When I first started quilting, I read somewhere that the knots were not to show so I figured out how to hand piece without knots. That way they wouldn’t show.  They wouldn’t be there.  I started about one inch out from the  starting point, sewed to the starting point and then sewed the seam.  It worked and the seams never came apart.

When my youngest daughter was headed to college, I started a quilt for her.  Sometime during the making of the quilt, I ended up in the hospital.  I took the pieces and continued to hand piece the quilt.  One of the nurses told me that I could make the quilt much faster if I sewed by machine.  I told her that they didn’t allow machines in the hospital and she agreed.  It did put a thought in my head and this quilt is the last one that I hand pieced.  It is hand quilted though.  I hadn’t gone that far in my quilt journey.  

I do have to say that I still hand piece Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilts and most of my applique.  Hand work is relaxing.

At this point in my quilting life, I didn’t have a stash, rulers, or any of the special tools that I have now.  I made this quilt with two pins and a needle, and, of course, fabric and thread.  It was so much easier then.  One quilt at a time.  No UFO’s.  No scraps.  Someday, I’m going to teach a class called “Two Pins and a Needle”.  It would be fun.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

 

 

 

I’ve never met a challenge that I didn’t like.  We had two different challenges at the Guild this year.  Both were small pieces, which I like to do as it doesn’t take long to complete them.

The first is a modern paint chip challenge.  We drew two different chips and were given a third chip. We could use only these three colors.  No other colors could be used, including neutral colors.

The colors had to read as a solid and should match the paint chip colors as closely as possible.  We could only use 10% of the third color.  The quilt had to measure 18″ x 18″.  All piecing and quilting designs were up to the individual.

My quilt was hand appliqued and machine quilted.

 

 

 

 

The second challenge was a pizza box challenge.,  If we wanted to do the challenge, we took a pizza box that had a small or mini quilt pattern in it.  We added all the fabric and batting needed to finish the quilt and took the pizza box back to the Guild.  There we swapped the boxes unseen and made the quilt from what was in the box.

The box that I picked up had a delightful little doll quilt and very nice fabric,  It was easy to piece.  I machine quilted it with a wavy line and bound it with a flange binding.  It will make a nice gift for a little girl.

 

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Baby quilts are fun to make.  The are small and can be pieced in a short time.  My earlier baby quilts were hand quilted, but now, I machine quilt them as I expect lots of washing and drying.

Baby quilts can be made with any pattern as long as it is colorful.  They are a great way to try out new blocks and new color combinations.   They are the perfect size for a new machine quilter to practice quilting,

This cat quilt was appliqued and hand quilted.  It is one of my earlier baby quilts.

The  boat quilt was fun to make.  It is also one of my earlier baby quilts.

 

 

 

Spring is here.  The lawn has been fertilized and limed.  It has grown so fast and I’ve mowed half the lawn.  The front yard will be mowed tomorrow.  Then I will work around the house in the shade to seed all the flower gardens.  After that, I can take a break and wait for the grass to grow again and do a little weeding.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

 

I’m still working on several long term quilts.  This is an update on two of them.

Four months are finished on the temperature quilt.  It’s interesting to see how the color changes as the weather becomes warmer.  Each row contains the highest and lowest temperature of the day.  The warmest temperature is the geese and the lowest is the sky.  I’m up to date with eight geese getting ready to fly. It will take 365 days to make all the geese and then the quilting.

 

 

 

My mother’s Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt is showing progress.  I’m sewing all the white hexagons around the bottom edge and then will decide where to place the other blocks.    I’ve finished nine additional blocks and have a few more cut out in case I need them.  I still haven’t decided whether I will add another row or not.  This quilt is taking forever, but it is relaxing to hand sew in in the evening.

 

 

Have a great day and happy quilting,

This is the fourth in the Miss Rosie Series.  Carrie Nelson’s block was made in muted greens, yellows and reds.  It was called Three Coins,  Carrie had made the red star blocks and didn’t like the setting that she had planned, .so she set them aside.  Later, she dreamed of the right setting and made “Three Coins”.

 

 

 

  

This is the same quilt made in different colors.  Just making some of the background fabric darker and changing the hue of some of the pieces makes the quilt look like another pattern.

Running out of a fabric is not a disaster.  It’s a design element.

          

Have a great day and happy quilting.

It’s a beautiful day for working in the gardens.  My front gardens are mulched, except I need five more bags to finish the job.  Next week will be just great for doing that.

My garden series is up to blocks 11 and 12.  I saw a setting on Pinterest that uses 12 blocks and will put the garden blocks together that way.  I’ll search my stash for the setting pieces this week.  Then the garden series will be done.

I’ll continue to make all the blocks in Cindy Einmo’s book, but will just make the blocks for a sampler quilt.

 

Block 11

1        

Block 12

      

Have a great day and happy quilting.

What do you do with one little paper pieced house?  It stayed in the Gaa-Barge bin for a long while before I decided to put it on a hill and use scraps for the landscape.  It made up quickly and counted for the gaa-barge of the week

.

Red flowers are in the yard.  The light is on in the window and the path leads to the front door.  The border strips were left uneven.  This tiny house is a fixer-upper.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

After I had pieced my first two quilts, I wanted to know how to actually quilt them.  I saw an ad for a quilting class.  I signed up, hoping to learn how to quilt, only to find out that it was a piecing class, not a quilting class.

I did learn a lot.  One of the handouts was a quilting dictionary.  I had no idea that there was a quilting language.

We made a sampler wall hanging.  I still didn’t know how to “quilt”, but just sewed the top, batting and backing together.

 

 

 

I started to quilt using the Quilters Newsletter magazine.  In one of the issues, I found a pretty wall hanging.  At the time, it was so hard to make.  It took a long time.  Of course, at that time, I made templates, drew around them and cut out each piece separately.  Now, as I look at it, it is just nine patches and strip pieces.  Using a rotary cutter and ruler would make this wall hanging very easy to make.

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Shortly after I became a quilt maker, I thought that I could add to my income by making consignment quilts.  I was led to a lady who wanted me to make a quilt from eight blocks that her mother made.  We agreed on a price and I bought fabric for the sashing, borders and backing.  I put the blocks together and hand quilted the piece.  When I delivered it, the lady was very angry that I didn’t make a king size quilt out of eight 12″ blocks.  That almost stopped my career in consignment quilting.

My next consignment quilt was one that I made for my daughter. She wanted one to give to her sister in law for a wedding present.  We agreed on a pattern and the fabric.  I cut out all the pieces and started to piece the quilt.  This was before rotary cutters and rulers.  The process was to copy the pattern, paste it on sandpaper, cut it out and trace around the template on the back of the fabric.  After cutting out all the pieces, the blocks weren’t going together easily.  They didn’t fit together at all.  I checked the book where I found the pattern and found that the seam allowances were not included in the pattern.  I had to go back to the quilt shop, buy more fabric and start again.  The quilt did come out very nice.  I learned a lesson to read all of the instructions before cutting.  I also was a wreck when it was finished.  My daughter loved the quilt so all was well at the end.

My third and last consignment quilt was made from cut out pieces cut by a co-worker’s grandmother.  I knew enough at this point to tell her that it would be a wall hanging, not a big quilt.  She was fine with that because she wanted to hang it in her kitchen.  Luckily, I found some fabric to add that complimented the blocks.  At that time, I hadn’t made any drunkard path blocks, but by the time it was finished, I could do curved piecing.  The colors were not my usual colors.  I agonized all the time that I was making it.  My co-worker loved it and was very pleased.  After making that wall hanging, I decided that quilt should be my joy and pleasure and there was no joy or pleasure in making consignment quilts.

I had read “Knitting Without Tears” by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  She said in the beginning of the book, “If you don’t like knitting, don’t do it.  Do something else that gives you joy.”  I agree with her.  I didn’t like to make consignment quilts, so I’m not going to make any more.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

I’m in Maine for a few days.  It is cool here, but I keep warm by weeding the flower beds.  The daffodils are in blossom.  Usually I don’t come up here this early in the season and miss their beauty.

 

 

 

 

When my children were  married, they received a wedding quilt.  In the past, I used to take a picture of each quilt that I gave away and put it into one album.  I’m so glad that I found the album and can share some of the pictures with you,  When I make a quilt for a specific person, I have no problem giving it away.  When I just make a quilt, I  tend to keep it until the pile gets too large.  Then I can easily give them away before the shelves collapse under the weight again.

One of my daughters received the unicorn wall hanging.  It was fun to make.  I like to applique, although at time, I hadn’t had lessons.  I also thread painted the pine needles on this piece.  I didn’t even know the term “thread painting”, but I found that I enjoyed doing it.

 

 

A son received the next quilt.  It is made in my favorite colors and was a joy to piece.

 

 

 

 

Another son received this quilt. The pattern  is called “Lover’s Lane”.  I like the center on point square.  This quilt was hand quilted.

There are many more wedding quilts in the album.  They will show up on a later blog.

When I placed the pictures into the album, I wrote the  name of the recipient on the back of the pictures.  Frankly, I forgot that I made many of the pieces, especially the wall hangings,  and who has them.  It’s a good thing that my family likes my quilts.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

 

h