Cspoonquilt

So where to begin?  My quilts kind of run in styles. So I  store my leftovers by style too.  I have a blue and gold basket, batik basket, kids fabrics etc.  I recently tackled my “Amish” basket. First thing I do is put all the players up on the design wall.  I look for units that have similar sizes, geometry etc.  I start grouping these to see if I can make bigger units without any extra cutting or fiddling around. After the first round of grouping I put these units back on the wall to see what emerges.   It seemed like since I already had some long skinny units sewn together maybe organizing these into bars of varying widths would be an easy approach. I rearranged them to see if that would work.  The whole thing looked like it was going to be to narrow for the length...  So I deconstructed some leftover blocks to add two more vertical rows and some more width. Yes sometimes backstitching is ...

I've been away from my sewing machine for several weeks now.  While preparing for this trip I contemplated various forms of hand work to take a long.  I'm between hand quilting projects right now and did not have time to bast anything, I'm not a very good at applique so that did not appeal but I do like embroidery.  It is very portable if done one block at a time and I thought if I did blue on white I might make it fit in with the blue and white blocks I'm making for Randy's sow-a-long. I was visiting Randy right before I left and mentioned my idea and she had several Red Work books to loan me.  I enjoyed looking at them and I chose one by Laurene Sinema to start and trace pictures from. I have really enjoyed the quiet process of turning these little line drawings into pictures of thread and cloth.  They are really charming and I think they will make a good addition to my blue and white quilt. I think this one is really funny.  A frog with an u...

Quirky Quilt #1 was the first vintage quilt I bought (In about 1998) at Sister’s but definitely not the last.   I’ve bought lots, but the one I’m showing today I purchased the last time I was able to join in Randy’s quilt retreat in Sun River for the Sister’s show about two year’s ago. Randy has this down to a fine science.  The strategy is to get to the show as early as possible to beat the heat. Park so we are headed out of town the right way ( ‘cause they block off the main street for 6 or 7 blocks) and then make a Bee line to our favorite VV (vintage vendor).   So last time we were there;  I spied two ladies holding this quilt.  I tried to hover nonchalantly.  You know the psychology, if you show too much interest they’ll hang onto it. They looked it over and finally put it down at which point I grabbed it.  These pictures don't really do it justice.  The red fabric is really Red. The panels of red are big, about 15”....

This quilt was inspired by a small picture of a 30's quilt top in Gwen Marston's Book about strip piecing.  It is my favorite book in her 'Liberated' series.  If you haven't seen it check it out.  It's full of great designs and has a bunch of pictures of really scrappy vintage quilts and tops.  A feast for the eyes and lots of wonderful scrappy ideas. Being as how this quilt is 104" x 104" I used up all my 30's scraps and then scrounged and begged scraps from many sources to give it the scrappy look that I wanted.  Of course that meant more leftovers too which have started to organize into a square grid. And recently I took all the trimmings from the corners of the big quilt and made this little baby quilt.  I also used up a whole bunch of muslin strips (both bleached and unbleached).  I used the strips which ever way they came out of the basket so sometimes the scale is a bit off, but I kinda like that. I love the teensy triangl...

Some how I had the presence of mind to save this. ( Rosalie, was my mom’s first cousin on her father’s side.) Included with the note was this UFO.   (Sorry, it’s a picture of a picture, No way, could   I find the negative after all these years.) I was so excited and complemented to receive this treasure; I was ready to get to work.   Then   I made the mistake of showing it to a quilter friend who was a real stickler for accurate sewing and she said I should take apart the assembled section to fix some of the wonky piecing.   That stopped me dead in my tracks.   I am not one to back stitch unless it is really dire.   So it sat unattended for a number of years. I was finally motivated to finish the quilt by the fact that my cousin was by then in her 80’s.  I really did want to finish the quilt so I could send her a picture and enjoy the fact that her long time UFO was finally completed!   I decided to make it a go...