Corduroy III & IV

When I cut triangles I really cut triangles and so the broken dishes became a series of four.  I ran out of the floral after the borders of Quilts 1 and 2  but quilts don't have to have borders, some say quilts without borders are "modern" but look back at  antique quilts and many do not have borders. These do not have batting either.   I quilted with the meandering feather and concentric teardrops instead of in the ditch and tried very hard to avoid the intersections.  Broken needles, broken dishes and planned randomness.  --Ann--

Corduroy II

Broken Dishes II or Stars and Pinwheels.  Can you find where I matched the prints or values of the cords to make stars and pinwheels?  I see something random and I want to organize it. Darling daughter's college roommate got married in June and daughter was struggling with a gift for her so I said you are going to inherit most of these quilts someday anyway do you want to give her a quilt?  Within minutes of her contacting roomie's mom on face book she chose a quilt and I know its going to a good home.  Its never been used but its been washed and fluffed and labeled and now its been photographed and documented.  This is one that I missed in my scrapbook of quilts.  This is stitched in the ditch and I did not use a batting in the corduroy quilts.  --Ann--

Corduroy Series Broken Dishes I

Twenty years ago in 1997 I cut  my corduroy fabrics into 6 1/2 inch squares to make a broken dishes quilt.  The navy and gray cords were leftovers from trousers I sewed for my boys, the lightest pink was a jumper for daughter, one of the grays and the green were pants for me and the floral was intended for a jumper for me that never happened. To me the broken dishes pattern is a random arrangement of half square triangles to others it is 4 half square triangles sewn into a square in a square with no thought as to value or color.  I was random for a while then I grouped some into pinwheels, flying geese and directional rows that twist and turn.  But I only used a little of my fabric in this one so I made another and another.  --Ann--

Zinnias

 Don't you just love that fence made with bamboo sticks and twine woven to hold it together?!!  And such a riot of colors!  And these photos are pale compared to being there.  Some of the zinnias were as full as dahlias and the colors a little softer than old fashioned zinnias.  The swallowtail butterfly finally decided I wasn't going to steal the nectar from the flowers so it posed long enough for me to snap a few pics.  --Ann--

9 Patch Review

 All from the same bunch of 9 patches and all so different.  --Ann--

Sewing Machine Woes

 Last week I finished machine quilting all those quilts posted the past couple weeks.  After each quilt I sewed the binding with my Bernina and the walking foot.  I always use the walking foot for binding because then you don't get the stretch marks, I hate stretch marks especially on my clothes and quilt bindings and thighs.  Anyway the Bernina was making a lot of noise to the point where I was thinking about a new machine.    I went into the shop with the pretense of just getting some thread,  I had to linger over the machines.  Hubby Dear the Scottsman suggested I have it looked it after he saw the sale tags.   So another trip to Sioux Falls this time with my machine which I left for 11 long days.........they found a needle fragment in  the bobbin casing.  In the mean time I sewed the final binding on the last quilt with my old Elna SU which I have had for 40 years almost to the day.  I bought it at the South Dakota State Fair in 1977 the year before we got married because I knew he would never let me spend that much money on a sewing machine.  I think she was about $600. She has had a squeak but the squeak has turned into a screech like brakes on a car in need of replacing.  I'm taking her down to Sioux Falls when I pick up the Bernina.  I was without a sewing machine over the weekend so I couldn't do any piecing and my pile of quilts was all quilted so I couldn't machine quilt.  Then I thought go get Mom's old Elna super it's only been sitting the last 15 years fortunately it was under a dust cover.  She groaned at first so I oiled the red dots then I took apart the bobbin case lint was packed in like felt and I oiled it a little more to loosen up her joints and gears.  She's five years older than mine and I don't think my mother had her serviced as often as I did.  She's not purring like a kitten but she works and she is going to go to the shop too for a tune up just in case mine is past repair.  In the words of John Wayne in True Grit when he was eulogizing his dying horse "She never gave me a reason to cuss."  --Ann--

Stack and Whack Cardinals

 The  last quilt of my pile of basted quilts.  This has been sitting since the beginning of the year because I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it.  I pinned the last three quilts to my design wall as I quilted the previous quilt so I could glance at it and think about what would be the best way to quilt each.  This quilt also has the puffy wool batting so I didn't want to crush the loft with too much quilting.  I swung a double arc in each of the pinwheel blades and the rest is simple geometry with arcs from point to point.  The quilting in the background areas suggests ribbons and bows or holly leaves that aren't too prickly.  The setting triangles are arcs like palm leaves and the border is the baptist fan which I marked and after a soak in cold water you wouldn't know that I deviated from the marks more than once.   This one is going on my bed this Christmas or maybe on the wall.  --Ann--

Last nine patch on eclipse day

It seems appropriate to post a quilt with black in it on the day of the solar eclipse. Thunderstorms are in the forecast here during the eclipse.  The last nine patch is quilted, this might be my favorite because the colors are so bold but also very cozy looking or maybe it is because there is a crispness to the air in the evenings and early mornings. This quilt has a wool batting in it which has a lot more loft than any of the cotton battings.  I didn't want to loose the puffiness by quilting too densely.  I free motion quilted all the arcs and they look pretty uniform for free hand work just goes to show what practice and repetition do for the end product.   --Ann--

Purple Flowers

 I don't think I have ever found a shade of lavender or purple flowers that I haven't' loved.  --Ann--

Black Eyed Susans

 Interrupting the quilting for a trip to the gardens.  I was helping weed at McCrory gardens again its a never ending job but we only weed or plant for an hour a day so we don't exhaust ourselves and then to walk around and enjoy the flowers makes it a reward.  I stopped in front of the Black Eyed Susans.  At first I just saw a mass of yellow flowers and as I snapped a few pics I saw all the variations.  And then there was a honey bee gathering  the pollen, she just stuffed all the pollen into her jodhpurs and went to the next.  --Ann--