Flannel Finish

Gee it's been forever since I've felt like I had time to post something.  I really admire those bloggers who are so proficient at keeping their blog up to date!  I have to admit I've not been doing a lot of quilting lately so there really wasn't much to say.  Now that the weather has changed here in New England and the humidity is gone I'm getting the quilting bug again.

Before I start writing about my latest project I need to catch up on one or two of my previously finished projects.  Let's start with this flannel one.  This is a project that was actually finished and delivered back in May.  I have a very dear friend that lives on a lake and I'd wanted to make a quilt for her and her husband.  So it had to be pretty but masculine at the same time.  As I poked around my stash I came up with this fun flannel fish fabric!

The fish are different types of salmon (my friend loves salmon!).  And then I found these flannel fat quarters in fall colors, plaids, and little flowers.  Seemed like just the right mix!

Deciding on a block was easy; the disappearing 9-patch is a quick fun block I’ve used it several times and loved the end results each time.  Deciding on a layout took a bit longer but after several tries I decided that what was missing from the block was the fish!  So I checked my yardage and had enough for the backing and the blocks.  Here’s what the final block looked like after it was cut and the pieces rotated.  If you have a novelty print that has a specific orientation then rotating the blocks can be tricky. For some of my previous quilts with this block I tested them first. 

 

In this case, I wanted to make sure that the fish were swimming upright but they could have been rotated any which way and still been fine.  Once the layout and rotation was determined I simply strip pieced the blocks together.

Before bringing the finished top off to the long arm quilter I had to piece the back.  Now most of the time I don’t pick a fabric that has such a distinct pattern so piecing the back just means doing the math, cutting, and sewing the pieces together.  But for this backing I just felt the fish would look weird if they were cut in half and a head swimming into a body!  Kind of ghoulish don’t you think? 

So I took the time to match the pattern and I had whole fish swimming happily around when it was pieced together. Phew!  Funny how I was hearing my mother’s voice as I lined up the pattern (not literally, they lock you up for that!).  She would have been saying “if you’re not going to do it right then don’t do it at all, it only takes a couple extra minutes to get it right!”  How true, and I’m so glad I did it.  Mom would be proud.  :o) 

I love picking out just the right quilting pattern.  This one looks like ripples on the water.  Having a long arm quilter that works with you is one of the best things.  Lori Wurtzler of Seventh Heaven Quilting here in NH has been doing a great job for me.  I always feel like she’s as excited about how the finished quilt will look as I am.  I didn’t get a very good picture of the quilting but if you look closely at the gold and cream squares you can see it.

For the binding I used the same cream fabric that was in the block.  I didn't want to distract from the scrappy nature of the layout so I didn't include any borders or sashing.

And what quilt would one of my quilts be without the “Guppy Quality Check”?

 

Once it passed the Guppy test the label was all that was left.  As I’ve often said I really don’t like to have a huge white block on the back of the quilt.  I always fine it distracting.  Sometimes you have to do that but I try to at least incorporate some type of fabric from the front to tie it all together.  For this one I just wanted to put my name and the date on it because I loved how the fish looked swimming around in the water.

 

 

The finished quilt came out beautiful and my friend loved it.

 

 

 

 

I hope you'll give that disappearing 9 patch block a try I think it will become one of your favorites too!

 

 



 

Caroline's Mermaid Quilt

The Mermaid Quilt - Day 1
 

Wait till you see how this
beautiful panel gets center stage.

 A few of weeks ago I had a rare opportunity to spend 2 days quilting at a friend’s house.  Now, my friend Jean doesn’t quilt – although I know she would love it if there was time in her hectic days – but her daughter, Caroline, took to the sewing machine like a fish to water! 

Another rare event was to be joined by our friend Sully who drove 3 hours just to get in some quality quilting time.  I can't thank you all enough for such a fun couple of days!  I rarely get to share my love of quilting with interested parties.  I'm usually boring some poor soul to tears as I babble on about fabrics, patterns, blocks, applique’, borders, and backings . . . . hence the BLOG   ;o)

Years ago, when Caroline was just a baby,  Jean got a new sewing machine.  She asked me if I would come by some weekend and help her with making some baby clothes.  As life would have it our schedules kept us both so busy that our sewing date (and the baby cloths) never happened.  We often talked about it and as Caroline got older we agreed it would be fun to teach her to sew.


Jean's dining room became
the sewing room

 Well, 11 years later, the stars finally aligned.  I showed up at Jean’s with sewing machine in hand.  And let’s not forget all the other paraphernalia like the cutting mat, rotary cutter, fabric, thread and 3 more bags of stuff that were all packed tightly into my car, just in case.  Oh and PJs and a pillow.  After all it was a sleepover!

I don’t know who was more excited to get started Caroline or me.  I had picked out a selection of fabrics from my stash that had pretty spring daisy pallet.  I also had a kit that had the fun mermaid panel.  Once she spotted the mermaid there was no going back.

The block I wanted to teach Caroline is the Disappearing Nine Patch.  I had used it on Betty's quilt and loved the way it turned out.  It's such a simple block but it looks much more complicated when it's all done.

Caroline had never used a sewing machine before and I had never seen Jean's machine.  Using a sewing machine is kind of like driving a car.  If it's your own you're able to jump in and hit the road, if it's a rental you need to take a few minutes to see where all the buttons are and what they do.  I had Caroline use the owners manual to look up anything that wasn't obvious.  In short order we managed to get the stitches set up, the machine threaded and eventually even wind a few bobbins.

 

Next we tackled cutting.  I showed Caroline how to use the rotary cutter but after a few closely supervised tries I decided she wasn't quite strong enough to use it and my nerves weren't strong enough to watch! 

On to Plan B.  I did the rotary cutting and she did the fussy cutting.  Using a 4 1/2 inch square ruler she traced around the pretty mermaids, then cut them out.

A few quick instructions on how to sew the squares into rows and the rows into block

and she was off.

I was amazed at how quickly she picked up on all the directions I was giving her.  I was trying to keep it simple but as you can tell by my writing "short" is not something I do well. 

Even to me it seemed that I was just talking and talking and talking.  I kept thinking she's going to get sick of hearing my voice!  





But she was very focused and absorbed everything I said.  It wasn't long before she was just cruzin' along.

We worked as a team:  Caroline sewed the 9-patches together; I cut them up to make them "disappear" and she sewed them back together to form the new block. 

Isn't this one beautiful!!!  Once she had the hang of it she managed to get 6 blocks done before we stopped for dinner. 

In the span of just 4 hours she had learned how to use the sewing machine and created 6 beautiful blocks.   I know it must have taken me a lot longer than that for my first blocks!  Along the way there were a couple of opportunties for "reverse sewing" so she did get to use the seam ripper! 

After dinner Sully arrived.  We set up her sewing machine and mine on the table as well.  She had seen my pictures of Betty's quilt and wanted to try the Disappearing Nine Patch block for a quilt for her daughter. Fortunately, Sully is a quilter so she was set up and sewing in no time. She was also able to lend a hand with helping Caroline as well.  The dining room was now fully transformed into quite the classroom. 


 

Since we were working in the kitchen/dining room we had to improvize.  The kitchen counter became our cutting surface and the dining room table became the sewing table.  The big advantage to not having Mom around was we could use the curtains as a design wall.  Hey, she said do whatever you want right? LOL! 

Jean arrived home late after a long day at work to be greeted by a very excited daughter, two good friends, and a kitchen turned up-side-down!  Caroline caught her mom up on all the activities of the day and did a  show and tell with the blocks she had finished.  She also included a vocabulary lesson on all the new sewing terms she'd learned.  Once again I was amazed at how much she learned!

It took another hour before Caroline finally went off to bed but not before she had finished the last stitch of the block she was working on. 

There is definately more to this story so check back again soon for Day 2 of The Mermaid quilt!

In the mean time I've got a couple of other projects I want post in the next few days.  Both the Baby Quilt for Trevor and the birthday quilt for Betty are back from the long arm quilter and ready for bindings.