Conunrum

I have just uploaded the last quilt photos from my camera to my computer, and then I started sorting. Sounds strange. But I did not document or even label most of my quilts, so now I am trying to remember when I made each quilt because I want to present them as best I can in chronological order.

But that presents another problem. Do I go by when I selected the fabrics, or when I started cutting/sewing, or when the quilt top is finished, or when the quilt is finished? From start to done-done finished (with binding and label), some of my quilts have taken more than 10 years to be done-done finished!

To make things a bit easier to identify age-wise, I sorted my photos into specific time periods (marked by major events or by where I lived). Then within each category, I have tried to remember the sequence of which quilt came before or after other quilts.

That's the best I can do, and I'm not going to worry about it any longer.

Now that *that's* done, on to another quilt...

I know one of my earliest quilts was a baby quilt I made for the first daughter of my youngest brother. That means I made it about 21-22 years ago. Here it is:



While this quilt looks like it has blocks in it, it doesn't. It was assembled in strips. The individual strips were pieced and then they were sewn together before the final, plain border was attached. Talk about fussy piecing. I really needed a design wall, but I didn't know such a thing existed. Maybe at that time it didn't. Who knows. I have thought about that quilt a few times in the past and considered making myself a larger one. But now that I remember how it has to be put together, well, I think I have more than enough other projects that require my attention that I probably won't do a large version.

Now, please pay attention to this announcement as you won't hear it very often: I did the machine quilting on this quilt! Very simple straight-line stitching, but I'm the one who did it. All the blame, all the credit comes right here.

Kathy

And the quilting habit takes off!

After finishing the quilt from the first quilting class that I had taken, my interest in making quilts increased. I went to Quilt in a Day and found a pattern that I liked. Well, what I *really* liked was the quilt on the cover of the book. And *that* was the quilt I wanted to make - white with red floral and blue floral fabrics. I really tried to duplicate that quilt. I'm sure I spent more than an hour looking for fabric that would result in a quilt that looked similar to the quilt on the cover. I finally realized it wasn't going to happen. So I spent nearly as much time trying to find 5 other fabrics to use in that pattern. I think this is the quilt that gave me the most problems in finding fabrics. Maybe it was because I was still a beginner. Maybe it was that the shop did not have the fabric selections that *I* needed (and still need - the more fabric in the shop, the happier I am). Eventually, I went with "close enough". Here's the quilt:



And here's what you cannot see from the photo: The lightest peach/coral fabric is a multi-color print that contains green. But it is an olive-y green. And the other "green" fabrics are really blue-ish green. If you put the multi-color light peach next to either of the greens, they just do NOT play well together - at least if you look at them closely. However, when I look at the entire quilt (not the individual parts), my eye doesn't see those clashing greens. It sees the peachy color. And the darker coral color plays up the blending colors from the lighter fabric. So the end result is still pleasing.

So the lesson from this quilt is that colors don't need to match perfectly. It's the totality of the effect, how the major colors play with each other, and the light/medium/dark contrasts that are important.

Oh, I still sometimes try to get too matchy-matchy with my fabrics. One of my more recent quilts (one of my favorites and I do love it) was made from at least 25-30 different print fabrics, yet somehow the quilt kinda looks like it was made from only 2 fabrics, a light and a dark. I'll get to that one later in my quilting chronicles.

But, before I end this post, I'm going to show you another quilt made from the same pattern...



My niece wanted a pink and purple quilt (she was about 8 or 9 at the time). I had lots of pink, but I didn't have purple. (Or it was more that I wasn't sure I could work on pink & purple in the same quilt.) As I had lots of blue, I substituted. Some years later, I kind of regretted not using pink/purple since that was what she asked for, but by then it was too late. Anyway, I really liked how her quilt was turning out and decided I wanted one like it. But as I measured how much fabric I had left, I didn't have quite enough to make an identical quilt. But, as it turned out, by changing color placement I could still make a similar quilt. The one you see in the photo above is mine. My niece's quilt has the exact same fabrics used in the same way, but where mine is blue hers is pink and where mine is pink hers is blue.

I mentioned that this was the same pattern as the earlier photo. It is. It's just that pieces of the block are colored differently from the earlier quilt (and not just the change from green/coral to pink/blue). In the coral/green quilt, there are roundish areas of white. These are really white squares with 2 coral corners and 2 green corners. But in the pink/blue quilt, the white squares have 4 light blue corners. The 9-patches in the pink/blue quilt have white centers, while the 9-patches in the coral/green quilt have 9 colored squares. What an amazing difference color placement can make.

Kathy

My interest in quilting begins...

I enjoyed that first quilt for several years without making any other quilts. About the time that my mother expressed an interest in starting to make quilts, I received a crafting catalog that had quilt kits in it. There were two that I liked so I ordered them. When they finally arrived, I was a bit disappointed. The fabric had already been cut into strips (width of fabric). And, I'm not sure, but I think the fabric was not 100% cotton. At least, it had a kind-of stiff feeling to it that I didn't care for. I did make one of the kits and realized that the quilt was not as big as I would like for my bed. So I went to the fabric store and hunted up some kind of fabric that would do as a border (which was not included in the kit, what was up with that?). I did get the quilt top finished. And it was large enough (barely) to use on my bed. Not quilted, just tied. I don't have a photo of this quilt because I don't have it anymore (I hadn't started photographing my quilts yet).

The other kit stayed a kit for maybe 10-15 years before I finally made it. It didn't have any border fabric, either. So I made do with what I could find at a quilt shop. It is definitely *not* the second (or even third) quilt that I ever made. But it was one of my first quilt-related purchases.



After I finished it, I thought that I would probably give it away. But I think it has grown on me. I will probably make a final decision after it gets machine-quilted by a professional longarmer. If I were making this quilt from a pattern and I were using the same colors, I would probably make sure that there were different sizes/visual textures to the different colored-fabrics. But, still, when it is finished, it will keep someone warm, whether me or someone else.

As for the first quilt that *I* planned (pattern, fabric, etc), that was from a pattern that was eventually called "A Winning Hand" (a variation of "Card Trick"). The pattern had not yet been published by Quilt in a Day. The class I took may have been used as testers for the final pattern. Mackie, the author of the published book, was teacher for the class I took at QIAD. This is the first quilting class I ever took, and where I started learning the "hows" of making a quilt, like a 1/4 inch seam, rotary cutting, etc.



It's awfully pink, isn't it. The background is a solid, but the sashing is tone-on-tone. One of the "cards" in the blocks is a solid. And with this quilt, I learned that tone-on-tone reads as solid from even a short distance. So if I stand back just a little, I see what looks like a lot of "solid". Even so, I still like this quilt. The floral fabric remains one of my favorite fabrics. This quilt was finished using the "birthing" technique that I learned at QIAD, and then was tied all over.

The back of this quilt has its own story: I thought I had bought enough fabric for a backing. What I did not take into account is that once I was ready to add borders I wanted the quilt to be larger than the pattern specified (I like extra length hanging down the sides of my bed). When I started to cut/piece the plain light pink fabric for a back, I, uhhhh, mmmm, well..... To put it bluntly, there was just not *quite* enough fabric for the entire back of the quilt. Oh, shoot! Now what to do? I pondered, and thought, and pondered some more. Eventually, if I recall correctly, my eyes fell on the extra squares of the fabric that I had used on the front. Hmmm.... Is there some way I can make use of those? I wonder.... What if... "Racing stripes?" Would that work? So I did a little figuring, and, YES! it will work. The result:



Some few years ago, I decided that I would like it to be quilted and decided to hand quilt it. I just started hand quilting 1/4" away from the seams of the "cards" on the inside of the cards. Ooops! When I look at the quilting from the back, it looked like a swastika. Yikes! Out came all the hand quilting. Thank goodness it was only one block.

I have not (yet) revisited the idea of hand-quilting this quilt; it remains tied.

By the time this quilt top was finished, I was hooked. I knew I would be making more quilts.

Kathy

History of my quilting

I just finished taking photos of my quilts and uploading them to Webshots. I had already uploaded some, and today I uploaded photos of 18 quilts that I made (or planned) and another 5 quilts that were made by others. While taking the photos, I decided that I wanted to describe the history/background/decision-making/lesson learned behind each quilt.

However, if I try to do this all at once, the blog post will be *huge*. So, instead, I will take them one by one, in as much in order that they were made as I can remember.

Ready for some history?

MY VERY FIRST QUILT!

I was at my Grandmother's house and she was cleaning out and getting rid of "stuff". She unearthed a quilt that her mother had made. It was truly falling apart. Many of the seams had come apart ( and it was easy to see that she used a blanket for the batting!). It really was in bad shape. My grandmother was going to throw it out. ACK!!! "Noooooo", I objected. I couldn't imaging throwing out a quilt made by my great-grandmother. I figured, "I know how to sew. So I can save parts of this quilt by making (re-making) it." Keep in mind that I had never made a quilt before. Here's a photo of this quilt after I finished it:



Looking back, here's what I remember (some some of the techniques that I would probably not use today [otherwise known as "mistakes"]):

I decided to save the "flowers" from the quilt, so I carefully removed all of them. However, some of those flowers were also falling apart, so I let those go to trash. When I finally had my stash flowers, I needed new background fabric for them. I when to my local fabric shop (I didn't know that there existed anything known as "quilt shop"). I looked all over that fabric shop for a plain white fabric. Arrrrggghhh! Could not find any. All right, next best thing was white fabric that had woven texture. (today I would shudder at this) I bought a bunch, took it home, and cut it into squares. Then I started re-appliqueing the flowers, using the same blanket stitch to attach the flowers, duplicating what my great-grandmother had done.

Eventually, all the blocks were finished and I got them all sewed together. Hmmmm. What in the world am I going to do about fabric for the back of the quilt? Fabric doesn't come that wide. (I don't know about *then*, but I know it now comes as wide as 120", more than wide enough. But, I digress.) Ah-hah! I know! I'll use a sheet! So off I went to find a queen size flat sheet in a lovely peachy-orange color. I used my grandmother's living room floor to layer everything. Then came the hand-quilting. Yes, folks, I hand-quilted this baby. I threaded up my needle just like I always did when sewing clothes: a nice length of thread, doubled-up with both ends used to make a nice knot! (Ummmm, that was *not* a quilter's knot. It was both ends of the thread wrapped around the end of one finger and then *rolled* off the finger into a large, ugly knot. Now I know that real quilters use a single length of thread, with a tiny knot that can be pulled into the middle of the quilt "sandwich". Oh, well.) I had one hand under the quilt and one hand on top and I quilted that quilt using the same hand motions that I used for needlepoint. (Of course, that resulted in the stitches on the back of the quilt being all different sizes and going in all different directions!) Oh, and I used a ruler and lead pencil to draw lines on the blocks so I would know where to quilt. And then came my final problem: How will I finish the edges of my quilt? (think, ponder, more thinking) Ohhhh! I know! All I need to do is fold the excess sheet over the top of my quilt, tuck the edges under, and stitch it down (thus making a border-binding). I even mitered my corners. I was so proud of that quilt when it was finished.

I refuse to be ashamed of the mistakes. After all, I didn't know any better. Besides, even with mistakes, that quilt still provides warmth at night; and a "perfect" quilt would not be any warmer than this one. I just refer to it as my "quilt with character". And, best of all, I have preserved something from my great-grandmother's quilt.

Kathy

Stash Report Week 1, 2009

I came across the idea of keeping track of stash in the middle of 2008. But the year was half over and I had no idea how much I had used up to that point. (Then I kinda forgot about keeping track - oops!) But we now have a new year and I ran across this again, so, here I go:

I am currently working on Pinwheel Parade, which I started (sort of) about 18 months ago when I made BOM kits for guild using this block pattern. My 30 blocks have been sitting and waiting for me ever since the blocks were turned in. That quilt is on my 2009 list of things to work on. It is in progress right now. However, of the 30 blocks, 6 are not quite what I want to use. For now, they will sit on the sidelines and I will continue to make my own blocks to finish off my queen-size quilt. If I need them later, I will add them in. But for keeping track of fabric used, I won't count the BOM blocks, only the blocks I am working on now. I think I will use Judy Laquidara's method of keeping track (pull fabric and cut). I'll admit that not all of my pieces have been cut yet, but they will be soon, and my count for this week includes all the fabric that will be used in all the blocks (no sashing or borders yet).

Fabric Added This Week: 0.0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date: 0.0 yards

Fabric Used This Week: 10.4 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date: 10.4 yards

Kathy

Things Non-Quilty

What a month! A member of Stashbuster mentioned a book called "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?" written by Peter Walsh. I have seen him on the Oprah Show and was interested in reading one/some of his books. So I ordered the one mentioned. While reading this book, Peter referred to one of his earlier books. Turns out that I had that book in my to-buy list at Amazon, so I moved it to my cart and bought it. I got inspired. That's all I can say. Before the other book had arrived, I was already de-cluttering.

I started with the master bedroom and master bath. I cleaned out "stuff" from the under-sink cabinets. I cleaned out the shelves in the top of the closet. I removed "stuff" from the closet floor. I emptied out 3 dresser drawers and 2 nightstand drawers. I removed more stuff from the hallway storage cabinets. I have even started removing unused items from the (gasp) kitchen!

In the past 3 weeks, I have filled up the curb-side trash bin 3 times. Trash pickup was 2 days ago. Today I made a small dent in the garage, and the curb-side bin in nearly full again. Oh, that's not all! I filled 3 boxes and 3 large shopping bags with clothing and other usable stuff, then I called Salvation Army and scheduled a pickup. They came today. In addition to the boxes and bags, they also took with them 2 office chairs, 1 other chair, 2 cake carriers, and a pressure cooker.

Since there is enough room in the curb-side bin for this week's regular trash, I guess that most of my tossing-out is done for this week. Yes, it feels good to get rid of all this stuff. And I still have more to go. After I make a complete pass through the rest of my home and garage, I will reasses where I stand. I may need to repeat this exercise and look at the things to which I am emotionally attached. For now, though, there is still plenty of "easy" stuff to toss or give away.

Kathy

Catching Up

Well, here it is the very last day of 2008. Here's how I stand on my 6-month challenge. For easy reference, I am repeating the description of the challenge.

For the rest of 2008:

1. I will not start another new project. If it is a project I have already started, I may keep working on it. A project counts as "started" if I have started cutting fabric. But if it's nothing more than a collection of fabric plus a pattern, it will have to wait.
2. I will keep true to the no-buy challenge: no more fabric will be purchased; nor will another piece of fabric enter my home, regardless the source or the reason.

Before the end of 2008, I will
1. finish the bindings on 4 quilts before the end of the year.
2. finish the pineapple wall hanging before the end of the year. (finished top)
3. finish the small applique wall hanging. (finished top)
4. add borders to my Tennessee Waltz quilt.
5. finish reorganizing my stash

So, how'd I do?

I have not started any *new* projects (approved exception: I decided that using my President fabrics was OK, and I have selected 3 patterns and started cutting for one of them).

I did OK on the no-buy part of this, not a perfect adherence, but not way overboard either. I bought a few FQs in fallish reds to add to the fabrics that I want to use for my Autumn quilt. In addition, I bought some fabric for my niece's quilt. I offered to teach her how to make a quilt. When I asked what colors she wanted, she said "purple, black, and silver". I had a solid black in stash. I had a lovely floral with pink, blue, and purple flowers with green/teal leaves on a black background. I had some purples that went with the floral. But silver? So off to the quilt shop. Do you think I could find silver? Noooooo. Any gray that would look OK with the floral? Noooooo. So I selected 2 white prints that might work. But now there was too much contrast between my purple and the white. I started looking for a lighter purple to add to the mix. Do you think I could find one that would go with the purple I already had? Nooooo. I ended up buying 2 purples that I am happy with. Maybe a week later, light bulb moment ... What about Fairy Frost? Is there a gray Fairy Frost? Off to the internet. Yay! It exists and will be just
great for what my niece requested. Whew. While I did buy those 5 fabrics, none of them were for me. And had it not been for my offer to help her make a quilt, I would not have made that trip to the fabric shop.

But, now for the rest of my challenge... Yay! I finished the binding on the 4 largest of the 5 quilts that needed binding, and the 5th is halfway done. (Do I get extra credit for this?) I finished my Pineapple wall hanging over this past weekend. I decided that my applique wall hanging is a good project to use as a take-along (small and very portable). So I kinda moved that project off the "must get it done" list, but I do take it with me when I visit my parents. I also take it with me when I meet with friends once/month. Big, big YAY because I finished reorganizing my stash. The only thing that remains in my Tennessee Waltz quilt that needs borders. Since I started working on another UFO (something I can work on in a more confined area than the TW borders would have used) I decided it was OK that I haven't yet started working on that project.

While not an A+, I think it was a very good 5 months (Aug - Dec = 5 months). No regrets.

Now what?

Do you really need to ask? Definitely another challenge. I had already made up my list of projects for the next 6-month challenge and taped it in plain sight. Then I was challenged by another Stashbuster member to use my oldest fabric in a quilt, and I accepted the challenge (with a deadline to have the top finished by end of 2009). At this point, I may have more than I can do in 6-months and I also want to keep working on at least one project that uses my President-fabrics. Oh, what the heck. This time I will extend the challenge for the entire year of 2009. Here's my list:

1. Finish my Storm at Sea quilt
2. Finish my Stack & Whack quilt
3. Add borders to 3 quilts (my planned projects, but my Mother actually did the piecing)
4. Finish my Potted Flowers wall hanging
5. Complete my Oldest-Fabric challenge
6. Any/all of the 3 quilts that I have planned using my President fabrics.

Let's see if I can't post updates a little more frequently.

Kathy