Some quilts take longer than others!!

Some time ago I was asked to teach a short program on and provide a pattern for a block.  I was very excited that people I know had actually asked me to teach.  Well that didn't really last too long.  I struggled over what pattern to teach that would be somewhat easy to piece and yet go together in a fashion that made it appear to be a more difficult block.  I looked through book after book and searched online and it seemed that I couldn't find anything I felt would be a good project.  Finally, just a couple of days before I was scheduled to teach I found what I thought would be a great block!!  After looking at about a thousand patterns this was the one.  The blocks were relatively simple.  It was a square in a square pattern that extended out to another border around that and then an accent along each outer border.  The pattern was called Garden Path and the directions for cutting were simple.  There were no 7/8" or 3/8" to make things more difficult.  I took great pains to copy the pattern down correctly and made my sample.  I presented the program and everyone admired the block.  I was greatly relieved that it had gone so well....until......  The following week I had a telephone call from one the people and she literally blasted me that my directions were not right and there was no way anyone could make a block out of that pattern.  I thought I had been so careful, but not careful enough.  I had left out one line in the directions.  Now what is that saying about "the best laid plans of mice and men...."

Well, I decided to go ahead and make a quilt using the block pattern that I had demonstrated.  First I had to decide on fabric.  Just prior to these events a friend, knowing how much I loved oriental patterns had given me a piece of fabric that she had that did not match anything in her stash.  She was trying to whittle down her fabric stash to more manageable proportions.  (Something I have never, ever, ever had the urge to do.)  This particular piece of fabric was an oriental garden complete with pagodas.  Well the name of the pattern was Garden Path so why not use that oriental garden fabric to make a garden path, and then I pulled out some more oriental prints from my stash that contrasted with the piece I was given and then I picked a very neutral background.



This is the garden path block  and some of the fabric
I chose to go with the piece of fabric I was given.

 I decided that I really didn't want to go with a traditional sashing pattern, that this quilt should have some special quilting and I wanted room to do that quilting.  At the time I was thinking about ferns and feathers.  Oh well, it wasn't time to quilt just yet, I had to finish putting it together.  I had 12 blocks and I wanted to make a quilt that was larger than a lap quilt and smaller than a bed quilt, and I did not want to use just a 2" sashing around the blocks so I decided to do some math.  Gosh, who would have thought that math would have come in so handy.  Well actually I loved math so it wasn't a hardship.

You can see in the above picture there is a variation in the spacing between the blocks, and in the picture below.


This picture gives a better picture of the different block setting.
You will notice the points are closer to the border for some blocks.
The points on the blocks are not in a regimented line.

 Quite simply I decided how wide I wanted the inter portion of the quilt and basically I decided that I would use the 2 1/2" sashing measurements and I would typically use 4 of those for a total of 10" of sashing.  Instead of cutting 4 - 2 1/2" strips, I cut a 1" and a 4" and a 2" and a 3" and that was my 10" of sashing and then I just put those in different places in the row.  I sewed a strip on each side of the first block and then on 1 side of the other 2 blocks.  Then I carried it a step further and used the same technique for the sashing on top and on bottom.  The final result was to give my quilt a very unique appearance in the setting and it is not one that you will find in a pattern book.  I like things simple, but I like things unique.  I guess this is all part of the reason I love freehand quilting on my machine.  Every quilt is different.  Even if I tried I could not exactly duplicate any quilt.  That is part of my love for quilting, the creating of something unique.

Well I got the blocks and sashing together, in much less time than you would imagine.  Just about 2-3 hrs and I was ready for borders.  Borders are really special things.  You simply don't want to forget the function of the border.  The border functions to stop the eye.  It says "Okay that was the quilt and that is the extra special portion, take time to look again."  Really the border is not there because you want to make the quilt bigger and so you just added borders until it was the right size.  This particular quilt, I felt, was to have very special quilting, so I didn't want a first border that would overwhelm, just a little pause and then we will see what's next..  My choice was a very narrow, green and black geometric that really looks almost like a solid black with a little texture.  Turned out to be just what I wanted.

Now I was ready for a final border and I wanted the oriental fabric again, but it needed to be a fabric that combined many of the colors I had used in the blocks.  The cards were the perfect choice as far as I was concerned.  I did make sure that the fabric was cut so the cards were all correctly oriented to the person viewing the quilt.  On top the cards are all with the top of the cards toward the outside top of the quilt and down the sides they cards are all with the sides of the cards on the outside of quilt and still with the top of the card toward the outside top of the quilt and the bottom border has the top of the cards against the border and the bottom of the cards pointing to the outside edge of the quilt.

This picture of the bottom left corner of the quilt shows
the fabric orientation of the border.

It was actually hard to tell where the fabric was seamed together which was an accident on the first one and then I started striving for that look on the second one and it worked out very well if I do say so myself.

Well now it's time to pick out the backing and of course I had to go with another oriental fabric.  This is one I really loved and I had to piece the backing.  I learned a long time ago that when you were having to piece a backing the correct way was to make all 3 pieces the same size or put a larger piece in the center and identical smaller widths on each side.  It is not preferred to just place a seam down the center of the backing.  Well since I had gone to so much trouble with the rest of the quilt, I needed to go all the way, and since I had matched the pattern so well at the seams on the border I wanted to see if I could do that on the backing also.

                           !                                         
It really is difficult to tell where the seam is in this picture. 
I put an exclamation point under the seam and the seam is not at the end
of the wooden post but going through the center of the second flower
from the end of the post.

All in all I think the quilt turned out very well.  I did do some special quilting, but not what I had originally envisioned.  I actually love the quilting and how it goes along with the whole theme, but I'll give you a look at that next week. 

Happy quilting.

Lazy Days of.....What are you talking about, I don't have lazy days

Instead of Lazy Days of Summer, Winter, Spring or Autumn, it seems that I always have more to do than I will ever have time to complete, and yet I am always starting a new project, or looking up something new that I have heard.  There are times that I have to stop, take a deep breath, and look at what is there before me, instead of rushing off on a new tangent.  The wonderful thing about tangents is they are just spokes in my wagon wheel and eventually they will all connect and form the circle of my life.

Several years ago I decided that I would make paper pieced wall hangings for my step-daughter, step-daughter-in-law, and my youngest stepsons current girlfriend.  I started early, but found that I really didn't love paper piecing enough to finish the pattern I had started.  It was a lovely pattern, but....  What can I say, I just got tired of it...It had a gillion and one pieces.....My work area wasn't such as to easily accomplish my task...  Okay there are a million and one excuses but the bottom line is...they all got laid back and pushed back until they were just another UFO.

I'm sure we all have them, or have had them at some point.  That project that you started but didn't finish for whatever reason.  What do you do with those?  This week I want to give you some ideals that you can use or not, but just as food for thought.  There was that project that just wasn't coming together well and I had this large part finished but it called for more squares and then the border was pieced and the, well you get my drift.  Then there was that quilt that the colors, after I started just didn't do anything for me and it just didn't look the way I wanted it to look.  Gosh I had really worked on that one and then as I started putting it together I just didn't like it!!  Then of course there were those paper pieced pieced pieces, and several more that along the way had been shoved into the corner.  I really needed to clean up some of the mess!

Guess what, at a guild meeting someone said something about orphan blocks, and one of the ladies at that guild said just bring them to me and I'll do something with them.  She got all kinds of blocks, and they were all different sizes.  Some just didn't turn out right because of issues with seam allowances, or cutting problems and I'm sure I don't have to go into how many ways there are to mess up a block.  I know I've experienced my share of messed up blocks.  I gave some of my mishaps to her, but I still had plenty.  I really didn't want to carry them all to her because I didn't want anyone to know had bad I can mess something up.  Well you just had to be there to see some of the works of art Robbie brought to the guild meetings in the next few months.  No one would have ever guess those were orphan blocks.  I just didn't have the tallent she had for pulling things together.  She would just lay all her blocks out and pick a background color and if she had to add an extra strip on a block to make it the right size then it was added.  Some of the smaller blocks she put together with stripping and made a brand new 4 patch block of the right size to go with others.  It was amazing.  I learned a very valuable lesson from her.  We all tend to drift toward a particular palate of colors and with just an addition or two along the way, most of our orphan blocks will go together nicely into a brand new quilt.  If you want to try to bring some of your blocks together, I suggest you carry several of them with you when you go shopping for fabric so you can lay them all out with a background fabric to see if it works or see how many of them works and then adjust the size of the quilt, I mean after all you didn't have a pattern anyway so instead of a bed size quilt, how about a lap size.

Along that same train of thought, those quilt tops that I had completed a large portion of just as suddenly became lap quilts instead of half finished projects.  It was much easier to put the fewer number of blocks together with a border and "get 'er done" and it really felt good that it wasn't still just laying around and I still had the rest of the fabric that I had never cut that remained in my stash, or when I got really creative, because the fabric just wasn't one I ever planned to use again, I just sewed large squares or rectangles of the left over fabric together and had a pieced backing so I finished the project without spending any extra money, which was nice.  Another project wound up with a much smaller number of blocks, I think I had finished 6 blocks and I just sewed them together with a lasagna border out of the rest of the fabric and voila, another lap quilt.

What on earth does anyone need with so many lap quilts??  Well, I didn't need them so what would I do with them?  Gosh, I can't begin to tell you how quickly they disappeared.  One of them I kept because I found out I liked it after all.  Another lap quilt went as a gift.  Several went to a local nursing home for patients who were there and had no one bringing them those comfort items we all love.  Several more when to a hospice for the nurses to take out to their patients.  A couple went to people who were on chemotherapy for cancer and had to spend hours getting therapy in a large room that they said was always cold so they took them to chemo every week.  Some went to a church for their benevolence program.  Other places who can place your extra small quilts are home health care organizations, fire departments and police departments as well as your local Red Cross or Salvation Army or your local homeless shelter or battered women's shelter. 

Another place to use those quilts that you just don't have a use for is to wrap them around some food items, and personal care items and drop them off under that bridge where you know the homeless take shelter.  No you don't have to talk with them or come in contact.  You may want to include an encouraging Bible Verse, or pamplet.  We did this at a church I was attending several years ago with the teenage class and it was a wonderful eye opening experiece for some of those teenagers to just think about what was necessary to a homeless person.  Can you imagine living out of a plastic garbage bag?

Well back to where to I started....I took my ufo of the paper pieced flowers and cut off the unfinished edge and actually found a couple of fabrics for borders that really matched the paper piecing and I finished that UFO too. 

A really beautiful pattern for someone who is very much into
details and many steps.

I really think it turned out quite well, and It now hangs in my living room.  I just think that is where it belonged all along!!!  I'm so glad I made this project just for me, hehehe.  Maybe sometime down the road I'm show you all some of my wonderful potholders made out of stray blocks. 

Here's hoping you all have a great week and remember, giving is a wonderful feeling.