Henry's Quilt

Short and sweet post today, dear readers. I will be gifting the quilt here to a happy Grandma a little later.

I made this quilt by starting with the pinwheels which are made with the leftover fabric from my navy blue Double Irish Chain quilt.The backing slowed me down until I found some perfect flannel in the stash. Yay! It waited on a baby boy for a while - ahem, it also waited on a quilter! - but all the stars aligned recently and now it is ready to be passed along to the precious babe.

Off today for a fun girls' day! 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Baby Boy Quilt

When an idea takes hold, I just run with it. Retirement allows me the freedom to do that, thankfully, and I have the desire, so it all works out great. *smile*

I seem to be making a lot of baby quilts lately, and one I needed to get busy on was for my nephew and his wife who are expecting boy #4 in a few months.

I teased a couple days ago with these happy pinwheel blocks which I made on Wednesday while Sharon was here.

 

When I had about 20 I prepped setting blocks out of some fat quarters I'd recently picked up. Laid out on the bed, I was satisfied, but needed it to be a bit bigger. 

It was fine in the length, but I thought it ought to have one more block in width. Back to cutting and piecing pinwheels. I used 4" squares to result in pinwheels that measured 6.75". It was all made up, so I just created my own measurements.

The one juvenile print.

Acceptable companion print #1.

Acceptable companion print #2.

 

 

The setting blocks are not all juvenile prints, but the color works and they "read" juvenile when combined. I laid them out in diagonal fashion and stitched them up with Eleanor Burns' chain-piecing method.

I have sorta' been hankering to make a quilt with pinwheels, so I am really pleased to have thought to make them for a baby quilt. They are just so cheerful and happy. I will definitely keep this in mind for future reference.

Hope you are having a great day! 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

More Baby Quilt Making

Our family is anticipating more that just our own granddaughter's arrival. Before her appearance, two great nephews will join the ranks. I have a baby quilt finished for the first one; I need to get started on the second. So I did that this week. 

Last week when I picked up my sewing machine at Old Town Fabrics, I also grabbed a few fat quarters to bolster my little stash of baby quilt remnants. You'll have to see those fabrics next post; the pinwheel blocks pictured here are made with stash remnants - the blue is from that Double Irish Chain I made last year; the white on white is what is left over from my recently completed pair of Stepping Stones quilts. Also this. I will add in the new fabrics when these are finished.

Typically, I make baby quilts as simply as possible; but I was in the mood to add a playful element and thought these pinwheels would do nicely. I will have 25 made soon, and then I will share a finish soon after that! The beauty of baby quilts - they make up really fast.

My list is long this morning, and I need to get going!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Grandma's Pinwheel Quilt

 I have spent about a week trying to figure out what I want to work on. There are all those things I ought to do, but there are also those things I want to do. The latter category generally involves starting something new. With so many projects staring at me from every corner of the sewing room, I just couldn't let myself begin another new project. So Wednesday and Thursday, I did this.

The box containing the parts for this quilt have been moved around the sewing room for a couple of years now. It came to me from Grandma back in 2014 when she sent all her sewing and quilting stuff home with me. This post details that memorable event.

Ever since, I have wanted to finish this, but I just didn't know how.

Here is a post in which the pinwheel blocks - and a lot more - are shared. In that post, I wonder why she stopped working on this. It has many elements that appealed to her - patriotic, traditional block, use of her existing stash. After a good deal of study, I think I figured it out. She had made 24 pinwheels going one direction, and 16 pinwheels going the opposite direction. I think that when she tried to put the quilt top together, the differing directions displeased her, so she stopped. 

That's what I would have done, too.

And maybe that is why it has taken me so long to figure out how to proceed with this project. In this post, I describe 'rediscovering' this project box and pledging to finish her quilt. (Ahem.) I didn't quite follow through on that, did I? In this post, I determine that I would get to work on it right away. (Double Ahem.) Still no follow through.

Well, instead of looking back at the history of these pinwheel blocks and all my inactivity, let's move forward!

It took collaboration with a few of my quilting cohorts, and a couple of days of work, but by gosh, I have finished it!

My conundrum was trying to figure out how to deal with pinwheels going in opposite directions. The project box contained extra fabric, so I sorta' guessed I would make additional wheels, but I managed to figure out an alternative that didn't require that. 

Here's the quilt top again; I will draw your attention to the 6 center blocks which are actually 24 pinwheels. All those pinwheels rotate the same direction. I added the sashing strips all around them, and then tried a number of options for the remaining pinwheels. If you study them you can see that they rotate in the opposite direction of the center pinwheels. This was the problem that most likely forced Grandma to halt her work on this quilt. 

Placing 4 pinwheels around each corner seems like a pleasing end result. I do not focus at all on the fact that the directions are opposite - instead, it all looks like it was meant to be arranged in this way. This quilt is suitable for a lap quilt or a couch quilt. It measures approximately 49" x 66". The individual pinwheels are 7" finished.

Because this is one of the very last few things Grandma worked on before she quit quilting, I wanted to document some sweet features. First of course, is her hand stitching. Each of the pinwheels was stitched by hand the way she did for every quilt she ever made.

While cutting the red fabric for the border, I discovered some of the pencil marks she made for cutting out the triangles. She would have had a template and used a pair of scissors to cut the units for each block.

Her project box was neatly packed with all her blocks as well as all her remaining fabric to be used in finishing the quilt. The plain blue fabric folded here was her alternate; the print blue was almost all gone, so she had a back-up plan ready, if necessary. Just like her, for sure.

I will definitely be putting this on the quilt frame soon. I can see this being finished off without delay.

Hope you have a great Friday!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

What A Productive Day

Yesterday, Sharon was here to sew, and gosh! We got a lot done!

First, I will show you two pictures of some remnants that Sharon was using to create a beauty. A long time ago, she took the cut-away portions of previous blocks to make pinwheels. Then, as often happens with we quilters, she stored those pinwheels away for an ever-so-long time.

She has decided to make something of them - the quilt will be the "little sister" of the original quilt, which she called a Bursting Star. I have a vague recollection of it, but it's fuzzy. She has promised to bring it sometime, or at least, take a picture.

Anyway, the work for her yesterday was to create something out of these pinwheel blocks.

The darker fabric is a dark red toille, and alongside this neutral, we get a very soft effect. If you study the direction of the pinwheels in one section and compare it to the direction in the other section, you will understand the dilemma Sharon is fussing about. When she made the pinwheels many months (years?) ago, she had no thought other than to just make pinwheels. Today, when she began to construct something with them, she discovered the directional issue, and now has decisions to make. I will keep you posted as her results come together. I am not worried. Everything Sharon makes is unique and gorgeous.

My efforts for the day resulted in a finished table runner and a small HST flimsy. First, let's have a look at this table runner.

I bought this kit just last Friday, when I took a drive with DH, F-i-L and B-i-L into Ohio's Amish Country. Yes, we stopped at Mrs. Miller's in Charm! Always a delight! Anyway, the runner was super-easy to make! And fast! I will probably find myself making several more.

After the table runner, I acted on a whim I recently had for using some of my Roman Holiday/3Sisters remnants. I made Eventide back in the summer of 2014 and had it quilted in 2016. I haven't touched these remnants since finishing the flimsy.

I hadn't forgotten them though!

After checking out the exact nature of the remnants, I found that I had quite a few squares, some of which were even marked with the diagonal line for HSTs. And with that, I had my idea working and coming together in no time!

I stitched up those triangles and began laying them out. I distributed the colors a bit, but did not allow myself to stress and obsess about it. This little beauty measures 30" square. I used all the triangles of this size and only had 4 leftover. Not too bad. I will surely find something to do with those extras.

Roman Holiday fabric is quite scarce these days, so I was very frugal in my cutting. You can see a triangle with selvage information on one block. I just figured it was a good way to pay tribute to this wonderful fabric, so I used it. And I am glad I did.

The only colors I had left were green, brown and red, plus the variety of backgrounds. I will get busy quilting this ASAP so I can use it this month in my Christmas decorating.

I still have Roman Holiday scraps remaining. I am hoarding it. I will try to do something worthy of such great fabric - maybe soon. I would like to tell the folks at 3Sisters and Moda to re-release this line!!

I have linked up with the party over at Let's Bee Social.

Happy Quilting, Friends!