Extreme swaps!

If you've ever done a swap, you know you are at the mercy of your fellow swappers.  I have done 9 patches, nickels, charms, and these little 4 patches.  In every situation, I have been excited with some of the blocks or fabric as well as amazed that someone thought it was acceptable to include some others in the swap. I have to admit, I am still not over getting a charm square of pool balls that was thinner than toilet paper!

You may remember from previous posts that we had to do 800 4-patches that finish at 1.5".  Tiny little things.  But, when you are dealing with such small pieces, a variation of 1/8" is noticeable. Without showing examples and calling anyone out (including me), let's just say there is a LOT of variation in these.  Anytime you make 800 of anything, it's natural to lose your motivation, your mojo, and your accuracy.  Hence, the sashings help control the little stinkers who are less than accurate.

But -- I love them and this will be different from any quilt I have ever made.  And a few of the swappers are friends and our mutual history together is reflected in some of those little 4 patches.  As an aside, their little patches were just fine.  :-)

On the other side of swapping are these lovely little HSTs.  These were all done with friends and they are great!  We used Edyta Sitar's HST papers with a guideline of batiks in shades of autumn.  What a great way to do a swap.

We all used her papers and the accuracy is great.  Each of us stitched our papers, cut them, and divided them up.  That way, the recipient has to take off the papers, press them, and cut the bunny ears off.  I'm not sure what they will end up in but it's so fun to see them and I am loving that they are all the same size!

So -- two swaps.  Love them both but one requires a lot of finessing and one is ready to go once I get time and decide what to do.  Every swap is a roll of the dice and I think accepting the fact that some items are going to be less than perfect is worth the gamble!

I hope you're finding ways to create!

Jan

Remediation

Last month, I posted about this quilt and the problems I was having with the straight line quilting popping free.  I asked for suggestions about how to fix this and ended up with a lot to consider.

Many people suggested I cross hatch it by straight line quilting in the other direction.  That had never ever occurred to me but the thought of having to do that on my domestic machine was daunting.  And I don't have the right rulers to be able to it on Lola.  

Other suggestions were to repair the straight lines that were pulling and then be done with it.  Let them love it and enjoy it as it was originally designed.  That made me a little itchy because it meant the problem would continue.

Others suggested that I quilt over it on my long arm and then leave in the original stitching.  I so wish I had the ability to do that.  But the old stitching would make me nuts.

In the end, I pinned the quilt on Lola, put in a charcoal thread so I could distinguish from the original black quilting and did some square quilting on it.  I knew I didn't want to do any kind of swirly design that might overlap the original stitching and could be hard to manage.

I quilted it on a Wednesday and it was in the washer Sunday afternoon with all the old stitching taken out.  There were memory lines from the straight line quilting but I washed it again two weeks later and it's almost gone.  Taking out the stitches was relatively easy and a great project for the evening and was a great excuse NOT to be working on a Lollypop appliqué block.

We head to Toronto next week and I'm happy to be returning the quilt within 3 months of bringing it home.  Hopefully it has a number of good years left in it and can provide hours more cuddle time (or tent time for a 3 year old).  In the meantime, you all are an incredible source of knowledge and ideas.  Thanks to everyone that took the time to suggest a solution and give me something to think about.

I hope you are finding easy and right solutions for any problems you may be having!

Jan

Happy Easter!

Charity begins at home

I am so happy to say that I have my monthly allotment of charity quilts done and delivered -- for April and for May! That never happens. But, I'm a bit busy with some administrative work and I wanted to make sure that the baby quilts for the hospital got done. And since they were done, they might as well be delivered.  No sense having them here and then maybe forgetting them.

They are certainly varied. The "charity" part is that almost all the fabric was donated by friends and all I had to do was repurpose it. How sweet is that! Free fabric already in triangles or  4patches. Oh, yes, that's my kind of charity.

This quilt and the one below were made with triangles that monkeymamaquilts had leftover from a class we took at our local guild. I have railed about this pattern (instructions were dreadful) and waste of fabric (see what I mean). I won't go into it again, here. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to get her scraps and see what I could do to make them into quilts. The blocks finish at 8.5" or 9", I think.

For both of these, I practiced new "filler" quilting to see if I liked it and if it would work on a larger quilt. The answer for both is "yes" -- but I have some work I need to do to get better.

This little quilt was made from scraps from mom22smartchix and all I had to do is put the squares and 4 patches together. Love that! I practiced random free hand feathers for the quilting. Oh, my -- so much more to do in that area. I think it can work well for a boy or a girl and it's happy.

The owl fabric here is darling and the quilt is actually much cuter than it looks in the picture. The owls were compliments of mom22smartchix and were leftover from a baby quilt she had made for a friend. Because the motifs were big (and cute), I wanted to maximize the fabric and went with larger blocks. I practiced quilting flowers in each block. The flowers were fun and I'll definitely try them again.

So -- charity begins at home and I am fortunate to have a number of "charitable" friends who gift me parts and fabric periodically. I am oh-so-happy to play with them and see what can be done to pass on their blessing to someone else.

I hope your finding blessings along the way this week!

Jan

My March Madness

I love college basketball.  I am in Kentucky.  You pretty much have to love basketball and horse racing --- and maybe bourbon.

I'm happy to say that I have another Lollypop block done, thanks to a few hours of great (and not so great) basketball this past week.  It's actually very helpful to be focused on stitches and not plays and then count on instant replay to get you up to speed.  There are some "tension" issues on a few of the elements in this block and I'm blaming it on close games.

So -- six (of 16) are done, along with six (of 36) small border blocks.  The border blocks that you see here will finish at 4"x4" or 4"x6" and were a great way to use random scraps that were left over from the larger blocks.

I certainly need a break from appliquéing to let my fingers heal a bit.  But there is more basketball later this week. For Kentuckians, it's a big game. Louisville vs. Kentucky. And there are not many people in this state that are neutral. You bleed red or you bleed blue when these teams play. Once the winner is decided, there is a very small population that will cheer on the winning team that just happened to be your opposition in the previous game. I fall in that camp. I will vehemently root for the team that beat my guys.

For those of you who live in states where baseball or hockey or football are important, you know what I mean.  When we were in Chicago -- you were either a "southsider" (White Sox) or "northsider" (Cubs) but in the 10 years that I was there, I never heard "both"! I certainly knew people that didn't care either way -- if someone cared -- they cared about a particular team and often in a big way.

How wonderful for quilters that we often have a completely different approach ---

Applique or piecing?  Both

Batiks or cottons?  Both

Hand quilting or longarming?  Both

Brights or midrange?  Both

Machine applique or hand applique?  Both

Flannels or homespuns?  Both

Modern quilting or precision piecing?  Both

Solids or prints?  Both

We are happy to play in multiple sandboxes and -- if we don't -- we do not judge others who do.  Instead, we appreciate them and often want to learn from them.  So -- as much as I love some sports, I love quilting even more, don't you??

I hope you are having a great week of March Madness full of things that you love!

Jan

Surgery or a Band-aid?

I have a dilemma and I would deeply appreciate your thoughts.

This is a quilt that I made years ago for our son's girlfriend (who I'm happy to say is now my daughter-in-law and mother of our only grandchild).  With most any quilt, there are factors that make it special (at least to the quilt maker).  In the case of this quilt there are two:

• She was working with leaf cutter ants as part of her PhD in microbiology.  Thus, the ant fabric was the genesis for what other fabrics would be used.

• I paper pieced the Canadian maple leaf on the back.  I can't remember how many pieces are in this but I wanted to honor her with a special label. I will not do this again although I'm sure there is an easier pattern out there.  This is not my forte!

The dilemma is this.  I did not have easy access to a long arm machine at the time and quilted it on my Bernina.  I did straight line quilting about an inch apart and changed directions periodically for interest. But, all stitching was on the diagonal.  I really liked the look of it.

Now, several years later (8 to be exact) and after lots of use, the quilting stitching is breaking.  A lot.  I have the quilt in my possession and was going to repair it but was startled to find more than 30 breaks that range from 1'-1.5" to 3"-4".  And I suspect there are more -- this is black thread on a lot of black fabric and hard to see.

So -- I can only see two options:

1.  I can fix the black linear stitching like I had planned.

The good, bad, and ugly are:  I can do it pretty quickly; it will keep the linear stitching; and it will probably continue to rip out over time when the quilt is used.  So -- basically, it's fast and nothing else changes.  Essentially, a band-aid.

2.  I can put the quilt on Lola and quilt it with a more 'fluid" design in a different color thread and pick out the black stitching.  

The good, bad, and ugly are:  It will take longer; the linear "look" will be gone once I take out the black stitching; and it will be more secure with stitching going in lots of directions.  Essentially, surgery.

At the heart of the matter (I think) is whether the quilt is worthy of being saved.  It's not a show quilt and certainly not fancy.  It gets lots of use in a home that appreciates and loves my quilts and it's not the only quilt they have.  My son and daughter-in-law are NO help.  I mean NONE!  I believe they would be happy with either.  I am not happy with the fidelity of my stitching not being secure but I have never put a finished quilt on a long arm and then ripped stitching.  I cannot figure out whether it's "worth" it or not.  I am usually pretty decisive so being in limbo (or denial) is a new occurrence for me.

I welcome your thoughts and questions!

I hope you are finding time to create and not hamstrung by decisions!

Jan

Fabric, Selvage, and Bunnies!

Don't you just love this fabric?  Who wouldn't love tumbling owls! This is being used as a border in a baby dedication quilt for a couple locally.  It's sort of a compilation quilt with three of us getting it completed.  My part is done and I've passed it along to the next lucky quilter.

Other than making the top for the dedication quilt, I've spent the last weeks working on Lollypops which I won't bore you with.  Suffice it to say that all 36 of the small border blocks are glued down (not appliquéd!) and 11 large blocks are laid out and ready to be glued.  Yippee!  This is slow going -- much like watching paint dry.

During all the 'fun' of creating, I was notified by Lee at Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts (one of the blogs that I follow and periodically link to) that I had won a $25 gift certificate to Pink Chalk Fabrics.  If you have never checked out Lee's blog, it's worth your time.  She is creative, posts frequently, and loves fabric.  Check her out.  Often.

Who doesn't like hearing that they have won free stuff -- particularly at an online fabric shop.  Now, in reality, I had never heard of Pink Chalk Fabrics but I had loads of fun deciding how to spend my money.  You know the drill -- notions?  blenders?  sale fabric?  something really special?  All very important questions.  By all means, if you haven't shopped at Pink Chalk Fabrics, it's worth a look.  Great fabrics.  Good prices.  Good selection.

I finally decided on two cuts of children's fabric that I can use in my baby quilts for the local hospital. To maximize my spend, I went with good fabrics that were in the sale section.  I adore them.  Check out this fabric --

This is a Moda from Japan with the absolutely cutest selvage I have ever seen. Look at those little bunnies.  Tell me you have seen anything cuter in a selvage!

I am happy to say that I have not gotten on the selvage bandwagon.  I regularly admire the art created by those who are selvage lovers.  It's one of the few quilting bandwagons that I haven't jumped on and I remain committed to staying away from it.  But, these little selvages are too cute to throw away.  So, if you are a selvage lover and would like a set of "bunnies" -- I'm happy to tear an inch down the side and send a set to the first three folks who send me an email at iquiltforfun@gmail.com.   They are just too sweet not to be put to good use or at least admired by someone who loves selvages.

I hope you are finding fabric that makes you happy!

Jan