Honouring Emma re-set

Well, here is the final Honouring Emma quilt top, now it needs a new name, I think! The new setting is a perfect wallhanging size, 45 x 45. I think it will be a wonderful spring quilt, and I look forward to quilting it in the cold of February :)

I made use of a new ruler I bought months ago, the Cutting Corners ruler. I really really like the effect I was able to get for the setting triangles...those three-fabric setting triangles were cut and pieced and placed easy-peasy! You could sew these as a strip set, and cut your triangles from that, but every other one would have the dark side on the long side rather than at the corner. The Cutting Corners ruler lets you sew and cut just the fabric you need.


The quilt started out as Honouring Emma by Lori Smith. Somewhere along the line, I decide to do a setting with some pieced blocks.
Then it got sewn together like this. I didn't particularly like the finished size (55 x 68)...too big for a wallhanging, too small for a bed, and I wouldn't want hand applique in a lap quilt! The new setting lost one applique blocks, and a few pieced blocks.

How quilts can become UFOs

I'm the kind of quilter that will just say uncle! when a quilt or blocks no longer makes happy, due to the quilting, the design, the fabrics, whatever; I'll put it in the back of the closet, I'll throw it out (!); I'll bundle it up and toss it far into a corner to discover another day. On the other hand, there are quilts or blocks that I will work with for a loooong time to make right.

This has happened to a few projects that have been taking up "active" space in my sewing room lately. Roll Roll Cotton Boll has gone into the back of a cupboard and I don't care if I ever see it again. The quilting is the string pieced squares was just too much...a big oops on my part. There were a lot of seams in those squares, plus all that quilting, every time I went back to it to quilt the blue pieced squares, the string pieced squares just got heavier and stiffer. Not at all what you want in a comfy quilt.



The mystery quilts I had pieced over the summer? Well, the one with parts like this finished as a design that doesn't work all that well for my fabric choices. The green star points just disappear into the design. I've drawn the quilt several times on EQ, and layed it out on the bed, and it does need re-jigging. So, that's a quilt that will disappear for a quite a while!







The one with parts that looked like this has potential to be a fantastic quilt. Only problem is I didn't cut some of the long sashing and border pieces (or if I did, I can't find them!); I'm not happy with the background fabrics for the centre medallion; and I think I "borrowed" some fabric from the pile for another project, which means trying to figure out what substitutions I can make. Oh! While typing this I just had an idea. So maybe I'll keep this one still in my active drawers!




This is Honouring Emma, applique design by Lori Smith. I had so many ideas for setting this quilt, and I chose the wrong one. There is nothing terribly wrong with it, just not right to me. I think that this will be this weekend's project, finally taking it all apart and starting over with a new setting. I don't want this one sitting in the closet for another six months, waiting for its turn to be loved!










Do you have quilts in limbo? Those ones that you might refer to as a UFO, but deep down you know you don't really care anymore? And blocks or tops that you want to love, but need to fix?

Minglewood Sampler Quilt

I love making sampler quilts.  They are my absolute favourite type of quilt!  I enjoy the variety, the feeling of marching toward a finished quilt, one by one.  Each block gives me a different type of puzzle to fit together, the cutting can easily be done one block at a time, then put the whole thing away for another day.

Before we moved house I did a bit of stash building, and got a fat quarter bundle of some of these homespsuns. They are lovely and soft and light...I knew they'd make into something wonderful.  Then I came across the book Four Seasons at Minglewood.  A sampler quilt!  With twelve inch blocks!  I usually end up making samplers with six inch or smaller blocks, so the twelve inch size would be a nice change.  I know I could easily make my own sampler with EQ, but its nice to have a book in front of you with all the design and cutting layouts already done.

Here's the first block, Arrow Star.  I've discovered that the wovens are maybe a bit too soft and light...I did a little Best Press on the fabrics I used today, they wiggled and moved everywhere, and still frayed.   But, the block still came out at 12 1/2"!  But next time I'll  use a much heavier coating of Best Press or maybe starch.

The book has a couple of other that are wallhaning size...the Turkey Tracks is one that will likely end up on my list.

Mary Ellen's Garden

This is my version of Mary Ellen's Garden design by Lori Smith.  I love her patterns!!  The size is 45 x 52 and I think will be a terrific wall hanging for my new front hall.

While sick with the cold etc., I would go into the sewing room and cut out one or two pieces of fusible applique, playing with my box of civil war repro scraps.  I was suprised it actually got put together this way, over the course of many days.  I think because I wasn't working on something else at the same time!

When we were worrying about Emily and contemplating the outcome, I sewed like a madwoman on the piecing for this quilt.  Before I knew it, before I was even ready to stop sewing, the piecing and top was done!

Not much quilty happenings...

Its been a long couple of weeks.  My little colds in September turned into a very bad cold and as a result I've been pretty much stuck on couch rest for the past while. 

We had tragic news about my niece Emily and her babies, at 7 months pregnant they both died, about a day apart, before delivery.  There are no words to say about something as sad and difficult.

The good news is that my two not at home kids, and daughter in law,  will be home for Thanksgiving on Monday.  It will be the best dinner a Mom can hope for!  Also, Sunday we'll be visiting my sisters and brother and their families for Thanksgiving, its been since June since we've all been together in one place.

The past couple of days, neeeding the retreat of quitling, I have been doing a little applique, a little shopping in my pjs, and a little bit of sewing...pics soon!

Quilting Roll Roll Cotton Boll

I've started quilting Roll Roll Cotton Boll, a scrap quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter.  I realized while sewing together the blocks that I wasn't very successful at string piecing!  My seam allowances were somehow too narrow in some places, and there were a few areas where the seams came apart.  So the first order of business after sandwiching the quilt was to use a decorative stitch over those seams to close them up. Hardly noticeable, on the front.

I had to tackle quilting those big string pieced blocks.  Up till now, I 've avoided any quilt with large open areas that have had to be quilted!  I figured this would be a great practice piece.  I can stipple, meander, echo quilt, do some leaves,  make loops and circles, even M and W kind of lines and squares, but not much else...and I seem to always fall back on this type of free motion.

I have a few of Patsy Thompson's free motion quilting dvds, and I used her seashells idea to quilt these squares.  A lot of work!!   I've done one or two blocks a day, and it seems that I'm getting nowhere...just now I thought I had one block left, but I actually have two left, and the setting triangles to consider).

I can make the initial design, and basically keep going...but then, I kind of lose track and next thing you know I'm making some other echo pattern, or have worked myself into some strange space to fill up, or I've crossed a line or more...but, good practice, and I can see my stitches getting more even and I'm better at re-tracing a line.  I'm pretty happy with it, but I think I should have made a different choice.  It looks good, but because of all the seams in those blocks, and now the quilting filling it in, the quilt is getting a little too compact for my liking.  So I'll have to do some real thinking on how to do the pieced blocks, as a quilt is supposed to have an equal or  proportionate amount of quilting in all areas, but I don't want any more heavy quilting. Rule breaking here I come!

Applique Planning, continued

The Jacqueline's Album quilt pattern arrived yesterday and I started to cut up my fabrics.  I have found that for me to be at all successful in committng to an applique quilt on my own, without the benefit of block of the month mailings, I have to choose and cut out the main fabrics for each block prior to starting to sew. 

I am really pretty comfortable with my colour planning skills with pieced quilts, but as I have said many times before, applique quilts just bring me trouble.  I think its because I'm too busy thinking, would two flowers in the same bunch really have two different colours?  would there really be that many shades of green in the leaves?  should I match two flowers, and put something interesting as a third? etc. 

I cut out a square of fabric for each main element of the block, not cutting out leaf or stem fabric.  This gives me a good idea of how the colours or fabrics are being used block to block.  Well, first disappointment working on this quilt was that gee, these fabrics are boring.  They almost all read as solid.  (I've thought often of doing an applique quilt with just solids, and this may be just the one! ).  Then, as I'm getting to block three or four, I realize my oranges, which there are just two, are either not enough or not right.  So switch the orange to pink, dig around my bits and pieces tub a bit more, and find a couple of more fabrics with a bit more range of colour.  But...its niggling at me that these colours just aren't making me happy.  The yellow is too bright, the purple and yellow combination in these shades are just not in my comfort zone.  I gave up the effort after about eight blocks planned, and this morning I said to myelf I'd carry on and likely be happier as I see the blocks sewn.

However,  applique quilts can take a loooong time to make, and with all the applique and handwork I've got going on right now, this one could easily take a year or more, especially with the border.  So one has to be very happy and comfortable with the fabric choices...and this just isn't going to work.

I'd still like to stick with yellow in rememberance of my Aunt, but I'll have to find some other more subdued colour palette.