Butter-Yellow Double 9-Patch

The double 9-patch quilt I'd been working on at the end of June became a finished quilt top about a week ago. I'm just now getting around to posting pics of it.

At 96" x 80", this is quite a big quilt and drapes very nicely over the sides of this queen bed. Considering the next step, the large setting blocks ought to require some sort of special quilting, but I have no idea of what that would be. Or when it would happen. Thinking...

This quilt was one of 6 Kaffe Fassett quilts I identified back in January that I'd consider making this year. It wasn't my intent to make all six, just to know that I would make some and these were my top options. I made Ocean Ripples earlier, and now Double 9-Patch.

The original in the old Museums book has a much busier background fabric than mine. However, I wanted mine to look more subdued. I knew my pops of color would provide the pizzazz I desired, so I used this ivory aboriginal dot. The color is so subtle; I am supremely happy with it. Look at that link above to see the much more lively version in the book.

I made this calmer and more peaceful than the original for a reason: wouldn't it be a lovely granddaughter quilt? I think DD Erin would approve. Even at such a large size, the appeal of a baby snuggled up in a cuddly quilt would never be a bad idea.

The necessity of so many yards of ivory aboriginal dot meant I had to do some on-line shopping. At first, I was calling this color yellow, but I could not locate any aboriginal dot in yellow. All I could find was ivory. So, I crossed my fingers and ordered a yard from an Etsy shop. YES!! It was, in fact, ivory. How was I supposed to know? Anyway, I needed more, so from a different Etsy shop I ordered 4 yards. I'd started with some from my stash, so all told, the background is likely in the 6-yard range. 

On to the next quilt! I'm quilting one on the long arm, and I am ready to cut out strips for a red and white double Irish chain. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Kaffe Fasset's Wonderful Colors

Or, let's stop and smell the roses!

Finally, all 100 of the 9-patch blocks are made, and I want to take just a moment to make note of the wonderfully vibrant colors that Kaffe Fasset's fabrics are known for. Wanna' have a stroll through a garden full of color? Let's go!

My ten sets of ten 9-patch blocks. All ready for the next step. The quilt is called Spring Double Nine Patch, and these colors were selected to convey a bright spring flower garden with all the pops of color.
 

I have totally enjoyed digging through my tubs of KF fabrics to pull these old pieces. Many times I used scraps from previous makes, which has been gratifying. I suppose many of these are now discontinued, as they have been in my stash for a very long time.

These present quite a stark contrast to the sweet pastel florals in yesterday's post, don' they? I like all the fabrics!! *truth!* 

Frequently I am reminded of my late grandmother's reaction to my showing her a quilt made with KF fabrics - she definitely turned up her nose. She was not impressed. Not to her liking at all! Indeed, these are very different from the calicoes she used!

I hope our little stroll provided a cheerful start to your Saturday. DH and I are now headed out to a garden center to see what the end-of-season sales have to offer. Real flowers, not fabric ones. *grin*

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Two Double Nines

That little saga I wrote of a few posts back has been completed. Both quilts are now finished to the flimsy stage and I am anxious to move on to whatever happens along next. Let me show you my two double 9-patch quilts.

The quilt hanging on the design wall is made with the blocks that were constructed accurately. Honestly, I did not have very many of these when I sorted out my UFO tub. Most of the blocks in the quilt on the wall were pieced just in the past few days since I have revisited this UFO. I found a pretty feathery fabric (by Moda) in the stash that makes a fantastic border. I am very pleased with my efforts.

Then I turned my attention to all those poorly constructed blocks. I still don't fully understand what I was doing wrong, but so many of them were off kilter in all sorts of ways. They were a mess. I just couldn't bear the thought of throwing them all away, though. I decided, instead, to make a second quilt and just allow for inaccuracies as I went along. The result looks surprisingly good, and that could be a lesson for all of us -- we don't have to obsess about everything being perfectly constructed to have a quilt that meets the "eye test." If I weren't telling you here that the quilt in the foreground is made with wonky blocks, you would never know it.

I used the same beige setting fabric on both quilts, and for the second quilt used the Debbie Mumm burgundy print from the little 9-patches for the border. And now it, too, looks fantastic and I am equally pleased with the results.

I am having fun making all these quilts using the 9-patch block, but I do think I am about ready to switch things up and try something different for awhile. Maybe a Churn Dash? An Ohio Star? We shall see.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sunday Hodge-Podge

Or maybe I should title it 'The Weekend Roundup.' I have a little bit of a smorgasbord of material to tell you about today, so prepare for some content that has absolutely no unifying theme. I'm gonna be all over the place.

Friday was a fun day. The Frankfort Girls met at Sheryll's house and all 7 of us were there! Awesome! It is absolutely a total gab-fest when we are all in attendance. Sheryll's husband Bill is an avid photographer, so we commandeered him to take a few group pictures of  us.

Around the table starting with Jan (in pink), Helen, Jayne, Sharon, Becky, Terry, Sheryll

I thought you'd like to have some faces to put with the names I frequently reference. Since Helen is just peeking over Jan's head, here's a shot from the opposite view.

If you are not in a sewing circle, you are seriously missing out on some fantastic fellowship and friendship. These ladies keep me challenged and motivated to make-make-make all the quilts!

Our group meets every-other-Friday morning, 9-noon. The next meeting will be at Sharon's where we will have our 9-patch exchange. I am really looking forward to that.

On Friday afternoon, I took our truck to have some servicing - regularly scheduled maintenance stuff like rotating tires, changing oils, checking fluids and filters, and so on. No pics of that, but I will show you a picture of our Ridgeline. It's the first truck we've ever owned, and we love driving it (that's good, b/c our younger daughter has had our car for the last month!). We got the truck in early September, used, from a local dealer here that we've done business with for years.

Then Friday evening we celebrated National Margarita Day at our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Cascada in Hillsboro. We go nearly every Friday. And they have the best margaritas, hands down. Trust me on this! Here's us enjoying our drinks - and each other!

Okay, so with all that fun on Friday, what could possibly top that on Saturday? Well let me tell you, I managed to have a pretty spectacular Saturday, to be honest. I finished the quilt top for the Double 9 Patch made with the good blocks (see previous post for good/bad situation).

Don't you love how great this border fabric works with the blocks!? Adds lots of pizzazz! I am so very happy with the way this turned out, and I am glad I made the version with the good blocks first. Now, when I turn my attention to the wonky blocks, I will be less likely to fuss about how terrible it goes together; it will be an effort just to make an everyday quilt that can be tossed around and used roughly, if need be.

Saturday night, we went to the Columbus Symphony at the Ohio Theater in Columbus with our friends Cheryl and her daughter Elisa. The concert was a Tribute to the Eagles with a group called Hotel California. What a treat to hear that great Eagles music with the symphonic sounds of strings and horns. Delightful.

And afterwards, we made a quick stop over at our older daughter's house nearby for cocktails and coffee. That was a sweet, unplanned visit - but the concert ended early enough and we were so close - it just needed to happen.

And that brings us to Sunday, today, and that means Slow Sunday Stitching. I have zoomed in on one of the group pictures to prove that I really do stitch on my Lake Effect EPP when I am with the Frankfort Girls. Really! I do! And I am going to stitch on it today, too, while we watch a few old movies on TCM's 30 Days of Oscar. We have watched quite a few award-winning oldies in the last few weeks. Very entertaining.

Stop over at Kathy's Quilts for her Sunday link-up feature of projects others are doing the Slow Sunday way.

Have a great Sunday, folks!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

The Saga of a UFO

When a UFO comes out of hibernation after 20-25 years it's hard, exactly, to recall why it was sent to this quilter's purgatory in the first place. In studying the parts and pieces in the tub marked "Beige and Burgundy Nine-Patch," I believe I can make a few assumptions.

Apparently, I was okay with things through the making of the small 9-patches. My troubles appear to have surfaced when I started making the double 9-patch blocks. Nothing seemed to be square, or even, or sized right, making the matching of intersections dang-near impossible. 

This is one of those less-than-stellar blocks. What an aberration! No wonder it and its wayward mates spent so long in time-out. I shake my head in shame that I was responsible for such shoddy work.

While pressing all the blocks, my mind worked on how I could salvage the mess and come up with an acceptable finish.

The tub still had quite a bit of workable materials in it. Lots of partial blocks, strips, and yardage. This was promising. 

I made more blocks using the already-cut fabric. Here is a block that measures out exactly as it should. How could those old ones have been off by so much?? I don't dare fathom a guess.

My next step was to determine which of the pieces of yardage I would use as setting blocks. I auditioned two - this one is the same as the light fabric in the 9-in-9s.

 

The second choice won out - this beige print. And I went ahead and made the rows I could make with the newly sewn 9-in-9s, setting aside those wonky blocks, still not sure how to deal with them.

 

And as it typically happens, I had my eureka moment in the midst of making my quilt top.

Make a second quilt. So simple! I had ample background fabric with which to work, and that is how I have proceeded. Below is a picture of the two quilts to come out of one UFO tub. The top quilt is made with wonky blocks. The lower quilt is made with the correctly-sewn blocks. See the size difference?

I would have made myself totally nuts if I had tried to force all the blocks to work in one quilt. Utter madness! The aggravation is not worth it. Since I had plenty of fabric to make two quilts, I have taken the path of least resistance.

And it pleases me ever so much.

I am not stressing at all - the newer blocks are made painstakingly correct and fit nicely with the setting blocks. The old block have all been trimmed to a uniform size, and I am making the best of their imperfections.

The "correct" quilt is ready for borders, and I have pulled out a feathery Brackman and Thompson fabric to serve. I will finish off the "wonky" quilt and bring you the results of both soon.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Let's Go Exploring

Come! Let's have an adventure!

Many of you know that I participated in a UFO Challenge with the Frankfort Girls in calendar year 2014. And, many of  you also know that we are doing another challenge this calendar year.

Put on your best David Attenborough voice and let's begin.

My January 2015 project (which I never even looked for let alone worked on) has been weighing on my mind. When I finished the February UFO so quickly, it got me to thinking that I really ought not to let myself get so far behind this early in the year.

After forging our way through piles of fabric, boxes, bins, debris and junk, we locate the item we are seeking. Tucked inside this yellow-lidded tub, we have an artifact of unknown age. Carbon dating would help, but far exceeds the budget.

Inside, we discover a true thing of beauty! This project is further along than we'd been expecting. Such good news.

Eighteen already-completed double-9-patch blocks. What treasure! This archaeologist was thinking there were bits to be de-constructed - many, many of them, too. These will do nicely without the bother of  'unsewing.'

Additionally, we have one partial block.

Parts for completing more blocks.

And yardage for finishing. Who would have 'thunk' it? This is a huge boost for my procrastinating nature.

I am glad I was bitten by the Indiana Jones bug. I needed to get this excavation behind me. I am so glad to discover the project is not in the shambles I was expecting. Maybe I can get this back on track before the first of March!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Way-Back Wednesday - 8

This week we will take a look at one of my oldest quilts. Grandma gave it to me about 25 years ago, saying she was unsure exactly who made it. She believes it was made by one of her grandmothers, as she is fairly certain she was given it by her mother.

A great-great-grandmother on my mother's side, then, made this Double 9-Patch quilt. It is in remarkably good shape for a quilt that is easily over 100 years old, and quite possibly closing in on 150 years old.

Here's the thinking for dating this quilt: Grandma's two grandmothers were Louisa Neptune Wood (b. 1853) and Mary Angelina Smedley (b. 1847). If either of these women made this quilt, I will guess they were making quilts from their 20s through their 60s, then the quilt is at least 120 years old, for sure.

Grandpa was still living when I was given this quilt, and I remember his comment. He referred to the pieces as being the size of a postage stamp, and he went on to  recall his mother piecing similar small pieces. It was so out of character for him to make such a remark, and for that reason it struck me as noteworthy. 

 

The colors are a very pleasing pink and gray/brown, predominantly. There are some blocks that have other colors, but they blend well with the overall pink-gray/brown palate.

The quilting is exquisite. Here are some close-up shots of how close the quilting is, and how pretty the designs are.

The border is very simple, yet it also is in keeping with the pink and gray/brown theme.

I would love to have someone well-versed in dating quilts give me more details on this quilt.

Happy Quilting, Friends!