Cute Pattern

One of my quilt guild buddies, Norma, brought me an adorable quilt made with 30's fabrics.  It consisted of blocks of appliqued primitive flowers with pretty sashing in between and a nice border.

Now, I shudder when I have to quilt around applique, but Norma saved my day by wanting a nice old fashioned grid over her posies!  We agreed on a quilt map, and I went to work:

  

The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the somewhat cold or harsh appearance of the points where the grid lines met, so I found a sweet new pattern where those points were softened into curves.  If you click on the map above, you can see what I mean.

Here are some blocks from her quilt.  Aren't they pretty?

She chose feathers for the wide sashings:

And a scalloped pattern for the outer border, but, as usual, I forgot to photograph the entire finished product. However, you can see the pattern on the map.

I used the same soft grid on another quilt made by my Sisty, but that will be for another day.

"Pilgrim's" Progress

You know how John Wayne used to call all the novice settlers and those just passing through his town Pilgrims?  He was referrng to the definition of those who journey to a foreign land, often for religious reasons.  It also refers to those whose journey is to a place of special significance.

That could be my Lurkim.  My studio.  My sanctuary.  But it also means to me my journey to the somewhat elusive land of DONE!  Today I got a little closer to DONE on two projects.

This is the graduation quilt I am making for #4 grandson, Adrian, who graduates high school in May.  From there he has decided to go into the Armed Forces -- Navy, I think.  He hasn't quite settled on what he wants to do for the rest of his life, so he' s going to go off into the world and see what's out there.  This very patriotic quilt is to honor his decision.  Of course, he can't take it with him, but it will rest on his bed until he returns for leave and later finishes his commitment.

The second project is a mystery quilt that I started more than a year ago.  It's done in rows, and this is number five out of seven. So I still have two more rows to finish, but I used to have three, so that's  this pilgrim's progress for the day.

UFO's No More!

Every once in a while I find myself working on all eight cylinders for an extended period of time and then have trouble coming down from the "flight or fight" state of mind.  When that happened recently, and the sudden influx of several quilts all having the same "due date" caused this heightened energy excess, I looked around my Lurkim for some UFO's that needed finishing.

This first one was the result of finding a stack of 6" lavender and yellow squares on the "freebie" table at a guild meeting some years before.  I found where they were hiding, put a yellow one on top of a lavender one, sewed  1/4" on either side of the diagonal, cut on the diagonal and had lovely two tone half square triangles to work with.  I put them in a zig zag arrangement, sewed them together and put a border on the whole thing and named it "La-Z Days"

But!  I still had some pent up energy, so I dug out a project I had started seven or eight years ago and grew tired of.  For a loooooong time!

The focus fabric was a very busy and bold melange of desert flowers and cacti.  I decided to meld a kaleidoscope design with a Dresden plate arrangement and came up with a series of quarter circles that were joined into full and half plates or medalions.  The background is a pale, dull yellow.

The first border is the same as the background, and the outer border is the original fabric from which the matching wedges were gleaned.  The name for this one was obvious:  Desert Flower.

But that wasn't all!  I actually made labels for these!  I hated making labels with pigma pens, but I have discovered how to print them out on predecorated cloth.  

These two quilts have been donated to my guild for their Bingo night prizes (Desert Flower) and their special charities (La-Z Days).

A Labor of Love

My "Sisty" has one of the sweetest daughters in the world, Jenna. So when Jen decided to marry her Love in 2017, Sisty went to town on a beautiful quilt for her.  When it was finished, she asked me to quilt it, and it was a real labor of love for me.

Here you can see part of the design of the quilt and my choices for the quilting embellishment.  The colors of the quilt are so beautiful!  The background is a soft teal pattern on off white.  I sent Sisty a picture of the two threads I was considering using, and she chose the medium teal.  

It was just right!  

The quilt consisted of rows of  baskets placed on point, alternating the direction of the "points".  

Here's an example of two rows joined to make all kinds of secondary blocks for me to fill with quilting. It was a king size quilt, but undaunted, I plunged into the challenge happy to help give this dear girl something really special.

All told, I used at least 9 different patterns:  cross hatching outside the basket handle, point to point arcs in the basket body, feathers between the body and the handle, straight lines between each basket on the side, different feathers in the space created by the basket bases, a third feather pattern for the inner background border, corner beaded feathers for the junction of the sides of that border, a curved grid under the triangles of the outer border, and a lacy trefoil for the darker triangles in this border. 

One of these days I'm going to take a photo of this quilt on Jen's bed.  I keep forgetting to do that - take pictures of the finished product.  This beauty took at least 120 hours of work.  The only other thing that I have ever created with such love and determination is my two wonderful sons, and they only took 33 hours total labor!  Hmmmm....  I wonder if they make quilting pitocin?

 

Back in the Saddle!

It's been almost 2 years since I last posted.  Those years have claimed my attention and energy elsewhere, but life is slowly coming back to normal.  A family member's prolonged illness and now gradual recovery left me little creative spark.  So now I'm back in the quilting saddle -- and back in my Lurkim!

For one thing, I finished this applique and pieced quilt, which ended up going to BFF Mary's daughter for her newborn baby girl, Amelia.  I miss Mary.  She moved to Florida over 2 years ago. She is the most creative person I have ever known.  You can catch her at www.keepmeinquits.blogspot.com.

Then I made a whole bunch of these cute little ditty bags to hold those great new wonder clips and gave them to my table at the guild Christmas party.

Got a lot of quilts done for customers, but forgot to take pictures for most of them.  They were all finished in time for Christmas, though, which was a real race!

Found time to do something nice for my sister, who likes to "keep me busy", bless her heart.  She does come up with some pretty quilts!

I started this quilt 6 years ago and finally finished it in 2018.  It's waiting to be quilted and bound, but that's for another day.

This beauty is a customer quilt.  She did a great job with that curved piecing.  I tried doing a New York Beauty once, but never finished it.  One of these days I will take up that challenge again...one of these days.

Look at this bright and colorful quilt!  This customer is going to have a very happy grandchild!

That's it for now.  See you at the next update!