Tag: block of the month quilt

Turkey Tracks:  July 8, 2013

“Windows on the World” Quilt

We’ve had cool weather mostly up here in Maine this summer.  Yes, we’ve had a few really hot, humid, unpleasant days, but on balance, it’s been cool.  Of course we always say that we don’t get summer until July 4th up here, so maybe we’re right on schedule.

Anyway, I found myself pulling out this quilt at night.

 

I was finishing it up when John and I made our first trip to Maine at just this time frame in 2003.  He loved this quilt, so I gave it to him.  He picked out the border fabrics.  We moved into our home here in June 2004, so this June marks the beginning of my tenth year here.  The time seems to have flown by so fast.

I won the little house blocks back in Falls Church, Virginia, in a “block-of-the-month” draw.  You made that month’s selected block, and your name went into the pot however many times the number of blocks you made.

Here are some close-ups of the blocks:

And–you can see I made some of them “fuzzy” with embellishing some texture into the block’s flatness.  And, in places, hand quilted with embroidery thread with big stitches.

And:

Here’s the backing and binding:

And here it is folded on the end of the bed.  It’s not a large quilt–more of a lap size–but it does cover one at night.

It’s holding up well…

The down side of a “block-of-the-month” program is that many people do not make their blocks with an accurate 1/4 seams–so the blocks can vary in size.  If you are “off” a sliver for each block, by the time you sew them together, you can be “off” rather a lot–and the quilt will never lie flat.   Using sashing strategies can let you sliver trim so all your blocks are the same size.  Trust me when I tell you that this lesson was a hard-learned one for me.  You can’t “iron out” the differences…

There is a more elaborate house quilt in my future–made with blueberry fabrics I have collected up here in Maine.