Archive for April, 2007

I Guess I Do Have a Project

April 28, 2007 at 8:47 pm · Filed under Gifts, Piecing, Teacher Pillows

I have been feeling sort of at loose ends since I finished my various projects and took them to the quilter. I can’t decide if I should start the Chocolate Box quilt or just putter around. It finally dawned on me that I do have a project: the Teacher Pillows!

I don’t know what I was thinking, but these Teacher Pillows have turned into a production. This year, I am making 5: 3 for the child’s teachers and one each for the principal and assistant principal, who are both retiring. The latter two are not expected and not as important IMO, though I would like to make the gesture. On the positive side, I decided to start early and make them so I could take my time. The blocks are almost all done, with a minimum of unsewing.

Teacher pillow. This one is done with the Denyse Schmidt fabrics and came out very well, if I do say so. I love the colors and can’t wait to work more with these fabrics.


Teacher aide pillow


Resource teacher pillow. I had to make sure I have enough fabric, because this teacher will be working with the child until 8th grade. She will have a set of pillows by the time the child graduates! I really hope she likes the colors we have chosen.


Principal pillow. The child calls her the Wizard of Oz.


Assistant principal pillow.

I went through two books to see how I could make the rest of the pillow covers so they don’t have Gap-osis in the back. I am thinking of slip stitching them shut so I don’t have to worry about it. The recipients wouldn’t be able to wash the covers, though.

And on other fronts….

The fabric from eQuilter arrived. More dots!


I also worked a bit on the Flowering Snowball (Cross Block). Here is my first test of the new template and some fun [Denyse Schmidt] fabrics. I have since cut a lot of the corner pieces. I cut a piece whenever I have a piece of fabric out. I really need to get some more whites.


This is my wreck of a design wall. There are pieces of fabric and blocks everywhere. The little progress I made on the Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball) is in the lower left corner. The blocks for the Teacher Pillows are stacked and pinned to the design wall (lower middle). I have no more space and am seriously thinking about what I can do to expand this space. First, I will move the Pineapple blocks up a few inches. That should help. Second, I will finish these Teacher Pillows, which should give me some breathing room. Something must be done, though, as this kind of design wall makes me crazy. I can’t think when it is so full.

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Swap Block Top

April 22, 2007 at 9:21 pm · Filed under Friendship blocks, Group project

Deidre has posted a swap block top, which I think is really bright and cheerful. The picture is posted on her blog at Deirdre’s Sloppy Studio. My block, which you saw in a previous post is prominently placed inthe upper right hand corner.

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Stars in Alignment

April 21, 2007 at 3:30 pm · Filed under Hand piecing, Projects

For once, the stars were in alignment which made my technology work and me able to solve my template problem. As I mentioned, I was unable to locate my original EQ file. It has disappeared from my computer or was saved to such a weird location that I will only be able to find it by stumbling across it when I am looking for something else.

Since I had been researching the Cross Block’s real name, Flowering Snowball, I had found EQ’s version of the block in their database and had saved it to EQ6. I decided to try and print templates from their block to see if it would work with the piecing I have already done.

There were a lot of ifs in this litle escapade. Since my printer was moved down to the laundry room, I haven’t been able to print from my computer. I thought I would need to get some boosters for my wireless network before printing would work again. In the meantime I have been saving to a flash drive, running downstairs and printing that way.

I forgot to change the printer to PDF and printed out templates in the correct size. I didn’t get an error message and that surprised me, so I went to the printer and, lo and behold, there was a template printout waiting there! What luck.

Daring not to hope that this could work, I went back to my work table, hauled out the other templates I have been using and measured the corner template against the printout. Yippee! The size was perfect! I was in business.

I made the template and cut out a couple of the middle squares and sewed them to a couple of the corner pieces as a test. All worked perfectly!

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A Variety of Quiltmaking

April 21, 2007 at 2:03 pm · Filed under Hand piecing, Projects


Here are some Flowering Snowball blocks (Cross Block) in progress. Some of them you have seen before (many times?), but I put the new fragments with them to see how the piece can get away from the murky look. I felt it was a bit murky with the chocolate in the striped fabric and that particular orange.

I have lost the middle template for this block, which is holding up progress a bit. I looked at my EQ6 files and can’t find the project file, which means I have to recreate it somehow. I can cut most of the pieces and sew the corners to the middles, but at some point I have to deal with the loss of that template.


These are the fabrics from BatkisPlus and Quiltfabrics.com. I think that the batik on the right is the same one I used on Sharon’s quilt.


Here are Pineapple blocks 9 & 10. They are the first one using my new system of organzing the strips. I can’t really see much difference, except, perhaps, that these blocks are a bit darker. I think it was the way the strips fell. In the last rows I skipped over the dark blues and stuck with turquoise.

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Flowering Snowball (was Cross Block)

April 19, 2007 at 8:51 pm · Filed under History, Quilt Research

I am a researcher at heart. After Sarah started my mind spinning quickly, Leslie just added to the melee in my head about the real name of the Cross Block. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I started rummaging around in Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and the Kansas City Star books to see if I could find the block. I hadn’t gotten very far when I decided to e-mail the AQSG list and see what they had to say. They found both blocks (mine and Leslie’s grandma’s) right away.

According to Barbara Brackman my block is called Flowering Snowball (#3081 in the numbering system of BB’s book). It is from Aunt Kate and has the reference 7/65 next to it. Accordng to BB, Aunt Kate’s Quilting Bee was published between July 1962 and July 1967. In is part of Pattern Category #16: Nine X.

The block that Sarah found and Leslie’s grandma made are Raliegh from Hearth and Home OR Tennesse Circles from Prairie Farmer, Bk.1, 1931 (#3083). There is another one (#3084) that is exactly like Raliegh from Hearth and Home with slightly fatter proportions called The Royal (Ladies Art Company #282) OR Grecian Cross from Rural New Yorker 5/23/31 OR [ta da!] Royal Cross from Carrie Hall.

I saw this picture of ladies working on a Cross Block/Flowering Snowball quilt. It is really the only piture of this block in a quilt on the web, though there is a ClubEQ project that includes the Flowering Snowball (Cross Block) block in it.

I am thrilled and I’d like to know more, but thanks for starting me on the journey!

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Handing Out Medals

April 16, 2007 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Color, Fabric

When a person needs a fabric fix, a person needs a fabric fix and here is no getting around it. I went on a small fabric buying binge this weekend in order to get my fix.

Fast Threads should be given a medal for the quickest service. I ordered fabric from them on Friday and here it was on my doorstep today. I found them through the Quiltshops.com search engine. I was looking for some new dots to add interest to the Pineapple. That project makes me feel cheerful, but it certainly is a fabric hog. Not in amounts, but in variety.

On Saturday, I stopped at Black Cat to get some rotary cutter blades and found 3 background fabrics for the Pineapple. The one on the right I already had, but think it will be useful in another dot quilt I have planned, so I bought some more.


Seams Sew Right quilt shop, also on Quiltshops.com search engine, is in medal contention as well. I only got two fabrics from them, but probably should have gotten more of the background dot. Nothing stopping me, I suppose. I love the purple with the white dots and will probably have enough to choke a horse eventually. I like their tag line: the Quilter’s Candy Store. The dots sure look like candy!

I also bought some fabrics from eQuilter yesterday, but haven’t received them yet. One black on white I really liked is out of stock. Oh well. It sat too long on my wish list.

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Cross Block and Royal Cross

April 15, 2007 at 9:09 pm · Filed under Quilt Research, patterns

The research of the real name of the Cross Block started with a stray comment I made on a list saying I wondered what the real name of my block was.

That sent Sarah on a frenzy of Googling, where she found that the Library of Congress has quilt photo called Royal Cross that has similar bones to the Cross Block. Sarah also found that Tazzie has a pattern for the Royal Cross.

Then Leslie chimed in with the sudden realization that she had a quilt from her Grandma in this [Royal Cross] pattern. She posted the pics, which I have reproduced here.

Full quilt


Detail


Comparison between the Royal Cross and the Cross Block.

Blocks are constantly modified to suit the needs of the maker and I am sure that these blocks are no exception. My block and the Royal Cross look similar in the middle, but the outside of the Royal Cross looks like it is meant to draw attention to those squares in the corner. I can’t say much about that as I went on and on in one post about the center of this, among other patterns, not actually being the center. I’ll have to look through the Barbara Brackman book and the Kansas City Star books and see what I can find. If all else fails I’ll post a picture on the AQSG Yahoogroup and start sending photos around to various quilt historians.

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What to Do When you Win the Lottery

April 15, 2007 at 7:38 pm · Filed under Beads, Color, Swaps

The lottery is up to $25 million, so I guess I didn’t win on last week’s ticket and will have to buy another one. If I had won, I would do the exact same thing that I did this weekend: sewing, visiting with quiltmaking friends, writing about quiltmaking and more sewing. I could have done without the proposal writing and the cold I have been fighting off, but you can’t have everything.


You may notice that these blocks look very like the blocks that JulieZS showed me on Wed. I looked the block up in Around the Block, a very useful book by Judy Hopkins from several years ago. I was sort of inspired to try the block, so I made the big one for Julie and the 2 6″ blocks for two different friendship quilts that someone requested. The small ones are smaller than I anticipated, but perhaps I will make a couple of more in order to fill in more space in those friendship quilts.

It was Mav-Week as well. In addition to seeing Julie, Mrs. K was in town, so we met over in Oakland and went to lunch at a nice little vegetarian place (excellent lemonade) down Washington and around the corner from the 10th Street convention center entrance. Mrs. K was visiting the Bead Expo. I thought about going, too, but decided to sew and try to shake the cold instead. Of course, she and Vicki had to show me their purchases and, among other things, Mrs. K had bought a strand of gorgeous millefiori (according to St. JCN) beads.



I had to have them. Mrs. K was kind enough to sell them to me and go back and get another set for herself. I am thrilled. Mrs. K puts them on the ends of the ties to her prayer boxes and I will have to find something equally fantastic to do with them. I hope you can get a sense of what they look like from the photos above.

As I mentioned, I also pressed the fabric that St. JCN sent me. I am quite proud of myself for not letting it languish for months unwashed and then pressing it right away. To add icing to the cake, I cut pieces out of the new fabrics as well: strips for the pineapple and corners for the Cross Block. Below are the corners for the Cross Blocks (perhaps called Royal Cross! More on THAT later) that I cut out of those fabrics.

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Julie’s MavSwamp Project

April 14, 2007 at 10:40 am · Filed under Other Artists, Swaps

I had nothing to do with this project, but went to visit my friend from High Fiber Content and found out that she has been holding out on us on her blog. I took pictures of these blocks she got through a swap. I thought they were really a good group.


This is one of my favorites.


I like the color combination of this block as well.

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Dots and Denyse Schmidt Join the Party. Fabric Leads to Sainthood

April 14, 2007 at 10:22 am · Filed under Fabric


In a effort to update the Catholic Church and make it more appealing to a younger audience, I think that requirements for sainthood should be eased. Sending virtually unsolicited fabric to people really should count towards the sainthood list of requirements.

A nice box arrived on my doorstep on Thursday (accompanied by my taxes, which was not so nice) literally stuffed ot the gils with fabric and little prezzies. St. JCN had gathered together my post-Birthday box and it finally arrived. The fabrics above were in it.

I needed a little infusion of new dots for the Pineapple and St. JCN supplied that for me. I am also ready to do the Chocolate Box with the addition of the Denyse Schmidt pinks.

I washed them yesterday (along with some stragglers that had been laying around) This morning I am pressing them and cutting pieces for the Cross Block quilt. Since I am there, why not?

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