Finely Finished: Grandmother's Choice

As July wound to a close, I put the finishing stitches in a quilt that has taken eight years to reach completed status.  On the other hand, the subject of the quilt - women's suffrage - took an equally long time to come to fruition in the United States!

Grandmother's Choice was a block of the week project created by Barbara Brackman to recognize the years-long struggle for women to win the right to vote.  The BOW started well before the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment (June 4th, 1919) to illustrate the time and effort involved in passing that simple amendment:  

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Most of the fabrics used in my blocks were from a collection called "Alice's Washday Blues" by Blue Hill Fabrics.  I wound up adding lots of other fabrics, but Alice was my inspiration.

I wasn't gung-ho on sampler quilts when I started the BOW, but I learned to appreciate the fun of making just one block of a particular pattern.

I finely (finally) finished the quilt by using simple sashing and two borders - narrow and wide.  

The long-arm quilting was done by Diane Knott of Butterfly Threads Quilting.

Finished size:  84 inches by 84 inches.

The label features one of my favorite prints from Alice's Washday Blues.  

The label also includes the date the 19th Amendment was ratified by enough states to become law:  

18 August 1920.  I guess I finished my quilt just in time!

As you may recall from civics class, Constitutional amendments require approval by 2/3 of the states in order to become law.  In 1920, Tennessee was the approving state that put the 19th Amendment over the threshold.  Interestingly, my state, Louisiana, rejected the amendment in 1920 and did not (belatedly) pass it until 1970!  If you're curious about when your state approved the 19th amendment, you can find out at this National Park Service website.

Au Revoir April!

Greetings from New Orleans/South Louisiana, where new cases of Covid-19 have slowed and hospitals are less overwhelmed.  Still, our governor has continued shelter at home orders for an additional two weeks.  I'm thankful for that, however painful for our economy, because I don't want to see a spike in new Covid-19 cases and subsequent deaths.  Our local hospital (where my husband works) was hit hard by the virus and is still struggling to keep up with the patient demand.

This time of year New Orleans would be in the middle of festival season, specifically our beloved Jazz and Heritage Festival - fifty years young this year.  Of course this year's Fest was cancelled, but in the spirit of resilience, local community radio station WWOZ has been broadcasting previously recorded Jazz Fest performances, so we can have a bit of escape from day-to-day reality.  Jazz Festing in Place follows the timetable of the real fest, broadcasting from 11 am to 7 pm from now through Sunday.  Tune in via WWOZ.org if you need a little musical escape!

As for quilting therapy, I seem to be taking comfort in wrapping up UFOs.

This Sawtooth Star and Uneven 9-Patch quilt has been kicking around the studio for several years.  At this point, the quilt was just shy of being queen-sized, and I kept looking for fabric to add as a final, un-pieced border.  Earlier this month it occurred to me I just needed to add some additional Sawtooth Star and Uneven 9-Patch blocks, and the quilt would be the size I wanted.

I cut twenty-four additional blocks and stitched them up.  Then I removed two of the borders and added an additional row and column to the body of the quilt.  I made a few additional Flying Geese blocks for the outer border, stitched everything back up and soon had a finished flimsy.  

I also finished hand-stitching all 350-something inches of binding on my Full Circle quilt...and made a label.  Full pictures of the quilt coming soon!

I need to stop digging around in the UFO bins.  I pulled out this stalled project and decided it would be a quick finish, if I would just focus on it!  Lots of the small four patches were already stitched, so it was a matter of cutting more of the larger squares to make double four-patch blocks.  These are all leftover fabrics from my Grandmother's Choice quilt - so should I call this Grandmother's Choice Leftovers?

I've also been trying to do some hand-quilting on this Schoolhouse quilt every day.  I enjoy hand quilting, but I really struggle with trying to improve my stitches.   Practice makes perfect!

Gardening and yard work have taken up lots of my shelter at home time, too.  These shots are from the containers at our camp (note: we shelter in place at our camp, just like at home and the camp is only an hour from New Orleans).  We already have lots of tomatoes that are close to being ripe.  I picked quite a few of the jalapeños in the picture above, and made pickled jalapeños with them last week.  Mint seems to almost grow wild at the camp, and we use it for Mint Juleps as well as Thai and Vietnamese dishes.

At home, we demolished our 30-something year-old in-ground swimming pool earlier this year.  Now we have an amazing patch of lovely green grass (lower left pic).  Dear Husband built the rolling planters in the top picture, and I filled them with Knock-Out Roses, Agapanthus, and Bird of Paradise.  The round terracotta pot is full of basil - we've already made our first batch of pesto! The hibiscus bloom is from plants along the back fence, and the remaining pictures are the newly re-done front yard landscaping - lots of daylilies!

And now to wrap up the month with good wishes for everyone.  I hope you all continue to stay safe and healthy and take comfort in your stitching!

The Scraps of Summer

Here we are, almost to the end of August already!  Local schools are already back in session and it's starting to get dark just a little earlier every night.  We even had a "weak cold front" (as the weather prognosticators called it) roll through Wednesday night, which at least dropped the humidity for about 36 hours.  Even though the daytime temperatures were still in the 90s, the low humidity was heavenly!

I am still on a Finish It Up kick, trying to get some project boxes emptied out and reduce the mental fog caused by too many UFOs.

These blocks were started in 2012 for a BOW by Barbara Brackman:  Grandmother's Choice.  The blocks commemorated the push for voting rights for women.  My original plan was to set the blocks with blue cornerstones, but about a third of them were not quite the right size, and I was afraid it would be too hard to get everything to come out straight if I used cornerstones.  This actually turned out straighter than I thought it would - although I felt like I was wrestling the quilt as I worked on it!

I think it needs a little extra oomph, so I'm going to add a narrow dark blue border, followed by a wider blue and red floral border.  I didn't buy enough of the floral fabric - bad math on my part - or I would've finished the quilt today.

In between wrestling with the Grandmother's Choice blocks, I also finished some Modern Cross blocks using orange (cheddar!) reproduction fabrics.  I think I've finished the RSC colors for this project, except for a few dark blue blocks.  

Next up:  binding this 16-patch and pinwheel quilt that started life as an RSC project.  It's still too hot to sit under a quilt while hand-stitching the binding, but I'll just crank down the air conditioning while I'm sewing!

More scrappy stitching can be found at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link-up.

The Call of the UFO

The UFOs stashed away in drawers, bins, baskets and closets have all been clamoring for attention lately.  This is not a bad thing.  Although I'd love to be starting any number of new projects, the UFOs won't leave me alone until at least a few of them are finished - or at least moved to the finished flimsy stage.

I finally finished the second (larger) Feed Sack Bag I had started a couple of years ago.  I made the smaller bag first and wasn't sure I wanted to make the second one, even though I already had all the pieces cut out.  Everything languished for over a year.  Finally, I decided to go ahead and make the second bag, and stash it away as a potential gift.

The pattern is Joanna Figueroa's Feed Sack Bag (go take a look at her pictures - much better than mine!).  It's a fun pattern:  well-written, easy to follow and a nice result.  The largest bag is perfect for jelly roll strips.  My only complaint is the outside pocket is not very useful and there are no inside pockets.  I could probably have added inside pockets, but I just wanted to finish up, not experiment with the pattern!

Another quilt that got some love this week was this ridiculously long-term medallion project.  Back in the early/mid 1990s, I amassed a large collection of cow-themed fabrics to make a quilt for a beloved kindergarten teacher.  Her classroom was decorated with all kinds of cow-themed items, so I thought a cow quilt would be perfect.  Before I could get started, she let me know she really didn't want a cow-themed quilt, so I had to revise my plans!

The center fabric panel was the inspiration for this quilt.  My original plan was to play with creating my own medallion quilt and to try to use as much cow-themed fabric as possible.  I made and discarded multiple borders before finally deciding I had to add some non-cow fabric to make the whole thing work out!

My favorite border is made of Ohio Star blocks with fussy-cut centers.  I think this is where my love of fussy-cutting was inspired!  The black and white fabric was an early text print; the text says "moo".

When I pulled the medallion out earlier this week, I wasn't sure if it needed more pieced borders or if it was essentially finished.  I looked at a lot of medallion quilts online and in quilt books and decided I really did not want to add more blocks.  I happened to have a chunk of very pale yellow fabric that would make a nice light-colored border and another chunk of scenic cow fabric that would make a good outer border.  Boom!  Finished top!

BTW, the fabric for the outer cow border has been hanging around for a long time, too!

Last week, I mentioned I wanted to work on finishing my Grandmother's Choice BOW quilt.  I haven't forgotten - just need to make a trip to the LQS before I can begin.  I looked through all the appropriate fabrics in my stash and didn't have any pieces big enough to make all the sashing needed for the quilt.  I hate when shopping in the stash doesn't work!  This was block 47 of the BOW - Heroine's Crown.

Teal Repro Crosses

I put some teal reproduction scraps to work this week - making quarter log cabin blocks for my Modern Crosses quilt.

When I started making these blocks, I had lots of neutral-colored fabric scraps (chunks) to use for the backgrounds.  I've just about run through the scraps and will have to start cutting yardage.

My design wall is currently empty, so I should pin all these blocks up and start thinking about the finished quilt.  I only need two additional color groups (orange and brown) to wrap up my plans for this quilt.

On a completely different note, I pulled out a UFO this week and made plans for finishing it.  I started these Grandmother's Choice blocks in 2012, a BOW created by Barbara Brackman.  All 49 blocks have been marinating since August of 2013, so maybe I can finish assembling them by August this year!

Wrapping Up Grandmother's Choice

I have been trying to finish up all of the blocks from Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice BOW.

Block #46, Barrister's Block, was straightforward machine piecing.  I like the look of this block; I can see it in a completely scrappy version - good way to use up scraps!

Block #47, Heroine's Crown.  Another favorite block!  I opted to use the fusible applique technique with this block, as I wanted to finish more quickly than hand applique would allow.  Instead of machine blanket-stitching around the fused shapes, I decided to do the blanket stitching by hand.  Maybe I didn't really save any time, but doing some Slow Sunday Stitching today may wrap things up!

Block #48, Fair Play.  Completely hand-pieced this one. 

Block #49.  An Arc:  Bending Toward Justice.  Also hand-pieced.  I don't care much for the design of this block, but I thought the sentiment was a perfect conclusion to the series of history lessons on women's suffrage.  The block symbolizes a quote from Martin Luther King:  "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Once I finished block 49, I had to circle back to a block from early in the series that I had not completed.  Block #4, Kansas Sunflower, was a nod to early suffragettes from Kansas.  I also hand-pieced this block, and although a little wonky, it came out better than I had any right to expect as I was rather cavalier about making my original templates.  If I were to make the block again, I'd definitely use freezer paper templates for greater accuracy.

At this point, I'm going to lay my Grandmother's Choice blocks aside and contemplate how I want to assemble the blocks.  I need to focus on some other projects and come back to these with a fresh perspective.

I'm linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching today as I put the finishing touches on Heroine's Crown.  Hope you'll stop by there and see what other hand-stitching fun is underway!

July Catch-All

I was a little pre-occupied with blogging about Ste Anne this month, and didn't get around to sharing a few other projects that were also underway.

I was all caught up with Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice blocks at the beginning of the month.  Here are blocks 42-45.  Two of my favorites, in terms of the story associated with the block, are Gentleman's Fancy (bottom left) and Cats and Mice (bottom right).  Of course, now I'm behind again; there aren't many weeks left in the BOW, so I better focus on getting caught up!

I also got caught up in some Pinterest-inspired furniture painting.  This Ikea shelving unit was part of the furniture that came with our camp.  I have a growing collection of cobalt blue glassware at the camp, and needed more display space.  Cobalt blue just doesn't show up against black, so I decided the shelves needed paint.

It only took two coats of primer and two coats of white latex paint to get everything covered!  I'm more than happy with the results, though.  Not all the glass is on display yet and I haven't re-hung a quilt on the wall, but I can check that painting project off the to-do list.

I found this vintage sewing machine on Craigslist a few months ago, but it's been sitting, unloved, in my dining room since then.  I really just wanted a vintage Singer sewing machine cabinet for one of my other Singer machines, but this was a deal I couldn't resist.  The machine was in good condition and the cabinet and bench were included.  The bench was full of vintage scraps, but nothing worth saving.

I needed a machine set up to do some heavy-duty sewing, so I went to work on cleaning and oiling my new baby.  It's amazing what a little sewing machine oil can do to clean off gunk and rust.  I oiled her up and let the machine run for several minutes.  The cord is in excellent shape and I didn't smell anything burning, so I think she's ready to sew!

She's a Singer Model 15-91 - a real workhorse of a sewing machine.  The serial number dates her to around 1955, but she looks great for her age.  I can't wait to thread her up and take her for a spin! 

Stairs and Squares

It's been a block by block kind of week.  

Quilt block, that is.

A recent Grandmother's Choice block was Endless Stairs.  These Barbara Brackman flag prints had been sitting in the Grandmother's Choice fabric basket, but I had never been inspired to use them in any previous BOM blocks.  I decided this block was the perfect opportunity!  Block #39 done.

Next up #40 - Art Square.  The block went together easily, but the fabric choices were frustrating.  There have already been a number of blocks with a large diagonally-set feature fabric.  I didn't want to repeat one of my large prints yet again, so I tried something different.  I was too lazy to do the math to put a pieced block in the center, so this is it!  I don't love it, but it's done.

It's nice to be caught up with the blocks for this project - I'm looking forward to tomorrow's block!

Grandmother's Choice: A Little Improvisation

I've been continuing to catch up with stitching Grandmother's Choice blocks from Barbara Brackman's latest BOW.  I'm happy to report I'm now caught up and have finished the most recent block - Nonsense (lower left).  The top star block - a seven pointed star in honor of Australia (who granted women the right to vote before England and the US) - is still in the process of being appliqued, but that will soon be complete.  

If you're following the Grandmother's Choice BOW, you may notice I added a block that is not part of Ms. Brackman's scheme.  I substituted a block called Miller's Daughter for the Sunbonnet Sue block.  I've never been a fan of Sue and could not bring myself to have her in my quilt, despite the wonderful story accompanying the Sunbonnet block.  I chose the Miller's Daughter block primarily for its visual appeal, not because it had any particular link to women's suffrage.  If you're interested, I used the piecing instructions from Marcia Hohn's Quilter's Cache.

Coincidentally, I just finished Ken Follett's Fall of Giants, historical fiction about Europe prior to and during World War I.  The book touches on the suffragette movement in England, but really encompasses the all social and political tides that brought about the war.  I listened to the AudioBooks version (so I can sew and "read" at the same time!) and really enjoyed it.  Highly recommended - and it's the first book of a trilogy, so there are 2 more installments to follow.  The second book of the trilogy is about World War II (Winter of the World) and the third (yet to be published) will be about the Cold War.

Go Granny, Go!

I had the opportunity to visit one of my local quilt shops, The Quilted Owl, recently.  I found some new fabrics to add to the Grandmother's Choice BOW stash.

I've fallen way behind on stitching up my weekly Grandmother's Choice blocks.  Last weekend DH had to work, so I promised myself I'd spend some time attempting to get caught up.  

I finished six blocks and have two additional ones prepped for hand stitching.  Each of these blocks were fun to make, although I'm kind of partial to Mr. Roosevelt's Necktie (center left), Contrary Husband (center right) and Coffee Cup (bottom right).  Besides the two that need hand-stitching, there's only one more block to finish and I'll be caught up.  On the other hand, Ms. Brackman will publish a new block tomorrow.  I wonder if I can sew into the wee hours tonight and completely catch up?

The design wall was empty, so I pinned up all my Grandmother's Choice blocks so far.  I'm liking the result; just wondering what fabrics I'll use for setting all the blocks together!

Nudging Grandmother Along

It's been one of those weeks where family and work take a higher priority than usual and little sewing is accomplished.  Even though Fabric Therapy is oh-so-important, sometimes it just has to wait!

I did finish 3 more blocks in the Grandmother's Choice BOW.  These blocks (24-26) were straightforward and fairly easy to assemble.  I tried to incorporate some of the lesser-used fabrics from the stash I had assembled for this project, which started with Alice's Washday Blues as a foundation.  I wish I could find some more multi-color, largish prints featuring the colors of red, blue and brown I've chosen.   There doesn't seem to be much out there that's not dainty prints, or the blues are more of a teal than the indigo-type blue I'm using.  I'm not running low on fabric, but it would be nice to have some more choices to work into the project!

Grandmother's Lessons

I'm still not managing to stay caught up with Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice BOW.  These three blocks (21-23) are some of my favorites so far.  I enjoyed the Parasol block the most, as I hand appliqued the parasol and blanket stitched the handle and tip after fusing them to the background fabric.  The two pieced blocks - Girl's Joy (left) and Jack's Delight (right) were a little fiddly to cut and piece, but I love the result!

Much to my surprise, this BOW quilt-along has inspired me to get over my dislike of sampler quilts.  I have never been a fan of sampler quilts, maybe because they were so plentiful and predictable and boring back in the 1980s when I was learning to quilt.  Sampler quilts are a great learning tool though, because the variety of blocks give quilters the opportunity to practice different quilt-making skills.  I think I had forgotten that aspect of the sampler theory and have been re-discovering the fun of taking small bites of a variety of designs and processes.  I joined the Grandmother's Choice BOW because I wanted to tangibly participate in a history lesson, but the secondary benefit has been a new appreciation for the benefits of making sampler quilts!

Catching Up With Grandmothers Choice

I've fallen way behind in the Grandmother's Choice BOW sponsored by Barbara Brackman.  I was hoping to be completely caught up by now, but there have just been too many other projects clamoring for my attention.  Here are blocks 15-20; now I'm only 4 blocks behind.  Some of these were quick and easy, others were quite challenging!  The block on the upper left - Old Maid's Ramble - took a few tries to assemble properly.  And the block on the upper right - Mother's Delight - has the colors mixed up, resulting in a completely different block than illustrated.  Oh well, finished is better than perfect!

Grandmother's Choice: Universal Suffrage & Bride's Knot

Exercising my Sew Sixty strategy for the past week has helped me catch up on Grandmother's Choice blocks from Barbara Brackman's BOW project.

My version of block #13:  Universal Suffrage

And #14 Bride's Knot

These were relatively simple blocks, unlike Block #4 - Kansas Sunflower - the block I'm still procrastinating over!  I'm going to join up with Deb from VT Quilter and challenge myself to finish that ol' sunflower by Christmas.