Quilts in the Rafters

Yesterday the farmer and I switched the quilts in the rafters. He did the height work while I stood safely on the floor and told him what to do.

Welsh Beauty is in the dining area. The design of the quilt was hand quilted with blue Sulky #12 weight thread. It didn't show very well on the side toward the south window but I noticed it showed better on the north side. That's the side in this picture.

Welsh Beauty isn't a very showy quilt but it took me so long to hand quilt this quilt, I had to put it on display!

The west side rafter in the living room has blue churn dash. This quilt was also hand quilted and is a reproduction of a quilt made by the farmer's great grandmother.

The east side rafter is displaying Midnight Blues, the last finish of 2023.

In this picture you can see Lady Jane in the background of the dining room.

Here are a few more pictures.

I didn't get those quilts off the back of the couch. They're put away now.

I'm hoping to piece a blue & white wallhanging for the east wall this year. Yes, it's green outside, we didn't have a white Christmas but some of my Christmas cactus are blooming.

I can never make pictures go next to each other, oh well.

I told you I would show you pictures of the ladder we use to hang the quilts. Here they are. And yes, that is a duster he's holding. I figure as long as he's up there, he might as well dust those rafters!

Yes, those rafters are up there. This ladder was left by the former owner so I could wash those high windows! I don't think so.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Sew & Tell,  Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday

I have one more picture to show you. Peppermint Pines is now hanging on the hanger into the guest room. It's not the Christmas season but I'm displaying it anyway!

Midnight Blues, the Last Finish of '23

Lori Null finished quilting Midnight Blues in October and returned her to me the first part of November. It took me awhile to bind her which I did by machine. She's the last finish of this year. 

Originally I intended to hand quilt Midnight Blues which is one reason she hung so long in the 'to be quilted' closet. I just couldn't get enthused about the handwork so I finally sent her to Lori for quilting.

The quilting design is Raindrops on Water by the 3 Sisters. The light blue thread quilting thread was perfect! Lori is really good at what she does.

There is a large variety of blues in this quilt, most of them darker blues. There are a few dark medium blues and colbalt blue. No light blues at all. This is why I name it Midnight  Blues, it's also easier to say than shoofly & snowballs.

My last post about Midnight Blues was in May 2020. She has been waiting more than three years to be quilted.

Of course the backing fabric is blue whole cloth. After washing, Midnight Blues measures 86" by 90" which is smaller than I thought he would be. 

My first post about Midnight blues is here and dated July 2019. Here is another link to posts about Midnight Blues if you want to read about the process. I was inspired to make this quilt after reading Jayne's post in December 2017 but my blocks finish at 4.5" instead of 6.5".

The Christmas quilts are coming down from the rafters this week. The next quilts in the rafter display will be blue & white quilts. I'll show you those next week and the ladder we use! Fortunately heights don't bother the farmer like they do me.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!,  Finished or Not  Friday,  Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, Magic Craft

Midnight Blues, the Flimsy

Midnight Blues is now in the flimsy stage and is hanging in the to be quilted closet until it's turn to be hand quilted.

This looks a lot like an old antique quilt which is where Jayne got the idea.
I knew how I wanted the borders even before I started piecing the blocks. I was going to have a 5" finished cream background border with an appliqued gentle curving vine with lots of leaves in the various blue fabric.

But while quilting the Floral Triangles border, I changed my mind, I decided I was going to make a border like this in Midnight Blues quilted with various blue threads.

So I attached the cream 5" finished border then added the blue side borders. I laid the quilt on the floor to measure before cutting the last two borders, looked at it and thought it looks awful! 

No picture!

I removed the blue borders then trimmed the cream background to 1" finished then added the blue borders, perfect! I like it. Sometimes our plans just don't look right.

Yes, I know, the long sides have selvages. Don't get yourself in a tizzy, they will be cut off before the binding but that won't happen for a long time.

I leave the selvages on so there is more stability in the quilting and also because I don't feel like zigzagging the edge.

Right now the flimsy measures 90" by 97" but of course it will be small after trimming.

My idea for my quilt came from this post on Jayne's blog. She made her blocks finish at 6" while my blocks finish at 4-1/2".

I started making the shoofly blocks when Bonnie Hunter started her shoofly challenge last summer. I didn't use Bonnie's shoofly design, my blocks are made the regular way. 

As I predicted, Bonnie's quilt (actually quilts since she made 2 of them) is bright and colorful while my quilt is not but we're both very happy with our own quilt.

Here's a picture of the waiting to be quilted closet. 

Some of these quilts will be hand quilted, some of the smaller ones will be quilted with my sewing machine. 

Some, like the redwork embroidery in front, are waiting to be sewn into a quilt.

Several years ago, a blogger showed her waiting to be quilted closet, I think she had at least 30 quilts in waiting. She had used metal pants hangers, you know, the kind that things can easily slide off of.

Since I have grandchildren who love to play hide & seek and this closet seems to be the most popular hiding spot, I decided not to go with the metal easy slide off hangers. I purchased my hangers at Target. They are shaped like regular hangers but they're thicker and they are felt coated, no slipping! They come in various colors but I thought white was the way to go.

In case you're wondering why the heifers weren't in the picture of the quilt, I moved over to the right and took this picture. They were grazing behind the quilt! 

Linking to Peacock Party, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished Or Not Friday, UFO Busting

Midnight Blues, the Center

The center for Midnight Blues is completed, now to add the borders.

You can't probably see it in the photo but when I made the snowballs, the cream fabric of one block was sewn backwards. It immediately popped out and waved at me when I laid the center of the floor. I'll remove that block and insert one of the leftover blocks. Some mistakes don't bother me but this one did.

The center measures 77" by 85-1/2", the rows are set 17 blocks by 19 blocks and the blocks finish at 4-1/2".

Isn't it interesting how two different blocks can make such a neat design?

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Clever Chameleon, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday

Midnight Blues

Since the fast and easy projects have been pieced and are at the long arm quilter, the next project to be progressed is Midnight Blues.

I last posted about Midnight Blues in December 2019 when I showed the snowball blocks made at the Jane Stickle November retreat. 

The snowball blocks are the alternate blocks to the shoofly blocks I made for Bonnie Hunter's shoofly block challenge.  

My pattern is based on this quilt by Jayne.  She gave her quilt a different name but I decided on Midnight Blues for my quilt.

My plan had been to sew these blocks together at this year's Jane Stickle retreat in April but we all know how planned activities in April went this year. I did tentatively think about saving this project for the November retreat this fall but decided I want it finished NOW!


The individual blocks finish at 4-1/2". Sewing a row 17 blocks by 4-1/2" is just too fiddly. I'm sewing the center section in 4 parts then sewing the sections together. The picture below is the top left section.

Below are the top two sections sewn together.

The width measurement is 77" which is actually what it should be!

I like dark blues and have lots of small fabric pieces left from former projects. There are over 20+ blues in this quilt. What is amazing is when I look at the fabric, I remember the quilt it was used in!

Linking to Peacock Party, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished Or Not Friday, UFO Busting

Retreat Project #1, Midnight Blues

It's been two weeks ago that I left for the Jane Stickle retreat in Shipshewana. I finally have time to write about the various projects I worked on. I'm going to write about each project in a separate post, one post would be too long.

We're allowed in the sewing room at 3 pm Wednesday afternoon. It took a little while for me to get settled and organized but by 4 pm, I was ready to start sewing.

Project #1 was to sew the snowball blocks for Midnight Blues. I needed to make 161 snowballs, each has 4 corners so that means I sewed 644 flippy corners.

They were so boring to sew which means they were a good project to work on at a retreat.  Not much thinking was involved.

I sewed all the flippy corners and pressed them. Then I trimmed the blocks and cut the unneeded triangles off the back of the flippy corners.

I finally finished all the processes involved in making these blocks at midnight, Thursday evening. 

Linking to Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday

Midnight Blues

As you all know, Bonnie Hunters leader & ender project for 2019/2020 is the shoofly block. She gives a very detailed tutorial how to make the blocks.

This was the incentive I needed to start piecing shoofly blocks but I'm not piecing my blocks the way Bonnie describes. I'm doing them my own way which works for me!

I like the precision of foundation paper piecing so I've made my triangles with 1-1/2" finished Thangles papers. I also didn't make the center block larger. In my block, each of the 9 sections is the same size.

I needed a total of 162 shoofly blocks which means I needed 648 HST's. Got them done but piecing the blocks had to wait because August was just a busy month. 

It's September now and the shoofly blocks are finished, all 162 of them.

Now I need 161 snowball blocks but I'm not piecing those yet. I think piecing those blocks sound like a good mindless sewing project to take along to retreat in November.

The cream squares in the above picture are for the snowball blocks, the squares for the flippy corners are cut. I'll work on marking a diagonal line on the back of those so they're ready to sew at the retreat.

Earlier this summer I did piece 4 snowball blocks to see how they looked with the shoofly blocks. Before I cut the flippy corners off the snowball, I sewed a 2nd seam. I cut between the seams, now I have these tiny little HST's. I'll wait to press then until after all the corners have been sewn, then they have to be trimmed. I have no idea what they'll be but I know this, it will be very small. 

I guess Judy Hanson from Small Quilts & Doll Quilts is making an impression on me. Judy also attends the Jane Stickle quilt retreat. Over the years I have gifted her with many tiny pieces. Her small quilts are so cute!

I'm using mediums and dark blues for this quilt which are already in my stash. I've used at least 25 different blues but so many of them are very dark deep blue/black so I've named this quilt Midnight Blues. Midnight Blues is a lot easier then to say shoofly & snowballs.

I first posted about my project in July. If I make this quilt like I'm planning now, there will be an applique border included or maybe I'll embroider the border . . . I'll decide when the center is pieced.

I know my project isn't a leader & ender project like Bonnie's but, my quilt, my way.

Linking to Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, For the Love of Geese, Peacock Party