Category: Quilting in South Carolina

I’ve been having fun with the 3rd block in my online class with Tara Faughnan, where we get a block a month with which to play. “Lines” might seem simple, but it offers so much room to experiment with color relationships, straight lines vs. curved or offset lines, and proportions. I made these to finish at 8 inches, like the Serpentine blocks and checkerboard squares–just to have some consistency.

Here’s my design wall now, with the recent “Lines” blocks on the lower left.

I am still wondering if I can make an improv quilt with these blocks, but I need to see more of the blocks to come to decide on a bigger quilt. Remember that I already made a lap size quilt with the curved Serpentine block and its checkerboard pieces. It is so cute, and it waiting for me to baste it on the longarm. My favorite Serpentine block though is the scrappy ones shown here.

Here’s where I am with “Lines” right now.

But look what happens when I turn sone of these “Lines” blocks on their sides.

Instant landscapes and possibly a big 9-patch block? I could join up these blocks without sashing. So now I”ll make at least 3 more blocks to fill out what could be a chunk in an improv quilt. You can kind of see how that could go in this picture.

For me, creative “play” like this project above is totally energizing and engaging. I don’t worry about where it will all go, if anywhere. I can always make an array of other items if I need to: bags, placemats, small wall hangings that are hand-quilted, pillows, or…nothing but putting them in the “parts department” bin for future consideration. Removing the need to “do something” is so, so freeing.

Meanwhile, the 1920-1930’s quilt is growing. These blocks are 10 inches and are meant to use up this fabric from my stash. I did have to buy a few more pieces of fabric to fill out the colors.

Last night I threaded 30 needles in my 3 little holders and started to bind “Red Positivity.”

How fun it will be to have this big, bold happy quilt in my lap in upcoming nights!

She’s in the washing machine–with four color catcher cloths–as I write here. There were a lot of loose threads on her. And, yes, I did prewash these Artisan shot cottons, but…I am not taking any chances with anything running given all these brilliant colors.

I spread her out on my bed as I promised many of you pictures. She glows… And she is going to live folded on my bed.

I layered her and started the hand quilting back in June, and I’ve been faithful to spending some time with Traverse every night. I used 12-wt cotton threads (Sulky, Wonderfil, Aurafil) that matched the fabrics as close as I could–and had fun playing with how to quilt around or over or through the patterns. And, I used a size 6 Tulip embroidery needle. I could have used a 7, which would be a bit smaller and thinner, but I was comfortable with the 6.

You may recall that I took designer Tara Faughnan’s online class on hand quilting–and set out to learn a new method. My front stitches have always been good, but not the back ones. I can tell you now that I have improved a lot and most of my back stitches are good now. And I kind of know when to check the back to make sure all is good.

Here are some close-up pics of the quilting:

I used a thinner cotton batting (Dream Cotton Request I think) and a thinner backing fabric (Cotton Couture). The binding is a dark green/teal Kona solid cotton that work really well.

BUT–there is always a BUT. I will never again use a thinner batting as I couldn’t get purchase with my needle to bury my sewing knots in the batting. And with the thicker needle, the batting bearded badly up through both the backing and the front. I even had trouble with it when sewing down the binding.

I recently also used Dream Cotton on the longarm, and I’ll never do that again either–and I already knew better and did it again, so there’s that. Dream Cotton is pure cotton, yes. It does not have any scrim or polyester, as such it just does not hold its shape. And it is a bear to get it to lie flat on the longarm when it has been stretched to lie flat as one moves through the quilt and checks that the quilt layers are all flat as you roll the quilt up.

I LOVE the look of the shot cottons too, but they are hard to manage. Their thicker threads just fray so, so easily. And it is hard to pull a knot through the fabric without starting a run. I eventually found ways to bury my knots in nearby seams, and that worked, but it was a learning curve.

Anyway!!! Traverse is done and is beautiful!

Yep, I sure did.

I fell in love with this month’s “Serpentine” block–and the classic way designer Tara Faughnan presented it was what you see with the red and aqua blocks in the top above. But at some point I also got interested in seeing more of the checkerboard in the block–and what a scrappy version would look like.

I love this top, which I’ve called “Surprise.” I think it will need a simple grid quilting pattern–basted on the longarm and sewn on my domestic.

Note, too, that the curved arc in this block can be presented in so, so many ways. It can make circles (without the 4-patch addition) and by lining up the colors in the 4-patch, one gets an elongated arc. I could go on, but I can assure you that on the community page, there are so, so many variations that can take your breath away. Quilters are so creative!!

I’m still toying with the idea of combing these monthly blocks in some way–which is why I have kept the same fabric palette. Remember this idea?

These pieces are more in scale for an improve quilt of some sort, especially if I split up the two classic curved blocks.

Next month is a block called “lines,” so we are all waiting now for December 1st.

I put some of the leftover 4-patches together to make 8.5 inch (unfinished) blocks. Will they combine with “lines” in some way?

Meanwhile, it is time to return to the 1920/30s blocks on the left of the design wall. I’ve been making the half-square units in pink and blue as leader/ender pieces. AND, it’s time to quilt this as yet unnamed quilt. It’s loaded on the longarm.

It needs some curves I think. I”ll baste it first and decide about quilting with curves or taking it off and sewing a grid on the domestic. There is an adorable backing in place, but I’ll show it to you later.

Have a lovely day!

Our monthly Patchwork Gals meeting–I’m beginning to think of myself as a member of this group–was on November 15th.

As usual, the Show and Tell part of the meeting was awesome. There is so much talent in this group, but there are beginning quilters too, and I do so like a mixture of quilter types in a quilt group. Thus, each month many types of quilts are shown, including modern, traditional, art, and…more. The program for this month discussed and demonstrated how to make wave and scallop borders.

The quilt that totally blew us all away was made by Marva Hayne–and it had won first place in a recent show, but I did not catch the name.

This quilt is ALL appliqué. And Marva captured the most amazing images, but also the presence of light. This quilt just glows.

I can’t even…

Marva also showed this smaller quilt of white birches–and again, the way she captured light just made her quilt glow. Her quilt effects are made totally with appliqué.

I went home missing Maine’s stands of white birches. And, grey birches.

Marva is an artist.

Marva faced this quilt, and I was reminded how nice that looks when done correctly. It’s not a skill I have practiced at all, however.

I’m looking forward to the December meeting.

Whew!

She is a BIG and heavy quilt.

The quilting came out really well: Acadia pantograph. I wanted something curvy and with some hint of plants.

I can never resist trimming a quilt at this stage–so I did stop everything and trim her. I had already cut the binding, so I sewed the lengths together and ironed it. Today I’ll sew on the binding before I do anything else quilty. The binding is that same lavender (Kona Thistle).

I used a medium grey thread, which worked really well front and back, which is a medium to lighter grey.

We got a little rain over the past two days. Not so much as an inch though. I’ll take what I can get–it’s more than I could put down with the hose. And it will be warmer and humid today–not quite 80 though.

Our family is starting to gather for Thanksgiving: one grandson flew in from college last night late; the other comes Tuesday. Three Enright families (sisters) from Boston rented a beach house and most of them are coming today. DIL’s brother and fiancé are coming from Minnesota. Altogether we will be 32 by last count.

It will all be a “party in motion” starting this weekend.

Still no rain. Maybe today…

And I’ve spent the better part of the last two days reviewing my Medicare Advantage plan and comparing it to others that might be better for me. That switch will be made tomorrow morning at 8 am! Whew!

But, I’ve also had a lot of sewing time in the past week, which has been fun. Here’s my design wall right now:

These are blocks from Tara Faughnan’s online class where she gives us a block a month with which we can play and explore. The first was “Zipper,” and the second one Serpentine. You can certainly see that I have been playing,

When I started the class I pulled a large fabric palette from my stash, thinking that there might be a way to combine blocks into an improv quilt. And that may or may not happen. Here’s the palette–separated into warm and cool colors–and with attention to dark, medium, and light values:

I’ve already had to replace some of the fabrics with bigger pieces I’ve ordered online. LOL. That’s how that goes.

Maybe an improv quilt can happen. Maybe not. I am also playing with combining the classic 2-color big blocks with scrappy ones. And I made a few extra scrappy blocks to have better color placement choices. Each block has a warm and cool combo.

And, last night I cut out a 2-color lime green block, which means I’ll have to make another one–probably in Kona Thistle, the medium purple/lavender.

A new block will come December 1, and that should tell me if any kind of improv quilt is possible. If not, I’ll make Zipper a wall hanging and see what happens with Serpentine.

Meanwhile, “Red Positivity” is on the longarm.

This quilt is right at the edge of a length I can do on my Innova–which is 10 feet long. It’s right at 90 inches. And as it is going well, I’ll now confess that I sewed my finger on the longarm the first go-round with this quilt–something I have never done in 12+ years of having a longarm. I sewed right through the nail and out the other side on my left hand index finger. (No worries, it has completely healed now with no sign of any damage.)

I was struggling with a very bad wide-back fabric that must have been the end of a bolt. It was just wrenched out of all of my ability to make it lie true–and that effort took off about 20 inches of the length. (I ripped 1 inch on the top and bottom to get a straight-of-grain line, and by the far end 10 inches came off the top and the bottom.) And I had to shorten the side-to-side width to fit my frame. By now, the extra strip I was going to sew to the batting didn’t seem needed. BUT, by the time I basted down the sides, the batting was way too narrow, leaving me only about 3 inches on the right side near the bottom as the batting wasn’t straight either. By then I was tired and should have just…stopped. Instead, I sewed my finger and then stopped.

So, for a while, I was gun shy about putting this quilt on the longarm, even with a new backing and a new batting. But this week, I ironed everything and began again, having removed all the basting stitches from the first effort.

All is good now, and the quilt (knock on wood) is looking beautiful. Perhaps I’ll finish it today. I have the binding for it all cut and ready to go.

I’m nearing the end of hand-quilting Traverse, but will have a few more weeks of night-time sewing. I have the big “Bonanza” binding to sew down–followed by “Red Positivity” and the little unnamed quilt top of 1-inch squares, which will go on the longarm next. After these quilt bindings, I’ll start to hand quilt “Happy,” formerly known as “the quilt from hell.”

And I’m cutting into the 1020-1930s fabrics to make blocks for a quilt. The extra fabric to fill out colors is here, washed, and ready to go.

I now have fabric in orange, blue, red, and pink.

So, my quilty plate is quite full. As is usual.

Back in Maine, before covid started and before I knew I was going to move to South Carolina, I had acquired rather a lot of Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society fabrics. And my stash was seeming to be way too full, laced as it was with the darker more traditional fabrics with which I started my quilting journey. I gave away some fabrics, and I cut up the whole of my C+S/RSS fabrics into useable strips.

I started with quilts made with Churn Dash blocks made with pieced backings–all from the C+S/RSS fabrics. At some point I cut strips into 3-inch squares and made several quilts with those. And then, as I worked on a project, I cut leftovers into 2 and 1 1/2 inch squares. That journey is all on this blog, and there have been so many quilts made from this years-long project–that is apparently still in process.

At one point, after the Maine house had a buyer and when I was all packed up and waiting for the time when the movers would arrive, I set up a small sewing station and started sewing the 2-inch squares into 9 patches and the 1 1/2-inch squares into 4 patches. (Piecing has always been soothing to me.)

Now in South Carolina, I sewed the 4 patches into these larger blocks (16 inches) and surrounded them with this text fabric. This picture does not capture the vibrancy of these tiny blocks.

This picture is better–at least on my screen.

I’ll tackle the 9 patches at some point.

And, yes, there are still some strips of this fabric left! And two bins of the 3-inch squares. I seem to buy more fabric from these designers for backings here and there–to include one for this quilt as I didn’t have a backing that would fit this size quilt and not enough yardage to piece a backing. I do love those designers.

The other day I pulled out a bag of 1920/1930s reproduction fabrics I bought over 16 years ago when a local Maine fabric store closed as the owner retired. The bag had, also, some neutral muslin yardage, so I’m making some blocks that are color oriented. LOL, I had to buy some extra fat quarters of these fabrics to fill out the colors. The secondary patterns will be fun with these blocks.

It never ends…

Anyway, these are very fun blocks happening, which is interesting as I lost my interest in these 1920/1930s reproduction fabrics some years back.

And, there are 2 quilt tops to longarm quilt and a quilt which needs its binding sewn down and…the hand quilting on Traverse and the former “quilt from hell.” And Tara Faughnan’s very fun block of the month project in solids.

So, I remain so engaged with my ongoing passion.