Quilting on the Teacups Quilt

Gee, it seems like forever since I've have the time to sit and write.  I'm squeezing this one in before dinner!

In my last post on Jean's quilt I didn't have a chance to show off the quilting.  It was done by Lorri Wurtzler at Seventh Heaven Quilting in Nashua NH.  She's been just great to work with!  I spend so much time there I'm worried she'll start charging me by the hour for all the talking I do!  She always listens to what I'm looking for and usually has several ideas for me to consider.  I love that it's a collaborate adventure!

For the teacup quilt I wanted something floral and open that could be seen when the quilt was hanging.  I chose a rose pattern with leaf motif for the background quilting and asked her to outline each of the tea cups.

I went with a light blue thread on the front, again so it could be seen when the quilt was hung.  The picture above shows the prairie points really well.

I love the way each teacup is outlined and the square around the tea cup is stitched in-the-ditch.  It made teacups really pop.

A rose is centered inside each star with the leaves going out into the cream background.  I love, love, love this star color.  In real life it's more of a perriwinkle color but it's just beautiful.

The same rose pattern is used in the borders.  I love the way each rose appears to be sitting on a "saucer"!  The light blue thread works well on the dark blue fabric too.

 

I didn't get a good photo of the back before I gave it away but here's a peek at it.  The fabric is an overall rose pattern which unfortunately just looks like a mottled light blue in the picture but it really is roses and it was the inspiration for the quilting.

 

 

Seeing this quilt made me fall in love with it all over again! 

 

Next up?  Delivering Mary's quilt in Idaho!  And my friends say "Thank You" with a lovely gift and group hug!  Stay tuned.

 



 

March Meeting Of The Once A Month Group

While I don't have any pictures of my own quilts to show you I do have some from the "One Friday A Month" group to share. Our March meeting was held at Deb's new home by the river.   She was gracious enough to have us for an over night quilting/visiting get together. 

We all arrived early enough for a tour before the sun set. Her home is warm and cozy not to mention beautifully decorated! There's a view of the river just 50 feet or so from her back deck and a huge working farm across the street from her front door.

Our rooms upstairs had welcoming beds with plenty of comfy quilts. It was like being at a bed and breakfast.  Nothing was overlooked, from the food to the accommodations it was a feast for the eyes. 

I feel very fortunate to have found a group of women who are all so talented.  I look forward to our monthly get together so I can see what every one's been up to and catch up on the latest news about family and friends.

Speaking of family, that's my sister Dutchy holding up a baby quilt she made for a friend's grandson.  It's a pattern of interlocking Friendship Star blocks.  I had made one when I first started quilting and it took me forever to put together.

Hers was whipped up in no time flat. Turns out that using the two colors along with the white printed background like she did her rather than the multiple blues and yellows like I did (here) made all the difference.  Oh yeah, and having a few more years of quilting under your belt helps too!

The blues and yellows are so soft.  The white background fabric on this one has the cutest little pastel toys on it.  I don't think the picture does it justice but here's a detail shot.  Kind of looks like flowers but it's really toys.  The border and backing were done "envelope" style where you sew all the edges right sides together leaving a small opening so you can turn it right side out.

Jane brought her Disappearing Nine Patch.  That's her peeking out from behind the corner of it.  I love all the colors.  One of the things I always admire when seeing a finished quilt is the personality that comes through.  Whether it's the quilters personality or the recipients personality.  Each one is unique.  I love how the sashing and the borders frame the large blocks.

I can't remember if Jane was finishing up the hand quilting or the binding.  One of these days I'll be ready for a lesson in hand quilting and these are just the people who can teach me.  They all do such beautiful work!

The rest of the gang, Tami, Carol, Deb and I, were all working on hand work.  I was so busy talking I forgot to take more pictures until morning!  Several of them had started a block of the month from our local quilt shop.  I worked on piecing some of the blocks for Mary's quilt and they were very cute. 

Deb, our hostess, was working on piecing a set of blocks embroidered by her grandmother.  They are the state flowers for all 50 states.  The embroidery is just lovely.  Everyone like the patterns so much that one of the girls decided she wanted to make them so she borrowed the patterns.  Wish I'd taken some pictures DARN!  Well, I'll ask Deb to bring it to the May gathering and get some pictures to share with you.

After many hours of talking and laughing we all headed off to bed.  SOME of us were asleep right away but the "Hot Flash Twins" (and you know who you are!) were both fighting with the covers.  One even got stuck in her sleeping bag and nearly melted from the heat LOL!  Oh yeah, and there was that little mishap with the picture in the bathroom - Sorry Deb!

After a short night's sleep we ventured down to the kitchen.  The hot flash twins were already up and trying to figure out how to get the coffee pot to work.  After many attempts and floods of giggles our hostess appeared with the simple answer:  put the special rock on the lid to engage the start mechanism.  HaHaHaHa  Why didn't we think of that!  Once the coffee got going we dug in to quiche, fresh fruit salad, muffins and juice.  Yummy :-)

The rest of the day was filled with sewing, eating, laughing, sewing, talking, walking and more laughing.  It all ended much too soon!  A big THANK YOU to Deb for sharing her home with all of us.

Before I forget, I want to mention that the April meeting was at Jane's home where we were all treated to Jane's luscious brownies and cookies.  Again I forgot to bring the camera so no pictures.  I really want to share the quilt that Jane is working on - it's red work blocks set with beautiful patchwork.  Jane if you're reading this I hope you'll bring it to the May get together so I can take some pictures.

Happy quilting everyone!

Blue and Cream - Decisions Decisions

I've been hard at work on the Blue and Cream quilt project.  It has turned into a study in organizational skills.  I wish I could say I invented these organizational solutions but I didn't.  Most of them I learned in classes or from my sister or from tutorials on the Internet.  Keep reading, you might find one or two you haven't seen.

Before I could cut all the pieces I had to decide which blue fabrics to use for which stars.  This wasn't too hard since I had to go with the quantities I had of each print.  The pattern called for 9 stars of one fabric so I had to use the blue and green floral since I had a half yard of it and only fat quarters of the rest.  I started by cutting the star centers.  I placed the nine floral centers on the design wall as shown in the pattern layout in the book.  Then I just started laying the other centers out and moving them around until I got them where I liked them.

As I started cutting the blues for the sashing, which become the star points, it was obvious I'd need to stay organized.  Notice I have the magazine open to the page with the pattern on it.  That magazine has never been more than arms reach away as I worked on this project.  

Over 200 (2") squares, 96 (3") squares, and 25 (3 1/2") squares.  That's a lot of squares and a lot of blue!  Fortunately, I have these clear plastic plates that I use for keeping all the parts and pieces in their rightful places.  I'm not sure where I got these plates, probably from my sister  ;-)  I swear I use these plates for every project now.

I first saw a similar solution in a class I took with Charlene at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop in Concord, NH.  It was a scrappy quilt and I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it.  Charlene to the rescue!  She gave us paper plates to organize our 9-patch blocks that had a fussy cut in the center. 

Two more of my favorite tools are a fabric guide and yellow sticky notes.  The chart helped me keep all the color decisions organized.  The sticky notes keep all the plates organized by size and location such as "2 inch squares for sashing".  How did the world operate before sticky notes?!

I thought once I'd picked the pattern and the fabrics all the decisions for this quilt were done but not quite.  Knowing that this quilt is a gift I was keenly aware of the recipients tastes, or what I believe her taste to be anyway.  The pattern I chose shows stars that are "scrappy".  The centers are one fabric and all the points are a different fabric as seen here.

A fun look but I just didn't see it as something she would like.  Or is it just me struggling with scrappy?  Either way scrappy stars were out!  Instead I used all the same color for the stars and I think it was the right way to go.  Here's an audition for a star.  It's hard to see the cream colored background against the white design wall but you'll see it later on.

Now normally I would take the cut pieces and arrange them in piles in the order they should be sewn together.  That way I can just chain piece them and whip out the blocks in no time.  With this quilt the blocks are actually the sashing around the fussy cuts and the star centers.

To create the sashing I started with the smallest pieces to create the flying geese blocks.  I used plenty of starch before stitching.  Then pressed toward the blue prints so the seams wouldn't show under the cream pieces.  Chain piecing worked for these but the next piece blocks were different.

The larger blocks, which kind of look like rectangular snowball blocks.  More starch and more gentle pressing. 

I ended up with a bunch of sashing blocks.  Kind of looks like a puzzle doesn't it?   Take a look at the colors on the corners, they're different right?  That's because one side is going to be the points on one star center and the other side is going to be the points on a different star center.  Even if I was doing this as a "scrappy" star I'd still have to pay attention to this to make the pattern look right.

When you put one of the stars together you get this.  Simple enough?

Notice in the next picture that, in order to create a star, the sashing between the two rows is laid out vertically and the sashing between the two columns is laid out horizontally.  Not only do I need to keep the right color points on the right color star centers but then there were all those cream rectangles to add to the outside edges.  It took me a few minutes to figure out but here's what it looked like on my cutting table.  The open spaces are where the fussy cuts go.  Can't show you those yet.  ;o)

This is when I decided I needed to put them all on the design wall to keep it all in order!  I laid all the pieces for the entire quilt on the design wall and pinned each piece in place - what a life saver!  Now I'm ready to start sewing. 

I'm afraid that's all the assembly I can show you until I deliver the finished quilt.  I still need to pick out the borders and the backing.

Did you come across any organizational tips you hadn't seen before?  Leave me a comment if you've got other ways to accomplish these same things.

Thanks for stopping by . . . Debby

Blue and Cream

Here's a peek at a quilt I started thinking about many months as while it was too hot to quilt.  I had purchased a novelty print panel of fabric while on a business trip to California.  This is going to be a gift so I can't show the whole thing but here's where I started. 

I used the panel fabric to pull these fabrics from my stash.  They have all the colors in panel fabric.  At my last monthly quilt group I had asked for opinions on which fabrics to use and got some great feedback.  They gave a resounding "No" on the floral print.  They also nixed the golden yellow, the bright green, and the silver/gray.  Good thing I had lots to choose from!

The stripe done diagonally would work for the binding, and the periwinkle blue worked best.  There were also a bunch of fat quarters that I've been holding on to forever that seemed right.

So in the end it came down to blues with a hint of periwinkle and cream for the background.  My sister had the perfect cream fabric so I got that from her stash.

I cut a few 2 1/2 inch strips from the fat quarters to audition them for the Irish Chain pattern.  It turned out to be too complicated for what I needed.  SInce I've never done one I didn't want to experiment on this particular quilt.  That's a challenge for another day.

I've spent a bunch of time in the past two weeks trying to come up with just the right pattern for this particular quilt.  I'm not surprised it took me so long - it usually does!  But I have to admit that even I was pretty frustrated at myself for a while there.

Normally I don't worry about time, especially when I'm quilting.  For those of you who know me, you know I don't worry about time in general unless it involves an airplane!  This time for some reason I was getting anxious about taking too long to decide on the pattern.  I just wanted to get sewing!  Anyway, I have gathered up just the right combo of blues and creams which coordinated beautifully with the panels.  

Picking the pattern was becoming more and more of a chore each day that passed.  I'd think I had just the right one until I spent some time with it in the sewing room.  Then it would be too complicated (Irish Chain) or too simple (9-patch) or too scrappy or whatever but just not right.  Finally, I went back to the pattern that I had originally picked out when I bought the panels.  It's in the February 2010 edition of American Patchwork & Quilting.  It's called Sweat Tea.

You'll notice that the stars are scrappy but that's not going to cut it for me.  I'll be making the stars out of the different blues but each star will be pieced with all the same colors rather than mixing them up.

I'm off to start the cutting!