A reader contacted me yesterday for help. Through several emails back and forth I was able to identify a pattern similar to her vintage quilt top and also I found in my vintage fabrics a piece that may work for her binding. Click here to see her vintage top.
I had been planning to go through the vintage 1940s through 1960s fabrics and measure them so I can offer them for sale. I checked ebay to see what the going rate is on it and found it anywhere from $6 to $20 a yard. I also have a huge pile of scraps. I'm saving the scraps from my own clothing sewing but getting rid of the rest. I have listed the yardage on my Wandaful Quilts blog.
I wanted to finish this quilt in time to post the photo today and I met my deadline.
It is approximately 42" x 55". It will fly off to its new home on the east coast tomorrow.
I'm going to try to remember to show the back of all of the quilts I finish this year.
The 6th bud is opening (on the top) but 3 of the blooms have seen better days.
Here I have chopped off the sad looking blooms and I will enjoy these three pretty blooms for a few more days. The bud on top should be fully opened later today.
I had to try my purple blocks on the design wall. I'm not done sewing blocks so it won't go together any time soon. The angle of the cut with the ruler is deeper than the cut with the instruction in the book. When I made the first one I was using the book instructions.
While I had some company yesterday I brought out this quilt again and tried another border. This is actually the third color of this stripe that we tried.
Here is a closer shot. It is a Kaffe Fassett stripe and every fabric in the quilt (384 different prints) is his fabric too. I didn't have enough of this color so I ordered more yesterday. I'm not sure how wide the border will be at this point. Here is a previous border choice last year. We played with how that fabric would be cut and I finally made the decision it will go on the back of the quilt. Not shown in that photo is a vase from which the sprays extend. It was just too much planning of where the cut should be, whether the vase should be in it or not. I'm happy with this simpler stripe.
Jack Frost came to visit and I'm sure he will stick around for a couple more days. We're down around 0 at night.
The binding is started on the green Lady of the Lake quilt. I decided to hand finish this one. My goal is to have it done by Saturday night and post the photo of the finished quilt on Sunday morning.
I worked many hours in the basement again yesterday, choosing backings, doing laundry, ironing fabric. I also did the staystitching around the purple 16 patch and I was admiring the back with the seams so neat and tidy. I decided to post a photo of it. This is the result of following my 16 patch tutorial. I love tidy backsides on my quilt tops.
My two friends are coming over today to sew and I hope to piece several backs for the quilts next in line for finishing.
This is the small quilt I loaded on the longarm on Tuesday. I made the top in 2009. It is 42" x 56" so I didn't have to piece the backing.
I just did a large meander on it.
This is my choice for binding. It changes to many shades of green in the print so it will go with all of the greens in the quilt.
I had many inquiries about the ruler I'm using for the purple quilt. It was in the photo the day I showed the book and I thought readers would click on that photo to enlarge it to see the name of the pattern and at the same time they would see the ruler. I post my photos with a large number of pixels so when you click on them they enlarge twice in most cases. I have also turned off the Lightbox feature that so many people use. Photos won't enlarge if they are using that feature.
Here is the photo I posted previously. See the ruler on the book?
I spent a lot of time in the basement yesterday. Remember this purple and green fabric that I considered as a backing for the purple 16 patch quilt? I remembered a group of fabrics that I had pulled for a Trip Around the World quilt class a couple years ago and the fabrics were still together. I pulled out a few fabrics, added a few more and I think they look great with this fabric which I have 6 yards of. I will probably add a few more purples, maybe batiks and this will be one of my 2017 quilts.
I loaded a small quilt on my longarm, piecing the batting from my huge bin of cutaway pieces. Hopefully it will get quilted today. I also chose backings for a couple quilts.
I went over my list of quilt tops from last year. I start each year with a new list of the ones not quilted, then add all of the tops to it that I make during the year - marking the ones that were finished or sold. Last year I had 66 tops on the list at year end, 6 of them sold, I finished 20 and sold 4 of the finished quilts ending with 40 not finished which are the start of the 2017 list. I did find 2 in the basement yesterday that aren't on the list so they will be added.
I have started the new year with a second purple quilt. It has the same fabrics as the 16 patch I finished last month. I only sew on the blocks at night during TV time so it will be a few days before I'm ready for the design wall.
I made this quilt once before with Kaffe Fassett fabrics but I didn't have the ruler at that time. It was designed after the book was printed. I bought the ruler at a blog garage sale several years ago and wanted to use it. This is in Karla Alexander's book "Color Shuffle".
This was one project on New Year's Day for me.
This photo was taken while I was still down on the floor after putting it together. I had seen the IKEA carts on many blogs and when Target showed one on sale in their Dec. 25 flier in the Tribune I decided I needed to check it out. I actually got 2 of them, one for the main level studio and one for the basement. They were $24.99 on sale with an additional $5 off reusable coupon. Since I was going by 2 Target stores that day I used the coupon twice.
This is a top view of the trays with a metal mesh bottom layer.
This is my idea for the one in the basement. It has GO dies and the GO adapter so I can use them on my Studio die cutter. Also there are some Studio dies and the plastic sheets that are used on top of the dies. Awhile back I moved my Studio die cutter to an area with more room but I have found that the lighting is bad in that location too so I will move it again. This cart will have all of the smaller dies at my fingertips when needed and rolled over to a storage spot the rest of the time. AND, yes I have a lot of dies. I cut with my die cutter at least 3 times a week and for an average of 2 hours a week. I don't just own a die cutter, I use my die cutter. In 2 hours I can cut the pieces for a couple complete quilts. If I'm not cutting a quilt, I'm cutting scraps in shapes I will use later or I'm cutting pieces for my colorwash quilts.
The waxed bulb Amaryllis is still standing up straight. The first four blooms are fully opened.
I turned it so you can see the fifth bud is getting ready to open. I think the sixth one will bloom too.
