WIPs Beyond Wednesday

Yesterday I had lunch with M, one of my SAQA colleagues who lives fairly close by.  We had a lovely lunch, followed by a visit to Gracie D's Antiques, so M could see where some of my minis were displayed, awaiting new homes with happy purchasers.

Just as we came out of Gracie's, the first few snow-flakes began to fall.  By the time she dropped me at the Post Office -- so I could mail some Christmas gifts -- the snow was intensifying, and within minutes of my reaching home (on foot), it was really coming down...and so it continued late into the evening.

A perfect opportunity to stay in the sewdio.

What follows is a sample of what I've worked on this week:

1.  I put together the last block of the last of three full "Block-of-the-Month" quilts I found in a drawer late in 2012.  I've done one set per year since...and now each can be set/sashed, sandwiched and quilted.

"Zen" BOM - December
"Aunt Nancy's Favourite"

2.  I finished the first crib-throw quilt top for refugees that are expected to arrive in the next few weeks. Here it is, spread out on my kitchen floor:

Pattern: "Chunky Churn Dash" from Bonnie Hunter
All fabrics from stash - approx 42" W x 62" L

3. I finished and mailed these mittens and neck-warmer to my nephew in B.C. (he doesn't read this blog):

Now I'm making a similar set for my son (he doesn't read this blog either.  :-)  )

My nephew has a fiance...I mailed her gift along with his.

4. And last night I finished the second Chunky Churn Dash crib/throw:

The reason you can see only part of it here is because it's hanging on my design wall, and the bottom is obscured in part by my sewing table!  It finished at about 42" W x 60" L.

I still have a stack of fabric that's suitable (no florals, no animals, no discernible "images" on it) so I dug out my copy of Successful Scrap Quilts from Simple Rectangles by Judy Turner and Margaret Wolfe and will turn to that for the next one.

Friday I hope to get to Homespun Seasons in Stettler -- my LQS of choice -- for batting...and the quilting can begin.

However...it may just have to wait a bit.  I'm still knitting gifts, and have yet to assemble the 2015 edition of the Annual Christmas Boxer Shorts...

Meanwhile, let's join the group for WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network, and see what's happening over there, eh?

'Bye for now!

A Visit to Yesteryear

This keeping quiet is paying off!  Limiting my computer time daily -- with or without background music -- means that I'm spending more time doing What Needs to Be Done, as well as What I Want to Do (you know as well as I that these two aren't always the same!).

For example, the first section of the Japanese Taupe Quilt is now together in its entirety.  When I laid it out on the twin bed in the guest room -- whoa!  To think this is only one of four planned sections...and that there will be wide swaths of applique in between them.

What am I thinking?! Well...I'm thinking that I'm about to start quilting-as-I-go.  The pieced blocks will be done by machine and the plain blocks, with Sashiko-style hand quilting.  To that end, I went out yesterday and bought wide backing.  It's beautiful stuff too -- taupe marbled batik-like stuff.  Alas, it has no identification on the selvedge, so I can't give you the name of the line, designer or manufacturer...but it's perfect!  And, bless her heart, when she saw my rough draft of the design, Caroline -- of Caroline's Homespun Seasons in Stettler -- agreed to cut the backing for me in sections so I wouldn't have to worry about laying out and cutting a ginormous piece of fabric for my QAYG sections.  :-)  (Note to readers from the Southern US: up here 'bless her heart' means exactly that.  (Grin))

I also got my September block done for the 4 x 4 Block of the Month -- you know, the one I'm doing from the kits bought in another lifetime back in Calgary.  This one has a Christmas Theme in its fabrics, but the blocks are classic patterns.  I really like September's selection:

Wild Rose & Square

Where have I seen those chevron shapes before?  Oh yes -- in the mysterious fabric pieces found in a basket at the Mirror & District Museum:

But the "Museum Pieces" are all-in-one -- not constructed from separate sections using 1/2-square triangles.  Along with these pieces we found 3" squares, and some diamonds -- very scrappy, with much of the fabric appearing to be genuinely from the nineteen-thirties!  What did the quilter have planned when life got in the way?

Was it a LeMoyne Star block?  Nope; not enough pieces.

I wandered down to the Mirror Library and found a treasure: Better Homes & Garden's America's Heritage Quilts (Meredith Corporation, 1991).  In there, I found two other possibilities for these pieces: a Peony block and a Carolina Lily block.  The latter stems from Civil War days, and features one or three "blossoms" in a "basket".

Single Blossom Version
Photo - Lillian's Cupboard, 2011

Three-blossom Version
Photo - Generations Quilt Patterns

These didn't seem quite right, so I researched the Peony block and found this on the Shelburne Museum website.  It too features multiple blossoms...though you can find it in single-blossom versions too.

Catherine Bolster's Peony Quilt

To add to my excitement: you can purchase this pattern -- and the templates with which to make it -- and one of the templates is an all-of-a-piece chevron, just like the pieces we found at the museum.

I thought I'd try to make a replica using stash -- albeit fairly contemporary fabric (no thirties scraps or Civil War reproductions; sorry!)  Blessedly, the book had instructions on how to do set-in (in-set?) seams:

I tried it by both hand and machine:

Can you tell which is which?

The hand-pieced version was actually easier and a bit neater, but if you look closely you'll notice there's a tiny pucker at that inside corner, regardless of method used.  Clearly set-in (in-set?) seams take practice!

Here's the block now...still in pieces, without stem or leaves...modelled after the photo in the B H &G book.

Single Peony block under construction

In other news...MOB stitching and Christmas knitting continue...and I finished a third 'mini' so that I could put all three in the mail to Different Strokes Gallery yesterday:

Prairie Oasis (C) 2014

Before I sent them off, I took them down to the new antiques-and-gifts shop in town -- Gracie D's -- and it was agreed I should make up a half-dozen for them to try on in the shop.  :-)

My morning computer time is over...must away -- but first, I'll like this up to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  See you later!

Fresh Out of the Dryer

The four main fabrics for my version of Bonnie Hunter's next pieced mystery quilt, "Easy Street".  Sandy's got hers posted, so I figured I'd better hop to it!

As Bonnie suggested, I 'shopped my stash' for all the colours except the green.  That's one metre, and I bought it Saturday at Carolyn's Homespun Seasons, my fave quilt shop in Stettler.  (My friend A suggested I go with orange, but I wanted to cool those hot pinks off a bit, so I went with green.)  Washed 'em up yesterday, along with these:

My background fabrics.  I really want to use the funky print on the bottom of that stack.  For one thing, it's what I have most of.  I got it in a donation of fabrics a year or more ago and kept it, thinking I could back something with it, but now I'm thinking it just might be fun cut up for background.  it has some pinky-red in it, and a touch of the green, too.

Most of these are fabrics I've had for ages, that just won't be making their way into my artwork any time soon. Some are left-overs from other projects -- off-cuts and excesses, like a chunk of purple I used to back a purple and red wedding quilt for friends of my daughter's who married in 2006.   The nice thing about working them into a mystery quilt top is that I'll begin with the ones I'm least likely to use elsewhere, and go from there.

I'm using my participation in the mystery quilt-along as 'break time' when my work on my C&G Final Assessment Piece gets bogged, or threatens to make my brain explode during the final design process.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow for all my American friends...I'm thankful you're part of my stitching treasures!