Slow Sunday Stitching: Slow Progess

Grandmother's Flower Garden is one of those designs that goes slowly when hand-pieced. When I remind myself I'm piecing something started by my grandmother I don't know how many years ago, my snail's pace piecing doesn't seem to matter much.

 

I know it doesn't look like much, but in the past two weeks I've hand-pieced most of the green connector hexies seen here.  Between (American) football games and the World Series (Dear Husband is from Kansas City), there have been plenty of hand-piecing evenings to enjoy.  More American football today, plus the first winter-like temps of the season, led to great hand-piecing opportunities!

 

I did some serious work with spray starch and a hot iron today.  I thought I'd give you an idea in the difference between my grandmother's piecing and mine.  My grandmother pieced the hexies without marking any type of seam allowance, used doubled thread and large knots to help anchor her thread.  I need to ask my mom and aunt for more information about when these blocks were pieced - was my grandmother losing her sight or was this her usual method of piecing?  I own several other quilts made by my grandmother, but I've never taken them apart to look at the style of hand-piecing.

 

My style of hand-piecing is a little different.  I don't use knots, just back stitching.  I use fine 100% cotton thread (Aurifil is my current favorite), a small sharps needle and I mark my stitching lines with a pencil.  I confess my stitching is kind of slow, but enjoying the process is all part of the experience!

I'm linking up with more slow stitchers who enjoy the process via Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

 

Scrap Happy Saturday: Clutter Control

Somewhere about the middle of the week, I was struck with the desire to do some de-cluttering and organizing in my sewing room.  I've gone through the drawers and bins, the closets and the shelves.  UFOs have been re-evaluated, fabric re-organized and scraps sliced into strips and squares.  I even took my main sewing machine to the shop for some neglected maintenance.  I won't bore you with pictures, as my sewing room is still cluttered - but it's organized clutter!

Now I feel much better prepared to focus on some quilt tops that need to get finished before the end of the year AND also use spare minutes here and there to work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

 

Even with all that de-cluttering, I was able to finish a Road to Tennessee block for the RSC Sampler.

 

And a Kentucky Crossroads block.  Yup, I'm still using up chocolate scraps!

 

One Contrary Wife block in black and gray.

I need to finish the project on my design wall so I can lay out all my Rainbow Scrap Sampler blocks and see what colors might be lacking.  I have not given much thought as to how I want to assemble them, other than I'll probably use sashing between the blocks.

After all that organizing and stuff, I'm ready for a nice cup of tea and a visit to Angela's blog to see what the other Rainbow Scrappers have been doing this week!

 

Contemplating the Humble Nine Patch

I have not taken the time to show off the nine patch blocks I received from Barb's Nine Patch Swap.  My design wall is taken up with another project, and I didn't have a good way to display them all.

 

Instead, I've served up a little sample of all that reproduction nine patch loveliness.  I just love all the different fabrics - and it appears there are no repeats!

I don't know when I will actually start assembling these into a quilt, but I'm having fun contemplating the possibilities.  I started a new Pinterest album just to aid my daydreaming.  Many thanks to Barb for all the inspiration!

 

I've always liked this setting.  This is from the Quilt Index, where it is called Tanganoxie Nine Patch.  It would be striking in red - or cheddar - or indigo.  Hmmm, how to decide?! 

Scrap Happy Saturday: Scraps from the Dark Side

There were new blocks posted this week for the Rainbow Scrap Sampler, designed to use brown and black scraps - this month's RSC colors.

 

Angela called this the Sickle block.  I think I should call mine "Truffle".

 

The Chevron block used a novel construction method.  I enjoyed learning something new, but if I were making a Chevron quilt I think I'd use half-square triangles.

 

This string block came out a little lop-sided, but I think I'll leave it that way and call it a Design Feature!  It was fun digging up enough black-background strings for this.

We have been having amazing fall weather here in South Louisiana.  Dear Husband and I were inspired to take a little road trip today for some antiquing and other hunter-gatherer activities. 

 

I made some vintage fabric finds, including hankies, a dishtowel and some awesome orange buttons.  Of course I couldn't resist the cobalt blue compote dish with a fish stem!

 

And though not vintage fabric-related, but I loved the color play in this collection of jadite and milkglass! 

Now I think it's time for some tea and a trip through all the other Rainbow Scrappiness over at Angela's SoScrappy blog.

Scrap Happy Saturday: RSC Mini Show

One of the great things about the Rainbow Scrap Sampler blocks is they don't take a lot of time to construct.  They're perfect projects for that free hour or so before or after work.

 

This week's batch of sampler blocks were perfect weekday fabric therapy.  Best of all, they were all made from scraps - no yardage was disturbed for their making!

Many thanks to Angela and Deb, her pinch-hitter this week!  More Rainbow Scrap fabric therapy may be seen at Angela's Soscrappy blog today.

Memories in Plaids and Stripes

The memory quilts have come out to play again!

 

The last time I wrote about my memory quilt project, I had completed the center Carpenter's Wheel medallion for a 5th quilt.   In this picture, the Carpenter's Wheel is pinned on top of another completed memory quilt top, so I could see if I liked the result.  The next step was making more HSTs for another zig-zag border.

 

However, as I was digging through the bin of fabrics I had stashed for this project, I found another antique map fabric I knew would be perfect for this quilt!  

The fabric features a host of imaginative  nautical images, which will be great because this quilt and the next one will be for my nieces who live at the beach.

  

 I ripped apart the original Carpenter's Wheel block and remade it with the nautical map fabric.  I added the darker gold inner border last night.  The HSTs for the zig-zag border were already pieced and I got them pinned in place - now I just need to stitch them.  I have some sand dollar print fabric for the outer border and that will complete quilt #5!

 

One of my favorite pictures of my dad & me!  He would've celebrated 84 years this week.  It's good to have great family memories!

Slow Sunday: Stich 'n Knit

Last week I shared my vintage hexie trials - unstitching a hexie flower to get the seams to be more consistent.  I was a little dismayed that it took me all week to get the outermost border of hexies stitched together.  I was stitching for short periods of time every evening, but I still didn't finish until this afternoon.  That's OK, most of the other hexie flowers have been stitched with an appropriate seam allowance, so I won't have to re-stitch ALL of them!

 

Have I mentioned the hexie flowers are 12 inches in diameter? 

 

Some of my hand stitching time has also been taken up with this project:  Nae, a shawl by Anat Rodan.  I haven't done any knitting in about two years, but I saw this shawl on Pinterest and knew it was exactly the type of knitting I enjoy.  It is a simple pattern, so I can knit while watching TV or listening to an Audiobook.  I have a loooong way to go yet, but I'm very happy with the results thus far.  It doesn't hurt that I found a wonderful yarn in my favorite color - purple!

It's been a slow Sunday in many ways and I've enjoyed every minute - especially the stitching!  I'm linking up with the other slow stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts, and looking forward to enjoying everyone else's slow stitching as well!

Scrap Happy Saturday: How Now Brown Scraps?

No offense to my brown and gray and black scraps, but I won't be using many of them for Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects this month.  After giving it some thought, I want to keep my current RSC projects pretty much in the rainbow spectrum of colors.  I made a few blocks last week with brown and gold scraps, but will hold off on making a brown or black Carpenter's Wheel block.

 That being said, I did turn last week's 16-patch blocks into Scrap Jar Stars.  I'm looking forward to assembling these into a finished quilt!

 Speaking of finished quilts, I finally completed an earlier RSC project.  I got bogged down with hand-stitching the binding on this quilt, and it sat next to my Sewing Chair for several months.  Thank goodness my motivation returned and I finished everything up this week, including a storage pillowcase.

 

We've been having intermittent rain showers almost every day this week, so I didn't want to get the quilt wet by going outside for photos.  I clothespinned it to the blinds in my breakfast room so I could get some full-scale pictures.

 

 

My local longarm quilter, Cindy Braiwick, used a varigated green and turquoise thread for the quilting.

 

I made the body of the pillowcase with the same fabric as the quilt binding.   I shipped this off to its new owner today - I hope it brings her lots of smiles!

I'm linking up with the other Rainbow Scrap Challenge bloggers over at Angela's Soscrappy blog.  I know there will be lots of colorful inspiration that will make me want to go digging in my brown and black scraps despite what I said initially!

Slow Sunday UN-Stitching

I had high hopes for making some good progress on assembling my vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt today.

 

I pinned all my various pieces on the design wall so I could have a visual guide for attaching all the flowers and green borders in the correct order.  

When I was ready to start sewing this morning, I started with the blue flower in the upper left corner.  I planned to add 3 green hexies so I could then attach the bordering red flower. 

As I have discovered so often with these blocks, the original piecing is very inconsistent.  There was no way the blue flower was going to fit together with the green border hexies without lots of tucks.  Out came the scissors and soon the block was completely disassembled.

  

I pressed all the old seam allowances carefully to avoid distorting the edges.  Then I gave everything a good shot of starch and pressed again for stability.

 

I had purchased a 1 1/2" acrylic hexie template to help me draw seamlines on the blocks.  The holes in this hexie illustrate how inconsistent the original seams were.  Most of the other hexies work very nicely with the 1 1/2" template, but this yellow one (and all the blue ones) were way off.

 

Once I had the hexies pressed and seamlines marked, it was smooth sailing to begin re-assembling the block.  

 

I'm hopeful I can get the blue and white print hexies attached this evening as I watch some Major League Baseball with Dear Husband and Dear Son.

I'm also hopeful Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching will help keep me motivated to continue working on this quilt!

 

 

Scrap Happy Saturday: Fall Has Fell

Autumn has finally arrived in South Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast!  We awoke this morning to temps in the mid-50s, a brisk breeze and clear blue skies.  Perfect weather for a road trip to the Pine Belt Quilters Show in Hattiesburg.

The show was fun, although I didn't take many pictures.  I did enjoy studying several of my favorite quilts up close and personal, and even had my own quilt glove so I could touch the quilts.  I was pleased to see a decent amount of hand applique and hand quilting.  There were also plenty of vendors, but I resisted the temptation to add to the stash.

After the show, Dear Husband and I stopped at a huge antique mall on the outskirts of Hattiesburg.  I thought we were going to leave empty-handed, but I spotted a treasure just before we were about to head for the door.

 

I love transferware of all types, but blue and white are what usually catch my eye.  I spied this turkey platter lying on a table full of dishes and even though not blue and white, I couldn't resist the quirky mix of traditional turkey and 1950's atomic age border design!

 

Best of all, the platter was apparently a premium from a local Hattiesburg furniture store.  

No quilting or sewing occurred on my end today, but I did dabble in some Rainbow Scrap Challenge block construction earlier this week.  Our challenge this month is to use brown and other dark scraps, so I dug into my pre-sliced scrappy strips for inspiration.

 

I started with the 2" squares and strips, assembling 16 patch blocks for Scrap Jar Stars.  These browns are all pretty dark, and many of them are reproduction fabrics.  I may save this block for another project, as I'm not sure it will work with my other Scrap Jar Stars.

 

These are somewhat lighter shades of brown and I think they will work in the Scrap Jar Stars.

 

I also found a lot of brownish-gold shades in the scrap bin, so I was able to make one more 16 patch.

 

I was also able to repeat the dark, medium and gold sequence for my 9 patches.  These will go in the pile for a future project. 

There are lots more dark-hued scraps waiting to be used up, so it will be fun to see what other inspiration strikes this week!  Angela's Soscrappy blog will surely have plenty of inspiration, so I'll be linking up there, as usual.