Cheerful 30s Quilt

 Since spring is really showing off all her prettiest colors, I thought I would share a quilt that I like to use on our bed in the spring time. 

This 30s quilt barely covers the top of our queen size bed, but I put it on anyway. It is just so cheerful and colorful - the perfect compliment to those colors Mother Nature is providing all around us. Yellow daffodils and forsythia; bluebells; tulips of every color; hyacinths; dogwoods; redbuds; flowering pears and so very many more - the hillsides around us are awash in color.

The story on this quilt - you know, every quilt has a story, right? - I hand pieced all the blocks at track meets when our son was in high school. That would date the blocks to 1997 - 2001. Every fabric has a positive/negative block. Do you know what I mean? Where the background is neutral in one block, the other block with that fabric is exactly the opposite. The blocks are then set randomly, but alternate between print and neutral backgrounds. 

I had seen a similar quilt in ads for some long-forgotten product in quilt magazines. I studied it often when I came across it, and as it continued to grow on me, I knew I had to make it. That lead me to searching block books to see what this was. Tennessee Puzzle, I learned.

Track meets afford a person lots and lots of free time. Of course, I watched all the events, but I was most interested, naturally, in our son's events. Rather than to just sit around, I stitched, and made nearly all of these blocks at various high school tracks spread across south-central Ohio.

Like many of the quilts I made during these years, my grandmother hand quilted it for me in simple outline fashion. She told me she enjoyed quilting on these 30s reproduction prints, as they were reminiscent of the real ones she used as a young wife and mother. 

I'm here at the quilt retreat and getting lots of things done. All the girls are having a great time; Quite a few quilt tops have been finished. Several are working on UFOs while others are playing catch-up on various sew alongs. We shopped on Monday and yes, I have new stuff. The best part is how wonderful it's been to have this get-away with the girlfriends and just stitch to our hearts' content.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

An August Finish!

 Quilts have stories - did you know? I'm sure you do, if you quilt. We might remember buying the fabric or deciding the pattern, or the book you listened to as you stitched - that sort of thing. 

My most recent finish has a story, and for a little quilt, it might seem like a rather involved story, but that's just how it is sometimes.

This is the Key West quilt, aka Periwinkle. The story of this table topper began in March of 2019 when while on spring break, I bought these fabrics in a little quilt shop on the island. I didn't have a lot of suitcase space, so I limited my purchase to 8 fat quarters - 4 background and 4 different darker prints.

And they have lived happily on the back of my sewing table for well over a year. I wanted to use the cheerful little bundle rather than let it sit forever, but I could not find a pattern that suited me.

Now before I go on much further, I have to remain in Key West for a relevant little side note. Take a look at this picture from the courtyard of our little condo for the week. 

 

The design in the privacy fence reminded me of a quilt; and just like that I determined that these fabrics would be turned into periwinkle blocks. So earlier when I said I spent over a year looking for a pattern, to be more clear - I was looking for a suitable periwinkle pattern. Using the fabric was never far from my mind, as I considered a lot of various options and construction methods. When I saw this pattern in this book, I knew that was something I could work with. I purchased the book in March.

 

This spring we decided to take a road trip out to Oregon. Coronavirus had us postponing it for a few weeks, but we finally decided to go near the end of June. We would be driving for the better part of 12-14 days; I needed a project for all that car time. I would go absolutely stir crazy if I didn't have something to work on while a passenger on a trip this long. This urgency sent me to the sewing room to cut all the parts for the KW quilt. I knew I could hand stitch the blocks while we traveled - I would be making a vacation quilt while on a different vacation! (What a novelty.) The Key West quilt now encompasses our western US road trip. 

I wrote a little bit about my road trip stitching in this post, and I have continued to make the remaining blocks here at home. I had to find my scraps to cut a few more background pieces in order to come up with the 25 blocks I needed for the table topper.

From this point on, I credit Sharon for motivating me to finish. On Thursday when she was here for sewing, I stitched the 25th block and arranged them all on the design wall. With so few blocks, I decided to just go ahead and sew them together. I mean, why wait? Get'er done, right? At some point, Sharon offhandedly said something about how cute the back would be if I quilted around the periwinkle stars.  This totally appealed to me, and suddenly I was super-stoked to finish.

Small quilts like this are perfect for using all the batting scraps. I found some bits that I pieced together. Now what would I use for the backing? I had not thought this far ahead, but then Sharon again came to the rescue by saying "Use a Kaffe."

Good grief, YES I have gobs of his fabric, and surely something would work. And wasn't that a fun 20 minutes of digging through the tubs? Yes! Below you can see the fabric we decided on. All the colors are so representational of Key West, and while they don't exactly match the periwinkle colors, there is no issue as far as I am concerned about the choice.

I spray-basted the layers and proceeded to quilt. In no time at all, I had it finished and we were looking for binding options. I have a healthy stash of solid fabrics, and we found this royal blue which works just fine.

And that pretty much tells the whole story of my Key West quilt. Now let's see a few more pictures.

It is currently on duty on our screened porch table. Sure, she has some wavy edges and some questionable intersections, but I am not at all interested in checking out her flaws. I am reveling in a finish that has such a happy story. 

I am linking with Kathy's Quilts for her weekly feature, Slow Sunday Stitching. Hop on over to have a look around.

It's a beautiful day here in southern Ohio. Hope you all are enjoying a beautiful day where you are.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sewing In the Car

You may or may not be aware that DH and I are currently away on vacation. But a sewist doesn't just stop sewing, most of the time anyway. I brought along some hand stitching and have made a bit of progress since Wednesday.

 I am stitching periwinkle blocks using fabrics I got in 2019 while on vacation in Key West, thus my name for this quilt will be Key West Quilt. Original, huh? I wrote about prepping this project here.

My original thought was to mix up all the fabrics in each block. However, I don't have very much variety, so every block would end up being practically the same. I decided to make blocks that contain the same central fabric, and I like this look. I have made a grand total of six blocks! Whoa!
Not very many, but we have had so many great sights to see. I need to soak in all the beauty of the American West!

My first block; mixed look.

Subsequent blocks, uniform look.

The lighting in these photos is lousy. I'm not good with lighting in normal conditions, but put me in a motel room and I can get some really awful lighting! *hah!*

I am, however, loving that a circle forms when the four blocks come together. This quilt will have lots of movement.

Our vacation has been a smashing success thus far. We have traveled over 3300 miles, and we are just now beginning to head back toward home. We have been in ten states so far from Ohio to California. Our return trip will take us to Montana to see cousins. We hope to be home by Friday.

Don't worry that I am broadcasting the fact that we are away from home. We left the house in good hands, as a close friend is staying with our kitty and keeping the plants watered, the mail gathered and the birds fed.

Hope you are getting some stitching done!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hand Stitching and Football

Over the weekend, DH and I along with my mother attended the annual family reunion weekend in Columbus to celebrate the OSU Buckeyes. Knowing that I'd be parked in front of football games all day Saturday, I took a little bag of sewing goodies to work on.

This year's football weekend involved 33 folks, ages 9-90. Most were family with a couple of family friends along, as well. Sixteen of our group actually attended the Nebraska game at Ohio Stadium, while the rest of us watched from a conference room at the hotel.

I had quite a few leftover half-square triangles from a blue/white quilt I made back in January/February. In a hasty check for some mindless, easy sewing, I grabbed them.

So I stitched. Now that I've made them into blocks, they will wait for me to get a good idea for how to use them.

Three blocks are finished, and I have strips made for one more. Buried in the HSTs I found some plain squares which I turned into a 9-patch. I can make a few more, too.

I considered taking my Lake Effect hexies, but the thought of explaining EPP to anyone who asked put me off that notion. *smiles*

I am linking up with Kathy's Quilts Slow Sunday Stitching party.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Progress on Lake Effect

The most portable stitching on my current to-do list is, hands down, Lake Effect. Because DH and I have been doing much gallivanting around this month, and will do more before the month is over, I really felt it necessary to work on something during this car time. Lake Effect has been perfect.

The photo above represents the hexies I attached on Saturday and Sunday while we were on the road to Mansfield, Wooster and Coshocton. As long as the roads are smooth enough, I can easily stitch these rows of six that will surround the appliqued panels.

I continue to be concerned that the "look" effectively resembles water. With the name Lake Effect, I need this to have the look of a cold, winter waterway or waterfall. I will use more blue, and hopefully this will bring my desired result.

The last three pictures show my combined work from this month of road trips (and it's only the 14th!) - the one to Put-In-Bay and the one to Mansfield - as well as the Friday with the Frankfort Girls. I consider this significant progress.

And my perceived progress is just the motivation I need to keep myself on track with this endeavor and work toward a finish. It won't be long until I will need to be thinking about switching gears to do those appliqued parts. I promise I will no longer be intimidated by applique.

Promise.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

May UFO Finished! OMG!

Snoopy is doing his happy dance today, dear readers. Yes, he and I both are happy about finishing the May UFO.

While we're at it, let's have Calvin and Hobbes join us.

And here is what makes us all so happy - the Navy Monkey Wrench now has its borders! 

This is one of those quilts that has an unnecessarily long history. I seem to have many more of those than anyone ought. Start a quilt; finish a quilt - that's the way I should operate. In reality, I operate more typically like this:

The pieces for the monkey wrench blocks were cut out and taken in baggies to stitch while attending various cross country and track meets through our son's jr. high and high school running days - this would be in the  mid-1990s to 2001, when he graduated. Then, the blocks were stored away in a tub. Periodically, I would pull out the tub and take a picture of the contents, write a blog about it, and then return the tub to the closet. Here is a post from 2012. And here is one from March 2015, and again in April 2015. The UFO was listed for completion in 2015, yet obviously that did not happen - but I did work on it. And even though I said I was motivated to put on the borders, something else apparently snatched my attention, because I still had just borders left to do when I once again put it on a second UFO list - 2017. It came up as the quilt for May, and if you check out this post, you will see not only this quilt sans borders, but you will also see all my previous UFO finishes for this calendar year. 

I am definitely on a roll.

I love how striking my Monkey Wrench looks. I've kept it pinned up to the design wall, so I see it each time I look down the hall toward the sewing room. Even DH mentioned how nice it looks. *cheesy smile*

As I stitched borders yesterday, I had a chance to study my hand-piecing on some of the blocks. It made me reflect on just how much I do enjoy hand-piecing. I have not done too much of it lately, and I need to rectify that. I will soon be stitching my hexies, so that may suffice. However, I ought to get back to some of those 4-patches, or 9-patches, or 16-patches. 

Are you a "start-a-quilt-finish-a-quilt" type person? Or do you take the meandering multi-year path toward a finish? 

I hope your are getting some items checked off your list today! I'm linking up with the Monday Making party over at Love Laugh Quilt.

Added later: I am also linking up to Elm Street Quilts and the One Monthly Goal finish. It's such a great way to see who is getting stuff done, and to enjoy all the variety of our various projects.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

English Elegance

Today's post comes about as a follow-up to something I posted last week. When I shared the pictures of multiple generations of women quilting at the old quilting frame, a commenter asked about the quilt Grandma was working on in the picture from about 15 years ago.

The quilt is called English Elegance, and it was featured on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine in February 1999. I saw it on the rack at a local grocery store, fell in love with it, and actually made it a few years later. (I could probably find the exact year, but I know I didn't make it immediately.)

This cover photo just called out to me, I suppose. I can't say that there's any one thing that appealed - I love the cottage-y look, I love the soft florals, I love the traditional flying geese block. So a combination of things struck me that particular day, and I ended up bringing that magazine home with me.

I recall that I started working on this quilt when I needed a hand-piecing project for a road-trip to my in-laws'. I cut a few blocks for the pieced flying geese unit, and found that I had everything I needed in my stash to make the entire quilt.

So I proceeded to hand piece all these units, and then when I had them done, I just went ahead with the rest of the construction. I typically let things linger, but on this one I continued working steadily.

When I had the top completed, I asked my grandmother if she would quilt it for me, and of course, she said she would. And that is how I happen to have a picture of her with this quilt in the frame. The photos above show the quilting - which shows up so much better on the back than on the front.

And that concludes this trip down memory lane. Thank you for indulging me!

I think I need to bring English Elegance out for a time and display it on the quilt rack.

 Happy Quilting, Friends!

Frankfort Girls Friday

Yesterday morning we met at Jan's for our usual Friday morning chat and sewing session. I was so intent on making 4-patches that I totally forgot to take pictures of what the others worked on. I saw Jan doing more Royal Crown bag deconstructing, but I don't even know what Sharon and Sheryll did. (Terry and JoAnn were unable to attend.)

I've got a few new blocks to add to the growing stack of blocks made over recent weeks.

These are in stacks of 10; I pin them together this way so I don't have to keep counting them every time I wonder how many I've made. So far I am around 120 blocks, and I'm still going strong. Who knows when I will stop? I plan to just keep on stitching and worry about finishing later. I figure I need around 250 blocks to get a sizeable quilt, maybe more! No stopping any time soon!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Busy Hands...

That old adage about busy hands and happy hearts holds true for me. Few things are more relaxing as far as I'm concerned than to have a little box of stitching in my lap while I watch sports. With the onset of football season and a very talented OSU Buckeyes team to follow every Saturday, I need to have my stitching ready for use.

The stack above represents the sum total of my stitching for yesterday - 16 4-patch blocks.

These are fast and easy to do. I have a box where I keep all leftover 2.5" squares. Every project, it seems, leaves you with leftovers, and while I cannot claim to be an organization queen (ha!), I can claim to have a successfully working system for keeping 2.5" squares under control.

So I have this nifty little box of 2.5" squares which had been stirred and blended and folded and tossed - it was quite a mess, and I should have taken a picture. Since I didn't, I will point out that every block is quite fuzzy and raggedy - because of how smooshed they'd all become in that box. First I felt obligated to sort things out. Below you can see what I found.

I separated like items: I'd thrown some large hexies in, so they are stacked at the top; I had a good-sized stack of 2" squares (need a different box for those) which are there beside the spool; below the 2" squares are fabric bits that need to be cut down to size (shoulda' done that before putting them in the box); under the scissors handle is a small stack of KF squares; cut off on the left side of the picture is a gift of leftover scraps from one of the Frankfort girls; at the bottom of the picture is a partial 9-patch block and a few remaining squares from my Snowbird fabric - my intent is to get back to the larger stash and see if I can come up with one more light dot fabric to finish the 9-patch; and finally, on the right of the picture is the tall stack of miscellaneous 2.5" squares which I have pictured below.

What a ravelly mess.  I cleaned them up as I selected them to use. During the course of the ballgame - which the Buckeyes won 77-10 - I made 16 blocks, tidying and neatening along the way.

Above are all 16 4-patch blocks laid out side by side. I really have no plan for how I will use these; I like how this little section looks, so maybe I will just attach them like this and have a big, old-fashioned scrap quilt. Maybe? Something to consider, for sure. Other possibilities exist, too, so I won't rush to decide. For now I will just make 4-patch blocks all through the fall and winter. For an entire quilt, I will need a couple hundred more, right?

I must add neutrals to my little box of squares to be ready for next week's game.

I will be linking to Slow Stitching Sunday today, and I invite you to pop on over there to have a look around.

Happy Quilting, Friends!