liberty makes do too

last night, after a week of putting our house back together as phase 1 of our home reno winds down, i took some time in my quilting room to finish this quilt top.

"liberty makes do too" is the second liberty + crossweave quilt i've made. i really enjoy the combination of tana lawn and crossweave (chambray). however, i think i like sticking to one color of crossweave per project. for this quilt, i used 3 different colors and it makes the quilt look as if it was composed of old jeans.

this quilt will be my next handwork project as i like the look of handquilting with the liberty + crossweave. but first, a backing needs to be picked. i have a few of the prints from the top in mind for the backing; like, maybe that betsy ann hanging there next to the flimsy. a full liberty tana lawn backing is quite luxurious! i'm really happy with the first one i did for "liberty makes do", so i will repeat that choice for this second quilt.

i still have quite a few liberty pieces cut from the first project, so there will be more of these in the future. two ideas i have for more liberty + crossweave include a log cabin quilt and one with more random strip orientation that incorporates some vertical pieces into the strips (not sure what to call it) i saw on instagram:

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A post shared by Kathy (@a_swede_life) on Feb 2, 2018 at 10:53am PST

and i'm certain there will be a few more strip quilt variations, too.

in a binding mode

before christmas, i got four bindings made for my kids' (last) christmas stella grande quilts. "rubix star" got its binding completed over the winter break at the cabin and as soon as we got home, i machine attached the binding to "star on the field" so i could keep the handbinding good times rolling.

i love handwork like this. handbinding is one of my favorite parts of the quilt process. i think it's a great way to end the whole making of the quilt, to sit quietly stitching with the quilt for company a few hours at a time before it goes to its new owner or gets put out for use around the house if i'm keeping it for myself.

a little #sewingtimesweets like some delicious dark chocolate covered almonds from trader joe's just adds to the enjoyment. #chocolateonquilts is still going strong.

i like to do my handbinding whilst sitting in the middle of family and friends, but sometimes i prefer to do it quietly on my own with a movie or book going on my phone. the phone is not in my photo because, of course, it was taking the photo. what marvelous devices the modern smart phones are! who could have imagined all they'd do just a few years ago? i've been rotating through several versions of jane austen in both formats, and even some of return of the king, LOTR 3, which i had been rereading and wanted to continue with as i did my handbinding. thank goodness for audible.

i just realized there is a chocolate covered pretzel on that quilt above, so that's another #chocolateonquilts capture right there.

"star on the field" got its final stitch shortly after new years and was handed off to my younger son. photo shoot date with mom will be forthcoming.


the choice of which quilt to bind next was a tough one to make. so i decided to do two simultaneously. i've never done that before. i keep rotating back and forth between "etoile de patisserie" and "star in the fairy forest". i stitch one full length of thread on one quilt, then switch to the next. i couldn't decide which daughter needed her quilt first, so they'll both get them at the same time. fair enough, right?

it being winter right now, it's super cozy to have a quilt on my lap most of the time. last sunday, the littlest and i played some old favorite games and i stitched whenever it wasn't my turn. she's such a good quilting buddy.

she clips threads for me, sometimes pulls the needle through, and moves the binding clips down the line as i remove them. she's actually been begging to do the binding herself, so i'll need to get her a little quilt of her own she can learn on. i'm happy to teach her, i just don't want learning stitches on her sisters' quilts.

hmm, i was just looking for that liberty tana lawn "fairy lawn" in melon to use on a different quilt back, and here i see it in the photo on the back of the quilt i've been working on. oh, where is my brain? looks like i'll be tracking down some more for the other quilt backing.

i've got enough binding to keep my hands busy for a while. if i'm lucky, i'll get a chance to move a few more quilts into this phase before these are through. i do enjoy having handwork around.

rubix star quilt, a finish, and some snow

rubix star, my third stella grande quilt that i gave to my children for christmas 2017 is now complete, as of christmas holidays 2018. it's funny how it took me waaaay longer to quilt and bind them all than it took me to make the tops and assemble the quilt sandwiches in time for christmas gifting. there was just too much going on this year for it to be otherwise. only four more to go.

this quilt goes to my older son, second child, a new adult (18!) and college freshman/junior in biochemical engineering this year. (yes, you can be freshman and a junior all at once if you go to community college for 64 credits as a homeschooler and have to count it as concurrent enrollment at the university.)

this kid of mine has always been brainy in math and science, which is why i picked the two text prints that back this quilt. the black and white carolina gingham was to keep with the black and white theme on the back and because it's cubes. (you can see the fabrics closer in subsequent photos.)

my son is one of those brilliant people who can solve a rubix cube in a matter of minutes, therefore the quilt top is an allusion to the rubix cube in my stella grande giant sawtooth star format. it's supposed to look like the rubix puzzle is in process of being unscrambled. having only one orange hst in the star was an accident on my part, but i think it goes with the concept of the mixed-up rubix quite well.

for the border on this stella grande variation, i chose 6" squares to, of course, resemble the cubes of the rubix puzzle. color placement is random, with a few spots where two of the same color cubes meet up, as if the puzzle is being solved.

i got the quilt binding machine-attached to the quilt body just in time to take it with us to our mountain cabin for the winter break. we got dumped on with snow just enough to look amazing yet not be too dangerous, and to make it perfect to sit inside under a quilt.

usually, i sit in the sun room in a gliding rocker to do my stitching, but this time i sat in the main space by the fireplace with the windows to my left looking over the beautiful landscape. it was a bit too cold to sit in the sun room in such snowy conditions.

i did venture outside a time or two to track down children and to take some photos. it was simply breathtaking out there! i know people live in snow all the time, to the point of being sick of it. we get to enjoy it for a week or two each year, just long enough to relish it and then leave.

have you ever seen snow look like glitter when it comes down? one morning the conditions were just right and it looked like a glitter shower was going on in the meadow across from our cabin. all those white flakes you can see were sparkling, shiny and shimmery, but the photos don't capture the glitter effect.

they did, however, capture the huge snowflakes that were already in place that morning. i've never seen them so large that you can actually discern the individual crystals with the naked eye!

but back to the quilt.

i finished off the binding late on the last evening of our trip, cozied up in front of our unique hanging fireplace. it's on the list of things to update in the cabin, but that won't be for quite a while. in the meantime, it's certainly warm and cheery even if it's funky looking.

i had big plans for a photo shoot in all the fresh powder everywhere on the morning before we left, but since it was hovering just above 0*f, that did not happen. it was going to look so good with the red railings on the cabin porches. didn't happen. i did get one questionable photo with red doors and roof of the shed in the background before my son was ready to hold the quilt and we had to move on.

my son and i managed a couple of snaps before we and the quilt froze into ice cubes and then got on our way home.

i guess you could have called us a couple of rubix ice cubes.

some stellas

life has been in the fast lane this year and quilting hasn't been along for the ride much. i've completed 2 "stella grande" kids' christmas quilts and finished quilting 3 more. that's all there is to tell for an update.

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d1 got her completed "mary, mary star contrary" quilt just days before she left for an 18-month stint as a service volunteer in eastern europe. we got some fun photos on the road that should be shared in their own post someday.

that same weekend (the first of april) while at our cabin, i almost finished off "radiant suzy", d3's stella grande quilt, too. but i had to leave about a foot or two undone.

in june, i took "radiant suzy" along with us on a trip to the iconic biltmore mansion in ashville, nc, and finished it there on d3's 12th birthday. that turned out to be pretty special and made for a good photo shoot location for the quilt. maybe someday that will become a post of its own, too.

between june and september, i didn't lay a stitch to anything, anywhere. then i got to work on some more quilting on my juki. there are now 3 quilts quilted and one on the machine. yay! my pile of flatlay quilts on the piano room floor has been reduced by half and i've created a new pile of folded quilts that need binding on a chair in the same room.

once again, i've used chunky 12wt aurifil thread for some nice contrast and a handstitched feel. it works so well with the simple straightline quilting of this pattern.

they sure feel like quilts now! just a few binding sessions and they will be free to be loved and snuggled by their recipients. unfortunately, when i got all the fabric for the quilt tops i didn't also get binding yardage. i'll be needing to make a trip to the store for that soon.

time at my machine and a trip to the fabric store? i might still be a quilter after all.

home renovations have been the main cause for the quilting hiatus. phase one should be done by the end of the year, so maybe, just maybe, i'll be doing some different projects before too long. at least until its time for phase two.

liberty makes do quilt, a finish

last april, i did something completely crazy/brave/reckless - i cut into my precious liberty of london tana lawn stash without much more than a very loose idea of what i was doing. liberty fabric is something i had been collecting in small bits and pieces over the years, but i had yet to come across the perfect project worthy of my liberty stash.

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then i saw this strips quilt made by ashley at film in the fridge and thought it might be a way to get me feet wet at using liberty without investing too much of any one fabric, a simple way to showcase some liberty pieces alongside some crossweave (chambray). i decided i wanted it to look as if it was made of vintage clothing scraps, so i would use randomly sized pieces to make up the strips. and i would use three printed pieces per strip rather than two.

i chose two heights for the fabric blocks: 3.5" cut and 4.5" cut, then cut those strips at various lengths from 5" to 13". some moda crossweave in blue chambray was added to each end to achieve the final finished length of each strip.

the color palette is mostly reds, blues, yellows, and pinks. honestly, there are a few prints i'm not partial to included here. i don't love liberty just for the sake of it's being liberty. there are plenty of prints i don't like. a few made it into my collection because i ordered them online and they appear differently on screen than in person. once again i've learned that if i don't like a print, it won't be disguised when mixed in with prints i do like. it devalues the appearance to me. some people can look at fabrics as colors alone. i can't. prints matter to me.

its a nice lap quilt size at 51" x 63". i used 22 strips in all and kept its width small enough that i could use two yards of liberty (54" wide x 36" each) pieced together on the back (with room to spare).

the backing is made of mitsi valeria in red and capel in blue (i think it's capel in C).

i had the immense pleasure of handquilting it at my leisure with some white auriful 12wt thread. originally, i quilted down the center of each strip. this makes for a very soft and snuggly quilt. i've decided to go back and add some more quilting in the seams (ditch) for a little more stability. and for the pleasure of handquilting, of course.

overall, i like the quilt. it has a lovely vintage feel that continues to grow on me. all the different fabric contrasts make it a yummy tactile experience. my girls are all drawn to cuddling with it. on sundays, it's the favorite quilt to take to church with us to keep warm. for some reason, because we live in the desert, it's always kept rather cold in the church building. but we're not going to complain about an excuse to bring some pretty quilts with us.

the name? "quilters make do" is a concept i've always liked, the idea that quilters of old were using up clothing scraps or whatever they had to make something beautiful. since i wanted this to resemble one of those vintage, "make do" quilts, and because i used my liberty finally, that's the name.

this is the first liberty + crossweave quilt i've made, but it won't be the last. for one thing, i cut way more strips than i needed at the onset. that's what happens when you just go at something without doing any math first. but as it didn't use much of any one fabric, i'm not complaining. i look forward to making more variations on this theme.

sewing room scenes

caught in the act!

d5 was playing with my phone whilst i was playing with fabric, and she took a photo of me at work.

you can probably tell i'm asking for my phone back. like most women, i wasn't feeling ready for a photo at the moment, but it actually turned out alright, so i kept it. you can't be too picky over 40.

i take little photos of bits and pieces in my sewing room that please me all the time, but as 1) i'm usually sewing at night, and 2) even in the day there is so little natural light in my sewing room since we installed the doors, the quality in the photos is always lacking. but i still like them! they aren't instagram post worthy, but they please me. so i thought i'd share a few on the old blog, here.

at the end of last year, once i'd gotten all those "stella grande" quilts to the point of basting, and then gifted for christmas, i didn't want to look at a star again for just a bit. so i broke into my stack of fabric for my "gypsy child" quilt and cut like mad. once i got chain piecing, that pretty thing where the squares start folding up and making waves and ripples out of the back of the machine was making me smile a whole lot, as were all the little piles of fabric pairings all over my sewing table. so i snapped some pics.

and another fun sewing room photo - 3 generations of sewers. my mom stopped by whilst d5 and i were playing with liberty and crossweave scraps, leftover from my "liberty makes do" quilt. more chain piecing, which d5 always cuts for me. i managed to get all 3 of us in one photo. you can see me, right?

what you can also see is how much my sewing room needs a good clean up and some rearranging. plans are in the making for that, but its always slow. first, construction on some built-ins for the master bedroom have to be completed so i can get loads of stuff out of this room. then, some storage needs to be built for this room. until then, i'll inch my way around and squeeze through stuff and take crummy pictures in this overstuffed space.

mastering geese for a swoon

so, i started something new a little while ago. no surprise there! when i get the urge or the itch, i just dive into something. this time i decided to join the IG #swoonalong. in celebration of her 10th year anniversary in the quilting business, camille rosskelly started a quilt along of her most popular pattern, swoon. i've had the pattern as part of her craftsy.com class i purchased a few years back, and it's been on my "to do" list for ages. it's on everyone's "to do" list because it's so awesome. when the swoonalong came up, i resisted for a little while before being sucked in.

i'm eyeball deep in projects, so i wanted a quick version of swoon. i decided to make a swoon variation of my stella grande quilt pattern: one giant swoon block with a top and bottom border. i'm using heather bailey's floral picnic bouquet in gold as my main fabric, sandi henderson's meadowdot in mint as the secondary fabric, and essex linen from robert kauffman as my background.

i decided if i'm going to make the ultimate quilt, one of the fabrics better be my ultimate favorite: meadowdot, of course. i picked the floral to compiliment it. and i've always wanted to try linen. it seemed a good time to do that, too.

i started cutting away on the floral. and did it wrong. the swoon pattern i have is for a 24"block, but i wanted a 60" block. so i had to do some math. and i did some wrong. then i decided after reading up on quilting with linen that i should use a 1/2" seam allowance rather than the standard 1/4". so i did some more math and re-cut my floral center square.

at this point i realized i was not going to have enough of the floral for the quilt, even before i made my cutting error. so i had to visit etsy and ebay to hunt down that out-of-print fabric i was committed to using in my quilt. lucky me, i found 3 yards of it, so i'm safely stocked again.

and then i ran out of essex linen in flax. i went to my new local shop and go more, but thought it seemed to look a little different than the piece i had picked up earlier in the week. after washing it was still a different color! i talked to the shop owener and found out it was the wrong one. stalled again. whew!

while i was waiting on fabrics, i was also following the #swoonalong progress on instagram. i noticed some of the pieces in the pattern that were originally composed of hsts (like the pattern i have) were being made with flying geese instead. that makes for less seams and a more composed look, so i decided to just figure that out, too.

basically, i've rewritten the entire pattern myself.

i'd love to share all of it here, but that would be giving away a copyrighted pattern. sorry. can't do it.

i had to experiment with the geese to figure out the technique and math for those, too. with some trial and error, i got it down. i had some extra squares of linen not yet used that i paired with some solid scraps,

  the upper left-hand corner of linen is a failed attempt at getting the corner the right size. i tried just cutting a triangle and sewing it on. it came out wrong. i don't even remember what size it was. i think i probably used the leftover piece cut off some of the other bits i'd already done.

i read up on making geese a little and decided to go with stitch-and-flip rather than trying to just sew a corner on.

the geese i need are 12.5" x 6.5" unfinished. i think what i used was a 7" square for the corners.

after stitching both a 1/2" and a 1/4" seam allowance (for reinforcement), i clipped the corners off, per the flip-and-stitch method.

 the linen doesn't behave exactly the same as cotton, so i found i needed to sew a scanter seam so it would reach where it needed to be to line up with the block.

in the end, i completely nailed my tip for my flying goose (singular). it's exactly perfect. which is what i'm going for with this quilt. i've found that when working with large scale patterns, all the little flaws are much more noticeable. since there aren't that many pieces for this quilt top, i think it's worth the time and effort to get them right.

i now have most of the geese units completed, so it's on to the corner units. only i've turned back to the other projects i had going. my grande swoon is in the wip pile for the moment. when i do get back to it, i'm ready for a fast finish and i've got the tricks to getting it right down pat.

if only i remember them . . .

at the end of my spool

i have been working with the yummiest fabrics in shades of peach, red, sand, cinnamon, petunia, and navy on this "mary, mary star contrary" quilt. i bought the prints for the backing separately, at different times, but i think they are all cotton + steele prints. originally, i was going to use only the two florals, but they fell short of the size i needed, so i added those adorable raccoon and circus prints.

something about the stripes on the border ends makes me think of chocolate wrappers and gets me drooling! the two border sets are in slightly different colors, with 3 stripes chosen from the center star selection of eight, and a flying goose block out of the other two colors set in each border. i really should have used the two blues, which i used as highlights not full colors in the center star, as a thin strip to separate the border from the peach background, but it seemed like too much work at a time i wanted to be finishing a quilt top. i think using one as the binding color was a good second choice.

 i chose to quilt this one in chunky 12wt auriful thread in Brass, at a larger 3.5 stitch length. i love how it resembles handstitching and stands out so nicely on the simple quilt design.

this is the 3rd "stella grande" quilt i've used brass on, so i wasn't too sure how far i'd get with what remained on the spool. surprisingly, i got almost to the end of my quilting on just the one spool! i had to guesstimate how much bobbin thread to spin on three different times at the end. you can see in the middle photo above that i got nearly done with my last complete bobbin, with just a few inches of the border left to go. i could have stopped quilting there completely, but i wanted to do a few more vertical seams for added stability. the last photo shows where i was when i finished one of those lines! talk about cutting it close.

after searching for more brass at the two places i normally get my aurifil 12 wt and not finding it stocked anymore, i was able to locate some at hawthorne threads. thank goodness! i got a few spools, which allowed me to complete the rest of this quilt and leaves me enough for several more in the future.

i don't like playing it so close with my threads, but it can be a little exciting, too.

in a "quilter home on a weekend night by herself" kind of exciting way.

penny patch 2.0 - school pennies, a finish

if you think the photo quality on this blog has plummeted, i would agree with you! each of the last few times i've needed to take photos of a quilt finish, i have been rushed, the lighting has been impossible, and my camera has malfunctioned. one of the reasons i blog is because i do enjoy quality photos of my quilting life and the items i make. this is such a disappointment to me, but it is what it is, as my husband would say.

the day i put the final stitches into penny patch 2.0 was a broiling hot september afternoon, somewhere in the 110+F region. the sun was merciless and the only acceptable place to photograph anything was a few meager feet of shade on the backside of my sister's house, where my mom was staying. marmee had just jumped out of the shower, so i didn't give her much notice, either. she was only in town briefly, and it had to be done. seize the moment and the less-than-stellar photos while you can, right?

this particular quilt was originally started for myself in late 2014. i came up with the color scheme while working on my first penny patch. it was an unusual palette pick for me - no red but rather magenta, which has long not been my color preference. however, i was in love with the joel dewberry floral i used as the focal fabric and backing pick. so, magenta, teals, turquoise, chartreuse, pink, and a healthy dose of white it was.

the fabrics were a collection of pretty florals, ditsy geometrics, and text prints that all reminded me of back-to-school times. my mother always sewed our dresses when i was a child, and the first day of school outfit was a big deal. the florals reminded me of picking out those dresses. all the alphabets were another nod to school, especially the cursive on school paper print. the pattern name, penny patch, with it's small change, made me think of the quarter mom would give me for milk money so i could get a carton of fresh milk with my home-packed lunch. thus, the name evolved to be "school pennies."

i had a few bumps in the road of constructing this quilt - some literal, like when my kids knocked the design wall over with a kicked soccer ball, and some figurative, like when i sewed all the directional prints the wrong way and had to make the quilt larger to reorient it rather than unpick and resew everything. that drug the construction out pretty long. then the biggest bump of all - my husband fell off a wall. while he survived, my quilting life did not. everything was put away for months and months.

holding it sideways because it's so tall and we're so short

 during that time, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. she had always wanted one of my quilts, and i did have fabrics long put away for just that, but it didn't feel like there was enough time to start something new. the colors and fabrics were all perfect for my mom, something i hadn't considered before, but immediately recognized. i thought the quickest thing to do was quilt penny patch 2.0 and give it to her. well, i hadn't accurately considered how long a 72" x 84" quilt would take to quilt in 3" citrus peel blossoms. basically, forever.

in the end, it got done after about a year on and off the machine. then the binding gave me a bit of trouble when i was a yard short and had to hunt down more of the out-of-print fabric. honestly, in some ways you could say this quilt was payback for every silly, mean, or nasty thing i did as a child that my mother had to deal with.

marmee does have her quilt and well in time for another winter, when it will keep her cozy. i know she's going to enjoy contemplating and perusing all the fabric picks and combinations, as i do. this quilt is chock full of beautiful fabrics.

the even better news is marmee's cancer journey has gone much better than expected. we're approaching two years since the diagnosis and she's doing very well.

she tells me all the time how much she's enjoying the quilt.
honestly, i was quite attached to this one and choosing to give it to my mom was a painful choice.
of course, i'm glad i did.
it was really meant for her all along, i just didn't know it.