Sister's Surprise

One of the quilts I had on my list of things to do was a quilt for my sister.  I did make a lap quilt for her many years ago as well as some table runners and table toppers within the last three years or so for her new home but this one was a larger size.

On a recent visit to my home, she used a quilt I keep in our family room which is a great size when watching TV on chilly nights.  She loved the size!  It is bigger than a lap quilt but smaller than a bed quilt.  I already knew her favorite colors so now that I knew what size would work I started formulating a quilt design in my head.  I found a pattern on the Missouri Star Quilt Company's website that had just published a tutorial for it.

This quilt was made with precuts, also from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I have grown very fond of precuts and have a few many charm packs, jelly rolls and layer cakes from there.  This particular quilt was made from two layer cakes, one all white and one of many patterns in blue (Annabelle by Windam Fabrics).  I used yardage from the same line for the border and Charlotte by Kensington Studios for the  backing.

The HST blocks were made from one of the blue layer cake squares and one of the white layer cake squares.  This produced 8 HSTs when the squares were placed right sides together and then sewn around all four sides with a 1/4" seam.  Then the unit was cut from corner to corner and in half from side to side and top to bottom.  I love this method!  The blocks were pressed to the dark side and squared up to 6.5 inches using my Bloc_Loc ruler.  This ruler makes squaring up so easy!

Layout of squares

Testing border fabric

Testing double borders

Having lots of space to layout the quilt is a big help when chain piecing.  One mistake here could result in lots of unstitching!  Ask me how I know!  I was in a quandary about the border or borders.  I finally decided on a single border and would plan on using the white yardage to make the binding.  As is my usual practice, I made the binding once the borders were added so everything was ready after the quilting was finished.

At this point my sister did not know I was making this quilt for her.  But now it was time to get the quilting done.  This was the one thing I wanted her pick so I took her to the quilt shop where the quilting would be done and surprised her with the quilt.  She picked out a beautiful pattern!  I showed her the binding I planned to add but she wanted a bit more color in the binding.  When I showed her several samples of flange binding, she made her decision.  It did make a beautiful finish to the quilt and I was able to bind by machine this time rather than hand sew the binding down.

Quilt backing

Flange binding

This is the finished quilt after being hand delivered to my sister in mid-March.  She loved it and I am sure it will be put to good use!  I love this pattern and I am sure more quilts will be made using it!

My revised blog is almost up to date with finished projects.  I have a few more posts to make which will be done within a few weeks.  Then on to some new projects.  Stay tuned!

Binding at the Beach

I realize it is still winter with snow on the ground and more predicted (at least where I live) but this is actually a catch-up post for the first of 3 quilts I finished up last October.  My blog was undergoing renovations so I delayed posting anything until the blog was back up and running.  So this posting will share memories of binding 3 quilts while my husband and I were on our annual fall Cape Hatteras vacation.  I was busy that fall making a large quilt for my sister-in-law to celebrate her retirement from the Virginia Beach school system.  If our schedules mesh, we stop by my brother and sister-in-law's house on our return trip from Hatteras back to NJ.  I also made toddler quilts for their 2 grand daughters.  It was my plan to have all of them completed so they could be dropped off during our visit.

The pressure was on!

The quilt for my SIL was well underway prior to our vacation trip.  The pattern was similar to the Super Simple Squares pattern on the Missouri Star Quilt Company (MSQC) website.  Check out the tutorial for this quilt.  I used a layer cake from my stash and cut it into quarters to make charm squares.  I used a solid ecru fabric, also from my stash, to cut the cornerstone blocks and the sashing.  The backing was also from my stash.  The quilt ended up being 70" by 82" when completed.  The quilting was done by the wonderful folks at the Old City Quilts shop.  While waiting for the quilting to be completed, I made the binding and had it ready to travel!

While the Hubs was fishing, I made myself comfortable in the cab of our truck.  I had nice music and beautiful ocean views which provided a very calming background for sewing down the binding.  I love using the Wonder Clips instead of pins on the binding.  No blood shed here!

You can see the circular quilting in the picture below.  I thought the circular stitching was a nice contrast to the square blocks and linear sashing.

The picture below was taken at the headquarters for Cape Hatteras State Park.  Lots of cars stopped to see the photo shoot!  One little sneaky critter watched us from behind the sign in front of the flag.  I did not notice him until I was looking at the pictures full size.  See the sweet little deer face?

I will post pictures and details of the two toddler quilts in the next post.  Thanks for reading chapter 1 of this story!  

Farmer's Wife Quilt - Update 1

It's been a while since I updated the status of this project.  My original post is dated 2/10/2015 so maybe "a while" is a relative term.  I did choose the accurate title for that post - "My Intentional UFO" - it still holds true today!  You can see that post here.

I decided that in 2018 I was ready for a project that I could work on for an extended period of time as my schedule allowed, and had no deadlines or pressure to finish.  I wanted something that I would enjoy doing and that would teach me new quilting techniques or refresh ones I had not done in a while.  The project chosen in 2015 was still a good choice in 2018.  As indicated in my original post, I already purchased the book for The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt and started choosing blocks and fabrics that I would use so I just picked up from where that project left off.

I did decide against using the 30s fabrics as originally chosen though.  I eventually chose the "Simply Harvest" line of fabrics by Marcus fabrics.  I will also use some Moda Marble solids with this fabrics to add a bit of variety since there are 111 blocks in this project.

My original post may have mentioned that I joined a Face Book page called Farmer's Wife Quilt Revival Class 2018. It was started by Karen Walker.  The purpose of the page is to provide a way to make this sampler quilt using rotary cutter techniques.  It has been a wealth of information, support and inspiration.  Karen has created 12 classes for this sampler quilt which explain a variety of techniques to make the blocks.  The classes are available for purchase and I have found them extremely helpful.  

So, I have completed 8 blocks so far.  I am a bit off my original schedule of 2 blocks per week but I had several projects to complete and my blog was getting a much needed makeover!  I didn't want to add anything to the older blog while it was undergoing the revisions.  My new blog now has a separate page where I can list all the blocks and the order in which I will hope to make them.  You can see this new page in my navigation bar.  Here are my first 8 blocks.

 

Taking pictures really helps to point out mistakes!  My broken dishes block had an oops in the bottom left corner!  I quickly fixed this before it was sewn together!   

 Now, it's ready to sew!  I love the design boards that I used to move my blocks from cutting board to sewing machine to ironing board.  I learned to make these from a tutorial I saw on the Fat Quarter Shop YouTube page. They are very easy to make and make the blocks in progress very portable!  

I hope to have several blocks cut in the next 2 weeks.  Watch for the next update!  

Sailing the Seas for Batiks

One of the exciting events that occurred in April of 2017 was a 12 day cruise of the Caribbean.  I had no way of doing anything quilty other than reading a few quilting magazines by the pool on our beautiful ship.  We did schedule several excursions to the nearby islands so I was hoping I could find some fabrics to bring home.

The last island we visited was St. Kitts.  I knew I had a good chance of finding some fabric there, especially batiks.  To my surprise, one of the two locations this excursion would take us to was a batik factory!  The bad news was the stop was only 20 minutes long!  The bus pulled up to the side of the road where we could see several clothes lines covered with large sheets of batik fabrics drying in the beautiful sunshine!

Inside the building was a room where several fabrics were being made with wax and a variety of inks in a rainbow of colors.  I watched some of the process but I kept my eye on the clock to make sure I left enough time to shop.  And shop I did!  My wonderful husband said "get what you want".  He's a keeper!

After shopping and picking out a 3 yard length of beautiful fabric, we left the building to see some of the flower filled grounds.  Then it was time to get back on the bus!

I was also able to purchase some batik fabric from a shop in Antigua which was imported from India.  Of course I could not resist a good sale so I bought 2 yards there.

This picture was taken in front of a 400 year old tree.  It made me feel very young!

This was our chariot for the day.  The driver knew lots of wonderful stories about the island.  No one was left behind today, even if they took more than 20 minutes!

These are the treasures I bought on the cruise.  The blue fabric was purchased in Antigua and the large leaf fabric was purchased in St. Kitts.  I hope both places survived the devastating hurricanes that hit the islands recently.  I am not sure how the fabrics will be used but I am sure I will find the perfect pattern for them which will bring back lots of good memories of my island shop-hop!