Design Wall

Cuppa Cappa Mocha Choca Latte or just Coffee and Cream quilt but I prefer my coffee black and unadulterated

diagonal rows of light and dark

split Ohio Stars in shades of brown and tan

darks  together and light together

No two stars have the same fabrics they are all cut from 6" x 18" strips of fabric from bales from a company called Merryvale. Merryvale would buy an entire line of fabric and cut it into 6 inch  squares and bales and send samples to quilt guilds for a fundraiser. It was really wonderful if there was not a quilt store in the area because we could get the newest fabric available. I sorted the browns from many bales for these blocks and will make at least as many more for this quilt. This collection of fabric must go back 12 years so I may have a challenge finding a border fabrics.

alternating light and dark grouping similar colors and values together

Will there be a follow up in 6 months to see who has finished?  Goals and deadlines are always good.


Happy stitching,
Ann

Deck the walls with quilts and Santa

Just put the finishing stitches in my Santa and Child wall quilt.

the black thread really does add to Santa's eyes and face.

Happy Christmas Decorating,
Ann

Progress on Santa

The machine quilting is my favorite part. I must have pressed some parts too many times and melted the adhesive right off the bird's beak. I never had that experience before with fused applique.

In the past month I saw a quilt of a couple girls with long hair and mactavishing quilting in the hair and I made a mental note to study it more when I was closer to the quilting stage for quilting the beard. I have looked through 2 years worth of magazines trying to find the quilt and can't. My friends Jane and Phyllis came over earlier in the week  and Phyllis knew the quilt I was talking about but couldn't remember which magazine it was in either. So I wasn't dreaming it!!!!
Since I couldn't find the quilt I decided I should practice mactavishing the beard before I put it under the needle. That almost sounds surgical but I don't want rip and leave scars. So I put a sheet of tissue paper over the pattern and drew my quilting lines then laid it over the quilt consider the possibilities.

so far so good

there are three different white on white fabrics in Santa's beard and hair. I used gold metallic thread for the star rays and halo and broke three needles in the process, the thread usually breaks not the needles.

I still need to add some black quilting lines to Santa's face for  depth.

so close to finishing.

Happy Quilting,
Ann

Happy Thanksgiving

This Thom Turkey got away. He looks like a tough old bird.

The oranges and legs are fabrics I dyed in college



quilting on the back free motion leaves and acorns

last years turkey dinner it was soooo good

Blessings,
Ann

New Project Santa

Santa Claus is coming. Santa and Child pattern from Doggone Quilts.com

Its amazing how a little Christmas music gets my fingers working a little faster.

If you loved playing with paper dolls and puzzles you will love making a Doggone Quilts pattern. It is lots of tracing, cutting and fusing. It works best to trace a small part of the quilt at one time, like all of the cow then fuse to selected fabrics, cut, reassemble and fuse to the backing otherwise it is completely overwhelming keeping track of all those pieces.

I took a few liberties with the pattern and changed the bows so the tails were straight. My sky fabric had stars so I just cut one star and straightened the rays so they shine on the Christ Child.

 I used a Dutch Wax print that my mother bought me when my parents were in the Netherlands at least 15 years ago for the blanket around the baby.Every time I pulled this fabric out of the stash I puzzled over how to use it. To fussy cut it would waste so much fabric in any shape other than hexagons and to cut hexagons and sew them back together seemed redundant so there it sat. You can see I carefully cut the blanket parts from the edges so I wouldn't waste fabric. It was the logical choice for the border. I added a narrow accent strip of gold because it needed a little spacer. Now to machine quilt around all those little parts.

Happy Quilting,
Ann

End of the Scrap Pile

Log Cabin

private collection

This Log Cabin quilt is made entirely of leftovers from previous quilts and backing. The center squares are different sizes, the logs around are varying widths. When I thought the blocks were big enough I  squared and trimmed them all to the same size.

Most of the fabrics are woven plaids and stripes  a few are printed stripes and plaids.

The only thing more fun than buying new fabric is using is all up but I frequently wish I had a little more because I have the perfect place for it in the next quilt. Then I have to go fabric shopping again its a vicious circle!
I did run out of cut strips for some of these quilts and had to dig in my stash to find someting that would work. That is all part of the challenge and charm of scrap quilts. Making due just like Grandma. I miss my Grandmas.


Happy Quilting,
Ann

Scrap Pile VI

Buzz Saw is all plaids and stripes, mostly homespuns.

private collection

Large half square triangles were sewn together then 2 1/2 inch strip were cut from the half squares. The strips were rearranged in reverse order then sewn back together with the addition of another 2 1/2 inch strip to make it square again.

The buzz saws just called for sun faces and mandala designs in the quilting.

No two buzz saws are quilted the same.

quilting on the back

private collection

chalk lines for quilting the sun faces

Another version of the Buzz Saw because I cut twice as many squares for HST as I needed.  I goofed on this quilt big time. I learned you have to pay attention to how you place the HST on the cutting board. All diagonals need to be the same upper left to lower right and always cut vertically. I cut my second group of 4 HST horizontally so my spin was opposite the first buzz saw, then the smaller "buzz saw" became a horizontal arrangement or a vertical. I had to repeat my mistake so it would be symmetrical. And the funny thing is this was the second quilt. The first quilt was easy because I
read and followed  the directions. I tried to do the second quilt from memory a couple years later and oops!!!!!





Learning from my mistakes,
Ann

scrap pile V

Log Cabin Spools is made with scrappy log cabin blocks with triangles sewn to each corner to create the spools. The spools were all made from the same fabric for unity.

The pattern is from Kim Diehl's book Simple Blessings, she calls it buttons and bows and has a button sewn in the center of each log cabin.

This quilt has found a permanent home on my dining room wall and yes that is another quilt on the table and we do eat on it. My kids used their nice table manners when the table was set nice or maybe the quilt just muffled a lot of the noise. The quilt on the wall also softens the noise.

Happy Dining,

Ann

Scrap Pile IV

Hopscotch and Stars

sold on Etsy

Hopscotch and Stars is the same block as Hopscotch and Butterscotch. The sashing is narrower so the cornerstones are smaller. Dark Blue cornerstones are placed with all the four patches and warm colored cornerstones are placed with the triangles. The intersecting triangles are not all the same color so the design pattern is not as strong as in Butterscotch and Hopscotch.

A third design emerges as the inside triangles are matched for color and value. Do you see the stars? Some are very subtle.

Happy Quilting,
Ann

Scrap Pile III

Hopscotch and Butterscotch

Hopscotch and Butterscotch consists of two 4 patchs and two half square triangles. I have seen it in books and magazines called the jewel box or variation of a Jacob's ladder.

 The sashing and cornerstones make a secondary pattern frequently called the shoofly, churn dash or hole-in-the-barn-door block. Quilting is folkart and the names of blocks were made up by plain folks so there are many names for almost every block.

I places a dark blue cornerstone where the 4-patches intesect for continuity of the strong diagonal movement. I placed and orange or red cornerstones where the triangles meet to call your attention to the shoofly.  A few butterflies flit across the quilt where the inside triangles meet.

This is where I'll be snuggled up when the cold winds blow.

Happy Quilting,
Ann

Scrap pile II

Twilight Stars consists of a courthouse steps block, a variation of the log cabin block and the evening star block which has long star points. Today's quilters call it a tri rec star because of  Darlene Zimmerman's wonderful tri rec tools for putting a triangle in a square. It has more plaids than the other quilts from this group of fabrics. Alternating light and dark stars with the courthouse steps creates a strong design.

sold on Etsy

Happy Quilting,
Ann

Scrap Pile Quilts

Fall blew in the other day and with a few strong gust it quickly turned to winter.

Revising November 2009 post. Now I know how to make pictures larger and place them where I want in the text. ( I think Blogger has made it easier since then)

It feels like winter outside with a strong northwest wind but fortunately it is not delivering snow. It makes me want to wrap up in a quilt.

These quilts all started from the same pile of fabrics. As I was cutting the strips for Windpower it dawned on me to cut the rest of the fabric into strips for future projects. The other quilts I had in mind would require 2 1/2"  4 1/2"  3"  2" and 1 1/2" strips. I cut until the fabric was gone. The tedious part was done. As I started on each quilt I cut the strips into squares or triangles as needed and happily mixed and sewed.

sold on Etsy

Windpower is made from the Lady of the Lake block. I matched three of the large triangles in each block to represent the three blades of the wind turbines popping up all over the upper Midwest.

I sewed half blocks for the borders. the large triangles with the small triangles on point makes me think of how short hair stands on end when the wind is swirling. There is a humility block in the border. Pattern for this quilt is in The Quilter's Kitchen by Darlene Zimmerman and Joy Hoffman, they called it Bread Pudding.

another installment from the scrap pile tomorrow

Happy Quilting,
Ann

Puddle Ducks

This quilt was inspired by the Goose Tracks  in October 31 post. I had been working on projects using mostly Cabbage Rose fabrics and had just gotten the Goose Tracks quilt back from Kay Peterson, the long arm quilter. I thought instead of plain half square triangles with the 4 patches why not use the goose track and since it was April and our world was still a muddy mess from melting snow I thought to add the duck and duckling or hen and chicks block depending on your preference in barnyard fowl. (that's a really long run on sentence but then most of my thoughts are really run on too)

this is the goose track block

This is the block used in constructing this quilt, a variation of the Jacob's ladder or jewel box block which would have 2 equal sized triangles with sashing and cornerstones between each block.

Sashing and cornerstones pull the goose tracks and duck and ducklings together.

Dudk and duckling block, the large triangle with small triangles

The entire quilt was planned on my design wall before the 4 patches and duck units were sewn together, then the blocks were put back on the wall before the sashing and cornerstones were added. Everything thing had to be kept in order or I would have a ducks foot stepping on or kicking a duckling.

Puddle Ducks

The finished quilt is 54" x 74" I free motion quilted it on my Bernina with a variegated thread in a concentric tear drop pattern.

Happy Quilting,
Ann

Quilters Blog Festival

This blog fest has been so much fun to see so many quilts and all the wonderful stories. I have added many blogs to favorites and blog list. And hope some of these bloggers become friends I can feel it already. Reading the comments has been so much fun and uplifting. I will comment more on the blogs I follow and hope other bloggers do the same as I am learning much.

Happy blogging,
Ann