Reversible Quilt

I know, I know. I 'm not supposed too start anything new. But at our Woodside Sew & Sews sit'n'sew group, one of the gals, Margy O'Brien, gave a dynamite presentation of how to do a quilt-as-you-go reversible quilt. It is from Sharon Pederson's book, "The Reversible Quilt; Two At A Time", from That Patchwork Place.

Margy did a great job teaching us what to do and we had a lot of fun!

Once again, I pulled out combinations of florals for both sides of my quilt. You know that I am a sucker for a floral! One side is a pastel seafoam blue-ish green and the other is a Moda brownish red. I only got three blocks done but I love how they look!

This is the pink and seafoam block before it has been trimmed.

These are two quilted blocks, joined already by a sashing strip that will be hand-hemmed down. Now I will flip these two blocks over so that you can see the reddish brown and gold side, okay?

The quilting is being done as straight lines along the strips and it looks very nice. The reddish brown and the neutral background florals are both Moda, the rest are Thimbleberries and that one lacey-looking Barbara Brackman.

It may take me twenty forevers to get the next 45 blocks done, but it will be worth it!

In a senior moment, I had stupidly forgotten my reading glasses back at home when I was at the workshop. But Janice had an extra pair with her and let me borrow them. It saved my day. Aren't quilters just the very BEST people??? Thank you, Janice!

On the way home, I dropped off, "Scottie", my Scotland-made 1951 Singer Featherweight 221 for some routine maintenance. I want Scottie to be in tip top condition for the Boxy Stars workshop with Bonnie K. Hunter at the Vermont Quilt Fest on the 28th of June. I'm giddy to be actually going!!!!

Evening Star Obsession

The cold, damp, rainy weather is just perfect for hiding out in my Quilt Cave and piecing Evening Stars!

These start out as four matching scrap bricks of 4 1/2" by 2 1/2" that I make into a set of flying geese using four light 21/2" squares. I know that I could do it with the speed-geese method, but I greedily want to make all those bonus HST's from the geese corners.

Every time that I complete one of these, I have a secret inner gasp at how pretty they look to me. The center big square is cut at 4 1/2" and it goes together like a nine-patch's construction.

I like the look of making all four of the 2 1/2" corners match, but not one of these stars is the same.

Would anyone out there care to join me at making some of these? I swear they are addictively fun!

I plan to use them in a quilt this time and not just as potholders. But I'm not sure if I'd like to do a red print sashing? Or maybe just alternating plain blocks with a red print inner border? We'll see. Tell me what you think!

To Sort Or Not To Sort

Stashbusters.com has had an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of scrap sorting and whether or not to cut fabric up into usable shapes. I like to do a middle of the road policy.

As a rule, I do not cut up strips or strings from yardage unless I need them. But I do generate a lot of "squaring-up" strings when I take a first cut. Often, I will make that first cut an inch extra so that it becomes a usable string, however wonky it is. Those all go to my scrappy string quilt tops, unsorted by color, just right into the string bucket beside my machine. Lately, I tried making a few skinnier strings to use as gift wrap ribbons for an olde homey look to gifts. I also use wickedly skinny strings folded over to double them and make calico catnip mouse tails out of them.

I do quite a bit of cuttingfor my swap groups, too. When I cut nickels, I may get some chunky scraps. These can be great for the triangular corners of the string blocks, but I don't save too many of those. Better to cut most down into light and dark 2 1/2" squares. I keep two piles of these, light and dark, right beside my machine. It only takes 3 short seams to build a nice four-patch out of them and that's my leader/ender. In the course of a year, I was able to get enough four patches made to assemble this quilt:

 Here are the blocks of four patches sewn into a nine patch configuration with scrappy reds in the layout.

 Here is the finished quilt in my guild's show.

Here is the quilt being field-tested for comfort quality!!!! And it all started here:

This rusty ole shelf is perfect for being right beside my machine with lots of lights and darks to grab quickly.

Here are a few of the random dark 2 1/2" squares waiting to be chosen next. "Pick me, pick me!" they scream at me as I work on other projects.

Here is a big stack of pressed four patches waiting to go into some wonderful next quilt!

The Dangers of Free Stuff!

I am a hoarder. I am a packrat. I am able to see a use for everything. Sigh. It's a curse. Well, anyway, I went to pick Matthew up at the Gilmanton Recyling Center where he works and discovered that someone had given up on their beekeeping. Two hive boxes and a cover and a queen-excluder and a base had been left at the free room. I was very excited. I loaded them all into my back seat and came home with them.

Felix, Matthew, and I all drove over to the local honey farm to talk to Ben Chadwick, who, as it turns out, is the local bee inspector. Now, mind you, twenty years ago I had taken a bee keeping course. I dropped out because it was too hard and too much of a commitment to try. Ben said we need to go again and that we had already missed the season to start a new colony. We should be thinking of next April. I have such mixed feelings about it all.

The Two Day Yard Sale

Here in New Hampshire, we have yard sales. But when I lived in Connecticut for 17 years, they were called, "tag sales." Other areas call them garage sales. No matter what you call them, they are a huge undertaking!

For me, there is a lot of emotional effort that goes into what part of my hoard I'll really ready, willing and able to let go of. The worst stuff is gifts that although I don't use, I feel obligated to keep because a friend or relative gave them to me. I feel like I'm supposed to keep it forever.

After 40+ years of collecting too much stuff, when I do set things aside to be moved on, it feels like an insignifigant effort because I'm doing one item at a time. I'd much rather wave a magic wand, thank you, and have a whole room become suddenly barren!

Saturday and Sunday the weather was clear, sunny, and quite warm. Okay, it was too damn hot! LOL! But with Matthew and Felix's help, I filled our driveway with stuff to be sold.

 I hope you notice in the picture above that my cashier's table has three baskets of quilty items; natural sachets, potholders, and catnip mice. The mice sold best! The sachets sold but a few. And the potholders got the most compliments and fondling but I did not sell a single one!

It was too hot!

Now I'm glad it is over!

Saponaria Smiles

My Saponaria or soapwort is in full bloom and it always makes me smile at the little rocky patch in the dogyard!

When we had the sit'n sew, I asked Cindy if I might take home one baby quilt and free motion quilt it and bring it back instead of tying it. She agreed, and I did a simple meander on all those psychedelic flowers with a wavy scroll on the turquoise gingham border. I like it! I teased with the group that this baby will awaken from it's nap and say, "Groovy, man, let's smoke some reefer!" The fabric is so 1960's retro!

I have a question for those of you who may know plants. There is a lovely weed with yellow flowers that grows on the edge of the lawn. It is not buttercup, but I have no idea what it is. Do you know it?

Also, on Mother's Day, I got a real thrill when my never-ever-had-a-blossom, 17 year-old wisteria vine produced a single flower! It was the only one, but it BLOOMED!!!!! Wheeeeeeeeee!!!

All last year, I fertilized it with a super phosphate once a month from April to September, and it paid off! So I'm fertilizing it again this year, too.

A Very Special Birthday!

Over the weekend, we enjoyed a lovely family celebration of John Abraham's 85th birthday. John is Matthew's father and he lives at the Epsom Nursing Home two towns away from us. Matthew had three of his five sister's that were able to attend and we all went out to the little Circle Restaurant for cake and coffee. Matthew's older sisters came from Tennessee and Maryland, and John's brother, Fred, flew in from Arizona, so it was really special!
On a quilty note, I have been doing lots of prewashing and hanging cottons on the clothesline in all this good weather but alas, have no pictures. But I did get all 48 quadrants of my Mother's Day grief quilt made and laid them out on the driveway. I wanted to be sure that the apricot colors were nicely distributed and I'm very pleased with how it looks!

Don't forget that you can double click on any photographto see it larger if you like...

Baby Threads and The Sew & Sews

The organization known as Baby Threads who distribute quilts and such through the Lakes Region General Hospital and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital had accumulated a big bunch of sewn patchwork baby quilt tops. Cindy Brown, of our Belknap Mill Quilter'sGuild, is in charge of our Comfort Quilts for the sit 'n'sew group known as the Sew & Sew's and she is a tireless worker for charity quilts! 
She put out a call by email and a bunch of us came together to press the quilt tops and backings, sandwich them with batting, stitch them like a pillowcase and turn, and tie them with pearl cotton.

 Cindy is seated here in the blue top.

We had a ball at the craft rooms of the Taylor Community Woodside building and I do not know exactly how many quilts got finished, but the stack of folded quilts was about 3 feet tall.
In no particular order, I'd like to give credit to Sally, Linda, Susan, Judy, Sharon, Susan, Donna, Margy, Brenda, Jean & Anne. We worked and laughed and chatted and then took a break for fabulous soups, salads, and sandwiches at the Woodside Cafe. The second week of June, we decided to go on our annual group fabric shopping expedition to Marden's Department Store in Sanford, Maine, about an hour away.

When I got home, my sore ankle really hurt, so I was glad to rest!