Civil War Minis

 

I didn't have room to pack my entire fabric stash to take on vacation, so I just took one tote bag of fat quarters, mostly civil war reproduction fabrics. The small amounts were perfect for making small quilts. I made these little 9 patches by sewing sets of short strips together first. I ended up with 2 blocks in each color, one with dark corners and one with light corners, enough for a 2nd quilt.

Little quilts go together very quickly, so I was able to make several. These next two were made using the leftover triangles cut from flying geese units in another larger quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

I found a little basket pattern in an old quilt magazine and thought it would work in another small quilt. I used fusible webbing for the appliques and stitched them down with a machine blanket stitch.

 

 



 

 

The last small quilt is called Blackbirds and Berries, designed by Kim Diehl, from her book Homestyle Quilts. 

 

 



Pumpkin Wall Hanging

I appliqued this pumpkin  quilt several years ago and started the cross hatch quilting on my old sewing machine. A couple years  later I was fortunate enough to be able to buy a better machine and then finished quilting around the appliques. Finally, again a couple more years later, I sewed on the binding (just a few days ago). I really should not procrastinate so much!

 

Here's a close up of the pumpkins.

 

 

Vacation quilt

I finally finished this log cabin wall hanging while on vacation and hung it over a bed in the cottage. I used stitch in the ditch and outline quilting to keep it simple.

 

Quilt Show

There was a wonderful quilt show this last weekend, done by the Genessee Valley Quilt Club, with over 600 quilts. There was a great variety of styles represented from antique to civil war to applique to contemporary to art quilts. What an inspiration!!!

Here are a couple pictures of the amazing work:

 

  

Homestead

 

I started this small house wall hanging so long ago I had to dig out the pattern to remind myself what it was called.  It's from One Day in the Country Quilt Cards designed by Sarah Sporrer and is #QC115 Homestead. It's very folksy with the appliques stitched down with long stitches. The sheep just need legs, then it'll be ready to finish. I think maybe the big stitch hand quilting will be the way to go with this one.

 

 

FMQ

I came across a little folk art fabric panel in my stash a while ago and thought it would make a good quick pillow....no piecing, so I could get right to the quilting. I really don't like to mark quilting patterns, so I just stitch in the ditch, stitch around appliques or shapes in the fabric, and free motion quilt the rest. I like to use feathers if at all possible. Here I did some feathers in the large triangles.

Mixed Bouquet in a Tall Vase

 

This work in progress is a 26" x 32" wall hanging designed by Betsy Chutchian found in the book Cotton and Ewe by Chutchian and Edgell,  published by Design Originals.  It's my first attempt at using felted wool for applique and I rather liked doing so...no raw edges. I'll use a machine blanket stitch for the larger appliques, but will probably do the small blue flowers by hand.

  

 

Civil War 9 Patch

 

This is the last of the Serena Wakelin pieces purchased in Kennebunk, Maine. It's a 9 patch and is about 13" x 17".  

 

Flowerpot Applique Wall Quilt



This wall hanging is from the book, Remembering Adelia, by Kathleen Tracy. It's about 19" x 25" and still needs some of the appliques stitched down and  to be quilted and bound (with a nice rusty brown print).

The flowers are ruched by basting the edge of a strip of fabric, pulling the thread to gather, forming it into a circle, and stitching the ends together. Small buttons will be sewn to the flower centers.  I'm thinking about making another one of these too, a little smaller, and with a more floral stripe for the border.

 



 

Civil war reproduction mini quilt

 

This is another little civil war reproduction quilt by Serena Wakelin from Mainly Quilts. It's called Rosie Finch with Pinwheels and is 10" x 16".

 

 

Cabin in the Woods

 

This wall hanging was started last summer when I was on vacation. Cabins and woods and pines and such always seem to appeal to me then. The pattern is by Jell Kemp from a Bears Paw Designs booklet, Northern Reflections. I put in some extra trees and a bear, and may or may not add the borders called for in the pattern. 

 

Four Patch Strippy

 

I purchased this little wall quilt at the Mainly Quilts gift shop in Kennebunk, Maine. The shop is in a carriage house next to the Waldo Emerson Inn. It's a beautiful setting.

 

The quilt was made by Serena Wakelin in 2011 with civil war reproduction fabrics. It's about 11" x 13" and is hand quilted. 

 

Baby quilt

 

This is a wall hanging made for a granddaughter's room last year. Ideas for the design came from perusing pinterest and googling kitty and bird appliques. I machine appliqued the kitty and flowers and birds with an extra layer of batting behind them, then outline quilted around them, and free motion quilted the background with a sort of loopy design.

 

Red Winged Blackbird

 

Here's a small wall hanging I made as a gift. A redwing blackbird was requested, and I was fortunate to find this pattern by Connie D. Roye of Pine Meadows Designs. It's machine appliqued and quilted.

 

 

Here's a close up of the border with feather quilting.

 

 

Here's a close up of the bird.

 

Civil War reproduction quilts

 

Here are a couple small quilts  made with civil war reproduction fabrics (my latest obsession). The patterns are Quaint Little Quilts #3 by Lori Smith.

 

This first one is 20" x 26". The blocks are 4" finished squares. The pieced blocks each have 22 little pieces (whew, what a pain). Lots of seam ripping happened during the stitching of these blocks!!

 

 

The second one is even smaller, about 15" x 19", also with 4" squares.

Fall projects

Having neglected this blog for way too long, it's time to get back in the swing with a few pics of past projects.
So, in no particular order....

Here is a wall hanging I did in the fall of 2011. I actually got it all quilted, bound and hung. I think it's a Pat Sloan pattern.

This is the London Roads quilt, finished in Dec. of 2010 with mostly stitch in the ditch quilting, but a few stars quilted in the border.



 

Here's the quilting from the back. The stars show up better. I didn't mark them ahead of time, but just free motion quilted them, adding a few loops in between.

We went to Bar Harbor, Maine to watch our son and daughter-in-law run in a marathon. Of course I had to research ahead of time to see if there were any local quilt shops. I found one right in Bar Harbor, called Fabricate and couldn't resist buying some Maine blueberry fabric and coordinates. These are not at all 'my' colors, but I think they're beautiful anyway. I'm still searching for just the right project for them.



Machine Quilting

I'm bound and determined to improve at free motion machine quilting. These are some samples I've done recently for practice.

This one had the center motif marked on the fabric first so I could practice following the lines. Then I stippled around it.

The rest of the designs were free hand quilted with no marking. I wanted to practice a larger stipple, some vines, leaves and flowers, and some outline quilting.

Totes

I love tote bags and made some for gifts last Christmas.

Summer 2010

After a long absence it's finally summer and time to do some piecing and applique while on vacation. These wall hangings still need to be quilted but at least they are some new works in progress to show.



This wall hanging is about 22x25" and is called Late Summer Gatherings. It's from the book Primitive Gatherings by Burkhart and Meacham. The pattern had scalloped outside edges but I chose to leave the borders straight.

This little 16x20 wall hanging is called Simply Charming.

It's from the book Fat Quarter Quilting by Lori Smith.

I adapted this sunflowers and chickadees wall hanging from a pattern called Sunflower Cafe that I found in the August 2008 issue of Quilter's World magazine. The original had a birdhouse border which I omitted.

This wall hanging, 27x34", is a McKenna Ryan PineNeedles pattern called Camp.

Finally some updates

Fall has been busy, busy, busy, but I have accomplished a few quilt projects. That's much easier to do now that I have things organized in a sewing room. It really saves time to be able to put my hands immediately on whatever I need at the moment.

Here's a tote bag made from a block kit purchased on sale from my local quilt shop. There was enough fabric in the kit to make 2 blocks, so I added some extra stash fabric to them to make them into a tote.

I LOVE the blanket stitch on my sewing machine. I used it to stitch the pumpkin appliques.

A friend, who is weeding out her stash by making donation quilts with her extra fabric, gave me some to use when I was bemoaning the fact that I didn't have enough fabric for practice on my new sewing machine. She also gave me the pattern for this quick design called London Roads. I have the top all pieced and it's now waiting to be quilted and then finally donated to a local hospital.

I finished piecing this wall quilt and have to decide how to quilt it. I'll probably do mostly in the ditch quilting, but maybe some meandering around the crow and house appliques.

This was made for my favorite little girl's 1st birthday. She loves kitties and pointing out noses and ears. I used a wool applique design and adjusted it for cotton appliques. It's about 16 x 16.

This lap quilt was made for my daughter-in-law who recently had foot surgery and will be laid up for a while. She loves vintage type fabrics and is very in to recycling, so I tried to use lots of older pieces from my stash. I also put in a few novelty bits with pictures of things she likes...elephants, baseball, music, apples for the teacher, etc. The pattern was called Lazy Log Cabin, but we both thought there was nothing lazy about it : ). All the fabrics were cut into 2" strips, then 4 long strips were stitched together and the triangles cut from them.The finished blocks were arranged in the barn raising setting.

This was the first large project I have machine quilted and it was definitely a learning experience. I didn't have time to mark the top, so I just free motion quilted everything. The light blocks have flowers and leaves meandering over them. The darker blocks are done in a feather pattern. I know. What was I thinking?!!!


I didn't have enough of any one fabric for the backing, so I used several different reds and just pieced them together in large blocks. It worked out well and was in keeping with the scrappy theme. My daughter-in-law was thrilled with it, by the way.