A Quilting Time Machine

Now that my oldest son Andrew has moved to Denver, I've been working on returning his bedroom to guest room status.  I started by tackling the walk-in closet, which was in sore need of organizing.  Over the years the closet became a place to stash all manner of stuff - including costumes, clothes, quilts, and keepsakes.  

As I was sorting through the mess, I discovered several quilts I had made for him over the years.  I'm not sure why he left them behind, except maybe he thought they would be safer at our house than with him.  Hmmm.  Anyway, it was a bright, sunny day so I decided to take pictures so I'd have documentation of the quilts.

This is one of the first quilts I made as a beginning quilter, probably in the late 1980s.  I started by making 4-patch blocks, then assembling them in rows.

The layers were machine quilted using gentle curves along the seams.  This was a technique advocated by Robbie Fanning in The Complete Book of Machine Quilting, an early reference for machine quilting. 

In keeping with the animal novelty fabric in the quilt top, I used a leopard print for the back of the quilt.  Interesting to me - I used a wider binding than I typically use now, and I didn't miter the quilt corners!

Another early quilt was this red and green Log Cabin quilt - a Christmas quilt.  Again, not sure on the year it was completed (no label - I'll have to remedy that!), but probably early to mid 1990s.  

I used the services of a local long-arm quilter for this project; I think I wanted to finish it in time for Christmas!

Close-up of the quilting, binding, and backing.  Still using that wide (2.5 inch?) binding.  Amazingly, I still have scraps from this quilt in my stash!

I've shared the story of this quilt before.  Andrew took this quilt with him to Denver, but I'm including it here as it's part of the story.

This memory quilt has also been documented on the blog.  I know Andrew was worried about his dog chewing on this quilt (see the red and black quilt above), so he kept it stashed in the closet where the dog couldn't get at it!

This final quilt was not stashed in the closet, but has been waiting for its photographic opportunity before being shipped off to Denver.  

I remade the Endless Chain pattern in black and gold fabrics to remind Andrew of his New Orleans roots now that he's far from home.  Black and gold are the colors of the New Orleans Saints football team, and most of the fabrics have fleur de lis images (the fleur de lis image is associated with New Orleans - it's even included on the city flag and logo).

I got a little sentimental with the label.  The quote on the quilt is from Hodding Carter, and it's been part of a family history/photography display in our house for years.  I thought it was a good thought to send off with my wandering son!

Missing in Action

As usual, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s were a blogging break for me.  I don’t necessarily plan it that way, but time and desire to blog seem to disappear during that time frame.  Lucky for me, my quilting mojo didn’t disappear, so I have a few things to report on before we turn the page to a new year.

Our oldest son (Andrew) moved to Denver, Colorado at the beginning of September.  When he left, he only took the stuff he could fit in his car, and left his remaining belongings and dog with us until he could retrieve them later in the year.  He flew home for Thanksgiving, and by Saturday morning we had packed his stuff into Dear Husband’s pick-up truck and headed for Denver (dog included).

I won’t bore you will all of our adventures, but I will say I look forward to flying to Denver next time around!  We came back to New Orleans using a different route in an attempt to avoid some bad traffic congestion along the Texas/New Mexico route.  All told, we traveled 2700 miles and passed through seven states!

Just as we returned, our youngest son (David) flew in from Dallas.  It just so happened to be the perfect time to celebrate David and Dear Husband's December birthdays.  David is also a huge fan of his alma mater's football team - LSU - so his Dallas friends surprised him with an LSU football-themed birthday cake. 

Dear Husband and Bailey

Right before Christmas, our dog Bailey, a black lab mix, succumbed to a rapidly spreading form of cancer.  Bailey came to us as a puppy twelve years ago.  She was left on our front door-step in a basket with pink toys and a pink blanket.  Since she arrived just before my husband’s birthday, he considered her the Best Birthday Present Ever, and they were bonded at the hip.  The house feels pretty empty now, since Andrew’s dog is gone, too.  Our sweetheart yellow lab, McKenzie, doesn’t quite know what to do with herself.

In between all that, I managed to do some stitching here and there.

Project Numero Uno was to finish the black and gold Endless Chain quilt I started for Andrew.  I completed the piecing before Thanksgiving, and Diane Knott (Butterfly Threads Quilting) was able to long-arm quilt it for me while I was adventuring out west.  I’ve been trying to get the binding stitched and label attached so I can send it to Andrew as soon as possible.

I also made some blocks for Barb Vedder’s Oh My Stars swap.  Oops!  I didn’t take any pictures before I sent the finished blocks to Barb.  I did the Modern swap this time, and I’m looking forward to playing with my blocks later in January!

Thinking toward 2020, I knew there were a couple of Rainbow Scrap projects that needed some attention.  I made a batch of yellow Ring of Stars blocks, but I still need red blocks before I can assemble my RSC efforts on this quilt.

I also cut up lots of scraps for Carolina Chain leader-ender blocks.  Some Christmas fabric scraps made it into the latest batch of blocks.

There’s more to share, but I’ll stop here for now.  I’m not in much of a mind to do a retrospective of the quilts of 2019, but I have been giving a lot of thought to what stitching projects will be under the needle in 2020.  Let’s hope it’s a great year for quilting!

A Few More Purple Scraps

September's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color was purple.  After finishing my planned purple scrap blocks, I didn't have a lot of scraps to stitch up blocks for the Parts Department.  Usually, having a month-long focus on a color pushes me to pull bits and pieces from the fabric stash and slice them up into useful sized strips and squares for the scrap bins.  That didn't happen with purple, because I got focused on some other projects.

I did have some two inch squares and strips to turn into 4-patch blocks and Carolina Chain blocks.

I also kept up with making Tiny Tuesday blocks, although I veered off course for two of my blocks.   The top left block is Crow's Foot and the top right block is London Roads - both from Judy Hopkins' 501 Rotary-Cut Quilt Blocks.  

The bottom two blocks were provided via Angela's Tiny Tuesday blocks:  Card Trick and Bright Hopes.  

The theme for October scraps is to use dark fabrics like black and brown.  That fits in nicely with one of my non-RSC projects: a black and gold Endless Chain quilt.

My oldest son recently moved to Denver, Colorado.  He requested a black and gold quilt to remind him of home (black and gold being the colors of the New Orleans Saints football team).  This will be a planned scrappy quilt, so I spent some time experimenting with different fabric combinations to see what would work.  I knew my son would not be a huge fan of metallic fabrics, so I stuck with several variations of gold-colored fabric instead.  It reads more like brown in the photograph, but it looks more gold in person.  Instead of cotton batting, I'm planning to use wool - I figure he'll need the warmth!

For more inspiration on using black and brown scraps, be sure to visit the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link up.

Doggie-Approved Quilts (and a Dog Hazard Warning!)

A few weeks ago, Kyle (Timeless Reflections) shared some of her quilts from the turn of the 21st century period.  (It's hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago!)  Her gentle admonishment was to remind everyone to label their quilts.

Kyle's retrospective got me thinking about quilts I had made during that same time period.  Exactly one quilt came to mind and I decided to get busy and document it before it vanished completely!

I made this Jacob's Ladder variation for my oldest son Andrew sometime around 1997-1998.  We had just moved to New Orleans and he had asked to paint his bedroom black.  I said "no", so we settled on dark red instead.  This quilt was made specifically for his room.

I made it entirely on my Singer 201 treadle sewing machine, which was new-to-me at the time.  It was my first quilt made completely on a treadle.  I even machine-stitched the binding to the back of the quilt (something I almost never do) just so I could get 'er done!

The quilt has gone from home to college to first apartment and now home again, since Andrew moved back in with us last summer (he's back in school).  Along the way, his dog, Moose, decided to try a few sample bites of the quilt.  I'm going to appliqué some replacement squares over the damage, and fix the loose seam.   

I liked the design of this quilt so much, I even saved the original pattern!  It's from Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts, although I'm not sure of the date as I didn't save the entire magazine.  They called the quilt pattern Endless Chain.

It's sad to see how poorly the black fabric in the quilt top has held up, but that's pretty typical of black fabrics from that period.  I used a bandana print for the backing and it has held up much better - the white streaks in the picture are the camera's reaction to sunlight, not wear in the fabric.  When I'm fixing the doggie damage on the front, I'll also add a small label to the back.  I don't know how much longer this quilt will hold up, but I'm gonna put my name on it anyway!

I have another doggie-approved quilt story, kinda scary, but with a happy ending.

This is my son David's dog, Jozy Labradore.  Jozy and David live in Dallas, Texas, but Jozy spends part of his summer with us every year when David has to to be away from home for 6 weeks as part of his job.  In other words, Jozy is part of our family, too.

Last week, David inadvertently left a container of sugar-free gum on his bedside table.  Jozy does not usually chew on stuff he's not supposed to, but for some reason the gum got his attention.  David's roommate found Jozy an hour or so later, having seizures.  He took Jozy to the emergency vet's office and found out he had been poisoned by the xylitol in the sugar-free gum.  David was in New York City for work, so he was helpless and totally freaked out!

David was able to come home the next day, and immediately went to see Jozy and took one of my quilts along to comfort him.  Fortunately, Jozy responded to treatment (and the quilt!) and has since recovered and gone home.  

As it turns out, xylitol is extremely toxic to dogs.  Even in very small amounts, it causes very low blood sugar, which can lead to seizures, liver damage and death.  The scary thing is, there are seldom any warnings about pet toxicity on items containing xylitol.  It's not just in chewing gum, but also found in toothpaste, mouthwash, sugar-free baked goods and even peanut butter.  Here's a link to a good article about xylitol and pets - it's a little long, but if you're a dog-lover, definitely worth knowing!