Pemberley Quilting Progress

I recently completed quilting the "Half Dresden Plate" border on my quilt.  I repeated the little circle quilting in the narrow border to tie it into the circle border around the corner flowers.

 

I also completed one corner block, except for the round circle in the middle.  I have ordered a special stencil for that circle which hopefully will be here soon.  I have 16 blocks to complete around this border - with three different designs. I am trying to replicate the applique pattern in the quilting. 

 

 

I am hoping to have this ready to enter in my guild's quilt show in September.  I had kind of given up hope as it is taking me awhile to hand quilt.  Since the hit of the Coronavirus, I have been spending more time at home, and now am trying not to go anywhere unless it is an emergency since I am 69 years old.  Today I went to church in my living room as it was streamed on the internet and I was able to quilt and enjoy the service.  The church advised all members over 60 or with health situations to not attend services, but watch over the internet.  One of our deacons has checked on us to see if we need anything like groceries or other supplies.  It is so wonderful to be a member of a loving church family.

 

 



Fiesta Enchiladas

Our guild is having a recipe challenge to exhibit at an upcoming quilt show in September.  The Challenge is to make a block to represent a favorite recipe, submit block and recipe and a recipe book will be prepared with the recipes and picture of the blocks.  The blocks will be on display at the quilt show and the books will be for sale. 

At first, I was not sure I would participate, as I am not very artistic and I was not sure I could design a block to match a recipe.  But, since I wanted to be part of the fun, I decided to submit my recipe for Enchiladas and somehow incorporate a sombrero in my block.  With the help of my talented artistic granddaughter, I came up with a wanted poster.

 I used the Helen Stubbings Faux Applique technique to color and embroider the block. 
For the binding, I found some fabric called Fiesta Stripe, and I hand quilted it rather simply.  All in all, I am happy with the block and happy I can participate in the recipe challenge.

I have also made progress on my Lone Star quilt.  I am making this in the same fabric line as my Rose Star blocks and hope to have the Rose Stars encircle the lone star.  This is just up on my design wall, and the diamond shapes are not yet sewn to each other.  Still debating on the background fabric, so need to take a diamond to a quilt shop and do some auditions. 

Pemberley - Wavy Border

Moving on to quilting the wavy border of the Pemberley quilt.  I get a little bet of excitement each time I move to the next border on the quilt.  After this one, will be the half Dresden plate border, the one in the corner was quite a challenge. 

 

Today I am on a trip to Maryville, Tennessee to attend the funeral service of a dear friend' mother.  So very hard to accept when a mother passes. Linda's mom lived to be 93 and had a very happy fulfilling life, loved and cherished by her daughters and son.  She will be greatly missed.  She was also a quilter and I enjoyed visiting with her and listening as she shared the stories behind some of her quilts.

 



Pemberley - Round and round and round we go

Finally, after pondering for weeks over what to quilt in this 1 inch border, I  decided to just do little circles in a row. 

At first I tried drawing the circles with a white chalk pencil, but they just came out looking a little wonky, even though I was using a circle template.  I think it had something to do with the quilt being in a hoop and I had to press hard to see the white lines.

Then I remembered the circle stickers I had and surprisingly they were the same size as the circle I was trying to draw.  They don't stick all that well to fabric, so I also used small applique pins to hold them in place.  It works like a charm.

I have also attached a picture of the next border on this quilt, and as you can see it has small circles spread throughout the border.  This is what gave me the idea of using circles on the 1 inch border.  There is also another border that goes around the entire quilt, that is also 1 inch and I will use this technique there as well.

I have also attached a snapshot of the back.

Pemberley Quilting

Happy New Year to you all.  I got back to my hand quilting this morning after a little break, which I will explain below.

 I do enjoy hand quilting and find it so relaxing  Not sure how I will quilt that wavy border, but I have three of these corners to complete before I get there.  I would like to do a little something in the grey/green border on this block but having trouble deciding what to do there as well.  Its only an inch wide. During the months Nov - Dec, I quilted 61 hours, 38 minutes.


Hubs got me a fitbit Versa for Christmas and I am enjoying learning to use that.  I started a walking exercise program Jan.1, but that came to a rapid halt on Jan 3 - as I had a serious car accident.

A woman ran a red light and slammed into me.  She claims it was yellow, I know I saw red and I have an witness who gave a statement to the police that it was red.  Either way, my car was totaled.  I am pretty bruised up, but no serious injuries. That is something to be thankful for.  My car seat came unbolted to the frame and I was slung into the windshield and side window, even though the air bag blew up.  Also my knee was pushed into the dashboard, but like I said, no bone breaks or concussions.  Was at the hospital for about 8 hours while they ran tests, scans, xrays, etc.  There were three cars involved and everyone did not have any serious injuries, so very thanful for that.  I would like to start walking again, but going to have to wait until the swelling goes down on my knee and my chest.  A seat belt caused some bruising, plus I believe I also got slung into the steering wheel and I am bruised all down one side.

Big Boy Quilt for Titus

My grandson Titus received his big boy quilt for Christmas.  I gave it to him on Dec 20 at Granny's Christmas Party which is for all my grandkids.  His quilt it the Lotus pattern and the back features TowMater, his favorite character in the Cars Movie. 

Seasonal Temperature Quilt

This month is just speeding by so fast.  Friday was my Granny's Christmas Party with the 12 grandkids - was so much fun.  Even had a surprise visit from Santa!  They got some Rudolph noses in their goodie bags as well.  Nice of them to humor me and pose for pictures, although for a couple is was a real struggle.

 

This morning I began my Seasonal Temperature Quilt here after known at STQ.  I decided to do mine based on the seasons rather than months.  Its going to be rail fence quilt, with each block having 4 strips - two seasonal strips, one low temp strip and one high temp strip.  Here is my first block along with the Winter banner block.  The orange is the high (50 degrees) and the dark grey is the low (32 degrees) for yesterday, Dec. 21

I drew this out in EQ just to get an idea of how it might look and to also determine what size the banner block should be in order to get a good size quilt.    I am making 4" rail fence block and the finished quilt size will be 70" x 90".

Got this picture this morning from my daughter of Titus with his Rudolph nose....seems he likes it so much he refuses to take it off, except to bathe and sleep.  Wonder if it will be hit at church today?  I gave him his big boy quilt yesterday but wouldn't you know, I forgot to get a picture of that.  Will have to post another time.

Merry Christmas to you all.
Teresa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Pemberley quilting as of Nov 30



As I mentioned in prior post, I am keeping a log of the time I spend hand quilting on my Pemberley quilt.  I am already surprised how many hours I spent just since November 16.  So I thought I would start posting an update on the first of each month, recording how much I get done and the hours spent that month. This is what I accomplished November 16 - November 30; 28 1/4 hours.  The white area around the center oval has quilting completed for most of the white applique outlines.  I still have to cross hatch this area. I did not get a very good picture of the back, but will try to do  better next month.  I am please with the look of the quilting though as I think it has a kind of whole cloth look to it.  I am outlining all the applique and then using either vertical lines or cross hatching to fill in behind the applique.

I have also been doing some Christmas decorating.  I decided to use a quilt I made in 2008 as a bed cover in the guest room.  It is New York Beauty style blocks, and I designed the layout, machine paper pieced the blocks and machine quilted it and named it Christmas Beauty.   The quilt is queen size, but was not made to be a bed spread, and therefore did not have a big enough drape to cover the sheet.  Sooooooooooo….I added some white eyelet lace to the sheet to match the dust ruffle and then just laid the quilt to top of that.  (Well actually there is another quilt under the top quilt, but it is does not show up).  This is the first time I have  used the quilt since I made it. I have out of town company coming Tuesday and I hope she enjoys this quilt.

I finished the floral panel quilt in October and forgot to show a completed picture  on this blog - so here it is.  If you enlarge the quilt, you should be able to see the beading and chain stitching I added to the inner border.

Well, that's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoyed the photos.

Teresa





Pemberley - Hand quilting journey begins

Last night I began the long journey of hand quilting Pemberley. I used a little bit wider border than the designer, Katrina Hadjimichael, did on her quilt and my quilt top measured 90.5" x 99".  Its going to be a beautiful bed cover on my guest room bed someday.

 I should start keeping a time journal on how long it takes me to quilt it, as so often people will ask,"How long did it take you to quilt that?" and I never know.  But then again, do I really want to know????

A friend, Jessica Hall, who is also a longarm quilter, basted this quilt together for me.  I tried doing it my self but was overwhelmed with the size. She did a great job and I will definitely have her do large quilts in the future for me. 

I am using wool batting for the first time and so far enjoying working with it.  The wool gives the quilt a different feel and I think the drape will be nicer.  I am using YLI hand quilting thread, but have found I have to put the Thread Heaven treatment on the thread to get it to smoothly glide through the batting.  This was never necessary with 80/20 batting.

I have also started putting together by machine piecing a "15 Degree Quilt."  I took a workshop in 2017 to learn this technique, making one block, and enjoyed it so much that I purchased fabric to make a quilt.  The fabric has resided in a UFO box since 2017 and is now destined to become a big girl quilt for my granddaughter, Adeline. Her 4th birthday is in February, and I hope to have to have it completed by then, but I will  obviously have to machine quilt this one as my hoop will be filled for most of the upcoming year.  This will be a twin size quilt and I will probably just cross hatch it, a favorite machine quilting technique.

Temperature Quilts

This is something new to me and I thought it would be fun.  Linda D brought it up at our last club meeting, and I think we will do a challenge to the club to make a Temperature Quilt for 2020.  I get excited about any new quilt project and have been planning this one since the club meeting.  I am going to do mine for a year of seasons, and since the Winter season begins Dec.21, 2019 mine will cross years, but that is ok.  I am going to do rail fence blocks with four rails.  Still trying to decide how I want to do those rails - could have a rail for the low temp, one for the high temp. and then a neutral color for the other two rails.  But then, instead of a neutral, I could pick a color representing that season - like grey sparkly for Winter, green for Spring, yellow for Summer and orange for Fall - at least that way the seasons would be separated. 

I drew a diagram in EQ for how my quilt will look:  In this one, I have blue solid at the beginning of Winter, green at the beginning of Spring, yellow at the beginning of Summer and then Orange at the beginning of Fall.  The white in the bottom right corner will be a signature block. I had to add these color blocks to even out the quilt blocks.

Here is what it will look like if I go with a color for each season:  I think this may be what I have to do, as I love the way the seasons are identified.  In the solid blocks I will embroider the Season name and the dates of the season.

 Ohhhh, I am getting so excited about this quilt!!  Don't you want to play too????

 

I researched the Rock Hill temperatures for 2019 up through October as that was all I could find on the net to get an idea of what the spread of our temps would be and how many of each strip I need to prepare.  I came up with the following breakdown:  I will have to make sure that the "temperature fabric" is a good contrast with the seasonal color fabric.  I am going to breakdown the temperature chart by 5 degrees intervals to make sure I have a lot of contrast between temperatures.

 

 

 

 

 



Dear Jane Quilt

I don't think I have posted a picture of my completed Dear Jane quilt.  Started on September 10, 2001 and ompleted just a few weeks ago.  I recently had the priviledge to talk to my guild, York County Quilters and to the Charlotte NC Guild about the history of Jane Stickle and my own journey in making this quilt.  This picture was taken at the Charlotte Guild meeting and I did not notice until after the meeting that it was hanging sideways.  Guess it pays to put a sleeve on the quilt to make sure it is always hung right....funny, I am the one that told them to hang it that way.  Both guilds could not have been nicer to me during the presentation and seemed to enjoy hearing about the history of Jane Stickle and her amazing quilt.

Chirp Crossing

I recently found this cute pattern in McCall's Quilting magazine and thought it would make a good quick project for me.  It is cute, but turned out to be sooooooo confusing.  Finally determined the pattern fabric cutting instructions were not right, well actually I think they may have been right, but the paper piecing pattern was incorrect.  This is the pillow I made with the pattern.  It measures 14" x 23".  I think it really is cute.

The problem is, the pattern said it would be 12 1/2" x 20".  All the measurements of the pieces other than the birds were too small to match up with the birds.  I checked my paper piecing pattern with those printed in the magazine, and they were spot on.  But the chicks came out 4" unfinished, yet the cutting instructions for the sashing between the birds showed 3 1/2".   It was the same with the large bird.  Also, the large piece above the little chicks was said to cut at 11 1/2", but my chicks plus the sashing added up to 13 1/2".  My guess is that whoever printed the paper piecing pattern for the articles, did them the wrong size.  I know in EQ you give the finished size of the block when printing the paper piecing pattern, and I am guessing the magazine designer used the unfinished measurement.  Anyways, I figured out the measurements I needed to complete my pattern and think it turned out great. 

One other thing, the article gave the measurement for making a pillow envelope back. Now their pillow was to measure 12 1/2" x 20 1/2", and they said to cut two 12 1/2" x 26 1/2" rectangles for the back.  I think they meant 12 1/2" x 16 1/2"

I wonder if anyone else tried to make this cute pillow and gave up when things just did not fit.

I also used the same cute little birdies to make a Fall table runner - I call it Candy Corn Crows.

Pemberley Top complete!!

I can't believe it, but I actually have finished my Pemberley Quilt top.!!!  I tried to hang it up to take pictures, but I am really not supposed to be on a ladder since I had that dreadful head concussion last year, so I just spread it out on my guest room bed.  I was delighted to see that it will be big enough for a bedspread and now I know it will reside in this room once I have it quilted.    I am going to hand quilt it, so this might get done in time for my Guild's quilt show in September.

 

I was very anxious about the mitered border for the corners, but they actually turned out pretty nice, and not as difficult as I expected them to be.

And just to prove you can teach this old dog new tricks - I was having a lot of trouble pinning the borders to the top as the pins kept coming lose and falling out when I was sewing.  This has been a problem for years, but was driving me crazy on this quilt.

Getting so aggravated as they really had to be pinned just right for the quilt to stay square.  Then I though, maybe I should stick the pin through the fabric twice. Presto, no more pins falling out or coming loose.

Now some of you may have known to do this your entire sewing career, but for me, it was a new idea.  Why didn't my Momma teach me this when I first started sewing??  Sure would have saved me some aggravation over the last 60 years.  Well, in all honesty, she may have tried - but I always didn't listen closely.

Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa

 

 

 

Gold Chain and beading on Floral Panel

 I am still working on finishing up the quilting on my floral panel. 

I decided to use the gold thread to make a small chain on the inside of the little border.  I did the chain embroidery stitch, but went thru all layers to the back, so it was my "quilting" stitch.  Next time I try this, I will first use a regular quilt stitch, then do the chain stitch just through the top layer of fabric over the quilted stitch.  While the stitch does not look terrible on the back, it definitely is not the way I wanted it look, just a little too loose.  But I do love the effect on the top of the quilt.
I also decided to do some beading on the out-side edge of this small border.  I am enjoying doing this, but it is tedious.

At my quilt club meeting yesterday, one of our members, Linda Dellinger, gave us a lesson on how to make these prairie point Christmas ornaments.  Mine turned out ok, except for the bow at the top which I plan to redo.  It was a fun meeting and I wish I had gotten pictures of all the pretty ornaments the others had made.

This Sunday morning we are having a glorious rain. I sat out on the porch, watched the birds at the feeders, had my morning coffee and read an Emilee Richards book that I thoroughly enjoyed. I was surprised to see a dove at our feeders, they usually stay on the ground and get the bird feed the other birds put out on the ground as they dig through the feeders.  But the birds were just sitting on the feeders escaping the rain and enjoying the snacks that were so handy.
I hope you have a wonderful Sunday.  My husband's arthritis is acting up today, and I think that is a direct result of the rain coming in, so we are missing church this morning.