cute betsy liberty hearts

my IG friend mary recently posted some adorable mini patchwork hearts made in liberty betsy with a low volume background. they are so cute! mary made hers for pouches, but i envisioned a whole quilt of cute little liberty betsy hearts.

the configuration is quite simple. it's one i've seen before, and i actually already had plans to make a valentine's quilt with these L-shaped hearts. mary set hers on point by embedding them in an economy block/square-in-a-square setting, which i thought was really cute.

cute, cute, cute.

yes, these are cute!

there's no other word for it.

i especially like the pink and blue betsy palette.

this idea has been on my mind for a few days. so today i pulled out my liberty betsy stash and culled prints of blue and pink, mostly pastel but a few with some punch. then i made my first heart.

i have A LOT of betsy colorways. i left out the yellow, purple, heavily grey, and dark or deep toned ones. i don' want the quilt to be rainbow-colored or very bright, but i want a little punch in there, too. i did consider making this as another liberty + chambray quilt, but decided i really like the low-volume background look, so i'm going with that.

i think it's going to be pretty!

making the heart was quite simple. i have a lot of 2.5" strips already cut, so that's the size i decided to use for the hearts. when i make some more, i'll do a little tutorial with photos.

for now, here are the dimensions:

• heart - betsy cut into 2.5" square & 2.5" x 4.5" strip
• background - 2.5" background square, 2 - 3.5" squares, cut on the diagonal

i may actually just skip the other things i was working on today and go make some more hearts!

epic binding party weekend

recently i was reading a substack email i subscribe to and the author said something like, “the fun thing about having your own email is you can talk as much as you like about your topic in a way no editor would let you.” it immediately made me think of how i prattle on and on in my blog posts about any details i want because no one is there to check me or make me clean it up. this is my space to speak to myself about what i’ve been sewing, no outside editing involved. which i’ll admit, makes for sloppy writing. 

but here we are, and that’s what you get. sometimes I do think I could make more of an effort to be presentable in this space, more succinct, more reader friendly. but what i'm really doing is having a conversation with myself and allowing others to listen in, so rambling on and on in an ineffective writing style it is.

now on to quilts.

there's going to be a lot of talking, but you can also just scroll for the pictures.

there has been a pile of quilted-but-not-trimmed-or-bound quilts in a corner of my bedroom since last spring. there are SIX quilts in this pile; SIX quilts that got around the final lap and never made it to the finish line. (i elaborated on why in my last post.)

they are not entirely unused as my grandson does like to plop down on them when he comes in to play with my collection of toy animals i keep especially in this room. he will say, “sit!,” and then squat down and back up to the pile before dropping down. it’s cute. 

but these quilts were intended for more.

two weeks ago, my youngest daughter decided it was time to get the binding on her quilt completed. she proposed that we have daily "stitch and listen" sessions together so we can both get some quilts bound. of course i said yes.

we have started with listening to the narnia series on audible and stitching for about 30 minutes. it hasn't exactly been daily, but we do get around to it several times a week. (for the record, kenneth branagh is the reader for the magician's nephew and is quite fabulous. i wish he narrated the whole series.)

after a few sessions of stitching, i have nearly completed "liberty holly hobby."

 i quickly realized if we were going to keep these sessions going, we'd need more handstitching projects. that pile of nearly-ready-to-bind quilts in the corner came to mind.

we were having a girls weekend at home as my husband was going to be away for a few days, so i decided to put aside the all-important house reno project for a bit and do some quilt work with d5.

our goal was to trim up the quilted projects, make bindings for them, and get them machine attached.

we pulled everything out to have a look, then picked out our binding fabrics. for most of the quilts, i already generally knew what i wanted to use.

have you ever tried to work in a sewing room that hasn't been used in months and months? it's very frustrating! i felt like i spent the majority of the first hour of work just shifting things around and trying to locate supplies. i sure wish everything was shipshape in there and easily accessible, but it is not.

eventually i was able to get started on the actual project.

i pulled the cutting mat off the cutting table (always a pain to do as it's always covered with stuff) and put it on the floor of our central hallway so we could trim up the quilts there. i'm still able to crawl around on the floor pretty well, so this is the best place for me to trim the quilts because i can lay them out completely flat here.

"melonaide brightside" was the first quilt i trimmed. then i started cutting the binding for it. d5 measured binding against the trimmed quilt for me. we worked out a system where i cut, she measured, i pinned and marked the strips, she sewed the bindings together, i trimmed the corners off, and she ironed and rolled the completed binding.

our "to do" pile just off the cutting floor in the piano room.

while i was moving stuff around i came across my oldest daughter's quilt she made in high school, but never bound. the binding fabric was with it. i have always wanted her to finish the quilt herself so it's completely her project and so she knows she can do the whole thing. she's asked a few times over the last few years to work on it, but never at a time that i could help her with it. 

i decided done was better than my ideals and asked d5 if she wanted to secretly bind it for her sister as a surprise. she agreed, and we made the binding. it was actually about a foot short of what we needed, so i found a coordinating red solid to add. i think it will be a cute touch in the binding.

we worked on these throughout the day and evening, then took a break for a "pride and prejudice" movie marathon. it was a fun girls day together.

in the morning, i got right back to it.

i now know it takes me about 30 minutes to make a binding.

we got all six made for my quilts, one for d1's quilt, and an extra one for another project i have in the quilting phase. i already had the binding picked out, so i just added it to the group while we were at it batch processing all of these.

my binding choices were pretty classic here: there are several stripes, a few solids, and a couple of basic neutral prints. i like a binding to set off a quilt and to be dark enough to not show use easily. i feel like light colored bindings can get grungy, so i go with something mid-tone to dark.

i started out the first morning intending to trim and bind each quilt in order, but after the first one, i decided to do all the bindings at once. this was because i had my little helper working with me and i needed to keep her constantly moving or she'd wander off.

on the second morning, i got to work trimming all the quilts.

i'm none too confident in my square trimming of these quilts, but they're done and look square enough to me. part of the problem is one of my long rulers got set down in the middle of the quilt pile in the piano room the night before and a certain daughter sat on it, snapping the ruler. so i was down to trimming and squaring with my large 10.5" square and one long 6"x24" ruler.

once all the trimming was done, i started machine attaching them to the quilts. i started with the quilt i most wanted to complete - "mildred and ethel." for durability's sake, i bound it with the green crossweave i used for the background of the quilt. liberty bindings are delicious, but i worry about their durability as a binding gets the brunt of wear-and-tear on a quilt. plus, i didn't have enough of any of these prints to use as a binding. so the sublte, blend-in crossweave it was.

next up was "aunt bet's mother's day quilt," and this is where my little helper gave out. she didn't want to help with the next phase of attaching the bindings, so i was on my own.

"aunt bet's mother's day quilt" got a black and white spotted binding. i would have liked a black with white swiss dot, but i didn't have any of that around, only white with black dots, and that's too light for a binding. this was acceptable enough.

after attaching six bindings in a row, i now know it takes me about an hour from the start (pinning the binding on the perimeter of the quilt) to finishing the last stitch.

"melonaide brightside" got a solid teal green binding of kona cotton color of the year 2020, enchanted.

i'm so happy to have my both my first two "crossroads" quilts nearing completion! they were such fun projects. i'm excited to put them in use and experience them as completed quilts.

i pulled down what i thought was a black and white stripe to possibly use for "aunt bet's" but it turned out it was navy, not black. i decided it was a good pick for the original "crossroads," which is mostly citrus colored, but has touches of blue throughout.

my new pile of attached bindings in the piano room was looking lovely in the late afternoon light. by now i had four bindings attached. two more to go, racing against the light.

"low-volume crossroads" was next in the queue. it got a nice grey stripe binding.

as i prepared the last quilt, i stopped to read some of the text on the heather ross snow white print i used as a backing. i hadn't read this line before and found it so wise. it sums up the usual balance of beauty and reality in this imperfect life quilte well, i thought. 

"she found the cottage full of charm and laundry."

that's life to the tee, if you ask me.

i was, admittedly, a little weary at this point, but i pushed through and got the last binding attached. i selected a neutral tan and white floral from amy sinibaldi. it's a little light, but it's a low-volume quilt, so it works.

 and here they are.

six bindings attached in one weekend and many hours of handstitching bliss coming up.

at some point, these will even be completed quilts.

but at the moment it's the handwork that i'm looking forward to.

the leftover binding strips, rolled into one.

the end

after march

the first quarter of 2023 was rather prolific in sewing. looking back, i'm amazed all i had time for. considering the pace of my life after march 2023, i have to wonder what on earth changed so much that i couldn't find any more time for sewing. let's take a look back and see what we can discover.

how do i start out so productively? i usually use some of the winter holiday leisure time to quilt. once i get motivated, i'm pretty good at finding more time to squeeze in sewing. then my husband usually takes a lot of small ski or business trips the first few months of the year, and i generally sew like a fiend when he's gone. in march, we took a week's vacation at the beach for spring break and i always bring handwork for that.

but after march?

in the early spring, i continued handwork on "mildred and ethel" quilt. in fact, i finished it!

come late april, the madness began.

travel season began early we went to utah because our second daughter, d2, graduated with her bachelors in technical writing. we spent a few family days visiting temples and helping our sophmore son pack up to leave school for the summer.

shortly following that, my husband and i took our younger son, s2, to italy for 3 weeks for his senior trip (one year late because grandbaby came last year). 

thinking there would be down time on plains and in cars, i made sure to sew the binding on and then ambitiously packed my "liberty holly hobbie" quilt, believing i could surely finish the handbinding and take a photo somewhere in italy. it's a small quilt, but it still took up a lot of room in my travel gear. eventually, it ended up in my suitcase and never saw the light of day. the pace at which my husband plans travel doesn't allow for sewing downtime. any moments i might have wanted to sew, i chose to sleep instead.

although we passed through london on the way to italy, i did not visit the liberty store. too tired and i knew i'd be back at least once more this year. but we were there just days before the coronation and i got a few goodies at a heathrow shop.

i may not have gotten any liberty in london, but i was surprised how much tana lawn i saw through out italy, particularly in milan but also in florence.

these are just a few samples of window displays i saw. most shops had items made of liberty, this one actually sold yardage.

on our last day in milan, i took my son into a beautiful shop full of liberty and had him pick out a yard that i could use as a backing on a future liberty + chambray lap quilt. off all the lovely prints to choose from, he selected "strawberry theif" in a blue colorway. not my favorite. i tried to steer him towards prints i favored, but he was adamant. i've decided his choice is appropriate for the trip (it has a somewhat renaissance feel to it) and have plans to use it for a blue-themed liberty quilt.

 

i also arranged and packed the supplies for two epp wheels for my "london wardobe epp" quilt. this i actually pulled out on the flight out of italy and sewed on for a bit.

my little travel pouch was a gift from liz (shush i'm quilting) several years ago and is the perfect size for my epp necessities.

on the way out, we spent a day and two nights in manchester so the fellas could attend a mancity match and i had the immense pleasure of meeting up with the lovely lucy brennan of charm about you, a longtime, on-line quilt friend i have met in person once before.

we didn't do any sewing or anything fabric related, but she showed me around her city, we had a lovely meal, and just talked and talked. lucy is the kind of person i wish lived next door to me so i could see her every day. quilt people really are the best.

following the travel, i worked full time on my other creative project - our house remodel. lots of creativity going on, but no sewing.

in june, after a quick trip to california for my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday, we went to the charming town of seaside, florida with my siblings and their spouses to celebrate my milestone birthday:

i turned 50.

in july, our family packed up again and flew into prague for a month-long tour of germanic areas. we visited austria, a bit of germany, and switzerland. 

these hexagon floor tiles in the summer palace in vienna reminded me of quilts, of course.

i did not bring a quilt along, i knew better by now than to give up precious luggage space for that. but i did bring the little epp pouch with me. i kept it stowed in the side pocket of my backpack, which was my carry-on for the trip.

when we went backpacking in the austrian alps for 4 days, i neglected to take that little pouch out of my bag. i regretted the unnecessary extra weight until on day 3, when one of our daughters had an abscess develop on her leg that needed to be lanced. then we were able to sterilize my sewing needle and perform the operation. gruesome, but she quickly healed after that and i was grateful i had the equipment needed with me.

 later, in switzerland, i did do some actual epp work on an extended train transfer.

after switzerland, i began working on house plans once more. but we were only home a short time before we accompanied our oldest daughter, her husband, and their son on a trip to scotland for a wedding and touring. this travel is fun, and i definitely enjoy looking back on the experiences later, but it is also quite exhausting! i'm a homebody who craves her own spaces and routines, so the travel does wear on me after a while. i think it's fair to say i did my share for the year and deserve some time at home. 

at the beginning of october, we got a visit from d2 and then sent her off to language school in tokyo.

since we arrived home from scotland mid-september, needle and thread were put away again because i got a new creative project - we decided to throw a joint 50th birthday bash as both my husband and i turned 50 this year. that took 6 weeks of full time work to make happen. we had the party near the end of october. it was a great sucess, but i was also glad when it was over.

then the holidays hit!

and our older son, s1, who has been serving a church mission in alaska for two years, came home a few weeks early just after thanksgiving because he has been extremely ill. many medical appointments ensued. things are under control now, and he's off to grad school.

and our oldest daughter had a baby girl in early december.

once christmas was over, i thought about finishing the binding on "liberty holly hobbie" quilt since i usually do complete a binding to ring out the year. i started working on it whenever my grandson (19 months) came over to play with my collection of toy animals. but those sessions never lasted long enough for me to get more than one thread length done before he wanted to be off and doing something else. 

whenever he wasn't around, there were still the college kids home and other family things to do.

which meant i left the handbinding for next year.

so 2023 ends with these stats:

finishes - 1

starts - 4: 1 sandwhiched, 3 in piecing process

flimsies complete - 1

projects quilted - 5

handquilting projects - 2: 1 completed, 1 in progress

handbinding in process - 1

epp - 1 cog half done

classes - 1: string stars w/ tara faughnan

another handstitched spring break

 

spring break has rolled around again and i dug out "cheery (easter) quilt" to take along for our mexico beach trip again this year.

i had trouble finding my colored threads i took with me last year, so i got out the other 3 colors i needed to work on and took those instead. i got two of them fully done and started the third color. 

but there is still such a lot of handwork to do.

it's rather deceptive looking since i'm leaving the large yellow boxes virtually unquilted and only doing all the colored frames. seems like there shouldn't be that much to do. but there are at least 3-5 rounds of stitching in color to add to each block, and so far i've only mostly completed about 2 of the 5 columns. i sure love doing the handquilting, but sometimes it feels as if i'm never going to get it done.

it's a bit discouraging, really.

what i am super happy about is that i traced my sun and rays into the yellow portions and got them all done. i love how it radiates out of the lower right section of the quilt, spilling sunshine through many boxes. i used a bowl from my kitchen and hera marker to make the cirle, and added the lines for the rays using a 24" quilting ruler. the effect is pure sunshine!

i did a lot of the stitching poolside in the shade at the condos where we were staying. i set up camp each morning on the big comfy recliner beds and stitched away while enjoying the view and hanging out with any family members who joined me. i'm of a pale complexion and can't take too much sun without a whole lot of sunscreen, which i loathe applying as needed. at this point in my life, i simply opt to stay out of the sun during peak hours. it works for me! stitching gave me the perfect thing to do while i avoided the lotioning and sunburns.

our last day there, i took some photos around the property to capture where i am in process with this quilt. technically, its fully serviceable and in use. there is a lot more stitching in the colored frames i'd like to add. but i'm kind of counting it as a finish, too. 

at the rate i'm going, it's going to take another couple of mexico beach trips with stitching to finish this handwork. on the one hand, i'm not opposed to the idea. on the other, i'd really like to get this one in the wash as it is pretty well travelled now and i'd like to get it freshened and cleaned up.

other handwork for a mexican beach trip - holding on to the one i love and watching the sunset.