String quilt

Finished up the quilt top today.  This will be a quilt for my son, who wanted a big quilt.  I think this one should satisfy him as it measures 84" x 102".

This is the stack of rows I had sewn together a couple days ago.  Only took a day to turn them into a quilt top.  And then another day to get the borders cut and added.

Whew...it feels like a monster quilt, so big.  I will be sending this one to my good friend Donna to quilt on her long-arm.  I have done other quilts this size on my machine, but right now, I cant get motivated to wrestle with this one.

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This picture show a close up of the two border fabrics.  The inner small border is the same fabric I used in the middle of each block. 

The outer border is fabric I found a Joann Fabrics last week.  Its perfect for these blocks as it has all the colors in it that I have in the quilt, and I was going for a "Fall Season" theme.  Sometimes, things just come together.

Funny, I had not noticed that I had the same fabric in the block close together until I looked at this picture. 

Pemberley as of March 25, 2019

This morning I completed adding the wavy borders to my Pemberley quilt.  This is taking awhile to do, but then I only work on it a little each month in between many other projects.  The little star corner blocks measure 4" finished, with 3" stars...tiny English Paper Piecing. I tried fussy cutting on these and that was quite a task as the pieces were little.  Happy with how it turned out.    The wavy border was not difficult to make, but I measured wrong and after I had all those little dots sewn on, I had to take them all off and re-applique.  I am definitely learning to read all the instructions before beginning each step.

What have I been doing?

I have made progress on some of my other projects, and doing a recap here. This work has been done in January and February this year, inbetween working  on finishing up the hand quilting on the Star of Bethlehem. 

I showed this quilt on an earlier post where I had finished all the border blocks and had the quilt top put together.  I decided to add a top border which will be the part that covers the pillows, since I really prefer a rectangular quilt.  Since so m any of the blocks have twilled embroidery using #8 perle cotton, I decided to carry the embroidery to the top border.  I am working on a long (80") border with these twilled roses.  I will be adding another border of the Seminole pieced pattern surrounding the feather star section of the top on either side of the roses.  I am so anxious to see how this is all going to come out.

  
My guild offered a workshop in Sashiko stitching which can be both decorative embroidery or used as quilting stitch.  This the sample I worked on in class.  Our instructor, Marge Mitchell,  provided a kit with the thread (she used #8 perle cotton), needle (chenille needle #22) and the fabric, which is silk.  She had already drawn the pattern on a flannel backing and we actually did the stitching from the reverse side of the sample.

This was an enjoyable class and I really like this look and this pattern.  I am going to use it on the blue quilt shown above for the backing around the star block.

 I have three grandchildren with birthdays in February.  My little Toby wanted another sock monkey (he got one for Christmas).  He was getting another from someone else, so I decided to make a sock monkey pillow case to use as a wrapper for his birthday gift.  I  think he really liked it, although I don't think he understood what it was.  His sister got his pillow and put it in the case and then he understood and seemed very happy.

January is the month my club has their winter retreat.  We always have a goody bag full of gifts from all the members attending the retreat, most of which are hand made gifts. My friend, Darlene, and I made the large zipper bags to put the goodies in back in the Fall, but I could not show until after the retreat was over.

This is my bag, full of the string blocks I have been working on.  The bags are approximately 14" x 18".  I neglected to get the monogram picture, but my daughter monogrammed each of the bags with her thingie that cuts out plastic lettering.   This big pouch was a big hit with the group and I love keeping the blocks in process in it.

The pattern we used is Work in Progress Bags by Amanda Jean Nyberg of Crazy Mom Quilts.  You can contact her if you want to purchase the pattern.  Her pattern is for bags 11"x11", 14"x14", 14" x 18" and 16" x 18".

And speaking of the string blocks, I completed all 72 blocks on Saturday, March 3 - keeping my mind off the upcoming stress test. I think there may be more than 72 as I kept miscounting.   Nothing relaxes me more than sewing, whether it be hand sewing or machine sewing.

I guess that's it for now.  I have also been working on my Pemberley quilt, but that will be a separate blog post.

Teresa

Star of Bethlehem - Completed

 Star of Bethlehem Quilt which I began piecing in December 2016.  Completed February, 2019.

All the star blocks are hand pieced using English Paper Piecing. All fabrics are from the Forever Love, Eleanor Burns line by Moda. 

The star blocks are actually only 12" square, but inbetween each block I added an Hour Glass block, which tends to make them much bigger looking.

I completed the hand quilting and binding this year in February.  Its been a rough few months for me.  I fell in mid-November, 2018 down a flight of stairs, ending with a brain concussion and fractured skull.  Very little quilting went on in November and December, but I was able to do some quilting in January.  At the end of January, I had a heart procedure to correct my heart SVT which doctors believed may have caused the fall.  Then this  week, I had a stress test on Monday, which indicated I had a 70% blockage on the front of my heart, which really was a shock for me, as my doctor had just told me I have a very strong heart and that he only wanted the stress test to cover all the bases since my fall.  Heart Cath was yesterday, and Praise the Lord, they found no blockages.  I am not allowed to sew today or tomorrow as they put the tube in my right hand wrist and I can not turn the wrist for 48 hours.  Its nice I can type without turning my wrist.

This is the backing for my quilt.  I love the backing but it does not show up the hand quilting I did.  I debated  on using it, but my love for the fabric won out. 

The quilt is quilted in an ecru YLI hand quilting thread for the most part.  I did quilt the border in a deep rose color, as I did not like how the ecru looked against the rose.

The quilting is very dense.  Each piece of the stars is outline stitched.  In the corners of each of the Hour Glass blocks I used a corner stencil, which then became a pattern where the four blocks come together.  I have a picture of this below, but it is kind of hard to see.   The space between the star and the corner is quilted with straight lines. 

The border is primarily cross hatched, but I did do a pretty flower block in each corner.  Once again hard to see, but there is a picture below.

I so enjoyed making this quilt.  Now on to the next hand quilting project.  Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa

String Quiting

I so enjoy making string quilts.  I will be teaching a class to my quilt club on Saturday on how to make a string quilt so of course, that meant I had to start one. 

This was my first block.  I chose to use all Fall colors with a center string made of a dark green fabric. 

This block is different from string quilts I have made in the past, in that all the strings are the same width and seams will therefore need to meet. Therefore we are drawing lines on the muslin foundation where the edge of the string will line up, and then sewing a 1/4" seam across. 

Here are two blocks sewn together and I am so happy to see the seams lining.  Sometimes they are just a little off, but I think it still looks great.

So while I was out of town this past week, I kept thinking about these strings, and got to wondering how would it look if is was not scrappy, but rather just a few choices of fabrics.   I have a baby quilt for a boy to make for an expectant mother in my church, so I decided to give this a try  for the baby quilt.

The first block is 9 1/2", which is too big for a baby quilt, so I drafted out a 6 1/2" block with 4 fabrics.  I had some fabric with happy frogs to use for the backing and I just went to my stash and looked for fabrics that I could match up with the backing.  This is also a fun quilt to make.

 I am really liking the pattern created.  I did have to had on additional fabric next to the orange in the center.  I did not have enough orange, so chose another yellow and this creates an hour glass block in the middle when I sew the blocks together. 

Pemberley Progress

Tonight I finished appliqueing the corner flower pots and borders on to the center section.  I get a little more excited each time I complete a step in the instructions.  Still a ways to go.

This is a picture of the entire quilt I pulled off the internet.

Feathered Star block

I have been showing blocks as I finished them from a BOM being sponsored by my guild.  I decided to have the center of the quilt a Feathered Star, surrounded by a Seminole border and then the outer borders made up of the blocks.  I got the quilt top done today, It is around 80" square.  I am considering adding a top and bottom border to just get it to a rectangular size.  OR I could add a larger border just to the top like a pillow cover....hmm I kind of like that idea. 

Now the problem I discovered after I had the quilt top together.  This block has a big white square in the middle, but note the other blocks are more like a snowball block.  Well, I made the mistake of using the white background fabric in the flying geese blocks you see in the corners. In this picture they look a little darker than white, but that is just the blue shadowing through - in real life the shadow does not show up that much. Dadgum, this was the last block I made and wouldn't you know, it would be the one I really messed up.

 Hmmmmm..no way was I going to rip that out and fix it.   I considered appliqueing a block  over the white but that would probably be very noticeable. 

My solution - just color the white with a blue crayon and then iron it to get the wax out.  The background fabric is a white on white floral print, and when I colored it, the flower came through making it almost look like a printed fabric.  I think it looks fine now, hopefully no one will even notice I had to color it.