I finished up the Monarch Butterfly quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. I will do the bird quilts soon. I made the quilt from a picture I painted of a butterfly in my garden
I printed it on ink jet computer fabric
and I added a fabric frame and hand quilted it
Check back soon for the Bird quilts.
Happy Quilting
Tim
I know I said that I needed to focus on the projects that I have already started, but I had an idea and I had to try it out. One of the things that I enjoy is painting. I Have always wanted to make a quilt based on a painting. I have been wanting to try out printing fabric with the computer, so I scanned a few pictures and printed them….they are the perfect size to make into Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative quilts.
here are the paintings
I looked at the dates on these…2008…yikes I need to get the paints out again! Be that as it may here are the printed on fabric versions.
Next I will trim them and add a fabric frame (they can only be a maximum of 9″ x 12″) and then do some hand quilting….progress pictures soon
I encourage everyone to visit Celebrate Hand Quilting for a fantastic give away….$100 gift certificate from the Stencil Company! The deadline to enter is Aug 4.
Happy Quilting
Tim
I have so many projects going at once I that I think I will need to focus on one or two and get them done rather than going back and forth between many. I did make some progress on some of them. I started to hand piece the fan blocks.
3 rows done and 10 to go.
I did some more hand quilting on my big stitch 70′s top
I am almost 1/2 way done on this one. here is the back.
Last time I posted about an antique quilt top that needed a soaking to get rid of some bleeding of the dye. I put some water on a few of the fabrics and then blotted with a tissue….the tissue turned blue so I knew that there was going to be a lot of blue bleeding as well as the red and the green. I filled the bathtub with hot water and added synthrapol…and soaked for about 15 min. The water became nearly black.
I drained that water and did it again….this time less dye release and the water was more pinky red
Next a good rinse, and then drying. Before I even started I knew that the colors of the top would end up being much lighter but I knew I couldn’t use the top as it was, and I like to wash my quilts after I hand quilt them so for this one it was better to get all that excess dye out before the quilting. I would have hated to spend months quilting and then wash it and potentially ruin all my work.
It did fade quilt a bit….but I don’t mind that…I think it looks pretty good. look at the before and after here
And individual blocs before and after
Not all of the dye came out, but I am confident that there will be no more dye bleeding and the little bit that is left I can live with. The blue became much lighter
the black stayed as dark as can be but you can still see some of the discoloration on the white
This one is going to have to wait for a while to be quilted. I need to finish some of those I have started first. But not that it is washed I can pack it away and not worry about it bleeding onto any other tops
Happy Quilting
Tim
Barbara Wells, a regular reader, recently asked me if I would like some antique blocks that she had been saving for a number of years. Of course I wanted them! And what great blocks they are! Thank you so much Barbara!! They came a few days ago and I got the chance to take some pictures today.
Also included with the blocks was the beautiful blue fabric that the blocks are shown on here. These blocks are in such great shape and will make a beautiful quilt!…thanks again Barbara….check back for progress.
I also got another project in the mail yesterday…(this one I had to pay for :( )
It is a beautiful quilt top…I think about 1900 or so. The problem with this one is the color bleeding.
I normally do not wash antique tops before I quilt them. I believe that the quilting actually strengthens the fabric. The more delicate antique fabric is attached to the new backing and batting….making it stronger and able to stand up to the washing machine. In this case I think I will soak it and try to get most of the bleeding removed and then quilt.
I will post some pictures of that process soon
(I just realized that this is my 250th post)
Happy Quilting
Tim
I spent some time adjusting the layout of the fans. Here is the starting point from yesterday.
I felt that I had to do some re-arranging because if you look at the blocks, some are pieced with a solid-print-solid-print…etc and some are the opposite. when 2 blocks come together there can be 2 solids together or 2 prints together. That would drive me crazy! I circled them here so you can see what I mean (click to enlarge)
I had to do a lot of shuffling of blocks to solve that problem. I had to pay attention to the solids and not so much the prints. Here is the final layout…still not perfect but it works for me.
Now to sew them together. Perhaps I am the only one who can’t seem to keep the blocks in order to sew them together but here is my solution.
Each row gets taped together and the blocks come off of the tape one at a time as I sew them together….If I don’t do it this way I am sure I would mess it up and turn one of the blocks in the wrong direction. One other method that I often use is pinning the blocks in order on a bed sheet…but I did not have 156 extra safety pins this time.
I got a new treasure in the mail today. You guessed it eBay got me again.
I got 20 of these blocks for $18.25. I believe they are made from an Anne Orr pattern. Pattern designer Anne Orr is known for the grid-work designs of her needlework. She was a needlework columnist for Good Housekeeping in the 1930s. As an entrepreneur she employed dozens of women to produce her designs and directing a successful mail order business from her home.
Here is a quilt design that I know she did. I see quilts in this pattern for sale on eBay often.
My blocks aren’t a single rose like these…to me they look like bouquets or nosegays with 3 roses.
they are all hand pieced with tiny little pieces (the blocks are 10 1/2 inches)
The group of blocks also came with a border of leaves and rosebuds
The border is 65″ x 75″ but the blocks will need some sashing to fill them out to fit the border
But I can not find an example of this pattern to see how it was intended to be finished. For this one I did a lot of looking on the internet. I checked the Quilt Index and came up with nothing. So I decided I need to think about for a while….I sat back down and picked up my current quilt to do some hand quilting got through one thread and then it came to me…the aha moment!
Set them on point
Now I get plenty of room for some quilting in the setting squares and once pressed the blocks will fill the space provided by the border.
I think I will add an additional border to the outside to make it a full-sized quilt (65″ x 75″” is a bit small for me) likely with white fabric and then binding with perhaps a matching green.
I think this will be a great quilt!
And this just in…here is a picture and info about the quilt….so I was not right about setting on point….but I might do it anyway….being the quilt rebel that I am….anyway thanks for the Info Ann-Mari
Happy quilting
Tim
Do you remember those tile puzzles where you had to slide the tiles around to make a picture?
Or put the numbers in order.
Arranging quilt blocks can be a lot like those puzzles…but in my case I have 156 squares not 16.
Here is how the quilt top was arranged when I got it.
I did not want to copy anyone elses arrangement. The point of re-arranging the blocks on this top was to make it my own interpretation, so I didn’t look at pictures on-line or in books, there are hundreds of pictures out there for inspiration but it is too tempting to copy.
I recently finished another vintage fan quilt and I liked the arrangement of blocks I came up with for it.
But I wanted something different…. So I did a few doodles of different ideas, but I needed to see the actual blocks in place. (which is where the puzzle feeling come in to play) Here is one of the arrangements that I really liked
The only problem with this one is that I had 12 blocks leftover, should I try to add them in ? It might ruin the pattern. I slept on it and this morning I rearranged the blocks to this
This one uses all the blocks and will finish at 78″ x 84.5″ and I might add a border to make it a bit larger. I am happy with the layout and I will spend some time now rearranging some of the blocks to distribute the colors a bit better but this is basically how I plan to set the blocks. I cant wait to see them all sewn together!
Happy Quilting
Tim
I finished up trimming the fan blocks today so now I can concentrate on designing a layout that I like. I did run into a problem while pressing. One of the fabrics was not colorfast!…here it is after pressing
I needed to fix that problem on this block and the others with the orange fabric. I used Synthrapol.
Not cheap but works like a charm. I put about a tablespoon full in a bowl and added boiling water dropped in the blocks, stirred them around and let them soak for about 5 min. The synthrapol doesn’t stop fabric from bleeding, what it does is prevent the loose dye from re-attaching to the fabric…so the dye comes out in solution and is not reabsorbed by the other fabrics. After the blocks come out they are rinsed and then dried and pressed. Here is what the water looked like.
It is hard to tell how orange the water was (I should have used a glass bowl so it would show better)
Here is the block after
And here is the stack of trimmed blocks
And the scraps
Now for the fun part….putting it back together!
check back soon for a progress report
Happy quilting
Tim
Yesterday I wrote about the new vintage fan block quilt top.
I said that it was flat enough to quilt as is but that I wanted to re-deign it. I thought about it and thought I might want to leave it as is. I started to press it and found that it did need a lot of work to make it flat. So I spent last night taking it apart. here is the stack of blocks
The blocks are all off enough that I will need to fix them in order to make the quilting go the way I want. First thing is to press each block
See how the fan section is pressed toward the white…this will make re-piecing it be difficult because it puts 3 layers of fabric at the corner. I am pressing all the blocks like this
Now there is just one layer of fabric at the corners (bottom left and top right) and piecing the blocks will be much easier.
Now they need to be square….first thing is to figure out what size they were intended to be. Old patterns were usually in very regular sizes so I know they would not be something odd like 6 5/8″ it turns out they are 7″ blocks so I need them all square and all 7″. One caution if you plan to do a project like this: Don’t only measure one or two blocks!! measure several to be sure of the size they should be….sometimes a few of the blocks are smaller than the rest and you can work around that by adjusting the seam allowance but you can’t glue the fabric back if you trimmed too much.
I don’t have too much to trim on this corner
about 1/4″ off on this side
every block is different some need a lot of trimming
some need less
all need some
I have this many done
and many more to go
I don’t know how many I will get done today. I have to get my quilt ready to mail to AQS for the Grand Rapids show and I don’t have a label or a sleeve on it yet and I need to get my AAQI quilts mailed as well…so I should stop playing with my fans and get to work. I have a hard time stopping once I get started on a new project…(I can stop a lot easier at the point where it is about 1/3 quilted and I have another project waiting to go (that is why I have 5 quilts that are QIPS….quilting in progress)
Happy Quilting
Tim
I seem to still be on a mid-century kick. I just got another quilt top from eBay, this one in a fan pattern that looks to me to be 50′s-60′s.
Teddy had to check it out as soon as it came out of the box. He stands right at the edge of the top while it is on the floor and sniffs and looks, but today I told him he could sit on it…he gets very nervous as you can see. He thinks he is doing something wrong and gets off as soon as I take a picture.
The top has 156 blocks and is about 78 x 85 (I need to press it to see for sure) This one will be taken apart and re-set, not because it is not well made, it is very nicely done, but because I want a less traditional setting. It is not a national treasure so I don’t feel bad about making it my own. Older more rare tops are a different story, those I try to keep true to the original design.
each block is made with a solid and a print as well as white muslin.
and it is pretty as it is
But I still think I will re-design the layout.
I went all out for this one and spent $30. It is all hand pieced there is no damage or staining so it should be easy to work on.
There are some fun fabrics (click to enlarge)
Happy Quilting
Tim
Saturday I took a trip to the quilt store to find some fabric ( I actually went to buy glue baste but came out with fabric). I found some great fabrics but I am to cheap to buy fabric for $12.99/yd so I went to the sale area. I was looking for backing fabric for the Partridge in a Pear Tree quilt. This will not be a traditional Christmas quilt, so I did not look for “Christmas” fabric. Here is what I found.
The fabric is Free Spirit Westminister Fibers #EM17 Forest and I got it for $4.99/yd! I think it goes well with the fabrics in the applique
The yellow will be used for the pears and binding
Here is some of the applique
I started prepping more leaves
My new mini iron works great (even on my very stained pressing board)
I have tried pressing without basing first and even with the mini iron I can’t get as accurate as I want, so I am still basing, but it goes fast. I have tried glue stick basting and I hate it…sticky mess all over my fingers. I on-line ordered some of the liquid glue baste to try out but until that arrives (I could not find any locally) I will continue to pin them in place for applique.
I will go back to hand quilting tomorrow (I gave my hands a 2 day quilting rest) and then go back and forth between the projects.
Happy Quilting
Tim
