Red Ohio Stars

 That happily ever after story I referenced in this post from last month is about to reach it's conclusion. 

This quilt went onto the long arm machine about a week ago, and late Monday I took it off. Tuesday was devoted to the binding and label. Now it's ready for a show and tell with the Frankfort Girls on Friday, if I don't deliver it to Abby beforehand. Conclusion to story.

The quilt shown in this photos is laid out on a king-size bed, so it will be suitable for a child's twin or double bed. Or a couch quilt. At 68'x74" the kids can even commandeer it for forts and tents and picnics by the pond or s'mores by the firepit. Oh, the life this quilt will have! 

Doesn't it seem odd that idea for this quilt was 'birthed' almost exactly a decade ago? That link above shows my drawing out the pattern and selecting the fabrics. I think I can even recall the show I binge-watched on the iPad while I stitched. Funny how that association remains after 10 years.

Feeling pretty good over her about getting two quilts quilted (click here to see the first one done) and delivered to a family that truly wants them. I'm going to get another quilt loaded on ASAP.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

A Change of Direction

While I was finishing and binding the blue and white Double Irish Chain (DIC), my mind wandered to finishing the red and white DIC. I truly needed to research through this blog to see when I made each one, and for the red one, did I use a color-fast red? I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd used the old, cheap red from my grandmother's stash and I knew it to be a runny mess of pink when wet.

First, let's look once again at the blue and white finish. I believe it will be perfect for Abby's little boy, 3-year-old Boone.

 Now, back to the concern over color-fastness with the red and white quilt. Sure enough, exactly what I'd feared was, indeed, the reality. Dang. I remember doing this color test.I just didn't remember that I used this fabric in this quilt. 

Refresh your memory to this inevitable disaster of a runny red. Oh, I am so glad I double checked before quilting. This post describes my experiment of testing the red. I should have known that ignoring the color issue was a bad idea. I should have known. 

I have instructions on how to deal with this color issue, and once I actually do it, I will report my success or failure. For now, that is on hold while I quilt a different quilt. 

Her mom, my sister Sandy, was here one afternoon last week. She shopped my closets and stacks searching for a suitable alternative to the red and white DIC. We ultimately settled on a red and white Ohio Star quilt. It definitely was made with better quality fabric and the dye is surely colorfast. 

Weird coincidence: I finished this quilt top almost exactly 10 years ago. This post is dated Sept. 23, 2015. Happy anniversary to this red and white Ohio Star. It's about to have a permanent home.

I agree with Sandy that Abby will love this quilt. It suits her traditional design preferences and it will definitely become cuddly soft over time. Washing it should present zero problems, so a change has been made.

I'm ready to quilt. I've oiled the machine, cleaned out the lint, and changed the bobbin thread to white. I will begin quilting later today. I could conceivably have it ready for delivery by Saturday, but more likely it will be Monday.

This weekend, I am celebrating with my high school classmates our 50th reunion! The Hillsboro High School class of 1975 will gather at tomorrow's football game and again on Saturday night for a big bash. I am really looking forward to it.

 Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne 

Bits And Pieces From the Purge

I might create a little series of posts called Bits and Pieces. With the ongoing Purge and Organize Initiative, I have come across dozens of projects that need just the tiniest bit of time or attention to finish. Most come from Grandma's many boxes, but new sources of quilting items have come my way recently. 

I have a new collection of quilting items from my Aunt Margaret who passed in 2016. Her son my cousin Sam, after having sifted through items from his parents' estate, handed off his mom's quilting tubs to me. (More stuff!!) Plus, Jan of the Frankfort Girls has been purging. (Is it contagious??) I was selective in taking some of her stuff, too.

I know. Just say no, right? I could have done that, but there were good things to be had, and like I said, I was selective. I donated a several boxes of fabric to my Mennonite neighbors who do a tremendous amount of charitable work. Most recently they have been making comforters and quilts for North Carolina flooding victims. They were thrilled to get my fabric. I was glad to see my donation being used for this purpose.

But I digress...Getting back to my Bits and Pieces. Today I will share a couple of recent projects needing just the smallest amount of attention. Dealing with them clears space for more similarly simple finishes.

The cross-stitched portion of this pillow came out of my grandmother's things. Back in the 1980's, I sewed it into a pillow for Grandma which she kept on the back of her front room sofa. Alas, it came back to me. I removed the pillow form (to use elsewhere, no doubt) and stored the rest in my stuff. After recently coming across it in the POI (Purge and Organize Initiative),  I removed the dated '80s fabric and ruffle, and stitched up a fresh, new version. 

Another old thing I found needing the easiest of finishing touches - a whole-cloth flannel quilt that never had the binding attached. Twenty-some years ago, the quilt came back from the quilter with a zig-zag finish on the raw edges; heck, we just used it that way. Who needs binding on a quilt that was meant to be utilitarian from the get-go?

Utilitarian quilts can be bound with remnant bindings, so I pulled 3 remnants out of the binding box and properly finished this cozy, well-used quilt.

Now, let me show you a project that requires a little bit more than a quick-fix. In Aunt Margaret's stuff, I found 13 Ohio Stars, all blue and white, and all hand-pieced.

After laying them out on the bed, I decided how I could put them all together. I made one more star, out of the same stack of blue fabrics (shown below) and the background. Now I am making stepping stones blocks to place in between each star. Easy, but takes a little more time, and I am perfectly okay with that.

I will need 13-14 of these, and they could be done today. Last evening I made 4 pretty quickly, so I expect to be putting together a quilt top soon.

I am kinda' stoked to work on this and sew the quilt top. It will be so pretty, and since Aunt Margaret had a November birthday, I am thinking a lot about her - and missing her - as I work on these blocks.  

Oh, yes, there will be more little projects coming. I sometimes feel overwhelmed at the amount of things I am finding. Not enough hands to do them all. So many projects. I am at time stymied by the options.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Irresistible Florals

I  am hopeless, dear readers. For all the blustering I share about no more buying and using from the stash, just one look at an online fabric offering, and I fall off the wagon. You recall (see last post) that I had to acquire more Aboriginal Dots in ivory about a week ago. That meant a quick foray into online fabric searching. 

Help me, Lord! The temptations! When sellers couple a pretty fabric offering with a discount -20%! -  I am a total lost cause.  Here's what I bought the same day I bought the one yard of ivory dots.

The fabric was listed on an Etsy shop called Cottage Couture Fabrics out of White Lake, MI.  The need to own this fabric overcame me, I swear! Clicking that "buy" button was way, way too easy. 

Now, I do not - DO NOT! - have one ounce of buyer's remorse. I am thrilled with this little pack of fat quarters, and I have ideas swimming in my head of how I will use it. 

First, let me show you what I plan to pair them with. I have two polka dot fabrics that seem perfect for these tiny pastel florals. Take a look at both and tell me which you would select.

Option one is this delicate blue with creamy white dots. Love it. A lot. 

Now here's option two.

The dots are smaller, and even though it isn't very evident in these two pictures, the blue is slightly different. Do you prefer one over the other?

Here is my current inspiration photo, taken from Pinterest.  Click the photo to be taken to the shop, another Esty shop, and this seller is from right up the road from me in Columbus! Sweet!

Isn't this a dreamy vintage quilt!? I would love to recreate it with my new fabrics. It would be fun to make all those hourglass blocks with the florals, then mix and match them with different florals around the centers of the stars. Glorious Ohio Stars on a creamy white set together with blue polka dot setting squares. Simply dreamy.

This quilt has to be made.

A thought: Did you know that I will have to live to be about 258 years old in order to make all the quilts?

Well, while I figure out how I will accomplish that sort of longevity, have a few more looks at this pretty floral fabric.

When shown with both options, the smaller dot is the obvious choice.

Have a great day! My list is long, the day is gorgeous, and I must get in gear!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Another Finish! And Working Through My List

The past week proved about as productive as any week could in my sewing room. BOOM! I nailed a couple of biggies on the 2021 Goals List. 

The two red check marks are the newest completions on this list. I shared #5 previously - it is now called Cobalt Stars, as you will see by clicking here.

Getting to add that check to #8 is a real satisfying finish, let me tell you. Long arming what is basically a plain piece of fabric was not a task I particularly relished. But gosh, I did it, and with relative ease, I might add. 

Before I add all the details on Emma's Quilt, I will explain the other markings on my list. The purple x's are previously finished projects. The green arrows are the next areas of focus for me. I will be sharing  progress on them  in upcoming posts.

Now, for Emma's Quilt. My original thought was that I would quilt it on Friday-Saturday, and bind it on Sunday. However, I found some latent energy somewhere, and finished the whole quilt, binding and all, on Saturday night. Whoa! I have to say I am exceedingly pleased with the finish, too.

 

See what I mean about quilting a whole-cloth-type quilt? A discerning eye will see the one faint block up there near that pillow. The fabric is not dirty; rather I've used Basic Grey's Grunge fabric for the look Emma wanted. Both the background and the star are in Grunge.

The star deserves a close up. One simply cannot go wrong with an Ohio Star in a quilt, and this big guy looks quite classy in grunge.

Just about all the quilts I've had on the long arm lately have this beige dot backing; I bought a whole bolt of it, and at 108" wide it is an obvious go-to. I like how it also works just perfectly as binding.

This quilt will go to Emma next weekend, if all goes as planned. We are working out details for a girls' day, so this will be included during that time together.

Now what will this new week bring? I can't possibly hope to have two finishes on the goals list, but I can begin work on some of those green arrows.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Ohio Star Block Exchange

 Finally! I finished off the Ohio Stars while I was away at a mini quilt retreat this week!!

To have something done so far in advance is so NOT like me, but gosh, it sure does feel good. I was not dreading making these, but for some reason I had created a daunting giant job in my mind. Tackling it seemed like climbing a mountain. 

But, just like I've told beginning quilters, break the job down into manageable steps and it seems so much less overwhelming. 

 

I had done all the cutting last week. I'd also drawn all my diagonal lines and matched up the lights and darks. Two or three steps done. 

Getting to retreat, I began sewing my hourglass units. And I sewed, and I sewed, and I sewed. I needed 42 stars and there are 4 hourglass units per star, so that adds up. Then they all needed to be trimmed. Time consuming, but made loads more enjoyable when surrounded by quilting friends who encourage and inspire.

Typical for me, I have a couple of stars constructed so that I can see how my finishes will look. The precariously stacked star parts are all cut apart and trimmed and ready to be pressed for the next step.

The photo above shows another stack - all the hourglass units are made and stacked with the correct center squares and corner squares. The next step: chain piecing. 

I am happy to report that most of my stars turned out great with points coming together as they should and final measurements consistently coming to 9.5 inches. Blocks that look a bit wonky will not be too noticeable, and I made a few extra stars just in case a block or two ends up being too poorly sewn to be exchanged.

By the final morning of our 3-day retreat, I was pressing my stars. I spent Monday making the hourglass units. Tuesday, I sewed the stars, and Wednesday, pressed them all. DONE. 

We Frankfort girls have done block exchanges for a couple of years, now. We started with 9-patch blocks. Then we did Churn Dash blocks. Now Ohio Stars. I believe everyone is ready for a break from block exchanges for awhile. We did agree to a different sort of exchange, though - scraps! I will share more on that another day.

Click here to see how I set together my exchange 9-patches. 

Click here to see how I set together my exchange Churn Dashes.

I do have an idea for my Ohio Stars, but I will save that until after we have exchanged, which is scheduled for our Christmas gathering.

Hope you are all keeping cool in this heat wave we are having here in the midwest. Gracious!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Saturday for Dabbling

Today I seem to be dabbling. A plethora of projects await me, and I'm having a hard time focusing. So I flit.  Eventually something will be finished, surely.

First up this morning, I decided I should cut out some more stars. Above are the parts for 7 Ohio Stars, and I had the neutral parts ready for a few more, below.

After about an hour or so (I lose track of time when I am in the sewing room!), I have about 29 star parts ready to go.

I need a total of 49 stars, so there's a bit more cutting and prepping to be done. I have 4 stars done, if you recall. Click here to see.

I've been sorta' procrastinating on this next project. It has been a bugger, for sure. About a month ago, I acquired this old cupboard from a distant cousin. It is in good shape, but needed a refresh. With 80 or more years' worth of furniture wax/polish build-up, it looked almost black. In the picture below, the very top is indicative of how the entire piece looked prior to my sanding efforts. But sanding was taking forever - the wax on the wood gummed up the sandpaper. So I switched tactics.

After consulting several YouTube videos featuring methods of furniture refinishing, I tried denatured alcohol applied with steel wool. It's messy, but it works. See my current progress.

My plan is to leave the wood in as natural a tone as possible. I'd given some thought to painting it, but no, I don't think so. Maybe the interior will get painted; undetermined on that at present. 

I am going through rubber gloves pretty fast. I don't know if the denatured alcohol is that strong, or if the steel wool is making little punctures in the gloves, but my scrubbing hand (left) is really taking some abuse. This process requires a good amount of elbow grease along with lots and lots of paper towels. I will go back for a second round of scrubbing and wiping later today.

Coming up next week, I have two events for which I am preparing. First, our book club is meeting on Tuesday, and I need to read the book, Last Bus to Wisdom. I have it downloaded and ready for listening. Then on Wednesday, I am hosting the Frienzies here for brunch. My menu is set; I must schedule a grocery visit, along with a bit of housekeeping. 

I plan to listen to my book while I work on the cupboard, wash windows and mop floors. This gal knows how to multi-task! *wink*

Happy Saturday and Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Quick Little Mantle Runner

You may have seen that I made a random Ohio Star block based on a quilt that my friend Sheryll made and shared a couple of weeks ago. Here's the post to explain. I then promptly made a second block.

Well, it took far too long for me to realize that I'd not made my blocks like Sheryll's at all! Total opposite, actually.

So I made two blocks the correct way. 

 

However that left me wondering what to do with them. I decided I needed a mantle runner, so I made a 5th block and whipped up this little darling a couple of days ago. 

 

 

Simple quilting is all that it needed, and I used a piece of scrap batting, so it is totally like it's a bonus project. The fabrics came from the existing stash, so - freebie all the way around.

The dark fabric is a very deep navy from some vintage Thimbleberries fabric I have had for ages. The runner looks black in some views, but it is definitely dark navy. The blocks are 6" and with five of them, the length is (hopefully) 30". I didn't measure it, but it can't be far off.

Happy Quilting, Friends!