SPRING GARDENS

 

The March issue is available!

Inside you will find my fun and easy

strip quilt, "Spring Garden".

Where do we always start,

the fabrics, of course! 

For this design I used 

Pepper Cory's 

shot cottons. 

Thank you, Judy Gauthier, of 

Bungalow Quilting

for getting these to me!

This quilt is SO EASY and 

these fabrics make it 

so soft and snuggable.

Piece your blocks...

Cut out your applique'.....

Make some vines.....

Use teflon pressing sheet

OR parchment paper to 

make completed butterflies.....

I absolutely love seeing 

these all together!

Model quilted with floral and swirl designs.

PRESTO WHAMMO,

QUILT ready for binding:)

Thank you AQ Magazine!!

Until next time,

~KEEP STITCHIN~

Heritage Story: Green Strip Quilt

KAY'S GREEN STRIP QUILT

You have met Kay before here on my blog.  I adore working with her to finish these lovely works of art.

This quilt had rows of pieced swirl blocks and I wasn't sure at first how to best showcase them.  There is a suggested rule of thumb that using curved quilting on geometric and geometric on curves are good ways to accent a design so that was what I leaned on to quilt these blocks.  They are a variation of a Snail Trail so I decided on large concentric swirls coming from the centers and it worked. 

The alternate rows were a strip of preprinted Calla Lilies.  I have said this before, let the fabric tell you what to do.  Any other design may have distracted from the lovely florals so a gentle outline and some freehand swirls was all that was necessary to accent the great design already done for me by the fabric designer.

Kay sent me green thread to work with and although hesitant at first, I fell in love with how well everything shows!

Lastly, the borders....look at that print!  I didn't outline EVERY detail but there was enough here to outline key features and provide enough quilting to keep consistency across the quilt.

It is so exciting watching a top come alive into a finished quilt one stitch at a time!

There are more #heritagearchitect stories to come....
In the meantime, Kay wrote a couple of sweet posts that you can read below.  We were finally able to meet this past October when I went to her ice dye show in Ocala.  So much talent!!
There is also a post about the story of her quilt above.... I'll let her show you the full quilt:)
Enjoy!

Meeting:  https://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/2018/03/my-hand-quilter-robin-koehler.html
Quilt Story: https://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-very-special-quilt.html

CHARITY AUCTION

I know the title, CHARITY AUCTION, isn't very exciting and naming is NOT a strength of mine, but it is exciting if you are a quilter and like to get caught up in the action of a good deal:)

When I moved to Florida (almost 7 years ago now-WOW!!), I joined a guild named Hidden Stitches.
I loved the name and that it is an Applique guild...How exciting is that!  Then I learned that their philanthropic outreach is for a program that one of the members had founded and once a year they hold a Live Quilt Auction and Luncheon to raise their yearly funds. 

Live quilt auctions are a hoot!  Our auctioneer, Brenda, is Fantastic and watching the bidding wars can be hysterical.  I myself have been involved in one or two:)  You can't help but get caught up and the money goes to a great program for disadvantaged children.

There is also a boutique where fun things (sewing and non-sewing) can be found.  This year we are doing scrap grab bags...Say that 3 times fast:)  Who can resist a mystery bag?  My daughter used to spend her allowance on the ones at Claire's Jewelry in the mall. She would be so excited to see what she got in her bag and it would crack me up!

So here are my donations to this year's event which will be held this Saturday (24th) in Largo, FL. Christ the King Lutheran on Oakhurst Rd. Come join us!
Tickets are $15 and include lunch and more entertainment than you are prepared for:)
I know we have seats left if your calendar is empty and you want to come see what we are up to.

 Autumn Vines is a lap quilt for the

Live Auction that features one of my pumpkin designs on it.

 

This is the March basket designed by Sue Garman 

for her design named, Bouquets for a New Day.

I hand appliqued this before machine quilting it.

Lastly, this sweet little piece is named, Winterscape. 

I know people are over winter but next year this will look

darling in someone's home with original, 

hand embroidered, snowflake corners.

 

The last 2 pieces will be part of the Silent Auction. 

Hope to see you there.

Quilting with my Grandma

This photo is from 1994 when we went to celebrate my Grandma and Grandpa's 50th Anniversary!
L-R: Grandma Bea, my mom Ellen, Me, my babies; Devin on my hip and Lauren in front.

 

 

Ten years after her passing, I finally took the time to quilt with my Grandma.  I didn't learn to quilt from my Grandma and by the time I learned, she was already very sick.  Before she passed though, she had set aside a couple of UFOs and other pieces for me.

 



First up is this puff quilt made in 1976 to celebrate the Bicentennial.  Over the years it had become faded because she kept it out all the time to enjoy it.  So, at some point she decided to start taking it apart to redo some of the puffs in fabric she had saved.  When I received it, it was in sections with many little scraps of paper pinned to puffs notifying the order in the quilt: 2nd row, 3rd down, etc. 
Gram had done A LOT of easing in on those seams during assembly (must be genetic:)) and trying to sew through all the layers upon layers of seams was a pain in my big backside!! It did NOT take long for me to decide, no way Jose! Plus a sweet friend reminded me that Gram was gone and she wouldn't know:) 

What I ended up doing was salvaging the largest chunk for myself which is a good lap size. The reassembly in just that was a bit much but doable. The remainder of decent puffs were put into a good size pillow cover for my mom and the remaining fabric was donated to an appraiser friend who also does restoration work.
There is still some fabric left and I have an EPP design that I am working on to use it.  I will have enough to make a small table topper for myself and my mom!

What I learned:  I NEVER need to make a puff quilt:))

Next up was a box of horribly ugly 70s fabric that she was using to make a scrappy strip quilt.  When I opened the box, there were 8 finished, 12" blocks with all the green/red centers cut for approximately 32 blocks according to a sketch done in pen. YIKES!  Again, I pretty much knew that wasn't happening!  So now what to do with what was done.  These blocks had been done in the foundation method with a muslin??? that was more like cheesecloth.  I found a price tag on one of the fabric pieces that stated it cost $1.49/yd. and was purchased at the Fabric Bonanza.  I never heard of that store.....

I decided to give Foundation piecing a try and made 8 more quadrants, added some large green areas to try to quiet all the other colors, and some hippy-like floral applique.

I had a friend quilt it on her long arm machine with an all over floral design before I added the applique flowers--SO much easier!  Here is the new quilt with Grandma's finished 8 making up the 2 large blocks and my 8 quadrants in the borders and in the green areas for some movement.  It ended up being about 60" square and a perfect lap quilt for me!

What I learned:  Foundation piecing is SO much easier than paper piecing and I don't know why I didn't try it before!
I also was reminded of how much Grandma LOVED her moth balls.  With every press of the iron I was reminded over and over:)

For an added fun memory, I found some fabrics in the strips that seemed very familiar to me.  I went digging through some things and found this little doll quilt that Grandma had made me to match the Holly Hobbie puff quilt she had also made me.  I no longer have the puff quilt but do have the doll quilt.

If you look very closely, you will see the match to the pink swirl and the green floral fabrics.  Thank you Grandma for the lovely memories!!