evening stars will happen in 2020. Like I said, this is going to be a slow, long term piecing project but I've made the start. Linking to Show Off Saturday, Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap
I had sections of the pieced strings leftover after I finished String Flimsy. I don't want any of those strings laying around here for another 10 or more years so I decided it was time for a crib quilt. Right now this flimsy measures 42" X 49", a nice sized quilt.
It was a windy day and rather challenging to get a good picture. This yellow has never photographed right. It's a soft yellow color but it isn't as washed out as it always shows in the pictures. Maybe after it's quilted it will look a little darker.
I still had strings left so I sewed them into the backing. Do you recognize this yellow? The yellow is left from my Nearly Insane quilt. I always buy plenty of fabric when I make a long term quilt. I didn't know how much I'd need so I bought way more than I needed.
I've been quilting the Pastor's Attic quilt for 12 weeks. I'm
making slow progress and I'm still enjoying myself. Hand quilting isn't a fast process, you need patience. I try to quilt every day for at least an hour or more, just depends on what all I have going on each day. The center section of applique row 2 is completed. Here in my progress starting from the center and moving to the left.
For the past year I've been reorganizing my cutting/fabric room. I've evaluated bagged projects to see if I want to still make them, then repurposed the fabric and patterns from the projects that didn't make the cut.
The best organizing tool I've incorporated is this pegboard for the small items and rulers. It is so nice to find the small items quickly and the rulers are right there at hand. The rulers used to be kept on a rack but that just didn't work for me.
I moved the cutting table into the center of the room under the overhead light. Now I can walk all the way around the table. The room looks cluttered now but this picture was taken while working on Scrappy 9 Patch. That is what the boxes on the table are for. As soon as that quilt was finished, I put the boxes away. Cleaning up after each project is a good way to eliminate clutter too.
A couple years ago I bought metal shelving which has helped with the organization. The fabrics are sorted by color and kept in tubs on these shelves. The large tubs, center bottom, contain fabrics kitted for a projects with the pattern enclosed.
Those bolts of fabric in the bags look sloppy. I'll take care of those.
This looks better with the bags off the bolts of fabric. The second shelf still looks messy. The boxes contain varying widths of strings. I don't use strings a lot and they're starting to take over.
This is the box of 1-1/2" strips that you see on the right side in the above photo. It originally held paper for the printer so you can visualize how large it is. I wonder how many quilts are in this box and basket? I've issued a challenge to myself, I'm going to see how many quilts I can piece from these strings in 2019. I did use some of them in the string quilt but that didn't even make a dent! I will be making several log cabin flimsies. I like the log cabin block, the blocks can be arrange in so many different designs.
I've made a start on two log cabins so far. This one is brights.
And this stack consists of fall colors. Actually I'm making enough blocks to make two tops in fall colors, both different. There will also be one in blues, purples and whatever is left in the box. I did empty the basket of the whites and creams so I've pulled out background fabrics left from other projects.
Digging through the box has caused an explosion of strings in my sewing room and they're taking over everywhere!
